Then his hands were still, and as he ran from tune to tune with improvised interludes, he droned a song of his prowess.

Sometimes he sang words and sometimes he sang thoughts.

He sank farther and farther down and looked up into the tree and ceased his song, chirping instead a stuttering falsetto trill, not unlike a cricket's, holding his breath as long as he could to draw it out to its finest strand; and thus with his head on his arm and his arm on the tree root, he fell asleep.
The noon sun was on his legs when he awoke, and a strange dog was sniffing at him.

As he started up, he heard the clatter of a horse's feet in the road, and saw an Indian woman trotting toward him on a pony.

In an instant he was a-wing with terror, scooting toward the thick of the woods.