The woods seemed to unfold their secrets to him.

He learned the nature of all the herbs, those that might be useful to man and those that might be harmful, he was already as skillful with a canoe as either the guide or the shiftless one, he could follow a trail like an Indian, and the habits of the wild animals he observed with a minute and remembering eye.

All the lore of those far-away primeval ancestors suddenly reappeared in him at the voice of the woods, and was ready for his use.
"It will not be long until Henry is a man," said Ross one evening as they sat before their camp fire and saw the boy approaching, a deer that he had killed borne upon his shoulders.
"He is a man now," said the schoolmaster with gravity and emphasis as he looked attentively at the figure of the youth carrying the deer.

No one ever before had given him such an impression of strength and physical alertness.

He seemed to have grown, to have expanded visibly since their departure from Wareville.