ightier than the man. I guess stone caves that run back into mountains
'bout a mile wuz the most pop'lar an' high-priced. Guess those boys an'
gals didn't go out much an' dance on the green, ez they do back East.
I'd a heap ruther hunt the buff'ler than that fifteen foot tiger o'
yours, Henry."

"So had I, Sol. If those beasts were living nowadays we wouldn't be
roaming through the forest as we are now. We have only the Indians to
fear."

"An' thar's a lot about them to be afeard of at times, ez you an' me
know, Henry."

"If we keep on this curve, Sol, about what time do you think we ought to
reach the boys?"

"Afore moonrise, jest about when the night is darkest, 'less somethin'
gits in the way. Here's another branch, Henry. Guess we'd better wade in
it a right smart distance. You can't ever be too keerful about your
trail."

The branch, or brook, as it would have been called in older communities,
was rather wide, about six inches deep and flowing over a smooth,
gravelly bed. It was flowing in the general direction in which they
wished to go, and they walked in the stream a full half mile. Then they
emerged upon the bank, careless of wet feet and wet ankles, which they
knew would soon dry under severe exercise, and continued their swift
journey.

The curiosity of the shiftless one about the primeval world had passed
for the time, and like Henry he was concentrating all his energy and
attention upon the present, which was full enough of work and danger. He
and the young Hercules together made a matchless pair. He was second
only to Henry in the skill and lore of the wilderness. He was a true son
of the forest, and, though uneducated in the bookish sense, he was so
full of wiles and cunning that he was the Ulysses of the five, and as
such his fame had spread along the whole border, and among the Indian
tribes. Hidden perhaps by his lazy manner, but underneath that yellow
thatch of his the shiftless one was a thinker, a deep thinker, and a
nobler thinker than the one who sat before Troy town, because his
thoughts were to save the defenseless.

"Henry," he said, "we're followed."

Henry glanced back, and in the moonlit dusk he saw a score of forms,
enlarged in the shadows, their eyes red and their teeth bare.

"A wolf pack!" he exclaimed.

"Shore ez you live," replied the shiftless one. "Reckon they've been
follerin' us ever since we left the branch. Mebbe they never saw men
afore an' don't know nothin' 'bout