s an educated youth of an educated stock, and
Shif'less Sol, the forest runner, was born with a love and admiration
in his soul of Nature in all its aspects.

"Don't it look fine, Henry?" said the shiftless one. "Ef I hed to sleep
in a house all the time, which, thanks be, I don't hev to do, I'd build
me a cabin right here in this little valley. Ain't it jest the nicest
place you ever saw? Unless I've mistook my guess, that's a lot o'
buff'ler lyin' down in the grass in front o' us."

"Eight of 'em. I can count 'em," said Henry, "but they're safe from us."

"I wouldn't fire on 'em, not even ef thar wuzn't a warrior within a
hundred miles o' us. I don't feel like shootin' at anythin' jest now,
Henry."

"It's the valley that makes you feel so peaceful. It has the same effect
on me."

"I think I kin see wild flowers down thar bloomin' among the bushes, an'
ain't that grass an' them trees fine? an' that is shorely the best creek
I've seen. Its water is so pure it looks like silver. I've a notion,
Henry, that this wuz the Garden o' Eden."

"That's an odd idea of yours, Sol. How can you prove it's so?"

"An' how can you prove it ain't so? An' so we're back whar we started.
Besides, I kin pile up evidence. All along the edge o' the valley are
briers an' vines, on which the berries growed. Then too thar are lots o'
grapevines on the trees ez you kin see, an' thar are your grapes. An' up
toward the end are lots o' hick'ry an' walnut trees an' thar are your
nuts, an' ef Adam an' Eve wuz hard-pushed, they could ketch plenty o'
fine fish in that creek which I kin see is deep. In the winter they
could hev made themselves a cabin easy, up thar whar the trees are
thick. An' the whole place in the spring is full o' wild flowers, which
Eve must hev stuck her hair full of to please Adam. The more I think o'
it, Henry, the shorer I am that this wuz the Garden."

The shiftless one's face was rapt and serious. In the burnished silver
of the moonlight the little valley had a beauty, dreamlike in its
quality. In that land so truly named the Dark and Bloody Ground it
seemed the abode of unbroken peace.

"I reckon," said Shif'less Sol, "that after the fall Adam an' Eve left
by that rift between the hills, an' thar the Angel stood with the
Flamin' Sword to keep 'em out. O' course they might hev crawled back
down the hillside here, an' in other places, but I guess they wuz
afeard. It's hard to hev had a fine thing an' then to hev lost i