are
over there grazing peacefully, and I can see does at the edge of the
woods. If warriors were near they wouldn't be so peaceful."

"And there are the wild turkeys gobblin' in the trees," said Shif'less
Sol. "I like wild turkey mighty well, but even ef thar wuz no fear o'
alarm I wouldn't shoot any one in my Garden o' Eden."

"Nor I either, Sol. I'm beginning to like this valley as well as you do.
Your claim to it stands good, but when we're on our hunting expeditions
up this way again the five of us will come here and camp."

"But we'll kill our game outside. I've a notion that I don't want to
shoot anythin' in here."

"I understand you. It's too fine a place to have blood flowing in it."

"That's jest the way I feel about it, Henry. You may laugh at me fur
bein' a fool, but the notion sticks to me hard an' fast."

"I'm not laughing at you. If you'll raise up a little, Sol, you can see
the smoke of the main Indian campfire off there toward the northeast. It
looks like a thread from here, and it's at least five miles away."

"It's a big smoke, then, or we wouldn't see it at all, 'cause we can't
make out that o' the smaller one nearer to the cave, though I reckon
it's still thar."

"Perhaps so, and the warriors may come this way, but we'll see 'em and
hear 'em first. Look, Sol, those buffaloes, in their grazing, are coming
straight toward us. The wind has certainly carried to them our odor, but
they don't seem to be alarmed by it."

"Jest another proof, Henry, that it's the real Garden o' Eden. Them
buff'ler haven't seen or smelt a human bein' since Adam an' Eve left,
an' ez that wuz a long time ago they've got over any feelin' o' fear o'
people, ef they ever had it. Look at them deer, too, over thar, loafin'
'long through the high grass, an' not skeered o' anythin'. An' the
wolves that follered us last night don't come here. Thar ain't a sign o'
a wolf ever hevin' been in the valley."

Henry laughed, but there was no trace of irony in the laugh. The
shiftless one's vivid fancy or belief pleased him. It was possible, too,
that Indians would not come there. It might be some sacred place of the
old forgotten people who had built the mounds and who had been
exterminated by the Indians. But the Indians were full of superstition,
and often they feared and respected the sacred places of those whom they
had slain. For the boldest of the warriors, avenging spirits might be
hovering there, and they would fear them m