known that they would be safe in this little way
station, and it was yet another confirmation of his beliefs. He watched
the arrow so sharply outlined against the blue until it was gone in the
vast sky, and a great wonder and awe filled the soul of the shiftless
one. He had seen such flights countless times before, but now he began
to think about the instinct that sent them on such vast journeys through
the ether from south to north and back again, in an endless repetition
as long as they lived. What journeys and what rivers and lakes and
forests and plains they must see! Man was but a crawler on the earth,
compared with them. Then wild ducks came, did as the geese had done, and
then they too were gone in the same flight into the illimitable north
that swallowed up everything.

It was in the mind of the shiftless one that he too would like to go
into that vast unknown North some day, if the fighting in Kentucky ever
came to an end. He had been in the land of the Shawnees and Miamis, and
Wyandots and he knew of the Great Lakes beyond, but north of them the
wilderness still stretched to the edge of the world, where the polar ice
reigned, eternal. There was no limit to the imagination of Shif'less
Sol, and in all these gigantic wanderings the faithful four, his
friends, were with him.

Henry did not awaken until well after noon, but as usual his awakening
was instantaneous, that is, all his faculties were keenly alert at once.
He glanced down the valley and saw the buffalo and deer feeding, and the
great chorus of birds was going on. The shiftless one, leaning against
his bank of leaves, his rifle on his knee, was regarding the valley with
an air of proprietorship.

"What's happened while I slept?" asked Henry.

"Nothing. You don't expect anything to happen here. It's got to happen
when we leave tonight."

"I think you're right about it, and as it's watch and watch, you must go
to sleep again now."

His comrade without any protest stretched himself in the leaves and soon
slept soundly. Meanwhile Henry maintained vigilant watch. In order to
keep his muscles elastic he rose and walked about a little at times, but
he did not leave the shelter of the thick little grove that the
shiftless one had called a bower. It well deserved the name, because the
trees were so close and large, and the foliage was so dense that the
sunlight could not enter. Indians on the hills could not possibly see
the two resting there.

The afte