er the
figures below were hidden from him or instinct warned him that they were
friends. He hopped from bough to bough of the great windrow, and nearly
always he sang. Now his song was clear and happy, saying that no enemy
came in the forest. He sang from sheer delight, from the glory of the
sunshine, and the splendor of the great green forest, drying in the
golden glow. Now and then the gray squirrel came down from a tree and
ran over the windrow. There was no method in his excursions. It was just
pure happiness, the physical expression of high spirits.

The shiftless one was the next to awake, and he too looked at his
sleeping comrades. His task had been the hardest of them all. Although
his body had acquired the quality of steel wire, it had yielded
nevertheless under the strain of so many pursuits and flights. Now he
heard that bird singing above him and as it told him, too, that no
danger was near, he shifted himself a little to ease his muscles and
went to sleep again.

A half-hour later Long Jim came out of slumberland, but he opened only
one eye. The bird was trilling and quavering in the most wonderful way,
telling him as he understood it, to go back whence he had come, and he
went at once. Then came Paul, not more than half awakened, and the music
of the song lulled him. He did not have time to ask himself any question
before he had returned to sleep, and the bird sang on, announcing that
noon was coming and all was yet well.

CHAPTER XII

ON THE GREAT TRAIL

An hour after the little gray bird had announced that it was noon and
all was well Henry awoke, and now he sat up. The bird, hearing rustlings
below, and feeling that his task of watchman was over, flew away. His
song was heard for a moment or two in the boughs of a tree, then it grew
faint and died in the distance. But his work was done and he had done it
well.

Henry put his hand on Sol's shoulder, and the shiftless one also sat up.

"You've slept a week, Sol," Henry said.

"That's a whopper. I just laid down, slept a minute, waked up, heard a
bird singin', then slept another minute."

"Just the same happened to me, but it's past midday. Look through the
vines there and see the sun."

"It's so. How time does pass when the warriors are lettin' your scalp
alone."

"Wake up, Jim."

Shif'less Sol poked Long Jim with his moccasined foot.

"Here you, Jim Hart," he said. "Wake up. Do you think we've got nothin'
to do but set here, an'