Ohio at the
mouth o' the Lickin,' whar thar wuz to be a great getherin' o' 'em. One
or two o' the white men wuz to go on ahead this mornin'. So we let 'em
alone an' we spread out so we could find you.

"When I run across your trail afore sundown, I wuz shore it belonged to
one o' them renegades I heard called Blackstaffe, and I made up my mind
to git him."

"You come mighty near getting the fellow who stood in his place," said
Henry. "I thought I had against me about the best warrior that was ever
in these woods."

The moonlight disclosed the broad grin and shining teeth of the
shiftless one.

"I reckon I ain't been sleepin' on no downy couch myself fur the last
two hours," he said. "Henry, what's all this about the getherin' at the
mouth o' the Lickin'?"

"All the tribes will be there--Wyandots, Shawnees, Miamis, Delawares,
Ottawas, and Illinois. I've heard them in council. They mean to begin a
new and greater war to drive the whites from their hunting ground. The
fleet will be attacked in great force again, and all the settlements
will have to fight."

"Then," said Shif'less Sol, "we'd better pick up the other fellers, Tom
an' Saplin' an' Paul, ez soon ez we kin, an' git ahead o' the Indians."

"Where are the others?" asked Henry.

"Off that way lookin' fur you," replied Sol, waving his hand toward the
southeast. "We scattered so ez to cover ez much ground as we could."

"We must hunt them and use our signal," said Henry, "two hoots of the
owl from the first, three from the others, and then the same over again
from both. It's a mighty good thing we arranged that long ago, or you
and I, Sol, might be shooting at each other yet."

"That's so, an' we're likely to need them bullets fur a better use,"
rejoined the shiftless one. "Pow'ful good gun you've got thar, Henry.
Did the Injuns make you a present o' that before you ran away?"

"It was luck," replied Henry, and he told his story of the fight with
the Wyandot, the fall over the cliff, and his taking of the rifle and
the ammunition.

"That fall wuz luck, maybe," said Shif'less Sol sagely, "but the rest o'
it wuz muscles, a sharp eye, quickness, an' good sense. I've noticed
that the people who learn a heap o' things, who are strong and healthy,
an' who always listen and look, are them that live the longest in these
woods."

"You're surely right, Sol," said Henry with great emphasis.

But Henry was in the best of humors. The shiftless one was a power in