it keeps on this way, I'll soon be covered with
scales, my blood will be cold, an' I'll die ef I'm left five minutes on
dry land. Don't say a word, Henry, I'm goin' to cook that turkey ef I
lose my scalp."

Henry did not say anything. He thought there was little danger, the
night was so dark, and Sol broiled his bird to a turn over smothered
coals. When it was done he took it up by the leg and held it out
admiringly.

"I don't believe Jim Hart hisself could beat that," he said, "an' Jim is
shorely a pow'ful good cook, I guess about the best the world has ever
seed. Don't you think, Henry, that ef Jim Hart had been thar to cook
wild turkey an' venison an' buffler meat for all them old Romans an'
Egyptians, an' sech like, with the cur'ous appetites, always lookin' fur
new dishes, they'd have rested satisfied, an' wouldn't hev decayed down
to nothin'? 'Pears strange to me why they'd keep on lookin' roun' fur
hummin' bird tongues an' them other queer things when they could have
had nice cow buffler steak every day o' thar lives."

The two ate the turkey between them, and Shif'less Sol, thumping his
chest, said:

"Now, let us set forth. It is Solomon Hyde hisself ag'in, an' he feels
fit fur any task."

They started about ten o'clock, curved around the lake, and traveled in
a general northwesterly course. Henry went slowly at first, but when he
noticed that Shif'less Sol was breathing easily and regularly, he
increased the pace somewhat.

"What's your opinion about the place where we'll find Tom, if we find
him at all?" he asked.

"Ef we find Tom Ross, it'll be mighty close to the place whar we left
him. Tom never wastes any words, an' he ain't goin' to waste any steps,
either. Are you shore we come along this way, Henry? I wuz runnin' so
pow'ful fast I only hit the tops o' the hills ez I passed."

"Yes, this is the place," said Henry, looking carefully at hills,
gullies, rocks, and trees, "and it was certainly somewhere near here
that Tom was forced to turn aside."

"Then we'll find him close by, livin' or dead," said Shif'less Sol
succinctly.

"But how to do it?" said Henry.

"Yes, how?" said Sol.

They began a careful search, radiating continually in a wider circle,
but the night that hid them from the warriors also hid all signs of Tom
Ross.

"Tom's the kind o' feller who wouldn't make the least bit o' noise,"
said Shif'less Sol, "an' I'm thinkin' we've got to make a noise
ourselves, an' let him hear i