t I didn't want to hear might hear
it, an' 'cause, too, I knowed how to set traps an' snares."

"We saw one of them as we came along," said Henry.

"They've worked bee-yu-tiful," said Long Jim, an ecstatic look coming
over his face. "I've caught rabbits an' a 'possum. Then I set to work
and built this oven, an' I've learned a new way to broil rabbit steaks
on the hot stones. It's shorely somethin' wonderful. It keeps all the
juice in 'em, an' they're so tender they jest melt in your mouth, an'
they're so light you could eat a hundred without ever knowin' that you
had 'em."

"That's what I'm thinkin'," said Shif'less Sol, reaching for his rifle.
"Gimme about twenty o' them steaks quicker'n you kin wink an eye, Jim
Hart, or I'll let you hev it."

Long Jim, the soul of an artist still aflame within him, willingly
produced the steaks, and all ate, finding that they were what he had
claimed them to be. But he waited eagerly for the verdict, his head bent
forward and his eyes expectant.

"Best I ever tasted," said Henry.

Long Jim's eyes flashed.

"Finer than silk," said Shif'less Sol.

Sparks leaped from Long Jim's eyes.

"Could eat 'em forever without stoppin'," said Tom Ross.

Long Jim's eyes blazed.

"I couldn't 'a' stood it ef you fellers hadn't liked my finest
'chievement," he said. "Shows you've got more sense than I thought you
had."

"Jim feels like Columbus did that time he discovered Ameriky," said
Shif'less Sol. "Knowed it wuz thar all the time, but wanted other people
to know that he knowed it wuz thar."

"It's a snug place, Jim, this little valley, or rather pit, of yours,"
said Henry, "but we must leave it at once and find Paul."

"That's shorely so," said Long Jim, casting a regretful look at his
oven, "but I wish we could come back here an' stay a while after we
found him. That thar oven don't look much, but it works pow'ful. I
b'lieve I could make some more uv them Columbus dis-kiv-er-ies with it."

"I don't think we will be back this way for a long time," said Henry,
"but your oven will keep. Sol is compelled to bear a similar sorrow. He
has the snuggest nest in the side of a cliff that ever you did see, but
he has left it just as it is, and he hopes to see it again some day."

"That bein' the case," said Long Jim, "I think I kin stand it, since Sol
here is my brother in sorrow."

They left the deep little valley, although Jim Hart cast more than one
longing glance behind, and began th