was once
more in the region that he loved. He looked at one river and then at the
other, and his eyes glowed.

"Ain't it fine, Henry?" he said. "These two pow'ful big streams! Back uv
them the firm, solid country that you kin tread on without the fear uv
breakin' through, an' then the cool steadyin' airs that are blowin' on
our faces!"

"Yes, it is fine, Jim!" said Henry with emphasis.

He, too, ceased to think, for the moment, of the future, and paid more
attention to the meeting of the rivers. The Ohio, at that point,
although the tributary, was wider than the Mississippi, and for some
distance up its stream was deeper. Its banks, sloping and high, were
clothed in dense forest and underbrush to the water's edge. Nothing
broke this expanse of dark green. It was lone and desolate, save for the
wild fowl that circled over it before they darted toward the water. The
note of everything was size, silence, and majesty.

"We begin the second stage of our great journey," said Adam Colfax to
Henry.

Then the leader raised his hand as a signal, hundreds of oars and
paddles struck the water, the fleet leaped into life again, and boats
and canoes, driven by strong arms, swung forward against the slow
current of the Ohio. Some rower in a leading boat struck up a wild song
of love and war, mostly war, and others joined, the chorus swelling to
twenty, fifty, then a hundred voices. It was a haunting air, and forest
and water gave back the volume of sound in far, weird echoes.

But fleet and song merely heightened the effect of the wilderness.
Nobody saw them. Nobody heard them. Desolation was always before them,
and, as they passed, closed in again behind them. But the men themselves
felt neither lonely nor afraid. Used to victory over hardship and
danger, their spirits rose high as they began the ascent of the second
river, the last half of their journey.

Adam Colfax, stern New England man that he was, felt the glow, and Paul,
the imaginative boy, felt it, too.

"I don't see how such an expedition as this can fail to get through to
Pittsburgh," he said.

"I'd like to go on jest ez we're goin' all the time," said Shif'less Sol
with lazy content. "I could curl up under a rail and lay thar fur a
thousand miles. Jest think what a rest that would be, Paul!"

Henry Ware said nothing. The Mississippi had now dropped out of sight,
and before them stretched only the river that hugged the Dark and Bloody
Ground in its curves. He