experienced men who will not let you get into any mischief, you can go
along, but be sure that you make yourself useful."

The party was to number a dozen, all skilled foresters, and they were to
lead twenty horses, all carrying huge pack saddles for the utensils and
the invaluable salt. Mr. Silas Pennypacker who was a man of his own will
announced that he was going, too. He puffed out his ruddy cheeks and
said emphatically:

"I've heard from hunters of that place; it's one of the great
curiosities of the country and for the sake of learning I'm bound to see
it. Think of all the gigantic skeletons of the mastodon, the mammoth and
other monsters lying there on the ground for ages!"

Henry and Paul were glad that Mr. Pennypacker was to be with them, as in
the woods he was a delightful comrade, able always to make instruction
entertaining, and the superiority of his mind appealed unconsciously to
both of these boys who--each in his way--were also of superior cast.

They departed on a fine morning--the spring was early and held
steady--and all Wareville saw them go. It was a brilliant little
cavalcade; the horses, their heads up to scent the breeze from the
fragrant wilderness, and the men, as eager to start, everyone with a
long slender-barreled Kentucky rifle on his shoulder, the fringed and
brilliantly colored deerskin hunting shirt falling almost to his knees,
and, below that deerskin leggings and deerskin moccasins adorned with
many-tinted beads. It was a vivid picture of the young West, so young,
and yet so strong and so full of life, the little seed from which so
mighty a tree was soon to grow.

All of them stopped again, as if by an involuntary impulse, at the edge
of the forest, and waved their hands in another, and, this time, in a
last good-by to the watchers at the fort. Then they plunged into the
mighty wilderness, which swept away and away for unknown thousands of
miles.

They talked for a while of the journey, of the things that they might
see by the way, and of those that they had left behind, but before long
conversation ceased. The spell of the dark and illimitable woods, in
whose shade they marched, fell upon them, and there was no noise, but
the sound of breathing and the tread of men and horses. They dropped,
too, from the necessities of the path through the undergrowth, into
Indian file, one behind the other.

Henry was near the rear of the line, the stalwart schoolmaster just in
front of him