; in a few minutes Sol
followed him to the land of real dreams, and after a brief interval
Ross, too, yielded. Henry alone was awake, drinking deep of the night
and its lonely joy.

The silver disk of the sky turned into gray under a cloud, the darkness
swept up deeper and thicker, the light of the fire waned, but the boy
still leaned against the log, and upon his sensitive mind every change
of the wilderness was registered as upon the delicate surface of a
plate. He glanced at his sleeping comrades and smiled. The smile was the
index to an unconscious feeling of superiority. Ross and Sol were two or
three times his age, but they slept while he watched, and not Ross
himself in all his years in the wilderness had learned many things that
came to him by intuition.

Hours passed and the boy was yet awake. New feelings, vague and
undetermined came into his mind but through them all went the feeling of
mastery. He, though a boy, was in many respects the chief, and while he
need not assert his leadership yet a while, he could never doubt its
possession.

The light died far down and only a few smoldering coals were left. The
blackness of the night, coming ever closer and closer, hovered over his
companions and hid their faces from him. The great trunks of the trees
grew shadowy and dim. Out of the darkness came a sound slight but not in
harmony with the ordinary noises of the forest. His acute senses, the
old inherited primitive instinct, noticed at once the jarring note. He
moved ever so little but an extraordinary change came over his face. The
idle look of luxury and basking warmth passed away and the eyes became
alert, watchful, defiant. Every feature, every muscle was drawn, as if
he were at the utmost tension. Almost unconsciously his figure sank down
farther against the log, until it blended perfectly with the bark and
the fallen leaves below. Only an eye of preternatural keenness could
have separated the outline of the boy from the general scene.

For five minutes he lay and moved not a particle. Then the discordant
note came again among the familiar sounds of the forest and he glanced
at his comrades. They slept peacefully. His lip curled slightly, not
with contempt but with that unconscious feeling of superiority; they
would not have noticed, even had they been awake.

His hands moved forward and grasped his rifle. Then he began to slip
away from the opening and into the forest, not by walking nor altogether
by