as drying, and Henry and Paul, taking off their
coats, wrung the water from them. They were strong lads, inured to many
hardships of the border and the forest, and they did not fear ill
results from a mere wetting. Nevertheless, they wished to be
comfortable, and under the influence of the warm wind they soon found
themselves dry again. But they were so intensely sleepy that they could
scarcely keep their eyes open, and now the wilderness training of both
came into use.

It was a hilly country, with many outcroppings of stone and cavelike
openings in the sides of the steep but low hills, and such a place as
this the boys now sought. But it was a long hunt and they grew more
tired and sleepy at every step. They were hungry, too, but if they might
only sleep they could forget that. They heard again the hooting of owls
and the wind, moaning among the leaves, made strange noises. Once there
was a crash in a thicket beside them, and they jumped in momentary
alarm, but it was only a startled deer, far more scared than they,
running through the bushes, and Henry was ashamed of his nervous
impulse.

They found at last their resting place, a sheltered ledge of dry stone
in the hollow of a hill. The stone arched above them, and it was dark in
the recess, but the boys were too tired now to worry about shadows. They
crept into the hollow, and, scraping up fallen leaves to soften the hard
stone, lay down. Both were off to slumberland in less than five minutes.

The hollow faced the East, and the bright sun, shining into their eyes,
awakened them at last. Henry sprang up, amazed. The skies were a silky
blue, with little white clouds sailing here and there. The forest,
new-washed by the rain, smelt clean and sweet. The south wind was still
blowing. The world was bright and beautiful, but he was conscious of an
acute pain at the center of his being. That is, he was increasingly
hungry. Paul showed equal surprise, and was a prey to the same annoying
sensation in an important region. He looked up at the sun, and found
that it was almost directly overhead, indicating noon.

All the country about them was strange, an unbroken expanse of hill and
forest, and nowhere a sign of a human being. They scrutinized the
horizon with the keen eyes of boyhood, but they saw no line of smoke,
rising from the chimneys of Wareville. Whether the villages lay north or
south or east or west of them they did not know, and the wind that
sighed so gently th