came, as the wind was blowing cold, Tom very deftly built a
shelter of branches and small saplings. His way of bending two little
trees down and fastening them together with their own branches, making of
them the support of the "shack," was a method Ree and John had never seen
used and was the secret of his being able to "build a house" in very
little time.

It was very comfortable sitting before the fire, thus sheltered from the
wind. Tom especially enjoyed it for his tongue ran on at a tremendous
rate as he told stories of extraordinary adventures.

John urged him to tell more and more, and he might have gone on talking
all night had not Ree admonished him and John that they must turn in
promptly in order to make an early start in the morning. Wolves were
howling not far away, and the plaintive but terrorizing cry of a panther
could be heard in the distance, as the little party lay down to sleep. No
doubt the young emigrants thought many times before dreams came to them,
of what the depths of the wilderness must be, if the foreboding sounds
which reached them were a fair example of what the outer edge of the
forest fastnesses afforded; but they rested well and were early astir.

Crossing a fine, level country, though thickly grown with great trees, on
this day, the boys saw plainly the evidences of the road made by the
Boquet expedition. There were the stumps of big and little trees and the
half-decayed remnants of the trees which had been cut down, on both sides
of them. Although so many years had passed since Col. Boquet had made
this trail, the work his men had done made the progress of the
Connecticut boys and their hunter companion faster than it would
otherwise have been, and three days passed rapidly without other
adventure than the meeting of a small party of Indians who scowled and
passed on, and the killing of a large panther by Ree, the animal having
terribly frightened old Jerry by dropping from a tree squarely upon the
faithful horse's back, one night.

On the fifth day after leaving Pittsburg the travelers crossed a high
ridge and obtained a glorious view of the country toward which they were
pressing on. In the distance rivers of water and great oceans of tree
tops, deep valleys and wooded hillsides were seen.

"Ye ain't fer from the 'Promised Land,'" said Tom Fish, lightly, much
less moved by the grandeur of nature's display than were the boys. Then
he indicated the location of a point, far beyond