aul," said Long
Jim, "but I 'spose they're all right. Leastways I don't know they ain't.
Now, I'm holdin' back this buffler steak an' wild turkey, 'cause I want
'em to be jest right, when Sol an' Tom set down afore the fire. See
anythin' comin' through the woods, Henry?"

"No, Jim, nothing stirs there."

"It don't bother me. They'll 'pear in good time. They've a full ten
minutes yet, an' thar dinners will be jest right fur 'em. I hate to brag
on myself, but I shorely kin cook. Ain't we lucky fellers, Paul? It
seems to me sometimes that Providence has done picked us out ez speshul
favorites. Good fortune is plum' showered on us. We've got a snug holler
like this, one uv the finest homes a man could live in, an' round us is
a wilderness runnin' thousands uv miles, chock full uv game, waitin' to
be hunted by us. Ev'ry time the savages think they've got us, an' it
looks too ez ef they wuz right, we slip right out uv thar hands an' the
scalps are still growin' full an' free, squar'ly on top uv our heads. We
shorely do git away always, an' it 'pears to me, Paul, that we are
'bout the happiest an' most fort'nate people in the world."

Paul raised his head and looked at Jim, but it was evident to the lad
that his long comrade was in dead earnest, and perhaps he was right. The
lad shifted himself again and the light of the blaze flickered over his
finely-chiseled, scholarly face. Long Jim glanced at him with
understanding.

"Ef you had a book or two, Paul," he said, "you could stay here waitin'
an' be happy. Sometimes I wish that I liked to read. What's in it, Paul,
that kin chain you to one place an' make you content to be thar?"

"Because in the wink of an eye, Jim, it transports you to another world.
You are in new lands, and with new people, seeing what they do and doing
it with them. It gives your mind change, though your body may lie still.
Do you see anything yet, Henry, besides the forest and the rain?"

"A black dot among the trees, Paul, but it's very small and very far,
and it may be a bear that's wandered out in the wet. Besides, it's two
dots that we want to see, not one, and--as sure as I live there are two,
moving this way, though they're yet too distant for me to tell what they
are."

"But since they're two, and they're coming towards us, they ought to be
those whom we're expecting."

"Now they've moved into a space free of undergrowth and I see them more
clearly. They're not bears, nor yet deer. They're