hearts."

"You're talkin' re'l po'try an' truth at the same time, Sol," said Long
Jim. "It's cur'ous how people hate them that kin do things better than
theirselves. Now, I've noticed when I'm cookin' buffler steaks an' deer
meat an' wild turkey an' nice, juicy fish, an' cookin' mebbe better than
anybody else in all Ameriky kin, how you, Shif'less Sol Hyde, turn plum'
green with envy an' begin makin' disrespeckful remarks 'bout me, Jim
Hart, who hez too lofty an' noble a natur ever to try to pull you down,
poor an' ornery scrub that you be."

Shif'less Sol drew himself up with haughty dignity.

"Jim Hart," he said, "I'm wrapped 'bout with the mantle o' my own merit
so well from head to foot that them invig'ous remarks o' yours bounce
right off me like hail off solid granite. To tell you the truth, Jim
Hart, I feel like a big stone mountain, three miles high, with you
throwin' harmless leetle pebbles at me."

"And yet," said Paul, "while you two are always pretending to quarrel,
each would be eager to risk death for the other if need be."

"It's only my sense o' duty, an' o' what you call proportion," said
Shif'less Sol. "Long Jim, ez you know, is six feet an' a half tall. Ef
the Injuns wuz to take him an' burn him at the stake he'd burn a heap
longer than the av'rage man. What a torch Jim would make! Knowin' that
an' always b'arin' it in mind, I'm jest boun' to save Jim from sech a
fate. It ain't Jim speshully that I'm thinkin' on, but I'd hate to know
that a man six an' a half feet long wuz burnin' 'long his whole len'th."

"Another band has joined Wyatt," said Henry. "See, here comes the
trail!"

The new force had arrived from the east, and it contained apparently
twenty warriors, raising Braxton Wyatt's little army to about sixty men.

"But they still run," said Shif'less Sol. "The new ones hev ketched all
the terror an' superstition that the old ones feel, an' the whole crowd
is off fur the Ohio. Look how the trail widens!"

"And Braxton Wyatt is beginning to feel better," said Henry. "His own
particular trail does not waver so much now. Ah, they've stopped here
for a council. Braxton probably stood on that old fallen log and
addressed them, because the traces of his footsteps lead directly to it.
Yes, the bark here is rubbed a little, where he stood. They gathered in
a half circle before him, as their footprints show very plainly, and
they listened to him respectfully. He, being white, was recovering from