r! The idee o' you laughin' an' me plum' dead with
hunger! Why, I could eat a hull big buffler by myself, an' ef he wuzn't
cooked I could eat him alive, an' on the hoof too, so I could!"

Tom Ross continued to laugh silently with his eyes and lips.

"What are we to do?" asked Paul in dismay. "If we were to find game we
wouldn't dare fire at it with the Indians perhaps so near."

"True," said Tom Ross.

"And if we can't fire at it we certainly can't catch it with our hands."

"True," said Tom Ross.

"And then are we to starve to death?"

"No," said Tom Ross.

Paul did not ask anything more, but his questioning look was on the
silent man.

"Fish," said Tom Ross, showing his line and hook.

"Where?" asked Shif'less Sol.

"Fine, clear creek, only hundred yards away."

"Do you know that it hez any fish in it?"

"Saw 'em little while ago. Fine big fellers, bass."

"Then be quick an' ketch a lot, 'cause the pangs o' starvation are
already on me."

Tom Ross cut the slim pole that he had already picked out and measured
with his eye, took squirming bait from the soft earth under a stone,
just as millions of boys in the Mississippi valley have done, and
started for the creek, Paul being delegated to accompany him, while
Henry, Long Jim and the shiftless one proceeded to build a fire in the
most secluded spot they could find. There was danger in a fire, but they
could shield the smoke, or at least most of it, and the risk must be
taken anyhow. They could not eat raw the fish which they did not doubt
for a moment Tom Ross would soon bring.

Meanwhile Paul and Tom reached the banks of the creek, which was all the
silent one had claimed for it, fifteen feet wide, two feet deep, clear
water, flowing over a pebbly bottom. Tom tied his string to the pole,
and threw in the hook and bait.

"You watch, I fish," he said.

Paul, his rifle in the crook of his arm, strolled a little bit down the
stream, examining the forest and listening attentively for any hostile
sound. Since it was his business to protect the fisherman while he
fished, he meant to protect him well, and no enemy could have come near
without being observed by him. And yet he had enough detachment from the
dangers of their situation to drink deep in the beauty of the
wilderness, which was here a tangle of green forest, shot with wild
flowers and cut by clear running waters.

But he did not go so far that he failed to hear a thump where Tom Ross
was sitt