So,
we'll jest thresh out ev'ry inch o' ground in thar, ef it takes ten
years to do it.'"

Silent Tom looked at him with admiration.

"Mighty long speech," he said. "How do you find so many words?"

"Oh, they're all in the dictionary," replied the shiftless one, "an' a
heap more, too. I'm an eddicated man, ez all o' you kin see, though
bein' jealous some o' you won't admit it. Thar are nigh onto a million
good words in the dictionary, an' ev'ry one o' 'em is known to me. Ev'ry
one o' 'em would reckernize me ez a friend, an' would ask me to use it
ef I looked at it, but I'm mighty pertickler an' I take only the best
ones. Returnin' to the subject from which we hev traveled far, I think
we'd better be on the lookout fur old Red Eagle an' his Shawnees."

"Think so, too," said Silent Tom.

Henry announced the next morning that he would start at once on a scout,
and that he probably would go outside the swamp.

"I go with you, o' course," said Shif'less Sol.

"I think it best to travel alone."

"Why, you couldn't git along without me, Henry!"

"I'll have to try, Sol."

"I wouldn't talk you to death," said Silent Tom.

Long Jim and Paul also wanted to go, but the young leader rejected them
all, and they knew that it was a waste of time to argue with him. He
started in the early morning and they waved farewell to him from the
oasis.

Henry was not averse to action. The long period of idleness on the
island, much as he had enjoyed it, was coming to its natural end, and
his active mind and body looked forward to new events. The swamp had
returned to the state in which they had found it, and remembering the
path by which they had come he had no great difficulty in making his
journey.

Three hundred yards away and the oasis was hidden completely by the
marshy thickets. He could not even see the tops of the trees, and he
reflected that it was the merest chance that had led them there. It was
not likely that the chance would be repeated in the case of any of Red
Eagle's warriors, and perhaps it would be better for all of the five to
stay snug and tight on the oasis, even if they did not move until full
winter came. But second thought told him that Red Eagle would surely
thresh up the swamp. The reasoning of Shif'less Sol was correct, and it
was better to go on and see what was being prepared for them by their
enemies.

His progress was necessarily slow, as he was compelled to pick his way,
but he had plenty of str