ide
as well, and they were sure to make a supreme effort.

It was his knowledge of the minds of the chiefs that had kept him from
turning back to the oasis and his comrades. To return would be merely to
draw a fresh attack upon them, and he resolved to continue his flight to
the northeast. It was characteristic of him that he should not be
headlong, exhausting himself, but he sat down calmly, ate a slice of the
deer meat, and waited until he should hear the Indian signals again.
They came presently from the segment of the circling hills nearest to
him, and he knew that the pursuit had been organized anew and
thoroughly. Then he rose and fled in the direction he had chosen.

He did not stop until the next night, covering a distance of about
thirty miles, and although he heard nothing further then from the
warriors, he knew the pursuit was still on. But he was so far ahead that
he believed he could take rest with safety, and, creeping into a
thicket, he made his bed once more among the leaves of last year. He
slept soundly, but awakening at midnight, he scouted a bit about his
retreat. Finding no evidence that the enemy was near, he slept again
until dawn. Then he renewed the flight, turning a little more toward the
north.

He yet had enough of the deer meat to last, with economy, three or four
days, and he did not trouble himself for the present about the question
of a further food supply. Instead he began to rejoice in his own flight.
He was now fifty or sixty miles further north than the oasis, and as the
country was higher and some time had elapsed since his departure, autumn
was much more advanced. It was a season in which he was always uplifted.
It struck for him no note of decay and dissolution. The crispness and
freshness that came into the air always expanded his lungs and made his
muscles more elastic and powerful. He had the full delight of the eye in
the glorious colors that came over the mighty wilderness. He saw the
leaves a glossy brown, or glowing in reds or yellows. The sumac bushes
burned like fire. Everything was sharp, clear, intense and vital.

There was never another forest like that of the Mississippi Valley, a
million square miles of unbroken woods, cut by a myriad of streams,
varying in size from the tiniest of brooks to the great Father of Waters
himself. Henry loved it and gloried in it, and he knew it well, too. It
now contained various kinds of ripening berries that served as a sauce
for h