e shiftless one, rifle under his arm,
went to the edge of the canebrake, and began his patrol. He bore little
resemblance to a lazy man now. He was, next to Henry, the greatest
forest runner of the five, a marvel of skill, endurance and perception,
with a mighty heart beating beneath his deerskins, and an intellect of
wonderful native power, reasoning and drawing deductions under his
thatch of blonde hair.

Shif'less Sol listened to the drip, drip of water from the wet boughs
and leaves, and he watched a great sun, red and warm, creep slowly over
the eastern hills. He was not uncomfortable, nor was he afraid of
anything, but he was angry. He remembered with regret the pleasant
hollow, so dry and snug. It belonged, by right of discovery and
improvement, to his comrades and himself, but it might soon be defiled
by the presence of Indians, led by the hated renegade, Braxton Wyatt.
They would sleep on his favorite bed of leaves, they would cook where
Long Jim Hart had cooked so well, though they could never equal him, and
they would certainly take as their own the furs and skins they had been
compelled to leave behind.

The more he thought of it the stronger his wrath grew. Had it not been
for his fear of leaving a betraying trail he would have gone back to see
if the warriors were already approaching the hollow; but his sense of
duty and obvious necessity kept him at the edge of the brake in which
his comrades lay, deep in happy slumber.

Morning advanced, warm and beautiful, sprinkling the world at first
with silver and then with gold, the sky gradually turning to a deep
velvety blue, as intense as any that the shiftless one had ever seen.
The myriads of raindrops stood out at first like silver beads on grass
and leaves, and then dried up rapidly under the brilliant rays of the
sun. A light breeze blew through the foliage, and sang a pleasant song
as it blew.

Shif'less Sol felt a wonderful uplift of the spirits. In the darkness
and rain of the night before he might have been depressed somewhat at
leaving their good shelter for the wet wilderness, but in the splendid
dawn he was all buoyancy and confidence.

"Let 'em come," he said to himself. "Let Braxton Wyatt an' Blackstaffe
an' all the Miamis an' Shawnees hunt us fur a year, but they won't get
us, no, not one of us."

Then he sank silently in the deep grass and slid cautiously away, not
toward the dense brake, but to a point well to one side. His acute ear
had