rass dried up, and
the forest was a deep green, suffused and tinted, though, with a
luminous golden glow from the splendid sun. The shiftless one raised his
head and inhaled its clear, sweet odors, the great heart under the
deerskins and the great brain under the thatch of hair alike sending
forth a challenge. Not all the Shawnees, not all the Miamis, not all the
renegades could drive the five from this mighty, unoccupied wilderness
of Kain-tuck-ee, which his comrades and he loved and in which they had
as good a right as any Indian or renegade that ever lived.

It was so still in the canebrake that the birds over the head of the
watcher began to sing. Another black bear lumbered toward them, and,
catching the strange, human odor, lumbered away again. A deer, a tall
buck, holding up his head, sniffed the air, and then ran. Wild turkeys
in a distant tree gobbled, a bald eagle clove the air on swift wing, but
the sleepers slept placidly on.

CHAPTER II

THE GREAT JOKE

Mid-morning and Henry awoke, yawning a little and stretching himself
mightily. Then he looked questioningly at Shif'less Sol who sat in a
position of great luxury with his doubled blanket between his back and
a tree trunk, and his rifle across his knees. The look of satisfaction
that had come there in the morning like a noon glow still overspread his
tanned and benevolent countenance.

"Well, Sol?"

"Well, Henry?"

"What has happened while we slept?"

"Nothin', 'cept that Braxton Wyatt an' twenty Shawnee warriors passed,
takin' no more notice o' us than ef we wuz leaves o' the forest."

"Advancing on our old house?"

"Yes, they've set the siege by now."

"And we're not there. I'll wake the others. They must share in the
joke."

Paul, Long Jim and Silent Tom wiped the last wisp of sleep from their
eyes, and, when they heard the tale of a night and a morning, they too
laughed to themselves with keen enjoyment.

"What will we do, Henry?" Paul asked.

"First, we'll eat breakfast, though it's late. Then we'll besiege the
besiegers. While they're drawing the net which doesn't enclose us we
might as well do 'em all the harm we can. We're going to be dangerous
fugitives."

The five laughed in unison.

"We'll make Braxton Wyatt and the Shawnees think the forest is full of
enemies," said Paul.

Meanwhile they took their ease, and ate breakfast of wild turkey,
buffalo steak and a little corn bread that they hoarded jealously. The
sun co