t Solomon took the conceit
out of me," Jack was wont to say. "I was walking along in the bush
late that day when I thought I saw a move far ahead. I stopped and
suddenly discovered that Solomon was standing beside me.

"I was so startled that I almost let a yelp out of me.

"He beckoned to me and I followed him. He began to walk about as fast
as I had ever seen him go. He had been looking for me. Soon he slowed
his gait and said in a low voice:

"'Ain't ye a leetle bit car'less? An Injun wouldn't have no trouble
smashin' yer head with a tommyhawk. In this 'ere business ye got to
have a swivel in yer neck an' keep 'er twistin'. Ye got to know what's
goin' on a-fore an' behind ye an' on both sides. We must p'int fer
camp. This mornin' the British begun to land an army at Gravesend.
Out on the road they's waggin loads o' old folks an' women, an' babies
on their way to Brooklyn. We got to skitter 'long. Some o' their
skirmishers have been workin' back two ways an' may have us cut off.'"

Suddenly Solomon stopped and lifted his hand and listened. Then he
dropped and put his ear to the ground. He beckoned to Jack, who crept
near him.

"Somebody's nigh us afore an' behind," he whispered. "We better hide
till dark comes. You crawl into that ol' holler log. I'll nose myself
under a brush pile."

They were in a burnt slash where the soft timber had been cut some time
before. The land was covered with a thick, spotty growth of poplar and
wild cherry and brush heaps and logs half-rotted. The piece of timber
to which Solomon had referred was the base log of a giant hemlock
abandoned, no doubt, because, when cut, it was found to be a shell. It
was open only at the butt end. Its opening was covered by an immense
cobweb. Jack brushed it away and crept backward into the shell. He
observed that many black hairs were caught upon the rough sides of this
singular chamber. Through the winter it must have been the den of a
black bear. As soon as he had settled down, with his face some two
feet from the sunlit air of the outer world. Jack observed that the
industrious spider had begun again to throw his silvery veil over the
great hole in the log's end. He watched the process. First the outer
lines of the structure were woven across the edges of the opening and
made fast at points around its imperfect circle. Then the weaver
dropped to opposite points, unreeling his slender rope behind him and
making it taut