still. The hen fell, too, but she fluttered
about on the ground. The rest flew away on whirring wings. Paul ran
forward and finished his bird with a stick, but Jim lifted the great
gobbler and looked at him with admiring eyes.

"Did you ever see a finer turkey?" he said. "He must weigh all uv forty
pounds, an' he's as fat as he can be with the good food uv the wilderness.
An' he's a beauty, too! Jest look at them glossy blue-black feathers. No
wonder so many hens wuz in love with him. I could be pop'lar with the
women folks, too, ef I wuz ez handsome ez Mr. Gobbler here."

They picked and cleaned the turkeys, and then hung the dressed bodies from
the boughs of a tree near the hut, where they would be frozen, and thus
keep.

The hunters returned that afternoon with two deer, and were delighted with
Jim and Paul's zeal and success.

"Ef things go on this swimmin' way," said Shif'less Sol, "we'd be able to
feed an army this winter, ef it wuz needed."

It was very cold that evening, and they built the fire higher than usual.
Great mellow rays of heat fell over all the five, and lighted up the whole
interior of the cabin with its rich store of skins and nuts and dressed
meats, and other spoil of the wilderness. The five, though no one of them
ever for a moment forgot their great mission of saving Kentucky, had a
feeling of content. Affairs were going well.

"Paul," said Shif'less Sol, "you've read books. Tell us about some o' them
old fellers that lived a long time ago. I like to hear about the big
ones."

"Well," said Paul, "there was Alexander. Did you ever hear of him, Sol?"

Shif'less Sol shook his head and sighed.

"I can't truly call myself an eddicated man," he replied, "though I have
the instincks o' one. But I ain't had the proper chance. No, Paul, me an'
Alexander is strangers."

"Then I'll make you acquainted," said Paul. He settled himself more
comfortably before the fire, and the others did likewise.

"Alexander lived a long, long time ago," said Paul. "He was a Greek--that
is, he was a Macedonian with Greek blood in him--I suppose it comes to the
same thing--and he led the Greeks and Macedonians over into Asia, and
whipped the Persians every time, though the Persians were always twenty to
one."

"Who writ the accounts o' them thar battles?" asked Shif'less Sol.

"Why, the Greeks, of course."

"I thought so. Why, Jim Hart here must be a Greek, then. To hear him tell
it, he's always whippin' twe