ly.

Two hours and three hours passed, and they heard no more the cries of the
warriors calling to each other. Silence again hung over the wilderness.
Rabbits sprang up from the thickets. A deer, frightened by the sound of
the boys' footsteps, held up his head, listened a moment, and then fled
away among the trees. Henry took his presence as a sign that no other
human being had passed that way in the last hour.

The sun sank, the twilight came and died, and darkness clothed the
wilderness. Then Henry stopped.

"Paul," he said, "I've got some venison in my knapsack, but you and I
ought to have a fire. While our clothes are drying outside they are still
wet inside and we can't afford to have a chill, or be so stiff that we
can't run. You know we may have another run or two yet."

"But do we dare make a fire?" asked Paul.

"I think so. I can hide the blaze, and the night is so dark that the smoke
won't show."

He plunged deeper into the thickets, and came to a rocky place, full of
gullies and cavelike hollows. It was so dark that Paul could see only his
dim form ahead. Presently their course led downward, and Henry stopped in
one of the sheltered depressions.

"Now we'll make our fire," he said.

It was pitchy black where they stood. The walls of the hollow rose far
above their heads, and its crest was lined on every side with giant trees
and dense undergrowth.

The two boys dragged up dead leaves and brushwood, and Henry patiently
ignited the heap with his flint and steel. A tiny blaze arose, but he did
not permit it to grow into a flame. Heavier logs were placed upon the top,
and the fire only burned beneath, amid the small boughs. Smoke arose, but
it was lost in the black heavens. The fire, thus confined, burned
fiercely and rapidly within its narrow limits, and a fine bed of coals
soon formed. It was time! The night had come on cold, and the chill
returned to Paul's veins. Before the fire was lighted he had begun to
shiver, but when the deep bed of coals was formed, he sat before it and
basked in the grateful and glowing heat.

"I think we'd better take off our clothing and dry it," said Henry, and
both promptly did so. They hung part of their garments before the fire, on
a stick thrust in the ground, until they were dry, and then, putting them
on again, replaced them with the remainder, to dry in their turn.
Meanwhile they ate of the venison that Henry carried in his knapsack, and
felt very happy. It was a