t, the forests and thickets
growing thicker as he advanced. At one point he came to a vast canebrake
that seemed impassable, yet he made his way through it almost without
slackening speed, and came to a grove of oaks, so large and so dense
that the sunlight never entered there. He stopped at its edge and
imitated the long, haunting cry of the owl. In a moment or two a note
like it, but distant and faint, came. He uttered the cry a second time,
and heard the reply.

Hesitating no longer he entered the oak grove. These trees with their
great mossy trunks were the finest that he had ever seen. Some peculiar
quality of the soil, some fertilizing agency beneath had given them an
unparalleled growth. The leafy roof was complete, and he advanced as one
who walks down a limitless hall, studded with a myriad of columns.

Two miles and turning around a hill he came to a cup in its far side,
hidden so well that the unknowing would have passed it unseen. But he
called and his four comrades answered from the cup. Parting the bushes
Henry entered and they gave him a low but joyous welcome.

The cup, almost circular, was not more than ten feet across, but the sun
shone in it and the ground was warm and dry. Just beyond the far edge a
little spring gushed from under a stone and trickled away, whispering
gently through the bushes.

Paul was the only one of the four who had risen. He stood now erect, the
stock of his rifle resting on the ground, the customary attitude of the
waiting borderer, his fine, intellectual face bright with interest.

"Did you see anything, Henry?" he asked.

"O' course he saw somethin'," drawled Shif'less Sol. "Did you ever know
the time when Henry went anywhar without seein' anythin'?"

"Paul meant did he see anythin' wuth tellin'," said Long Jim. "You're
always talkin' too much, Sol. Why did you want to bust in on a boy that
was askin' a decent question?"

"I never talk too much, Long Jim Hart," said the shiftless one
indignantly. "Now an' then I hev to talk a long time, 'cause I know so
much that I can't git it all out between sunrise an' sunset, an' the
hours then are mighty crowded, too. I reckon that you'd never need
more'n five minutes to empty your head."

"Mine's a good head an' it never has any swellin' either."

"Give Henry a chance," said Paul smiling. "How can he ever tell us
anything, when you two are filling all the woods with the roar of
argument?"

The debaters subsided. Silent Tom