lls in the western forest, whence his
comrade had gone, and he knew that something had happened. He was filled
with apprehension, but he could do nothing, except to lie still in the
covert.

The yell was not repeated, but he intently watched the edge of the
forest on all sides except the west. After a while he saw the faint
figure of a man, scarcely a tracery, appear in the north, and then come
skipping like a swift shadow across the flat. His heart did not rise
merely, but took a sudden jump upward. It was the shiftless one
returning to their lair, and doubtless in triumph.

He had not time to think much about it before Shif'less Sol was on the
oasis, crouched among the bushes, laughing low, but in a tone that was
fairly redolent of triumph.

"I done done it, Henry!" he exulted. "I done done it!"

He held up the hind quarter of a bear that had been cooked to a turn
over a bed of coals.

"I haven't tasted it yet," he said, "but jest smell it! Did sech an odor
ever afore tickle your nose? Did your mouth ever afore water so much?
Here, Henry, fall on!"

He took out his knife, cut off a big piece and handed it to Henry, who
began to eat eagerly. Then the shiftless one fell to in like fashion.

"How did you manage it?" he asked.

The shiftless one grinned.

"Didn't I tell you that the sudden darkness wuz a sign favorin' me?" he
said. "Paul is always tellin' about them old Greeks an' Romans not goin'
into battle till they had talked with the omens, mostly the insides o'
cows an' sheep. I believe in signs too. Mine wuz a lot better, an' it
worked. I found that they hed jest finished roastin' the bear on the
coals, after hevin' dressed him an' cut him into four quarters. 'Pears
that most o' 'em hed gone deeper into the woods to look fur somethin'. I
come close up in the bushes, an' began a terrible snarlin' an' yelpin'
like a hull pack o' wolves. The three that wuz left, the cooks, took
torches from the fire, an' run in after me. But I hed flew like
lightnin' 'roun' to the other side, jumped in, grabbed up one o' the
quarters by the leg, an' wuz away afore they could fairly see what had
happened, an' who had made it happen. Then they set up one yell, which I
guess you heard, but I kept on flyin' through the woods to the north,
curved about, came over the mud flats whar no trail kin last a minute,
an' here I am with our bear, or ez much of it ez we want o' him."

"You've done a great deed, Sol. I didn't think you co