attention and admiration. The shiftless one
drew a long breath of mingled welcome and approval.

"I knew that he would be first," he murmured.

Then he sat down and began to broil a juicy deer steak on the end of a
sharpened stick.

Henry Ware came into the little glade. He had seen the fire afar and he
knew who waited. All was plain to him like the print of a book, and,
without a word, he dropped down on the other side of the fire facing
Shif'less Sol. The two nodded, but their eyes spoke far more. Sol held out
the steak, now crisp and brown and full of savor, and Henry began to eat.
Sol quickly broiled another for himself, and joined him in the pleasant
task, over which they were silent for a little while.

"I was on the Ohio," said Henry at last, "when the trapper brought me
your message, but I started at once."

"O' course," said Shif'less Sol, "I never doubted it for a minute. I
reckon that you've come about seven hundred miles."

"Nearer eight," said Henry, "but I'm fresh and strong, and we need all our
strength, Sol, because it's a great task that lies before us."

"It shorely is," said Sol, "an' that's why I sent the message. I don't
want to brag, Henry, but we've done a big thing or two before, an' maybe
we kin do a bigger now."

He spoke the dialect of the border, he was not a man of books, but that
great look of exaltation came into his face again, and the boy on the
other side of the fire shared it.

"It seems to me, Sol," said Henry presently, "that we've been selected for
work of a certain kind. We finish one job, and then another on the same
line begins."

"Mebbe it's because we like to do it, an' are fit fur it," said Sol
philosophically. "I've noticed that a river gen'ally runs in a bed that
suits it. I don't know whether the bed is thar because the river is, or
the river is thar 'cause the bed is, but it's shore that they're both thar
together, an' you can't git aroun' that."

"There's something in what you say," said Henry.

Then they relapsed into silence, and, in a half hour, as if by mutual
consent, they rose, left the fire burning, and departed, still walking
steadily toward the south.

The country grew rougher. The hills were higher and closer together, and
the undergrowth became thick. Neither took any precautions as they passed
among the slender bushes, frequently trampling them down and leaving signs
that the blindest could not fail to see. Now and then the two looked back,
but