ways are mean, but I could hobnob right along
with a jolly, fat black bear."

"Yes," said Paul, looking dreamily far into the future. "It's a pity they
have to go."

"Hev to go, what do you mean, Paul?" interrupted Long Jim Hart, as he
cracked a joint or two.

"Why," replied Paul, "all this country will be settled up some day, and
how can bears and panthers and buffaloes roam wild on farms?"

Long Jim looked at him with eyes slowly widening in wonder.

"Paul," he exclaimed, "you do say the beatinest things sometimes! Now what
do you mean by sayin' that all this country will be settled up? Why, thar
ain't enough people in the world fur that, an' thar won't never be."

"Yes there will be, Jim," said Paul decisively, "although it will not
occur in your time."

"Not if I lived to be a hundred years old, Paul, or mebbe a hundred an'
twenty, 'cause I'm a pow'ful healthy man?"

"No, not if you lived to be a hundred and twenty."

Long Jim heaved a deep sigh of relief--he had the true soul of the
woodsman.

"That's mighty relievin' an' soothin'," he said. "Think uv havin' to walk
every day through cleared ground! Think uv lookin' every day fur a
bee-yu-ti-ful sky only to see cabin-smoke! Think uv drawin' your sights on
what you fust take to be a fine buffalo, an' then find out is only your
neighbor's old cow! Think uv your goin' off to a river to trap beaver, an'
findin' nothin' thar but a saw-mill! Think uv your havin' to meet mornin'
an' evenin' all kinds uv people that you don't care nothin' about! Think
uv your goin' out on a great huntin' expedition only to find all them
noble trees cut down a thousan' miles every way, an' nothin' wanderin'
around thar but old lame horses an' gruntin' pigs! I'm plum' thankful that
I'm livin' at the time I do, when thar's lots uv countries you don't know
nothin' about, an' lots uv fun guessin' what they are, an' mostly guessin'
wrong. An' I'm glad too that I didn't live in them old days that Sol tells
about, when people had to build walls around theirselves in towns, an' wuz
afraid to go out in the woods an' hunt bear an' buffalo like men!"

Jim Hart, after this speech, so long for him, stopped for want of breath,
and Shif'less Sol, regarding him with a look of deep sympathy, held out a
brown and sinewy hand.

"Jim Hart," he said, "shake. I'll be proud to hev you do it. You ain't no
beauty, Jim, an' somehow you an' me are kinder disputatious now an' then,
but you are lettin' fl