ess I'm in love more with the big woods than ever. Thar things is
what they is. A buffaler don't pretend to be a b'ar. He'd be ashamed to be
caught tryin' to play sech a trick, an' a b'ar has the same respect fur
hisself; he'd never dream uv sayin' in his b'ar language, 'Look at me,
admire me, see what a fine big buffaler I am!' An' I've a lot uv respeck
fur the Injun, too. He's an Injun an' he don't say he ain't. He don't come
sneakin' along claimin' that he's an old friend uv the family, he jest up
an' lets drive his tomahawk at your head, ef he gits the chance, an' makes
no bones 'bout it. I'd a heap ruther be killed by a good honest Injun who
wuz pantin' fur my blood an' didn't pretend that he wuzn't pantin', than
be done to death down here, in some cur'us, unbeknown, hole-in-the-dark
way, by a furrin' man who couldn't speak a real word of the decent English
language, but who wuz tryin' to let on all the time that he hated to do
it."

Long Jim stopped, breathing hard with his long speech and anger. Shif'less
Sol rose, walked across the room, and solemnly held out his hand to his
comrade.

"Jim," he said, "you don't often talk sense, but you're talkin' a heap o'
it now. Shake."

Long Jim shook and added with a grin:

"When me an' you agree, Sol, 'bout anythin', it's shorely right."

Then they fell silent for a while, each thinking in his own way of what
had occurred. Henry Ware walked to one of the windows and looked out for a
long while. He relished little the idea of being a prisoner for the second
time, even if the second imprisonment were a sort of courtesy affair. He
saw from the windows the roofs of houses amid green foliage and he knew
that only a few hundred yards beyond lay the great forest, which, now in
the freshest and tenderest tints of spring, rolled away unbroken, save for
the few scratches that the French or Spanish had made, for thousands of
miles, and for all he knew to the Arctic Circle itself.

The words of Long Jim stirred the youth deeply. He did not like intrigue
and double-dealing and the ways of foreign men. Like Long Jim he longed
for the great honest forest, and he, too, had his respect for the Indian
who would tomahawk him without claiming to be a friend. He was glad, very
glad, that he had come upon so great an errand, but he would like to
cleave through the whole web of intrigue with one sturdy blow and then be
off into the forest which was calling to him with such a dearly loved
v