to life in
the wilderness amid perpetual hardships, and when they gave the great
dinner at Mr. Ware's to celebrate the return of the wanderers he reached
the height of human bliss. Both Ross and Shif'less Sol were present and
with them, too, were Silas Pennypacker who could preach upon occasion
for the settlement and did it, now and then, and John Upton, who next to
Mr. Ware was the most notable man in Wareville, and his daughter Lucy,
now a shy, pretty girl of twelve, and more than twenty others. Even
Braxton Wyatt was among the members although he still sneered at Henry.

Theirs was in very truth a table fit for a king. In fact few kings could
duplicate it, without sending to the uttermost parts of the earth, and
perhaps not then. Meat was its staple. They had wild duck, wild goose,
wild turkey, deer, elk, beaver tail, and a half dozen kinds of fish; but
the great delicacy was buffalo hump cooked in a peculiar way--that is,
served up in the hide of a buffalo from which the hair had been singed
off, and baked in an earthen oven. Ross, who had learned it from the
Indians, showed them how to do this, and they agreed that none of them
had ever before tasted so fine a dish. When the dinner was over, Henry
and Paul had to answer many questions about their wanderings, and they
were quite willing to do so, feeling at the moment a due sense of their
own importance.

A shade passed over the faces of some of the men at the mention of the
Indians, whom Henry and Paul had seen, but Ross agreed with Henry that
they were surely of the South, going home from a hunting trip, and so
they were soon forgotten.

Henry's work after their return included an occasional hunting
excursion, as game was always needed. His love of the wilderness did not
decrease when thus he ranged through it and began to understand its
ways. Familiarity did not breed contempt. The magnificent spaces and
mighty silence appealed to him with increasing force. The columns of the
trees were like cathedral aisles and the pure breath of the wind was
fresh with life.

The first part of the autumn was hot and dry. The foliage died fast, the
leaves twisted and dried up and the brown grass stems fell lifeless to
the earth. A long time they were without rain, and a dull haze of heat
hung over the simmering earth. The river shrank in its bed, and the
brooks became rills.

Henry still hunted with his older comrades, though often at night now,
and he saw the forest in a