houlder.

A great stag sprang up from the forest and stood for a few moments,
gazing at him with expanding and startled eyes. Henry standing quite
still returned the look, seeking to read the expression in the eyes of
the deer.

Thus they confronted each other a half minute and then the stag turning
fled through the woods. There was no undergrowth, and Henry for a long
time watched the form of the deer fleeing down the rows of trees, as it
became smaller and smaller and then disappeared.

All the forest glowed red in the setting sun when he returned home.

"Where is the deer?" asked his father.

"Why--why I forgot it!" said Henry in confused reply.

Mr. Ware merely smiled.

CHAPTER VII

THE GIANT BONES

About this time many people in Wareville, particularly the women and
children began to complain of physical ills, notably lassitude and a
lack of appetite; their food, which consisted largely of the game
swarming all around the forest, had lost its savor. There was no mystery
about it; Tom Ross, Mr. Ware and others promptly named the cause; they
needed salt, which to the settlers of Kentucky was almost as precious as
gold; it was obtained in two ways, either by bringing it hundreds of
miles over the mountains from Virginia in wagons or on pack horses, or
by boiling it out at the salt springs in the Indian-haunted woods.

They had neither the time nor the men for the long journey to Virginia,
and they prepared at once for obtaining it at the springs. They had
already used a small salt spring but the supply was inadequate, and they
decided to go a considerable distance northward to the famous Big Bone
Lick. Nothing had been heard in a long time of Indian war parties south
of the Ohio, and they believed they would incur no danger. Moreover they
could bring back salt to last more than a year.

When they first heard of the proposed journey, Paul Cotter pulled Henry
to one side. They were just outside the palisade, and it was a beautiful
day, in early spring. Already kindly nature was smoothing over the cruel
scars made by the axes in the forest, and the village within the
palisade began to have the comfortable look of home.

"Do you know what the Big Bone Lick is, Henry?" asked Paul eagerly.

"No," replied Henry, wondering at his chum's excitement.

"Why it's the most wonderful place in all the world!" said Paul, jumping
up and down in his wish to tell quickly. "There was a hunter here last
winter who