y, because this unknown land was to be their home, but none
was more eager than Henry Ware, a strong boy of fifteen who stood in
front of the wagons beside the guide, Tom Ross, a tall, lean man the
color of well-tanned leather, who would never let his rifle go out of
his hand, and who had Henry's heartfelt admiration, because he knew so
much about the woods and wild animals, and told such strange and
absorbing tales of the great wilderness that now lay before them.

But any close observer who noted Henry Ware would always have looked at
him a second time. He was tall and muscled beyond his years, and when he
walked his figure showed a certain litheness and power like that of the
forest bred. His gaze was rapid, penetrating and inclusive, but never
furtive. He seemed to fit into the picture of the wilderness, as if he
had taken a space reserved there for him, and had put himself in
complete harmony with all its details.

The long journey from their old home in Maryland had been a source of
unending variety and delight to Henry. There had been no painful
partings. His mother and his brother and young sister were in the fourth
wagon from the right, and his father stood beside it. Farther on in the
same company were his uncles and aunts, and many of the old neighbors.
All had come together. It was really the removal of a village from an
old land to a new one, and with the familiar faces of kindred and
friends around them, they were not lonely in strange regions, though
mountains frowned and dark forests lowered.

It was to Henry a return rather than a removal. He almost fancied that
in some far-off age he had seen all these things before. The forests and
the mountains beckoned in friendly fashion; they had no terrors, for
even their secrets lay open before him. He seemed to breathe a newer and
keener air than that of the old land left behind, and his mind expanded
with the thought of fresh pleasures to come. The veteran guide, Ross,
alone observed how the boy learned, through intuition, ways of the
wilderness that others achieved only by hard experience.

They had met fair weather, an important item in such a journey, and
there had been no illness, beyond trifling ailments quickly cured. As
they traveled slowly and at their ease, it took them a long time to pass
through the settled regions. This part of the journey did not interest
Henry so much. He was eager for the forests and the great wilderness
where his fancy had a