ame
thing many a time."

"I'll _bet_ I never did," said Billy Bowlegs.

"Yes you have, Billy, but you did it without thinking about it."

"When?"

"Whenever you have shot a rifle at anything."

"How?"

"By taking aim. You look through one sight over the other and at the
game, and you know then that you've got it in a line with your eye
and the sights. I've only been turning the thing around, and nobody
taught me how. You've only got to _use_ your eyes and your head to
make them worth ten times as much to you as they are now."

"Seems to me," said Sid Russell, "as if your head 'n eyes, or least
ways your head is a mighty oncommon good one."

"You're right dah, Mas' Sid," said Black Joe; "you're right for
sartain. I'se dun see Mas' Sam do some mighty cur'ous things, I is. He
dun make a fire wid water once, sho's you're born. 'Sides dat, I'se
dun heah de gentlemen say's how he's got a head more 'n a yard long,
and I'm blest if I don't b'lieve it's so."

All this was said at a little distance from Sam and beyond his
hearing, but he knew very well in what estimation his companions held
him, and he was anxious to impress them, not with his own superiority,
but with the fact that the difference was due chiefly to his habit of
thinking and observing. He wanted them to improve by association with
him, and to that end he took pains to show them the advantage which a
habit of observing everything and thinking about it gives its
possessor. For this reason he took pains to make no display of his
knowledge of Latin or of anything else which they had no chance to
learn. He wanted them to learn to use their eyes, their ears and their
heads, knowing very well that the greater as well as the better part
of education comes by observation and thinking, rather than from
books.

Just now he was striding forward as rapidly as he could, as it was
beginning to rain.

"Keep your eye on the hind sight boys, and don't lose it," he cried;
"we must hurry or we shall be caught in a pocket to-night."

Hour after hour they marched, the rain pouring down steadily, and the
ground becoming every moment softer. The walking wearied them
terribly, but they pushed on in the hope that they might be able to
cross the upper waters of the Nepalgah river before night. This would
place them on the west bank of that stream, where Sam believed that he
should find the marching tolerable. If they should fail in this, Sam
feared that the water would ris