om wakin' you. We'd let 'em look at you, but we wouldn't
let 'em speak or breathe loud. You wuz sleepin' so purty that we could
not bear to hev you waked up."

Henry laughed.

"Quit making fun of me, Sol," he said, "and tell me what's happened
since I've been asleep."

"Nothin' much. The Indians are still retreatin' through the woods across
the Ohio an' Colonel Clark shows his good hoss sense by not follerin'
'em, ez some o' our hot heads want him to do. Wouldn't Timmendiquas like
to draw us into an ambush,--say in some valley in the thick o' the
forest with a couple o' thousand warriors behind the trees an' on the
ridges all aroun' us. Oh, wouldn't he? An' what would be left of us
after it wuz all over? I ask you that, Henry."

"Mighty little, I'm afraid."

"Next to nothin', I know. I tell you Henry our Colonel Clark is a real
gin'ral. He's the kind I like to foller, an' we ain't goin' to see no
sich sight ez the one we saw at Wyomin'."

"I'm sure we won't," said Henry. "Now have any of you slept to-day?"

"All o' us hev took naps, not long but mighty deep an' comfortin'. So
we're ready fur anythin' from a fight to a foot race, whichever 'pears
to be the better fur us."

"Where are Paul and Tom and Jim?"

"Cruisin' about in their restless, foolish way. I told 'em to sit right
down on the groun' and keep still an' enjoy theirselves while they
could, but my wise words wuz wasted. Henry, sometimes I think that only
lazy men like me hev good sense."

The missing three appeared a minute or two later and were received by
the shiftless one with the objurgations due to what he considered
misspent energy.

"I'm for a scout to-night," said Henry. "Are all of you with me?"

Three answered at once:

"Of course."

But Shif'less Sol groaned.

"Think o' going out after dark when you might lay here an' snooze
comf'ably," he said; "but sence you fellers are so foolish an'
headstrong you'll need some good sens'ble man to take keer o' you."

"Thank you, Sol," said Henry, with much gravity. "Now that we have your
reluctant consent we need only to ask Colonel Clark."

Colonel Clark had no objection. In fact, he would not question any act
of the five, whom he knew to be free lances of incomparable skill and
knowledge in the wilderness.

"You know better than I what to do," he said, smiling, "and as for you,
Mr. Ware, you have already done more than your share in this campaign."

They left shortly after dark. The uni