The Free Rangers | Page 5

minute an' started."
"I was shore you would," said the shiftless one quietly. "Buffaloes are big game, but we're huntin' bigger now."
"I was never in this part of the country before," said Tom Ross, looking around curiously at the ghostly tree trunks.
"I've been through here," said Henry, "and it runs on in the same way for hundreds of miles in every direction."
"Bigger an' finer than any o' them old empires that Paul used to tell us about," said Shif'less Sol.
"Yes," said Henry.
The three looked at one another significantly.
They wrapped themselves in their blankets by and by, and went to sleep on the soft turf. Henry was the first to awake, just when the dawn was turning from pink to red, and a single glance revealed to him an object on the horizon that had not been there the night before. A man stood on the crest of a low hill, and even at the distance, Henry recognized him. His comrades were awaking and he turned to them.
"See!" he said, pointing with a long forefinger.
Their eyes followed, and they too recognized the man.
"He'll be here in a minute," said Shif'less Sol. "He jest eats up space."
He spoke the truth, as it seemed scarcely a minute before Long Jim Hart entered the camp, showing no sign of fatigue. The three welcomed him and gave him a place at their breakfast fire.
"I wuz at Marlowe," he said, "when the word reached me, but I started just an hour later. I struck your trail, Sol, two days back, an' I traveled nearly all last night. I saw Henry join you an' then Tom."
Shif'less Sol laughed. He had a soft, mellow laugh that crinkled up the corners of his mouth, and made his eyes shine. There was no doubt that a man who laughed such a laugh was enjoying himself.
"I reckon you didn't have much trouble follerin' that trail o' ourn," he said.
Jim Hart answered the laugh with a grin.
"Not much," he replied. "It was like a wagon road through the wilderness. The ashes uv your last camp fire weren't sca'cely cold when I passed by."
"We're all here 'cept the fifth feller," said Tom Ross.
"The fifth will come," said Henry emphatically.
"Uv course," said Tom Ross with equal emphasis.
"And when he comes," said Shif'less Sol, "we take right hold o' the big job."
They lingered awhile over their breakfast, but saw no one approaching. Then they took up the march again, going steadily southward in single file, talking little, but leaving a distinct trail. They were only four, but they were a formidable party, all strong of arm, keen of eye and ear, skilled in the lore of the forest, and every one bore the best weapons that the time could furnish.
Toward noon the day grew very warm and clouds gathered in the sky. The wind became damp.
"Rain," said Henry. "I'm sorry of that. I wish it wouldn't break before he overtook us."
"S'pose we stop an' make ready," said Shif'less Sol. "You know we ain't bound to be in a big hurry, an' it won't help any o' us to get a soakin'."
"You're shorely right, Sol," said Jim Hart. "We're bound to take the best uv care uv ourselves."
They looked around with expert eyes, and quickly chose a stony outcrop or hollow in the side of a hill, just above which grew two gigantic beeches very close together. Then it was wonderful to see them work, so swift and skillful were they. They cut small saplings with their hatchets, and, with the little poles and fallen bark of last year, made a rude thatch which helped out the thick branches of the beeches overhead. They also built up the sides of the hollow with the same materials, and the whole was done in less than ten minutes. Then they raked in heaps of dead leaves and sat down upon them comfortably. Many drops of water would come through the leaves and thatch, but such as they, hardened to the wilderness, would not notice them.
Meanwhile the storm was gathering with the rapidity so frequent in the great valley. All the little clouds swung together and made a big one that covered nearly the whole sky. The air darkened rapidly. Thunder began to growl and mutter and now and then emitted a sharp crash. Lightning cut the heavens from zenith to horizon, and the forest would leap into the light, standing there a moment, vivid, like tracery.
A blaze more brilliant than all the rest cleft wide the sky and, as they looked toward the North, they saw directly in the middle of the flame a black dot that had not been there before.
"He's coming," said Henry in the quiet tone that indicated nothing more than a certainty fulfilled.
"Just in time to take a seat in our house," said the shiftless