“I was away up in the Miami country, huntin’ buffalo, when the word came to me, Sol, but I quit on the 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.