back, Solomon had left the trail and cautioned Jack to keep close and step softly.  Soon the old scout stopped, and listened and put his ear to the ground.  He rose and beckoned to Jack and the two turned aside and made their way stealthily up the slant of a ledge.  In the edge of a little thicket on a mossy rock shelf they sat down.  Solomon looked serious.  There were deep furrows in the skin above his brow.

When he was excited in the bush he had the habit of swallowing and the process made a small, creaky sound in his throat.  This Jack observed then and at other times.  Solomon was peering down through the bushes toward the west, now and then moving his head a little.  Jack looked in the same direction and presently saw a move in the bushes below, but nothing more.  After a few minutes Solomon turned and whispered: 

“Four Injun braves jist went by.  Mebbe they’re scoutin’ fer a big band—­mebbe not.  If so, the crowd is up the trail.  If they’re comin’ by, it’ll be ’fore dark.  We’ll stop in this ’ere tavern.  They’s a cave on t’other side o’ the ledge as big as a small house.”

They watched until the sun had set.  Then Solomon led Jack to the cave, in which their packs were deposited.

From the cave’s entrance they looked upon the undulating green roof of the forest dipping down into a deep valley, cut by the smooth surface of a broad river with mirrored shores, and lifting to the summit of a distant mountain range.  Its blue peaks rose into the glow of the sunset.

“Yonder is the great stairway of Heaven!” Jack exclaimed.

“I’ve put up in this ‘ere ol’ tavern many a night,” said Solomon.  “Do ye see its sign?”

He pointed to a great dead pine that stood a little below it, towering with stark, outreaching limbs more than a hundred and fifty feet into the air.

“I call it The Dead Pine Tavern,” Solomon remarked.

“On the road to Paradise,” said Jack as he gazed down the valley, his hands shading his eyes.

“Wisht we could have a nice hot supper, but ’twon’t do to build no fire.  Nothin’ but cold vittles!  I’ll go down with the pot to a spring an’ git some water.  You dig fer our supper in that pack o’ mine an’ spread it out here.  I’m hungry.”

They ate their bread and dried meat moistened with spring water, picked some balsam boughs and covered a corner of the mossy floor with them.  When the rock chamber was filled with their fragrance, Jack said: 

“If my dream comes true and Margaret and I are married, I shall bring her here.  I want her to see The Dead Pine Tavern and its outlook.”

“Ayes, sir, when ye’re married safe,” Solomon answered.  “We’ll come up here fust summer an’ fish, an’ hunt, an’ I’ll run the tavern an’ do the cookin’ an’ sweep the floor an’ make the beds!”

“I’m a little discouraged,” said Jack.  “This war may last for years.”

“Keep up on high ground er ye’ll git mired down,” Solomon answered.  “Ain’t nuther on ye very old yit, an’ fust ye know these troubles ’ll be over an’ done.”