"If I'd known that you were alive and uncaptured, Henry," he
said, " I'd never have given up hope. It was a wonderful thing
you did to start the chain that drew us all away."

"It's no more than Sol or Tom or any of you would have done,"
said Henry.

"We might have tried it," said Long Jim Hart, "but I ain't sure
that we'd have done it. Likely ez not, ef it had been left to me
my scalp would be dryin' somewhat in the breeze that fans a
Mohawk village. Say, Sol, how wuz it that you talked Onondaga
when you played the part uv that Onondaga runner. Didn't know
you knowed that kind uv Injun lingo."

Shif'less Sol drew himself up proudly, and then passed a
thoughtful hand once or twice across his forehead.

"Jim," he said, "I've told you often that Paul an' me hez the
instincts uv the eddicated. Learnin' always takes a mighty
strong hold on me. Ef I'd had the chance, I might be a
purfessor, or mebbe I'd be writin' poetry. I ain't told you
about it, but when I wuz a young boy, afore I moved with the
settlers, I wuz up in these parts an' I learned to talk Iroquois
a heap. I never thought it would be the use to me it hez been
now. Ain't it funny that sometimes when you put a thing away an'
it gits all covered with rust and mold, the time comes when that
same forgot little thing is the most vallyble article in the
world to you."

"Weren't you scared, Sol," persisted Paul, "to face a man like