man like me is always willin' to go to sleep. You kin hev my
watch, Tom, every night fur the next five years."

He ranged himself against the wall, and in three minutes was
sound asleep. Henry and Paul found room in the line, and they,
too, soon slept. Tom sat at the door, one of the captured rifles
across his knees, and watched the forest and the swamp. He saw
the last flare of the distant lightning, and he listened to the
falling of the rain drops until they vanished with the vanishing
wind, leaving the forest still and without noise.

Tom was several years older than any of the others, and, although
powerful in action, be was singularly chary of speech. Henry was
the leader, but somehow Tom looked upon himself as a watcher over
the other four, a sort of elder brother. As the moon came out a
little in the wake of the retreating clouds, he regarded them
affectionately.

"One, two, three, four, five," he murmured to himself. "We're
all here, an' Henry come fur us. That is shorely the greatest
boy the world hez ever seed. Them fellers Alexander an' Hannibal
that Paul talks about couldn't hev been knee high to Henry.
Besides, ef them old Greeks an' Romans hed hed to fight Wyandots
an' Shawnees an' Iroquois ez we've done, whar'd they hev been?"

Tom Ross uttered a contemptuous little sniff, and on the edge of
that sniff Alexander and Hannibal were wafted into oblivion.
Then he went outside and walked about the islet, appreciating for
the tenth time what a wonderful little refuge it was. He was
about to return to the hut when he saw a dozen dark blots along