Chapter XI. A Sudden Meeting - Page 2

haven't," replied Jim Hart sardonically.

"You lack appreciation, Jim," said Paul. "Besides, your imagination is deficient. Why don't you look at this hut of ours and imagine that it is a magnificent stone castle?"

Jim Hart gazed wonderingly at the boy.

"Paul," he said, "you always wuz a puzzle to me. I can't see no magnificent stone castle--jest a bark an' brush hut."

Paul shook his head reprovingly.

"I am sorry for you, Jim," he said. "I not only see a magnificent stone castle, but I see a splendid town over there on the mainland."

"You talk plumb foolish, Paul," said Jim Hart.

"They are all coming," said Paul.

But Jim Hart continued to see only the bark and brush hut on the island, and the vast and unbroken wilderness on the mainland. His eyes roved back, from the mainland to the hut.

"Now, ef I had an ax an' a saw," he said regretfully, "I could make that look like somethin'. I'm a good cook, ef I do say it, Paul, but I'd like to be a fust-class carpenter. Thar ain't no chance, though, out here, whar thar ain't nothin' much but cabins, an' every man builds his own hisself."

"Never mind, Jim," said Paul, "your time will come; and if it doesn't come to you, it will come to your sons."

"Paul, you're talkin' foolisher than ever," said Jim indignantly. "You know that I ain't a married man, an' that I ain't got no sons."

Paul only smiled. Again he was dreaming, looking far into the future.

The spire of smoke was still on the horizon line when the twilight came, but the next morning it was gone, and they did not see it again. Several days more passed in peace and contentment, and, desiring to secure more game, Paul and Hart took out the canoe one evening and rowed to the mainland.

They watched a while about the mouth of the brook, the favorite drinking place of the wild animals, but they saw nothing. It seemed likely to Paul that a warning had been sent to all the tenants of the forest not to drink there any more, as it was a dangerous place, and he expressed a desire to go farther into the forest.

"All right, Paul," said Jim Hart, "but you kain't be too keerful. Don't git lost out thar in the woods, an' don't furgit your way back to this spot. I'll wait right here in the boat and watch fur a deer. One may come yet."

Paul took his rifle and entered the woods. It was his idea that he might find game farther up the little stream, and he followed its course, taking care to make no noise. It was a fine moonlight night, and, keeping well within the shadow of the trees, he carefully watched the brook. He was so much absorbed in his task that he forgot the passage of time, and did not notice how far he had gone.