Chapter V. Afloat - Page 2

The look of the river became more and more familiar. Paul still slept and Henry would not awaken him. He looked at the face of his comrade as he slumbered and noticed for the first time that it was thin and pale. The life in the woods had been hard upon Paul. Henry did not realize until this moment how very hard it had been. The sight of that smoke had not come too soon.

There was a shout from the bank followed by the crash of bodies among the undergrowth.

"Smoke me, but here they are a-floatin' down the river in their own boat, as comfortable as two lords!"

It was the voice of Shif'less Sol, and his face, side-by-side with that of Ross, the guide, appeared among the trees at the river's brink. Henry felt a great flush of joy when he saw them, and waved his hands. Paul, awakened by the shouts, was in a daze at first, but when he beheld old friends again his delight was intense.

Henry thrust a pole against the bottom and shoved the raft to the bank. Then he and Paul sprang ashore and shook hands again and again with Ross and Sol. Ross told of the long search for the two boys. He and Mr. Ware and Shif'less Sol and a half dozen others had never ceased to seek them. They feared at one time that they had been carried off by savages, but nowhere did they find Indian traces. Then their dread was of starvation or death by wild animals, and they had begun to lose hope.

Both Henry and Paul were deeply moved by the story of the grief at Wareville. They knew even without the telling that this sorrow had never been demonstrative. The mothers of the West were too much accustomed to great tragedies to cry out and wring their hands when a blow fell. Theirs was always a silent grief, but none the less deep.

Then, guided by Ross and the shiftless one, they proceeded to Wareville which was really at the bottom of the smoke spire, where they were received, as two risen from the dead, in a welcome that was not noisy, but deep and heartfelt. The cow, the original cause of the trouble, had wandered back home long ago.

"How did you live in the forest?" asked Mr. Ware of Henry, after the first joy of welcome was shown.

"It was hard at first, but we were beginning to learn," replied the boy. "If we'd only had our rifles 'twould have been no trouble. And father, the wilderness is splendid!"

The boy's thoughts wandered far away for a moment to the wild woods where he again lay in the shade of mighty oaks and saw the deer come down to drink. Mr. Ware noticed the expression on Henry's face and took reflection. "I must not let the yoke bear too heavy upon him," was his unspoken thought.

But Paul's joy was unalloyed; he preferred life at Wareville to life in the wilderness amid perpetual hardships, and when they gave the great dinner at Mr. Ware's to celebrate the return of the wanderers he reached the height of human