"Dead at thirty-two!" he said. "Now, I call him a plumb failure. With fightin' goin' on all the time, an' fevers layin' aroun' fur you, I call it somethin' jest to live, an' I mean to stay in these parts till I'm a hundred. Why, that Alexander never had time, Paul, to think over what he'd done. I wouldn't change places with him, I think I'm a heap sight better off."
"I agrees with Sol ag'in," said Tom Ross, who had been in deep thought. "In dang'rous times it's doin' a heap jest to live, an' a man who dies off at thirty-two, all through his own foolishness, ain't much to brag about."
Henry laughed.
"Paul," he said, "you'll have to bring out better examples of greatness to satisfy Sol and Tom."
Paul laughed, too.
"I just tell things as they are," he said. "Maybe they are right."
Henry went to the door and looked out. The air was full of raw chill, and he heard the leafless boughs rustling in the winter wind. All around him was the dark wilderness, and, natural hunter and warrior though he was, he was glad to have the shelter, the fire, and his comrades. He turned back and closed the door tightly, in order to shut out any stray gust that might be of an unusually penetrating quality.
"I'm thinking that we'd better start away hunting again very early in the morning," he said. "The big snows are bound to come soon. That first little one was only a taste of what we're going to get."
They were off again at daybreak, and this time Paul went with them. The party turned to the southward, in order to avoid the chance of meeting Shawnees or Miamis, and soon had the luck to run into a small buffalo herd. They killed only what they could carry, and then returned with it toward the island. Henry continually watched the skies as they traveled, and he uttered an exclamation of relief when they landed. The heavens all the while had been leaden and somber, and there was no wind stirring.
"See," he said, "the great snow comes!"