"The jedgment o' our leader is so sound that thar ain't nothin' more to say," quoth the shiftless one.
"Let's go," said Silent Tom.
Then the little band, five against a thousand, rifles against cannon, that had victoriously held the ford, stole away with soundless tread through the greenwood. But they did not travel southward long. When darkness came they turned toward the east, and traveling many miles, made camp as they had done once before on a little island in a swamp, which they reached by walking on the dead and fallen trees of many years. There when they sat down under the trees they could not refrain from a few words of triumph and mutual congratulation, because another and most important link in the chain had been forged with brilliant success.
"Although it's dark and it's seven or eight miles away," said Shif'less Sol, "I kin see that Indian army now, a-settin' before the ford, an' wonderin' how it's goin' to git across."
"An' I kin hear that savage army now, movin' up an' down, restless like," said Long Jim. "I kin hear them redcoat officers, an' them renegades, an' them Injun chiefs, grindin' thar upper teeth an' thar lower teeth together so hard with anger that they won't be able to eat in the mornin'."
"And I can see their wrath and chagrin tomorrow, when their scouts tell them no enemy is there," said Paul. "I can tell now how the white leaders and the red leaders will rage, and how they will wonder who the men were that held them."
"And I can read their minds ahead," said Henry. "The five of us will become not a hundred, but two hundred, and every pair of our hands will carry forty rifles."
"We've fooled 'em well," said Silent Tom, tersely.
"And now to sleep," said Henry, "because we must begin again in the morning."
Soon the five slept the deep sleep that comes after success.