"No, they didn't. They might have done it, but they lost their cannon."
"Lost 'em! How could that happen?"
"The boat carrying them was blown up, and the cannon with it."
The shiftless one looked at Henry, and the boy grew uncomfortable, blushing through his tan. Shif'less Sol laughed.
"Ef them cannon wuz blowed up—an' they shorely wuz ef you say so," he said, "it's mighty likely that you, Henry Ware, had a lot to do with it. Now, don't be bashful. Jest up an' tell me the hull tale, or I'll drag it out o' you."
Henry, reluctantly and minimizing his part as much as he could, told the story of the blowing up of the flatboat and the cannon. Shif'less Sol was hugely delighted.
"Them shore wuz lively doin's," he said. "Wish I'd been thar. I'll always be sorry I missed it. An' at the last you wuz saved by Dan'l Boone an' Simon Kenton. Them are shorely great men, Henry. I ain't ever heard o' any that could beat 'em, not even in Paul's tales. I reckin Dan'l Boone and Simon Kenton kin do things that them Carthaginians, Alexander an' Hannibal an' Cæsar an' Charley-mane, couldn't even get started on."
"They certainly know some things that those men didn't."
"More'n some. They know a pow'ful lot more. I reckon, Henry, that Dan'l Boone is the greatest man the world has yet seed."
Henry said nothing. The shiftless one's simple admiration and faith appealed to him. They rested a while longer, and then Henry asked: