"Sol, do you think that we can find Tom Ross?"
"Ef he's alive, we kin. We jest got to."
"I knew that would be your answer. Do you think you will be strong enough to start in the morning?"
"I've been weak, Henry, but I'm gainin' now mighty fast. I didn't suffer much 'cept loss o' blood, an' me bein' so healthy, I'm making gallons o' new first-class blood every day. Yes, Henry, I think I kin start after Tom to-morrow mornin'."
"Then we'll find him if he's alive, but we'll spend the time until then in quiet here."
"'Ceptin' that I'm boun' to cook my turkey to-night."
Henry presently climbed to the top of the bank, a distance of eight or ten feet above the hollow, but precipitous. It was probably this steepness that had prevented any large wild animal from using the place as a lair. It would also make attack by Indians, should any come, extremely difficult, but Henry did not anticipate any danger from them now, as their attention was centered on the fort and the fleet.
Shif'less Sol followed him up the cliff, and when they stood on the hill Henry noticed again the thinness of his comrade. But the color was returning to his cheeks, and his eye had regained the alert, jaunty look of old. Henry calculated that in a week Shif'less Sol would be nearly as strong as ever. The shiftless one saw his measuring look, and understood it.
"My time ez a fisherman is over," he said. "I'll be a hunter, an' explorer, an' fighter of warriors ag'in. But I think, Henry, we ought to remember the hollow, an' keep it ez one o' them places Paul calls inns. Ef we wuz ever 'roun' here ag'in, we might want to drop in an' rest a while."
Henry agreed with him, and examined the country for a distance of about a half mile. He did not see any evidence of warriors, but he knew they could not be far away and he returned to the hollow, where he and Shif'less Sol spent the rest of the day, each lying upon a bed of leaves and gazing through the screen of bushes toward the shimmering surface of the lake. Nor did they say much, only a word or two now and then.