"That's a plum' foolish question fur you to ask, Jim Hart," said Shif'less Sol disdainfully. "Great scholars like me an' Paul always draw maps. What does it matter ef you don't git anywhar? Thar's your map, anyhow."
"Sh!" whispered Tom Ross. "He's comin' back, havin' diskivered that thar's nothin' in the bushes. Now what'll he do?"
Paul, his mind relieved, returned to the glade, put back his rifle on the grass, and looked for the precious map that was costing him so much time and thought. It was not there, and great was the boy's amazement. He had certainly laid it down at that very spot, and he had not been gone a minute. He looked all around, and even up into the air, and the four in the brush were forced to smile at his puzzled face.
Paul stood staring at the place where his precious map had lain, but where it lay no more, and his amazement deepened. They admired Paul and had a deep affection for him, but they thought that their little joke might keep him nearer to the earth when he was in a dangerous Indian country.
"Mebbe he thinks Alfred the Great an' his Mogul Tartars hev come an' took it away," whispered Shif'less Sol.
Then Paul held up his hand.
"Feelin' o' the wind," said Shif'less Sol. "He hez now come to the conclusion that the wind took his map away, and so he thinks ef he kin find out which way it's blowin' he kin find out which way the map hez blowed, too."
Paul concluded that the light wind was blowing toward the east, and going in that direction he began to search for his map among the bushes that enclosed the glade. The moment his figure was hidden Henry whispered to the others:
"Come on!"
They came silently from the thicket, ran to the center of the glade, where Henry, kneeling down, spread out the map on the ground and began to examine it with the greatest attention. The others knelt beside him, and they also became absorbed in a study of the map. The four heads almost touched over the sheet of bark.