"By agreement I'm the leader, and I've chosen this duty for myself," said Henry firmly. "Thar are times when I don't like you a-tall, a-tall, Henry," said Shif'less Sol plaintively. "You're always pickin' out the good risky adventures fur yourse'f. Ef thar's any fine, lively thing that will make a feller's ha'r stan' up straight on end an' the chills chase one another up an' down his back, you're sure to grab it off, an' say it wuz jest intended fur you. That ain't the right way to treat the rest o' us nohow." "No, it ain't," grumbled Silent Tom, but Shif'less Sol turned fiercely on him. "Beginnin' to talk us to death ag'in, are you, Tom Ross?" he exclaimed. "Runnin' on forever with that garrylous tongue o' yourn! You jest let me have this out with Henry!" Again Tom Ross blushed in the darkness and under the tan. A terrible fear seized him that he had indeed grown garrulous, a man of many and empty words. It was all right for Shif'less Sol to talk on forever, because the words flowed from his lips in a liquid stream, like water coursing down a smooth channel, but it did not become Tom Ross, from whom sentences were wrenched as one would extract a tooth. Paul laughed softly but with intense enjoyment. "When I die, seventy or eighty years from now," he said, "and go to Heaven, I expect, when I pass through the golden gates, to hear a steady and loud but pleasant buzz. It will go on and on, without ceasing. Maybe it will be the droning of bees, but it won't be. Maybe it will be the roar of water over a fall, but it won't be. Maybe it will be a strong wind among the boughs, but it won't be. Oh, no, it will be none of those things. It will be one Solomon Hyde, formerly of Kentucky, and they'll tell me that his tongue has never stopped since he came to Heaven ten years before, and off in one corner there'll be a silent individual, Tom Ross, who entered Heaven at the same time. And they'll say that in all the ten years he has spoken only once and that was when he passed the gates, looked all around and said: 'Good, but not much better than the Ohio Country.'" Both Shif'less Sol and Silent Tom grinned, but the discussion was not pursued, as Henry announced that he was about to leave them in order to enter the Indian ring, and make Wyatt and the warriors think the rocky hollow was defended. "The rest of you would better stay in the canebrakes or the thickets," he said. "We won't go so fur away that we can't hear any signal you may make," said Long Jim Hart. "Give us the cry uv the wolf. Thar are lots uv wolves in these woods, Injun an' other kinds, but we know yourn from the rest, Henry." "And don't take too big risks," said Paul.