Every one of the five carried with him that necessary implement in the wilderness, a bullet mold, and they began the task immediately, all save Henry, who went outside, despite the fierce rain, and scouted a bit among the bushes and trees. The four made bullets fast, melting the lead in a ladle that Jim carried, pouring it into the molds, and then dropping the shining and deadly pellets one by one into their pouches. Three of them talked as they worked, but Silent Tom did not speak for a full hour. Then he said: "We'll have five hundred apiece." Shif'less Sol looked at him reprovingly. "Tom," he said, "I predicted a while ago that the time wuz soon comin' when you'd talk us to death. You used five words then, when you know your 'lowance is only one an hour." Tom Ross flushed under his tan. He hated, above all things, to be garrulous. "Sorry," he muttered, and continued his work with renewed energy and speed. The bullets seemed to drop in a shining stream from his mold into his pouch. But Shif'less Sol talked without ceasing, his pleasant chatter encouraging them, as music cheers troops for battle. "It ain't right fur me to hev to work this way," he said, "me sich a lazy man. I ought to lay over thar on a blanket, an' go to sleep while Jim does my share ez well ez his own." "When I'm doin' your share, Sol Hyde," said Long Jim, "you'll be dead. Not till then will I ever tech a finger to your work. You are a lazy man, ez you say, an' fur sev'ral years now I've been tryin' to cure you uv it, but I ain't made no progress that I kin see." "I don't want you to make progress, Jim. I like to be lazy, an' jest now I feel pow'ful fine, fed well, an' layin' here, wrapped in a blanket before a good warm fire." Henry went back to the cleft, and took another long look. The conditions had not changed, save that night was coming and the wilderness was chill and hostile. The wind blew with a steady shrieking sound, and the driving rain struck like sleet. Leaves fell before it, and in every depression of the earth the water stood in pools. Over this desolate scene the faint sun was sinking and the twilight, colder and more solemn than the day, was creeping. He looked at the wet forest and the coming dusk, and then back at the dry hollow and the warm fire behind him. The contrast was powerful, but only one choice was left to them. "Boys," he said, "we'll have to make the most of tonight." "Because we must leave our home in the morning?" said Paul. "Yes, that's it. We'll have to take to the woods, no matter how hard it is. Chance doesn't favor us this time. I fancy the band led by Braxton Wyatt will make straight for our house here." "Since it's the last dry bed I'll have fur some time I'm goin' to sleep," said Shif'less Sol plaintively. "Everybody pesters a lazy man, an' I mean to use the little time I hev."