"No, you lead, Sol. I've been on a big strain, an' I'd like to follow for a while." "O' course you would, you poor little peaked thing. I ought to hev thought o' that when I spoke. Never out in the woods afore by hisself an' nigh scared to death by the trees an' the dark. But jest you come on. I'll lead you an' I won't let no squirrel or rabbit hurt you neither." Henry laughed. The humor and unction of the shiftless one always amused him. "Go ahead, Sol," he said, "and I'll promise to keep close behind you, where nothing will harm me." Thus they set off, Sol in front and Henry five feet away, treading in his footsteps. "There wuz a time when I'd hev been afraid o' the dark," said Shif'less Sol, whose conversational powers were great. "You've been to the Big Bone Lick, an' so hev I, an' we've seen the bones o' the monsters that roamed the earth afore the flood, a long time afore. I wouldn't hev believed that such critters ever tramped around our globe ef I hadn't seen their bones. I come acrost a little salt lick last night--we may see it in passin' afore mornin'--but thar wuz big bones 'roun' it too. I measured myself by 'em an' geewhillikins, Henry, what critters them wuz! Ef I'd been caught out o' my cave after night an' one o' them things got after me I'd hev been so skeered that I'd hev dropped my stone club 'cause my hands trembled so, my teeth would hev rattled together in reg'lar tunes, an' I'd hev run so fast that I'd only hev touched the tops o' the hills, skippin' all the low ones too, an' by the time I reached the mouth o' my cave, I'd be goin' so swift that I'd run clear out o' my clothes, leavin' 'em fur the monster to trample on an' then chaw up, me all the while settin' inside the cave safe, but tremblin' all over, an' with no appetite. Them shore wuz lively times fur our race, Henry, an' I guess we did a pow'ful lot o' runnin' an' hidin'." "It was certainly time to run, Sol, when a tiger eight feet high and fifteen feet long got after you, or a mammoth or a mastodon twenty feet high and fifty feet long was feeling around in the bushes for you with a trunk that could pick you up and throw you a mile." "Henry, ef we wuzn't in a hurry I'd stop here an' give thanks." "What for?" "'Cause I didn't live in them times, when the beast wuz bigger an' mightier than the man. I guess stone caves that run back into mountains 'bout a mile wuz the most pop'lar an' high-priced. Guess those boys an' gals didn't go out much an' dance on the green, ez they do back East. I'd a heap ruther hunt the buff'ler than that fifteen foot tiger o' yours, Henry." "So had I, Sol. If those beasts were living nowadays we wouldn't be roaming through the forest as we are now. We have only the Indians to fear." "An' thar's a lot about them to be afeard of at times, ez you an' me know, Henry." "If we keep on this curve, Sol, about what time do you think we ought to reach the boys?"