They were on the slope of the last hill, sitting under the foliage of an oak, and before them lay a wide valley, in which the trees, mostly oaks, were scattered as if they grew in a great park. But the grass everywhere was thick and tall, and down the center flowed a swift creek which in the moonlight looked like molten silver. The uncommon brightness of the night, with its gorgeous clusters of stars, disclosed the full beauty of the valley, and the two fugitives who were fugitives no longer felt it intensely. Henry was an educated youth of an educated stock, and Shif'less Sol, the forest runner, was born with a love and admiration in his soul of Nature in all its aspects. "Don't it look fine, Henry?" said the shiftless one. "Ef I hed to sleep in a house all the time, which, thanks be, I don't hev to do, I'd build me a cabin right here in this little valley. Ain't it jest the nicest place you ever saw? Unless I've mistook my guess, that's a lot o' buff'ler lyin' down in the grass in front o' us." "Eight of 'em. I can count 'em," said Henry, "but they're safe from us." "I wouldn't fire on 'em, not even ef thar wuzn't a warrior within a hundred miles o' us. I don't feel like shootin' at anythin' jest now, Henry." "It's the valley that makes you feel so peaceful. It has the same effect on me." "I think I kin see wild flowers down thar bloomin' among the bushes, an' ain't that grass an' them trees fine? an' that is shorely the best creek I've seen. Its water is so pure it looks like silver. I've a notion, Henry, that this wuz the Garden o' Eden." "That's an odd idea of yours, Sol. How can you prove it's so?" "An' how can you prove it ain't so? An' so we're back whar we started. Besides, I kin pile up evidence. All along the edge o' the valley are briers an' vines, on which the berries growed. Then too thar are lots o' grapevines on the trees ez you kin see, an' thar are your grapes. An' up toward the end are lots o' hick'ry an' walnut trees an' thar are your nuts, an' ef Adam an' Eve wuz hard-pushed, they could ketch plenty o' fine fish in that creek which I kin see is deep. In the winter they could hev made themselves a cabin easy, up thar whar the trees are thick. An' the whole place in the spring is full o' wild flowers, which Eve must hev stuck her hair full of to please Adam. The more I think o' it, Henry, the shorer I am that this wuz the Garden." The shiftless one's face was rapt and serious. In the burnished silver of the moonlight the little valley had a beauty, dreamlike in its quality. In that land so truly named the Dark and Bloody Ground it seemed the abode of unbroken peace.