The yell was not repeated, but he intently watched the edge of the forest on all sides except the west. After a while he saw the faint figure of a man, scarcely a tracery, appear in the north, and then come skipping like a swift shadow across the flat. His heart did not rise merely, but took a sudden jump upward. It was the shiftless one returning to their lair, and doubtless in triumph. He had not time to think much about it before Shif'less Sol was on the oasis, crouched among the bushes, laughing low, but in a tone that was fairly redolent of triumph. "I done done it, Henry!" he exulted. "I done done it!" He held up the hind quarter of a bear that had been cooked to a turn over a bed of coals. "I haven't tasted it yet," he said, "but jest smell it! Did sech an odor ever afore tickle your nose? Did your mouth ever afore water so much? Here, Henry, fall on!" He took out his knife, cut off a big piece and handed it to Henry, who began to eat eagerly. Then the shiftless one fell to in like fashion. "How did you manage it?" he asked. The shiftless one grinned. "Didn't I tell you that the sudden darkness wuz a sign favorin' me?" he said. "Paul is always tellin' about them old Greeks an' Romans not goin' into battle till they had talked with the omens, mostly the insides o' cows an' sheep. I believe in signs too. Mine wuz a lot better, an' it worked. I found that they hed jest finished roastin' the bear on the coals, after hevin' dressed him an' cut him into four quarters. 'Pears that most o' 'em hed gone deeper into the woods to look fur somethin'. I come close up in the bushes, an' began a terrible snarlin' an' yelpin' like a hull pack o' wolves. The three that wuz left, the cooks, took torches from the fire, an' run in after me. But I hed flew like lightnin' 'roun' to the other side, jumped in, grabbed up one o' the quarters by the leg, an' wuz away afore they could fairly see what had happened, an' who had made it happen. Then they set up one yell, which I guess you heard, but I kept on flyin' through the woods to the north, curved about, came over the mud flats whar no trail kin last a minute, an' here I am with our bear, or ez much of it ez we want o' him." "You've done a great deed, Sol. I didn't think you could go through with it, but you have, and this bear is mighty fine." "He wuz ourn, an' I wuz bound to hev a part o' him." "We'll put the rest in our knapsacks and there ought to be enough for two days more. It relieves us of a great anxiety, because we couldn't go without food, and we really needed it badly." "I'm feelin' like two men already. I wonder what the boys are doin' up thar in the holler? A-layin' 'roun' on the stone floor, I s'pose, eatin', drinkin' cold water, an' hevin' a good time." "But remember their anxiety about us."