They now went back and gathered together the things that they considered necessary. The Indian went over with them. After further conversation with Sam, Bart thought that it would be better to drive for about twenty miles, and then take to the woods. That would save them a long and useless tramp, and bring them at once to the very scene of action. VI. _A long Drive, and a long Walk.--The wild Woods.--An Encampment.--The blazing Fire.--Lo! the poor Indian.--The Wolf and the Watch-dog.-- The Spring of the Wild Beast.--Solomon to the Rescue.--A Fight, and a Flight._ AFTER a drive of about twenty miles, they came to a place where the road turned off towards the east. They had been heading thus far in a northerly direction, and at this turning-off place a path went from the road in the same northerly direction in which it had gone. At this place they got out of the wagon, and prepared to follow their guide into the woods. Each one took the load which he had already made up for himself, and the wagon then returned. They did not care to burden themselves too greatly upon this expedition, and so the load which each one took was as light as possible. Bart, Phil, and Pat had each a basket slung from the neck, and a fishing-rod. In each basket was a parcel of ham sandwiches, which they had procured at the inn, with the intention of using them as a kind of relish, in addition to their ordinary wood fare, Solomon contented himself with a basket only. His fishing apparatus he carried in his pocket. He wasn’t gwine to bodder his ole head, he said, with dem poles--he could cut one in the woods when he wanted one, and throw it away when he got tired of it. Solomon’s years seemed to be adverse to his taking part in an expedition like this, but in spite of this he waddled along quite as fast as any of them. One precaution he had taken which none of the rest had considered necessary, and that was, to bring with him a check shawl, which Bart had lent him. This he did for fear of his ever watchful enemy, the rheumatiz. The path was at first very well beaten; but after about a mile or so, it gradually faded away, and the track that they followed after this was so faint as to be scarcely discernible. The woods consisted chiefly of pine trees, with birch and maple intermixed. None of these trees were very large, and they did not see any of those forest giants which had met their view in other places. In some places the underbrush was very dense, but in other places there was scarcely any. Sometimes the ground was quite bare and slippery with the accumulation of pine spires that had fallen there; again, they came to immense growths of fern; and yet again to the young growth of the forest trees, springing in wild luxuriance, all tangled and matted together.