An' I'm glad too that I didn't live in them old days that Sol tells
about, when people had to build walls around theirselves in towns, an' wuz
afraid to go out in the woods an' hunt bear an' buffalo like men!"
Jim Hart, after this speech, so long for him, stopped for want of breath,
and Shif'less Sol, regarding him with a look of deep sympathy, held out a
brown and sinewy hand.
"Jim Hart," he said, "shake. I'll be proud to hev you do it. You ain't no
beauty, Jim, an' somehow you an' me are kinder disputatious now an' then,
but you are lettin' flow at this minute a solid stream o' wisdom, a
fountain, ez Paul would say in his highfalutin' way, at which everybody
ought to drink."
Jim Hart also reached out a brown and sinewy hand and the two met in a
powerful and friendly clasp.
"I'm like Jim," continued Shif'less Sol. "'Tain't what you git that makes
you happy, but thar's a heap in bein' suited. I'm glad I'm livin' when I
am, an' whar I am. Me an' things suit each other. What Paul says may come
true, but it won't bust my heart, 'cause I won't be here to see it."
An hour or so later Henry and Sol went through the woods and watched for
the Spanish fleet. They saw it presently moving in single file down the
Mississippi, and showing, so far as they could judge, no signs of damage.
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