Part 29 (1/2)

They picked and cleaned the turkeys, and then hung the dressed bodies from the boughs of a tree near the hut, where they would be frozen, and thus keep.

The hunters returned that afternoon with two deer, and were delighted with Jim and Paul's zeal and success.

”Ef things go on this swimmin' way,” said s.h.i.+f'less Sol, ”we'd be able to feed an army this winter, ef it wuz needed.”

It was very cold that evening, and they built the fire higher than usual.

Great mellow rays of heat fell over all the five, and lighted up the whole interior of the cabin with its rich store of skins and nuts and dressed meats, and other spoil of the wilderness. The five, though no one of them ever for a moment forgot their great mission of saving Kentucky, had a feeling of content. Affairs were going well.

”Paul,” said s.h.i.+f'less Sol, ”you've read books. Tell us about some o' them old fellers that lived a long time ago. I like to hear about the big ones.”

”Well,” said Paul, ”there was Alexander. Did you ever hear of him, Sol?”

s.h.i.+f'less Sol shook his head and sighed.

”I can't truly call myself an eddicated man,” he replied, ”though I have the instincks o' one. But I ain't had the proper chance. No, Paul, me an'

Alexander is strangers.”

”Then I'll make you acquainted,” said Paul. He settled himself more comfortably before the fire, and the others did likewise.

”Alexander lived a long, long time ago,” said Paul. ”He was a Greek--that is, he was a Macedonian with Greek blood in him--I suppose it comes to the same thing--and he led the Greeks and Macedonians over into Asia, and whipped the Persians every time, though the Persians were always twenty to one.”

”Who writ the accounts o' them thar battles?” asked s.h.i.+f'less Sol.

”Why, the Greeks, of course.”

”I thought so. Why, Jim Hart here must be a Greek, then. To hear him tell it, he's always whippin' twenty men at a time. But it ain't in natur' for one man to whip twenty.”

”I never said once in my life that I whipped twenty men at a time,”

protested Jim Hart.

”We'll let it pa.s.s,” said Paul, ”and Sol may be right about the Greeks piling it up for themselves; but so they wrote it, and so we have to take it. Well, Alexander, although he wasn't much more than a boy, kept on whipping the Persians until at last their king, Darius, ran away with his wives.”

s.h.i.+f'less Sol whistled.

”Do you mean to tell me, Paul,” he said, ”that any white man ever had more than one wife! I thought only Injun chiefs had 'em?”

”Why, it was common a long time ago,” replied Paul.

”What a waste!” said s.h.i.+f'less Sol. ”One man havin' a lot uv wives, an'

Jim Hart here ain't ever been able to get a single one.”

”An' you ain't, either, Sol Hyde,” said Jim Hart.

”Oh, me!” replied s.h.i.+f'less Sol carelessly. ”I'm too young to marry.”

”Let him go on about Alexander, the fightin' feller,” interrupted Tom Ross.