But Paul was not offended at his chum's disbelief.
"I'm going to prove to you, Henry, that it's true," he said. "Mr. Pennypacker says it's so, he never tells a falsehood and he's a scholar, too. But you and I have got to go with the salt-makers, Henry, and we'll see it all. I guess if you look on it with your own eyes you'll believe it."
"Of course," said Henry, "and of course I'll go if I can."
A trip through the forest and new country to the great salt spring was temptation enough in itself, without the addition of the fields of big bones, and that night in both the Ware and Cotter homes, eloquent boys gave cogent reasons why they should go with the band.
"Father," said Henry, "there isn't much to do here just now, and they'll want me up at Big Bone Lick, helping to boil the salt and a lot of things."
Mr. Ware smiled. Henry, like most boys, seldom showed much zeal for manual labor. But Henry went on undaunted.
"We won't run any risk. No Indians are in Kentucky now and, father, I want to go awful bad."
Mr. Ware smiled again at the closing avowal, which was so frank. Just at that moment in another home another boy was saying almost exactly the same things, and another father ventured the same answer that Mr. Ware did, in practically the same words such as these:
"Well, my son, as it is to be a good strong company of careful and experienced men who will not let you get into any mischief, you can go along, but be sure that you make yourself useful."
The party was to number a dozen, all skilled foresters, and they were to lead twenty horses, all carrying huge pack saddles for the utensils and the invaluable salt. Mr. Silas Pennypacker who was a man of his own will announced that he was going, too. He puffed out his ruddy cheeks and said emphatically:
"I've heard from hunters of that place; it's one of the great curiosities of the country and for the sake of learning I'm bound to see it. Think of all the gigantic skeletons of the mastodon, the mammoth and other monsters lying there on the ground for ages!"
Henry and Paul were glad that Mr. Pennypacker was to be with them, as in the woods he was a delightful comrade, able always to make instruction entertaining, and the superiority of his mind appealed unconsciously to both of these boys who—each in his way—were also of superior cast.
They departed on a fine morning—the spring was early and held steady—and all Wareville saw them go. It was a brilliant little cavalcade; the horses, their heads up to scent the breeze from the fragrant wilderness, and the men, as eager to start, everyone with a long slender-barreled Kentucky rifle on his shoulder, the fringed and brilliantly colored deerskin hunting shirt falling almost to his knees, and, below that deerskin leggings and deerskin moccasins adorned with many-tinted beads. It was a vivid picture of the young West, so young, and yet so strong and so full of life, the little seed from which so mighty a tree was soon to grow.
All of them stopped again, as if by an involuntary impulse, at the edge of the forest, and waved their hands in another, and, this time, in a last good-by to the watchers at the fort. Then they plunged into the mighty wilderness, which swept away and away for unknown thousands of miles.
They talked for a while of the journey, of the things that they might see by the way, and of those that they had left behind, but before long conversation ceased. The spell of the dark and illimitable woods, in whose shade they marched, fell upon them, and there was no noise, but the sound of breathing and the tread of men and horses. They dropped, too, from the necessities of the path through the undergrowth, into Indian file, one behind the other.
Henry was near the rear of the line, the stalwart schoolmaster just in front of him, and his comrade Paul, just behind. He was full of thankfulness that he had been allowed to go on this journey. It all appealed to him, the tale that Paul told of the giant bones and the great salt spring, the dark woods full of mystery and delightful danger, and his own place among the trusted band, who were sent on such an errand. His heart swelled with pride and pleasure and he walked with a light springy step and with endurance equal to that of any of the men before him. He looked over his shoulder at Paul, whose face also was touched with enthusiasm.
"Aren't you glad to be along?" he asked in a whisper.
"Glad as I can be," replied Paul in the same whisper.
Up shot the sun showering golden beams of light upon the forest. The air grew warmer, but the little band did not cease its rapid pace northward until noon. Then at a word from Ross all halted at a beautiful glade, across which ran a little brook of cold water. The horses were tethered at the edge of the forest, but were allowed to graze on the young grass which was already beginning to appear, while the men lighted a small fire of last year's fallen brushwood, at the center of the glade on the bank of the brook.
"We won't build it high," said Ross, who was captain as well as guide, "an' then nobody in the forest can see it. There may not be an Indian south of the Ohio, but the fellow that's never caught is the fellow that never sticks his head in the trap."
"Sound philosophy! sound philosophy! your logic is irrefutable, Mr. Ross," said the schoolmaster.
Ross grinned. He did not know what "irrefutable" meant, but he did know that Mr. Pennypacker intended to compliment him.
Paul and Henry assisted with the fire. In fact they did most of the work, each wishing to make good his assertion that he would prove of use on the journey. It was a brief task to gather the wood and then Ross and Shif'less Sol lighted the fire, which they permitted merely to smolder. But it gave out ample heat and in a few minutes they cooked over it their venison and corn bread and coffee which they served in tin cups. Henry and Paul ate with the ferocious appetite that the march and the clean air of the wilderness had bred in them, and nobody restricted them, because the forest was full of game, and such skillful hunters and riflemen could never lack for a food supply.
Mr. Pennypacker leaned with an air of satisfaction against the upthrust bough of a fallen oak.
"It's a wonderful world that we have here," he said, "and just to think that we're among the first white men to find out what it contains."
"All ready!" said Tom Ross, "then forward we go, we mustn't waste time by the way. They need that salt at Wareville."
Once more they resumed the march in Indian file and amid the silence of the woods. About the middle of the afternoon Ross invited Mr. Pennypacker and the two boys to ride three of the pack horses. Henry at first declined, not willing to be considered soft and pampered, but as the schoolmaster promptly accepted and Paul who was obviously tired did the same, he changed his mind, not because he needed rest, but lest Paul should feel badly over his inferiority in strength.
Thus they marched steadily northward, Ross leading the way, and Shif'less Sol who was lazy at the settlement, but never in the woods where he was inferior in knowledge and skill to Ross only, covering the rear. Each of these accomplished borderers watched every movement of the forest about him, and listened for every sound; he knew with the eye of second sight what was natural and if anything not belonging to the usual order of things should appear, he would detect it in a moment. But they saw and heard nothing that was not according to nature: only the wind among the boughs, or the stamp of an elk's hoof as it fled, startled at the scent of man. The hostile tribes from north and south, fearful of the presence of each other, seemed to have deserted the great wilderness of Kentucky.
Henry noted the beauty of the country as they passed along; the gently rolling hills, the rich dark soil and the beautiful clear streams. Once they came to a river, too deep to wade, but all of them, except the schoolmaster, promptly took off their clothing and swam it.
"My age and my calling forbid my doing as the rest of you do," said the schoolmaster, "and I think I shall stick to my horse."
He rode the biggest of the pack horses, and when the strong animal began to swim, Mr. Pennypacker thrust out his legs until they were almost parallel with the animal's neck, and reached the opposite bank, untouched by a drop of water. No one begrudged him his dry and unlabored passage; in fact they thought it right, because a schoolmaster was mightily respected in the