was approaching, and that the timid little ones would give it room. He looked with all his eyes, and a magnificent stag stepped into the moonlight, antlers erect, waiting and listening for a moment before he bowed his head to drink. Paul almost leaped up in the boat as a rifle cracked beside him, and he saw the stag spring into the air and fall dead, with his feet in the water.
Henry and Ross promptly shoved the boat from the bushes, and the three of them lifted the body into it, disposing it in the center with infinite care. Then, with food enough to last for days, they rowed back across the lake to the haunted island. Shif'less Sol and Jim Hart, with their rude tackle, had succeeded in catching four fish, of a species unknown to Paul, but large and to all appearances succulent.
"We'll eat the fish to-morrow, because they won't keep," said Sol, "but Jim Hart here kin jerk the venison. It will give him somethin' to do, an' Jim is a sight better off when he has to work. He ain't got no time fur foolishness."
"An' you can tan its hide," growled Jim Hart, "although your own needs tannin' most."
A few minutes later the two were amicably dressing the body of the stag, but Paul was already asleep. He assisted the next morning at a conference, and then he learned what Henry and Ross intended to do. The powder for Marlowe, as Paul had surmised, must be left for the present in its hidden place while they spied upon the great northern confederacy, now being formed for the destruction of the white settlements, and they would do what they could to impede it. Henry, Ross, and Sol would leave that night on an expedition of discovery, while Paul and Jim Hart held the haunted island. Paul, in this case, did not object to being left behind, because he had, for the present at least, enough of danger, and he knew that he was better suited to other tasks than the one on which the three great woodsmen were now departing.
Jim Hart was to row them over to the mainland, and they were to signal their return with three plaintive, long-drawn cries of the whip-poor-will. They departed at the first coming of the dusk with short good-bys, leaving Paul alone on the island. He stood near the margin under the foliage of a great beech and watched them go. The boat, as it left a trailing wake of melting silver, became a small black dot at the farther shore, and then vanished.
Paul turned back toward the center of his island, inexpressibly lonely for the while. Again he was a solitary being in the vast, encircling wilderness, and, in feeling at least, no one was nearer than a thousand miles away. He walked as swiftly as he could to the cove, where the supper fire still smoldered, and he sought companionship in the light and warmth that came from the bed of coals. No amount of hardship, no amount of experience could change Paul's vivid temperament, so responsive to the influences of time and place. He sat there, his knees drawn up to his chin, and the ring of darkness came closer and closer; but out of it presently arose the tread of footsteps, and all the brightness and cheeriness returned at once to the boy's face.
Jim Hart walked into the rim of the firelight, and his long, thin, saplinglike figure looked very consoling to Paul. He doubled into his usual jackknife formation and, sitting down by the fire, looked into the coals.
"Well, Paul," he said, "I've seen 'em off, an' a-tween you and me, I'd rather be right here on this here haunted islan', a-hobnobbin' with Injun ghosts an' havin' a good, comfortable, easy time, than be dodgin' braves, an' feelin' every minute to see ef my scalp is on out thar among the Injun villages."
"You don't think they'll be taken?" asked Paul, in some alarm.
Long Jim Hart laughed scornfully.
"Them fellers be took?" he said. "Why, they are the best three woodsmen in North Ameriky, an', fur that, in the hull world. Nobody can take 'em, an' if they wuz took, nobody could hold 'em. You could have Henry Ware tied to the stake, with fifty Shawnees holdin' him an' a thousand more standin' aroun', an' he'd get away, certain sure."
Paul smiled. It was an extravagant statement, but it restored his confidence.
"And meanwhile we are safe here, protected by ghosts," he said. "Do you believe in ghosts, Jim?"
Jim Hart looked up at the black rim of the forest, and then edged a little closer to the fire.
"No, I don't," he said, "but sometimes I'm afeard of 'em, jest the same."
Paul laughed.
"That's about the way I feel, too," he said, "but they're mighty handy just now, Jim. They're keeping us safe on this island. You won't deny that?"
"No, I won't," said Jim; "but at night time I'm goin' to leave 'em all by themselves in the trees over at their end uv of the island."
"So am I," said Paul; and ten minutes later both were sound asleep.
CHAPTER XI
A SUDDEN MEETING
Paul and queer, long Jim Hart spent a week together on the island, and they were pleasant days to the boy. He was sure that Henry, Ross, and Sol could take care of themselves, and he felt little anxiety about them. He and Hart stayed well in the woods in the day, and they fished and hunted at night. Hart killed another deer, this time swimming in the water, but they easily made salvage of the body and took it to land. They also shot a bear in the edge of the woods, near the south end of the lake, and Hart quickly tanned both deerskins and the bearskin in a rude fashion. He said they would need them as covers at night, and as the weather turned a little colder, Paul found that he could use one of the skins quite comfortably.
They built of sticks and brushwood a crude sort of lean-to against one of the stony sides that enclosed the cove, and when a rain came they were able to keep quite dry within its shelter. They also found rabbits on the island, some of which they killed, and thus added further to their larder. These labors of house-building and housekeeping kept them busy, and Paul was surprised to find how well content he had become. Hart did all the cooking, but Paul made amends in other directions, and at night, when they were not fishing or hunting, they would sit by the little fire and talk. Once about the noon hour they saw a smoke far to the south, and both regarded it speculatively.
"Think likely it's an Injun huntin' party," said Jim Hart, "an' they don't dream o' any white men bein' about. That's why they are so careless about their fire, because the different tribes o' these parts are all at peace with one another."
"How far away would you say that smoke is?" asked Paul.
"Three or four miles, anyway, an' I'm pow'ful glad this is a haunted islan', so they won't come over here."
"So am I," said Paul devoutly.
He lay on his back on the soft turf, and watched the smoke rising away in a thin spire into the heavens. He could picture to himself the savage party as it sat about the fire, and it gave him a remarkable feeling of comfort and safety to know that he was so well protected by the ghosts that haunted the little island.
The smoke rose there all the morning, but Paul ceased by and by to pay any attention to it, although he and Jim Hart kept well within the cove, busying themselves with additions to their lean-to. Paul had found great strips of bark shed by the trees, and he used these to patch the roof. More pieces were used for the floor, and, with the bearskin spread over them, it was quite dry and snug. Then he stood off and regarded it with a critical and approving eye.
"You haven't seen a better house than that lately, have you, Jim?" he said, in a tone of pride.
"Considerin' the fact that I ain't seen any other uv any kind in a long time, I kin truthfully say I haven't," replied Jim Hart sardonically.
"You lack appreciation, Jim," said Paul. "Besides, your imagination is deficient. Why don't you look at this hut of ours and imagine that it is a magnificent stone castle?"
Jim Hart gazed wonderingly at the boy.
"Paul," he said, "you always wuz a puzzle to me. I can't see no magnificent stone castle—jest a bark an' brush hut."
Paul shook his head reprovingly.
"I