A mangy cur barked once, and then lay down again at the foot of a deer-skin lodge.

A warrior, smoking a pipe in his own doorway, looked up, but saw nothing unusual, and then looked down again.
The coolness of Shif'less Sol was something wonderful to see.

He merely loafed along, as if he had no object in the world but to pass away the time, and there was nothing in the course he chose to indicate that he meant to reach the forest.

Now and then he spoke apparently casual words to Paul, and the boy, in the faint light, wearing Braxton Wyatt's clothes, might easily pass for Braxton Wyatt himself, even to the keen eyes of the Shawnees.
Presently they reached the northern end of the village, the one nearest to the forest, and it was here that Shif'less Sol intended to make the escape.

Paul kept close to him, and he noticed with joy that all the time the light, already faint, was growing fainter.