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.