I don't understand how they know what's coming, but they do." "Instinct," said Paul.
"We know that a hound kin follow by smell the track of a man who has passed hours before," said Shif'less Sol, "when no man in the world kin smell anything at all o' that track.

So it ain't any more strange that birds an' beasts kin feel in their bones what's comin' when we can't." "Ef you'll imitate them squirrels an' rabbits an' birds an' things," said Jim Hart, "an' lay up lots uv things good to eat fur the winter, it'll give me pleasure to cook it ez it's needed." "I've noticed something besides the forethought of the animals," added Henry.

"The moss on the north side of the trees seems to me to be thicker than usual.

I suppose that nature, too, is getting ready for a long, hard winter." "When nature and the animals concur," said Paul, "it is not left to man to doubt; so we'd better be providing the things Jim promises to cook so well." They had learned the border habit of acting promptly, and Henry Ross and Sol were to depart the very next morning for the mainland on a hunt for deer, while Long Jim was to keep house.

Paul otherwise would have been anxious to go with the hunters, but he had an idea of his own, and when Henry suggested that he accompany them, he replied that he expected to make a contribution of a different kind.
All these plans were made in the evening, and then every member of the five, wrapping himself in his buffalo robe, fell asleep.