The fire in Jim Hart's furnace had been permitted to die down to a bed of coals, and the glow from them barely disclosed the five figures lying, dark and silent, on the floor.

They slept, clean in conscience and without fear.
Henry, Shif'less Sol, and Ross were off at dawn, and Paul, using a rude wooden needle that he had shaped with his own pocketknife, and the tendon of a deer as thread, made a large bag of buckskin.

Then he threw it triumphantly over his shoulder.
"Now what under the sun, Paul, are you goin' to do with that ?" asked Jim Hart.
"I'm going to add variety to our winter store.

Just you wait, Jim Hart, and see." Bearing the bag, he left the house and took his way to the north end of the island.

He had not been above learning more than one thing from the squirrels, and he had recalled a grove of great hickory trees growing almost to the water's edge.