He liked to see their long red shadows fall across the leaves and grass, peopling the dark forest with fierce wild animals; he would feel all the cosier within the scarlet rim of the firelight.

Then the men would tell stories, particularly Ross, the guide, who had wandered much and far in Kentucky.

He said that it was a beautiful land.
He spoke of the noble forests of beech and oak and hickory and maple, the dense canebrake, the many rivers, and the great Ohio that received them all--the Beautiful River, the Indians called it--and the game, with which forests and open alike swarmed, the deer, the elk, the bear, the panther and the buffalo.

Now and then, when the smaller children were asleep in the wagons and the larger ones were nodding before the fires, the men would sink their voices and speak of a subject which made them all look very grave indeed.

It sounded like Indians, and the men more than once glanced at their rifles and powderhorns.
But the boy, when he heard them, did not feel afraid.