No one begrudged him his dry and unlabored
passage; in fact they thought it right, because a schoolmaster was
mightily respected in the early settlements of Kentucky and they would
have regarded it as unbecoming to his dignity to have stripped, and swum
the river as they did.
Henry and Paul in their secret hearts did not envy the schoolmaster.
They thought he had too great a weight of dignity to maintain and they
enjoyed cleaving the clear current with their bare bodies. What! be
deprived of the wilderness pleasures! Not they! The two boys did not
remount, after the passage of the river, but, fresh and full of life,
walked on with the others at a pace so swift that the miles dropped
rapidly behind them. They were passing, too, through a country rarely
trodden even by the red men; Henry knew it by the great quantities of
game they saw; the deer seemed to look from every thicket, now and then
a magnificent elk went crashing by, once a bear lumbered away, and twice
small groups of buffalo were stampeded in the glades and rushed off,
snorting through the undergrowth.
"They say that far to the westward on plains that seem to have no end
those animals are to be seen in millions," said Mr.
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