Ware to go straight to the spring. The slope of the land led him, and he
found it under the lee of a little hill, near the base of a great oak.
Here a stream, six inches broad, an inch deep, but as clear as burnished
silver, flowed from beneath a stony outcrop in the soil, and then trickled
away, in a baby stream, down a little ravine. There was a strain of
primitive poetry, the love of the wild, in Henry's nature, and he paused
to admire.

He saw that human hands had scraped out at the source a little fountain,
where one might dip up pails of water, and looking down into the clear
depths he beheld his own face reflected back in every detail. It seemed to
Henry Ware, who knew and loved only the wilderness, that the cabin, with
its spring and game at its very doors, would have made a wonderfully snug
home in the forest. Had it been his own, he certainly would have
undertaken to defend it against any foe who might come.

But all these thoughts passed in a second, treading upon one another's
heels. Henry was at the fountain scarcely a moment before he had filled
the pot and was on the way back to the cabin. Then he cast in the herbs,
put it upon a bed of red coals, and soon a steam arose. He found an old,
broken-sided gourd among the abandoned utensils, and was able to dip up
with it a half dozen drinks of the powerful decoction. He induced his
comrade to swallow these one after another, although they were very
bitter, and Paul made a wry face. Then he drew from the corner the rude
bedstead of the departed settler, and made Paul lie upon it beside the
fire.

"Now go to sleep," he said, "while I watch here."

Paul was a boy of great sense, and he obeyed without question, although it