Page 4: No Fear of Being Surprised by the Advent of an Enemy

In his belt was stuck a long, double-edged hunting-knife, having its wooden handle neatly bound with black waxed thread. A five-foot bow of second-growth hickory leaned against the log beside him, but it was unstrung, and the quiver of arrows, suspended by a strap from his shoulders, had been allowed to shift from its proper position so that it hung down the middle of his back and was, consequently, out of easy hand-reach. But the youth was in no apparent fear of being surprised by the advent of an enemy; certainly he had made no provision against such a contingency, and the carelessness of his attitude was entirely unaffected. It may be remarked that the arrows aforesaid were iron-tipped instead of being simply fire-hardened, and in the feathering of each a single plume of the scarlet tanager had been carefully inserted. Presumably, the vermilion feather was the owner's private sign of his work as a marksman. So far the lad's dress and accoutrements were in entire conformity to the primeval rusticity of his surroundings. Judge, then, of the reasonable surprise which the observer might feel at discovering that the object in the boy's hand was nothing less incongruous than a pair of binocular glasses, an exquisitely finished example of the highest art of the optician. One of the eye-piece lenses had been lost or broken for, as the youth raised the glasses to sweep again the distant sealine, he covered the left-hand cylinder with a flat, oblong object -- a printed book. Its title, indeed, could be clearly read as, a moment after, it lay partly open upon his knee -- A Child's History of the United States -- and across the top had been neatly written in ink, "Constans, Son of Gavan at the Greenwood Keep."