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.