Instinctively he took the lead, not from ambition, but because it was natural; he read all the signs and he led on with a certainty to which neither Ross nor Shif'less Sol pretended to aspire.

The two guides and hunters were near each other, and a look passed between them.
"I knew it," said Ross; "I knew from the first that he had in him the making of a great woodsman.

You an' I, Sol, by the side of him, are just beginners." Shif'less Sol nodded in assent.
"It's so," he said.

"It suits me to follow where he leads, an' since we are goin' after them warriors, which I can't think a wise thing, I'm mighty glad he's with us." Yet to one experienced in the ways of the wilderness the little army though it numbered less than a hundred men would have seemed formidable enough.

Many youths were there, mere boys they would have been back in some safer land, but hardened here by exposure into the strength and courage of men.