prepare the mid-day meal. Usually Rolf helped him. Now he did nothing but sullenly glare at the glowing coals. In half an hour the food was ready. He ate little; then went away in the woods by himself. Quonab saw him lying on a flat rock, looking at the pond, and throwing pebbles into it. Later Quonab went to Myanos. On his return he found that Rolf had cut up a great pile of wood, but not a word passed between them. The look of sullen anger and rebellion on Rolf’s face was changing to one of stony despair. What was passing in each mind the other could not divine.
The evening meal was eaten in silence; then Quonab smoked for an hour, both staring into the fire. A barred owl hooted and laughed over their heads, causing the dog to jump up and bark at the sound that ordinarily he would have heeded not at all. Then silence was restored, and the red man’s hidden train of thought was in a flash revealed.
“Rolf, let’s go to the North Woods!”
It was another astounding idea. Rolf had realized more and more how much this valley meant to Quonab, who worshipped the memory of his people.
“And leave all this?” he replied, making a sweep with his hand toward the rock, the Indian trail, the site of bygone Petuquapen, and the graves of the tribe.
For reply their eyes met, and from the Indian’s deep chest came the single word, “Ugh.” One syllable, deep and descending, but what a tale it told of the slowly engendered and strong-grown partiality, of a struggle that had continued since the morning when the selectman came with words of doom, and of friendship’s victory won.
Rolf realized this, and it gave him a momentary choking in his throat, and, “I’m ready if you really mean it.”
“Ugh I go, but some day come back.”
There was a long silence, then Rolf, “When shall we start?” and the answer, “To-morrow night.”
Chapter 15. Bound for the North Woods
When Quonab left camp in the morning he went heavy laden, and the trail he took led to Myanos. There was nothing surprising in it when he appeared at Silas Peck’s counter and offered for sale a pair of snowshoes, a bundle of traps, some dishes of birch bark and basswood, and a tom-tom, receiving in exchange some tea, tobacco, gunpowder, and two dollars in cash. He turned without comment, and soon was back in camp. He now took the kettle into the woods and brought it back filled with bark, fresh chipped from a butternut tree. Water was added, and the whole boiled till it made a deep brown liquid. When this was cooled he poured it into a flat dish, then said to Rolf: “Come now, I make you a Sinawa.”
With a soft rag the colour was laid on. Face, head, neck, and hands were all at first intended, but Rolf said, “May as well do the whole thing.” So he stripped off; the yellow brown juice on his white skin turned it a rich copper colour, and he was changed into an Indian lad that none would have taken for Rolf Kittering. The stains soon dried, and Rolf, re-clothed, felt that already he had burned a bridge.
Two portions of the wigwam cover were taken off; and two packs were made of the bedding. The tomahawk, bows, arrows, and gun, with the few precious food pounds in the copper pot, were divided between them and arranged into packs with shoulder straps; then all was ready. But there was one thing more for Quonab; he went up alone to the rock. Rolf knew what he went for, and judged it best not to follow.
The Indian lighted his pipe, blew the four smokes to the four winds, beginning with the west, then he sat in silence for a time. Presently the prayer for good hunting came from the rock:
And when that ceased a barred owl hooted in the woods, away to the north.
“Ugh! good,” was all he said as he rejoined Rolf; and they set out, as the sun went down, on their long journey due northward, Quonab, Rolf, and Skookum. They had not gone a hundred yards before the dog turned back, raced to a place where he had a bone in cache and rejoining there trotted along with his bone.
The high road would have been the easier travelling, but it was very necessary to be unobserved, so they took the trail up the brook Asamuk, and after an hour’s tramp came out by the Cat-Rock road that runs westerly. Again they were tempted by the easy path, but again Quonab decided on keeping to the woods. Half an hour later they were halted by Skookum treeing a coon. After they had secured the dog, they tramped on through the woods for two hours more, and then, some eight miles from the Pipestave, they halted, Rolf, at least, tired out. It was now midnight. They made a hasty double bed of the canvas cover over a pole above them, and slept till morning, cheered, as they closed their drowsy eyes, by the “Hoo, Hoo, Hoo, Hoo, yah, hoo,” of their friend, the barred owl, still to the northward.
The sun was high, and Quonab had breakfast ready before Rolf awoke. He was so stiff with the tramp and the heavy pack that it was with secret joy he learned that they were to rest, concealed in the woods, that day, and travel only by night, until in a different region, where none knew or were likely to stop them. They were now in York State, but that did not by any means imply that they were beyond pursuit.
As the sun rose high, Rolf went forth with his bow and blunt arrows, and then, thanks largely to Skookum, he succeeded in knocking over a couple of squirrels, which, skinned and roasted, made their dinner that day. At night they set out as before, making about ten miles. The third night they did better, and the next day being Sunday, they kept out of sight. But Monday morning, bright and clear, although it was the first morning when they were sure of being missed, they started to tramp openly along the highway, with a sense of elation that they had not hitherto known on the joumey. Two things impressed Rolf by their novelty: the curious stare of the country folk whose houses and teams they passed, and the violent antagonism of the dogs. Usually the latter could be quelled by shaking a stick at them, or by pretending to pick up a stone, but one huge and savage brindled mastiff kept following and barking just out of stick range, and managed to give Skookum a mauling, until Quonab drew his bow and let fly a blunt arrow that took the brute on the end of the nose, and sent him howling homeward, while Skookum got a few highly satisfactory nips at the enemy’s rear. Twenty miles they made that day and twenty-five the next, for now they were on good roads, and their packs were lighter. More than once they found kind farmer folk who gave them a meal. But many times Skookum made trouble for them. The farmers did not like the way he behaved among their hens. Skookum never could be made to grasp the fine zoological distinction between partridges which are large birds and fair game, and hens which are large birds, but not fair game. Such hair splitting was obviously unworthy of study, much less of acceptance.
Soon it was clearly better for Rolf, approaching a house, to go alone, while Quonab held Skookum. The dogs seemed less excited by Rolf’s smell, and remembering his own attitude when tramps came to one or another of his ancient homes, he always asked if they would let him work for a meal, and soon remarked that his success was better when he sought first the women of the house, and then, smiling to show his very white teeth, spoke in clear and un-Indian English, which had the more effect coming from an evident Indian.
“Since I am to be an Indian, Quonab, you must give me an Indian name,” he said after one of these episodes.
“Ugh! Good! That’s easy! You are ’Nibowaka,’ the wise one.” For the Indian had not missed any of the points, and so he was named.
Twenty or thirty miles a day they went now, avoiding the settlements along the river. Thus they saw nothing of Albany, but on the tenth day they reached Fort Edward, and for the first time viewed the great Hudson. Here they stayed as short a time as might be, pushed on by Glen’s Falls, and on the eleventh night of the journey they passed the old, abandoned fort, and sighted the long stretch of Lake George, with its wooded shore, and glimpses of the mountains farther north.
Now a new thought possessed them — “If only they had the canoe that they had abandoned on the Pipestave.” It came to them both at the sight of the limit less water, and especially when Rolf remembered that Lake George joined with Champlain, which again was the highway to all the wilderness.
They camped now as they had fifty times before, and made their meal. The bright blue water dancing near was alluring, inspiring; as they sought the shore Quonab pointed to a track and said, “Deer.” He did not show much excitement, but Rolf did, and they returned to the camp fire with a new feeling of elation — they had reached the
