on a high, open rock which, on its farther side, had a sheer drop and gave a view of the village and of the sea.
Whatever joy she had on again seeing her home was speedily quelled in the fearsome discovery that she was right over the Indian camp, and the two inmates looked so utterly, dreadfully savage that she was thankful they had not seen her. At once she shrank back; but on recovering sufficiently to again peer down, she saw something roasting before the fire-“a tiny arm with a hand that bore five fingers,” as she afterward said, and “a sickening horror came over her.” Yes, she had heard of such things. If she could only get home in safety! Why had she tempted Providence thus? She backed softly and prayed only to escape. What, and never even deliver the Bible? “It would be wicked to return with it!” In a cleft of the rock she placed it, and then, to prevent the wind blowing off loose leaves, she placed a stone on top, and fled from the dreadful place.
That night, when Quonab and Rolf had finished their meal of corn and roasted coon, the old man climbed the rock to look at the sky. The book caught his eye at once, evidently hidden there carefully, and therefore in cache. A cache is a sacred thing to an Indian. He disturbed it not, but later asked Rolf, “That yours?”
“No.”
It was doubtless the property of some one who meant to return for it, so they left it untouched. It rested there for many months, till the winter storms came down, dismantling the covers, dissolving the pages, but leaving such traces as, in the long afterward, served to identify the book and give the rock the other name, the one it bears to-day “Bible Rock, where Quonab, the son of Cos Cob, used to live.”
Chapter 11. The Thunder-storm and the Fire Sticks
When first Rolf noticed the wigwam’s place, he wondered that Quonab had not set it somewhere facing the lake, but he soon learned that it is best to have the morning sun, the afternoon shade, and shelter from the north and west winds.
The first two points were illustrated nearly every day; but it was two weeks before the last was made clear.
That day the sun came up in a red sky, but soon was lost to view in a heavy cloud-bank. There was no wind, and, as the morning passed, the day grew hotter and closer. Quonab prepared for a storm; but it came with unexpected force, and a gale of wind from the northwest that would indeed have wrecked the lodge, but for the great sheltering rock. Under its lea there was hardy a breeze; but not fifty yards away were two trees that rubbed together, and in the storm they rasped so violently that fine shreds of smoking wood were dropped and, but for the rain, would surely have made a blaze. The thunder was loud and lasted long, and the water poured down in torrents. They were ready for rain, but not for the flood that rushed over the face of the cliff, soaking everything in the lodge except the beds, which, being four inches off the ground, were safe; and lying on them the two campers waited patiently, or impatiently, while the weather raged for two drenching hours. And then the pouring became a pattering; the roaring, a swishing; the storm, a shower which died away, leaving changing patches of blue in the lumpy sky, and all nature calm and pleased, but oh, so wet! Of course the fire was out in the lodge and nearly all the wood was wet. Now Quonab drew from a small cave some dry cedar and got down his tinder-box with flint and steel to light up; but a serious difficulty appeared at once — the tinder was wet and useless.
These were the days before matches were invented. Every one counted on flint and steel for their fire, but the tinder was an essential, and now a fire seemed hopeless; at least Rolf thought so.
“Nana Bojou was dancing that time,” said the Indian.
“Did you see him make fire with those two rubbing trees? So he taught our fathers, and so make we fire when the tricks of the white man fail us.”
Quonab now cut two pieces of dry cedar, one three fourths of an inch thick and eighteen inches long, round, and pointed at both ends; the other five eighths of an inch thick and flat. In the flat one he cut a notch and at the end of the notch a little pit. Next he made a bow of a stiff, curved stick, and a buckskin thong: a small pine knot was selected and a little pit made in it with the point of a knife. These were the fare-making sticks, but it was necessary to prepare the firewood, lay the fire, and make some fibre for tinder. A lot of fine cedar shavings, pounded up with cedar bark and rolled into a two-inch ball, made good tinder, and all was ready. Quonab put the bow thong once around the long stick, then held its point in the pit of the flat stick, and the pine knot on the top to steady it. Now he drew the bow back and forth, slowly, steadily, till the long stick or drill revolving ground smoking black dust out of the notch. Then faster, until the smoke was very strong and the powder filled the notch. Then he lifted the flat stick, fanning the powder with his hands till a glowing coal appeared. Over this he put the cedar tinder and blew gently, till it flamed, and soon the wigwam was aglow.
The whole time taken, from lifting the sticks to the blazing fire, was less than one minute.
This is the ancient way of the Indian; Rolf had often heard of it as a sort of semi-myth; never before had he seen it, and so far as he could learn from the books, it took an hour or two of hard work, not a few deft touches and a few seconds of time.
He soon learned to do it himself, and in the years which followed, he had the curious experience of showing it to many Indians who had forgotten how, thanks to the greater portability of the white man’s flint and steel.
As they walked in the woods that day, they saw three trees that had been struck by lightning during the recent storm; all three were oaks. Then it occurred to Rolf that he had never seen any but an oak struck by lightning.
“Is it so, Quonab?”
“No, there are many others; the lightning strikes the oaks most of all, but it will strike the pine, the ash, the hemlock, the basswood, and many more. Only two trees have I never seen struck, the balsam and the birch.”
“Why do they escape?”
“My father told me when I was a little boy it was because they sheltered and warmed the Star-girl, who was the sister of the Thunder-bird.”
“I never heard that; tell me about it.”
“Sometime maybe, not now.”
Chapter 12. Hunting the Woodchucks
Cornmeal and potatoes, with tea and apples, three times a day, are apt to lose their charm. Even fish did not entirely satisfy the craving for flesh meat. So Quonab and Rolf set out one morning on a regular hunt for food. The days of big game were over on the Asamuk, but there were still many small kinds and none more abundant than the woodchuck, hated of farmers. Not without reason. Each woodchuck hole in the field was a menace to the horses’ legs. Tradition, at least, said that horses’ legs and riders’ necks had been broken by the steed setting foot in one of these dangerous pitfalls: besides which, each chuck den was the hub centre of an area of desolation whenever located, as mostly it was, in the cultivated fields. Undoubtedly the damage was greatly exaggerated, but the farmers generally agreed that the woodchuck was a pest.
Whatever resentment the tiller of the soil might feel against the Indian’s hunting quail on his land, he always welcomed him as a killer of woodchucks.
And the Indian looked on this animal as fair game and most excellent eating.
Rolf watched eagerly when Quonab, taking his bow and arrows, said they were going out for a meat hunt. Although there were several fields with woodchucks resident, they passed cautiously from one to another, scanning the green expanse for the dark-brown spots that meant woodchucks out foraging. At length they found one, with a large and two small moving brown things among the clover. The large one stood up on its hind legs from time to time, ever alert for danger. It was a broad, open field, without cover; but close to the cleared place in which, doubtless, was the den, there was a ridge that Quonab judged would help him to approach.
Rolf was instructed to stay in hiding and make some Indian signs that the hunter could follow when he should lose sight of the prey. First, “Come on” (beckoning); and, second, “Stop,” (hand raised, palm forward); “All right” (hand drawn across level and waist high); forefinger moved forward, level, then curved straight down, meant “gone in hole.” But Rolf was not to sign anything or move, unless Quonab asked him by making the question sign (that is
