"There, now, my good lad, look not so like a colt that feels the whip for the first time. You will have a good home, imbued with the spirit of a most excellent piety that will be ever about you."
"Like a colt feeling the whip," indeed! Rolf reeled like a stricken deer. To go back as a chore-boy drudge was possible, but not alluring; to leave Quonab, just as the wood world was opening to him, was devastating; but to exchange it all for bondage in the pious household of Old Peck, whose cold cruelty had driven off all his own children, was an accumulation of disasters that aroused him.
"I won't go!" he blurted out, and gazed defiantly at the broad and benevolent selectman.
"Come now, Rolf, such language is unbecoming. Let not a hasty tongue betray you into sin. This is what your mother would have wished. Be sensible; you will soon find it was all for the best. I have ever liked you, and will ever be a friend you can count on.
"Acting, not according to my instructions, but according to my heart, I will say further that you need not come now, you need not even give answer now, but think it over. Nevertheless, remember that on or before Monday morning next, you will be expected to appear at Elder Peck's, and I fear that, in case you fail, the messenger next arriving will be one much less friendly than myself. Come now, Rolf, be a good lad, and remember that in your new home you will at least be living for the glory of God."
Then, with a friendly nod, but an expression of sorrow, the large, black messenger turned and tramped away.
Rolf slowly, limply, sank down on a rock and stared at the fire. After awhile Quonab got up and began to 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.