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Updated: May 19, 2025
All-vays, I want sumpin bad mooch. I prays de good Lord and all-vays, all-vays, two times now, He it send by next boat. Ach, how I am spoil," and the good Dutchman's eyes filled with tears of thankfulness. Quonab knelt by the sufferer. He felt her hot, dry hand; he noticed her short, quick breathing, her bright eyes, and the untouched bowl of mush by her bed. "Swamp fever," he said.
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.
The boy stooped to replace it; as he did, Quonab grunted and Rolf turned to see his hand stretched for the drum. Had Rolf officiously offered it, it would have been refused; now the Indian took it, tapped and warmed it at the fire, and sang a song of the Wabanaki.
Rolf and Quonab were sent to scout in that country and if possible give timely notice of raiders in force. The Americans were averse to employing Indians in warfare; the British entertained no such scruples and had many red-skinned allies.
That night, after midnight, the lad rose quietly, lighted the pine splints that served them for a torch, rubbed some charcoal around each eye to make dark rings that should supply a horror-stricken look. Then he started in to pound on Quonab's tom-tom, singing: "Evil spirit leave me; Dog-face do not harm me." Quonab sat up in amazement.
One morning, as they passed the trail that skirts the pond, Quonab pointed to the near water. There was something afloat like a small, round leaf, with two beads well apart, on it. Then Rolf noticed, two feet away, a larger floating leaf, and now he knew that the first was the head and eyes, the last the back, of a huge snapping turtle. A moment more and it quickly sank from view.
He had promised his mother that he would not until he was a man, and something brought her back home now with overwhelming force; that was the beds they had made of fragrant balsam boughs. "Cho-ko-tung or blister tree" as Quonab called it.
They made a fire at once, and while Rolf got the mid-day meal of tea and venison, Quonab skinned the fisher. Then he cut out its heart and liver. When these were cooked he gave the first to Rolf and the second to Skookum, saying to the one, "I give you a pekan heart;" and to the dog, "That will force all of the quills out of you if you play the fool again, as I think you will."
And as they rounded the point, on the home way, Rolf turned in the canoe, faced Quonab, and said: "Ye see there are some good white men left;" but the Indian neither blinked, nor moved, nor made a sound. Rolf's Lesson in Trailing The return journey was hard paddling against strong waters, but otherwise uneventful. Once over any trail is enough to fix it in the memory of a woodman.
He marched boldly across the twenty feet opening that was in the enemy's view, dropped behind the spruce thickets, called Quonab to follow, ran around the thicket, and again crossed the open view. So he and Quonab continued for five minutes, as fast as they could go, knowing perfectly well that they were watched.
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