nd discussing the
fitness of the oats, were startled by a most outrageous clatter among
the hens. Horrid murder evidently was stalking abroad, and, hastening
to the rescue, Rolf heard loud, angry barks; then a savage beast with
a defunct "cackle party" appeared, but dropped the victim to bark and
bound upon the "relief party" with ecstatic expressions of joy, in spite
of Rolf's--"Skookum! you little brute!"

Yes! Quonab was back; that is, he was at the lake shore, and Skookum had
made haste to plunge into the joys and gayeties of this social centre,
without awaiting the formalities of greeting or even of dry-shod
landing.

The next scene was--a big, high post, a long, strong chain and a small,
sad dog.

"Ho, Quonab, you found your people? You had a good time?"

"Ugh," was the answer, the whole of it, and all the light Rolf got for
many a day on the old man's trip to the North. The prospect of going to
Albany for Van Cortlandt was much more attractive to Quonab than that of
the harvest field, so a compromise was agreed on. Callan's barley was in
the stock; if all three helped Callan for three days, Callan would owe
them for nine, and so it was arranged.

Again "good-bye," and Rolf, Quonab, and little dog Skookum went sailing
down the Schroon toward the junction, where they left a cache of their
supplies, and down the broadening Hudson toward Albany.

Rolf had been over the road twice; Quonab never before, yet his nose for
water was so good and the sense of rapid and portage was so strong in
the red man, that many times he was the pilot. "This is the way, because
it must be"; "there it is deep because so narrow"; "that rapid is
dangerous, because there is such a well-beaten portage trail"; "that
we can run, because I see it," or, "because there is no portage trail,"
etc. The eighty miles were covered in three sleeps, and in the mid-moon
days of the Red Moon they landed at the dock in front of Peter Vandam's.
If Quonab had any especial emotions for the occasion, he cloaked
them perfectly under a calm and copper-coloured exterior of absolute
immobility.

Their Albany experiences included a meeting with the governor and an
encounter with a broad and burly river pirate, who, seeing a lone and
peaceable-looking red man, went out of his way to insult him; and when
Quonab's knife flashed out at last, it was only his recently established
relations with the governor's son that saved him from some very sad
results, for the