mp,"
and started away in the direction of the nearest farmhouse.

Chapter 2. Rolf Kittering and the Soldier Uncle

A feller that chatters all the time is bound to talk a
certain amount of drivel.--The Sayings of Si Sylvanne

This was the Crow Moon, the white man's March. The Grass Moon was at
hand, and already the arrow bands of black-necked honkers were passing
northward from the coast, sending down as they flew the glad tidings
that the Hunger Moon was gone, that spring was come, yea, even now was
in the land. And the flicker clucked from a high, dry bough, the spotted
woodwale drummed on his chosen branch, the partridge drummed in the pine
woods, and in the sky the wild ducks, winging, drummed their way. What
wonder that the soul of the Indian should seek expression in the drum
and the drum song of his race?

Presently, as though remembering something, he went quietly to the
southward under the ridge, just where it breaks to let the brook go by,
along the edge of Strickland's Plain, and on that hill of sliding stone
he found, as he always had, the blue-eyed liver-leaf smiling, the first
sweet flower of spring! He did not gather it, he only sat down and
looked at it. He did not smile, or sing, or utter words, or give it
a name, but he sat beside it and looked hard at it, and, in the first
place, he went there knowingly to find it. Who shall say that its beauty
did not reach his soul?

He took out his pipe and tobacco bag, but was reminded of something
lacking--the bag was empty. He returned to his wigwam, and from their
safe hanger or swinging shelf overhead, he took the row of stretched
skins, ten muskrats and one mink, and set out along a path which led
southward through the woods to the broad, open place called Strickland's
Plain, across that, and over the next rock ridge to the little town and
port of Myanos.

SILAS PECK
Trading Store

was the sign over the door he entered. Men and women were buying and
selling, but the Indian stood aside shyly until all were served, and
Master Peck cried out:

"Ho, Quonab! what have ye got for trade to-day?"

Quonab produced his furs. The dealer looked at them narrowly and said:

"They are too late in the season for primes; I cannot allow you more
than seven cents each for the rats and seventy-five cents for the mink,
all trade."

The Indian gathered up the bundle with an air of "that settles it," when
Silas called out: