s impressed Rolf by their novelty: the curious
stare of the country folk whose houses and teams they passed, and the
violent antagonism of the dogs. Usually the latter could be quelled by
shaking a stick at them, or by pretending to pick up a stone, but one
huge and savage brindled mastiff kept following and barking just out of
stick range, and managed to give Skookum a mauling, until Quonab drew
his bow and let fly a blunt arrow that took the brute on the end of
the nose, and sent him howling homeward, while Skookum got a few highly
satisfactory nips at the enemy's rear. Twenty miles they made that day
and twenty-five the next, for now they were on good roads, and their
packs were lighter. More than once they found kind farmer folk who gave
them a meal. But many times Skookum made trouble for them. The farmers
did not like the way he behaved among their hens. Skookum never could be
made to grasp the fine zoological distinction between partridges which
are large birds and fair game, and hens which are large birds, but not
fair game. Such hair splitting was obviously unworthy of study, much
less of acceptance.

Soon it was clearly better for Rolf, approaching a house, to go alone,
while Quonab held Skookum. The dogs seemed less excited by Rolf's smell,
and remembering his own attitude when tramps came to one or another
of his ancient homes, he always asked if they would let him work for a
meal, and soon remarked that his success was better when he sought first
the women of the house, and then, smiling to show his very white teeth,
spoke in clear and un-Indian English, which had the more effect coming
from an evident Indian.

"Since I am to be an Indian, Quonab, you must give me an Indian name,"
he said after one of these episodes.

"Ugh! Good! That's easy! You are 'Nibowaka,' the wise one." For the
Indian had not missed any of the points, and so he was named.

Twenty or thirty miles a day they went now, avoiding the settlements
along the river. Thus they saw nothing of Albany, but on the tenth
day they reached Fort Edward, and for the first time viewed the great
Hudson. Here they stayed as short a time as might be, pushed on by
Glen's Falls, and on the eleventh night of the journey they passed the
old, abandoned fort, and sighted the long stretch of Lake George, with
its wooded shore, and glimpses of the mountains farther north.

Now a new thought possessed them--"If only they had the canoe that they
had abandoned o