Rolf In The Woods | Page 4

to the Great Spirit was ended as a golden beam shot
from a long, low cloud-bank over the sea, and Quonab sang a weird
Indian song for the rising sun, an invocation to the Day God:
"O thou that risest from the low cloud To burn in the all above; I greet
thee! I adore thee!"
Again and again he sang to the tumming of a small tom-tom, till the
great refulgent one had cleared the cloud, and the red miracle of the
sunrise was complete. Back to his wigwam went the red man, down to
his home tucked dosed under the sheltering rock, and, after washing his
hands in a basswood bowl, began to prepare his simple meal.
A tin-lined copper pot hanging over the fire was partly filled with water;
then, when it was boiling, some samp or powdered corn and some
clams were stirred in. While these were cooking, he took his
smooth-bore flint-lock, crawled gently over the ridge that screened his
wigwam from the northwest wind, and peered with hawk-like eyes
across the broad sheet of water that, held by a high beaver-dam, filled
the little valley of Asamuk Brook.
The winter ice was still on the pond, but in all the warming shallows
there was open water, on which were likely to be ducks. None were to
be seen, but by the edge of the ice was a round object which, although
so far away, he knew at a glance for a muskrat.
By crawling around the pond, the Indian could easily have come within
shot, but he returned at once to his wigwam, where he exchanged his
gun for the weapons of his fathers, a bow and arrows, and a long
fish-line. A short, quick stalk, and the muskrat, still eating a flagroot,
was within thirty feet. The fish-line was coiled on the ground and then
attached to an arrow, the bow bent -- zip -- the arrow picked up the line,
coil after coil, and trans- fixed the muskrat. Splash! and the animal was
gone under the ice.
But the cord was in the hands of the hunter; a little gentle pulling and

the rat came to view, to be despatched with a stick and secured. Had he
shot it with a gun, it had surely been lost.
He returned to his camp, ate his frugal breakfast, and fed a small,
wolfish-looking yellow dog that was tied in the lodge.
He skinned the muskrat carefully, first cutting a slit across the rear and
then turning the skin back like a glove, till it was off to the snout; a
bent stick thrust into this held it stretched, till in a day, it was dry and
ready for market. The body, carefully cleaned, he hung in the shade to
furnish another meal.
As he worked, there were sounds of trampling in the woods, and
presently a tall, rough-looking man, with a red nose and a curling white
moustache, came striding through brush and leaves. He stopped when
he saw the Indian, stared contemptuously at the quarry of the morning
chase, made a scornful remark about "rat-eater," and went on toward
the wigwam, probably to peer in, but the Indian's slow, clear, "keep
away!" changed his plan. He grumbled something about
"copper-coloured tramp," 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