Rolf in the Woods

The sick ox was very much in his own stall now, and stayed there for some time after Rolf went to resume his place at the peephole. But encouraged by a few minutes of silence, he again reached out, and hastily gulped down a mouthful of the mixture before Rolf shouted and rushed in armed with a switch to punish the thief. Poor Bright, by his efforts to reach the tempting mash, was unwittingly playing the game, for this was proof positive of its desirableness.

After giving Buck a few cuts with the switch, Rolf retired, as before. Again the sick ox waited for silence, and reaching out with greedy haste, he gulped down the rest and emptied the bucket; seeing which, Rolf ran in and gave the rogue a final trouncing for the sake of consistency.

Any one who knows what slippery elm, peppermint, soda, sulphur, colic, and ox do when thoroughly interincorporated will not be surprised to learn that in the morning the stable needed special treatment, and of all the mixture the ox was the only ingredient left on the active list. He was all right again, very thirsty, and not quite up to his usual standard, but, as Van said, after a careful look, “Ah, tell you vot, dot you vas a veil ox again, an’ I t’ink I know not vot if you all tricky vas like Bright.”

Chapter 57. Rolf and Skookum at Albany

The Red Moon (August) follows the Thunder Moon, and in the early part of its second week Rolf and Van, hauling in the barley and 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 there were many loafers about. But burly Vandam appeared in the nick of time to halt the small mob with the warning: “Don’t you know that’s Mr. Van Cortlandt’s guide?” With the governor and Vandam to back him, Quonab soon had the mob on his side, and the dock loafer’s own friends pelted him with mud as he escaped. But not a little credit is due to Skookum, for at the critical moment he had sprung on the ruffian’s bare and abundant leg with such toothsome effect that the owner fell promptly backward and the knife thrust missed. It was quickly over and Quonab replaced his knife, contemptuous of the whole crowd before, during and after the incident. Not at the time, but days later, he said of his foe: “He was a talker; he was full of fear.”