igs of oak and maple. He only heard the robins
whistling from dawn to dusk, the rush and patter of the sudden
sparkling showers, the rustlings and murmurs that showed the woods were
full of life about them. He ate what was offered him and slept where
Peter wished, dazed and enraptured. For two golden weeks the dream
endured. And then quite suddenly Peter Many-Names buckled down to the
trail.

The dream was roughly broken. Thereafter Dick had no leisure for the
beauties of the wilderness. After the day's march, he had only
strength enough left to roll himself in his blankets and groan. He
lived from dawn till dark in a stupor, not of delight, but of
weariness. His softer muscles were racked and tortured with manifold
aches, strained and swollen with the effort of the pace. And when he
moaned and lamented, Peter scowled at him horribly, and called him rude
discourteous names in the Indian tongue.

"Where are we going?" Dick would groan impatiently, at the end of a
trying day. "What's the need of all this hurry?"

And Peter's contemptuous little dark face would flame with that
excitement which Dick had seen in it that night in the sugar-camp, and
his voice would rise again to that wild mesmeric chant. "We are going
north, north, north!" he would sometimes answer; "north to the land of
clean winds and strong men, to the land of uncounted bison and wild
fowl in plenty for the hunter! North to the land loved of its
children, to my country! But what do you know of it? Is it not enough
for you if I lead you there in ease and safety?"

"Ease!" poor wearied Dick would reply, "do you call this ease?" and
then would roll himself in his blanket and fall into the sleep of
exhaustion. Day after day this incident was repeated. For Peter
Many-Names was merciless, and his tongue played round Dick's very
excusable weaknesses with the stinging unexpectedness of a whip-lash.

But after a while Dick's muscles hardened. The day's march was no
longer torment to him. He grew almost as lean and wiry as his comrade,
though he would never attain to the Indian's powers of endurance of
fatigue. And then the daring young pair proceeded amicably enough.

The dream had faded to a more real world, though the beauty of it still
remained. Dick's faculties and feelings awoke, though his conscience
was sleepy enough. His skill in woodcraft, his hunter's lore, all came
again in play, and he and the Indian regarded each other as ple