ecause they sheltered
and warmed the Star-girl, who was the sister of the Thunder-bird."

"I never heard that; tell me about it."

"Sometime maybe, not now."

Chapter 12. Hunting the Woodchucks

Cornmeal and potatoes, with tea and apples, three times a day, are apt
to lose their charm. Even fish did not entirely satisfy the craving for
flesh meat. So Quonab and Rolf set out one morning on a regular hunt for
food. The days of big game were over on the Asamuk, but there were still
many small kinds and none more abundant than the woodchuck, hated of
farmers. Not without reason. Each woodchuck hole in the field was a
menace to the horses' legs. Tradition, at least, said that horses' legs
and riders' necks had been broken by the steed setting foot in one of
these dangerous pitfalls: besides which, each chuck den was the hub
centre of an area of desolation whenever located, as mostly it was, in
the cultivated fields. Undoubtedly the damage was greatly exaggerated,
but the farmers generally agreed that the woodchuck was a pest.

Whatever resentment the tiller of the soil might feel against the
Indian's hunting quail on his land, he always welcomed him as a killer
of woodchucks.

And the Indian looked on this animal as fair game and most excellent
eating.

Rolf watched eagerly when Quonab, taking his bow and arrows, said they
were going out for a meat hunt. Although there were several fields
with woodchucks resident, they passed cautiously from one to another,
scanning the green expanse for the dark-brown spots that meant
woodchucks out foraging. At length they found one, with a large and two
small moving brown things among the clover. The large one stood up on
its hind legs from time to time, ever alert for danger. It was a broad,
open field, without cover; but close to the cleared place in which,
doubtless, was the den, there was a ridge that Quonab judged would help
him to approach.

Rolf was instructed to stay in hiding and make some Indian signs that
the hunter could follow when he should lose sight of the prey. First,
"Come on" (beckoning); and, second, "Stop," (hand raised, palm forward);
"All right" (hand drawn across level and waist high); forefinger moved
forward, level, then curved straight down, meant "gone in hole." But
Rolf was not to sign anything or move, unless Quonab asked him by making
the question sign (that is waving his hand with palm forward and spread
fingers).

Quonab went back into the