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."

With the backwoods only thirty miles away, and the unbroken