“No, you stay here with Brick. I won’t be long.”

Brick fell back, watching Dirk’s face. “It’s the honor of Lenape, Dirk!” he whispered. “You brought us through. There’s a couple nails in my pocket. Good luck to you, pal!”

Dirk clasped the outstretched hand, and ran up the trail alone. There was the tall pine. A few wooden cleats were fastened on the lower part of the trunk, leading up to the thick branches. As he swung himself upward, all his weariness fell away from him like a cast-off garment of care. Up, up he climbed, until he was among the smooth limbs of the pine. Upward, above the tree tops that swept down before his eyes to the sunset-dyed waters of Lake Moosehorn, that lay in a curving sweep far below, with the red spark of a campfire on its banks to mark the rallying place of the Lenape clan. Still he climbed. Now he was at the very top of the world; in all directions stretched the unbroken wilderness that he and his comrades had conquered. And now his hand touched the lowermost of a string of tattered pennons that were nailed to the peak of this mighty tree that others of the Lenape brotherhood had scaled before him, in years gone.

Dirk Van Horn smiled to himself, and waved a hand at his watching partner far below. Then, still smiling, he drew a stone from his pocket, and with a few resounding blows, nailed a bit of green and white bunting in its place. A finger of light, the last ray of the dying sun, tipped the little banner with gold, as the honor of Lenape fluttered bravely in the evening breeze.

THE END

Transcriber’s Notes