"Where is your gun?" asked his father immediately.
"At the bottom of the river," replied the boy. "I was reaching for my duck, and the canoe upset."
"Oh, Tom, you'd upset a sailing vessel if you stepped on it!" came from his sister. "Now you can't take me to the quilting party. It is just too bad!"
"You go over to neighbor Roger's and chop his wood," ordered Tom's father with disgust in his tone. "I told him one of us would do it, for he is bad in his limbs."
After changing his clothes, Tom started off to the Roger's home, a good two miles through the woods. The family attitude had dampened his usual good spirits, and his sister's words had stung. An afternoon's work of wood splitting brought cheer, at least to the forlorn neighbors, and Tom started home again whistling.
It was a bad habit, in those days, to make one's presence known in the woods, and in this case Tom's whistling proved most serious, for suddenly, he realized that three dusky figures were creeping up the hill slope behind him. Quick as could be, he bounded up the crest of the hill and over the other side; but quite as quickly came one of the three Indians in hot pursuit. The other two, confident of their companion's speed, waited below for him to return with his prisoner.
Tom was too heavy to run far, and soon the Indian had him in his ugly clutch.
"Name?" asked the Indian, taking Tom by the shoulders.
"Thomas Toogood," was the boy's frightened reply.
"Ugh!" grunted the Indian. Then, appreciating Tom's clumsiness, the Indian loosened his grasp for a moment to straighten some cords with which to bind his captive. As the red man stooped with gun under his arm, for an instant he turned his back. Tom, for once in his life not slow, in a flash seized the gun and aimed it at the Indian.