"He will come in the springtime."
"And you?" The Indian looked earnestly into Conrad's blue eyes, as though astonished at their vivid color.
"Oh, yes!" cried Conrad.
The Indian said no more, but rose and walked toward the settlement, motioning Conrad to follow. His long stride soon left Conrad far behind and Conrad started to run, to find a grinning Indian waiting for him behind a tree, or calling to him from the rear. Presently, when the Indian's ruse brought them face to face, Conrad pointed to himself.
"I am Conrad," said he. "Who are you?"
"Quagnant," was the answer.
He it was who had given the Germans their hearty welcome!
When they entered the settlement, Conrad would have liked to follow the chief as he went from Indian house to Indian house, but he did not dare.
To Meyndert's lodge Quagnant came late in the afternoon, and there sat himself down on a pile of deerskins near the fire. He had come, he said, to hold a conversation with the white chief. At a sign from her husband, John Meyndert's squaw rose and went away, beckoning John Conrad's family to follow. For an instant Conrad thought that he was to remain. Then Quagnant, hitherto so kind, pointed to him, and Meyndert bade him go also. Offended, Conrad did not return till hunger drove him back after dark.
Then the family, except John Conrad, were asleep; as Conrad lifted the curtain of skins which hung across the door, his father rose from beside the dying fire and led him outside. In the starlight he walked up and down with his hand on his boy's shoulder.