"Conrad, I have an offer to set before you. I have kept you with me, both because I could not find any opening for you and because I could not bear to let you go. This Indian Quagnant has asked me to let you go with him to his village, there 'to learn to be a man,' as he puts it. He means that they will teach you how to hunt and trap and how to make a home in the wilderness. Would you like to enter on this strange apprenticeship?"
Conrad's full heart breathed a great sigh.
"Yes, father."
"You cannot come back until spring. The training in Indian ways may be very irksome."
"Not as irksome as idleness."
For an hour father and son talked, entering once more upon the future with a tender recalling of the past. Then they went to bed.
In the misty morning Conrad started away, a little bundle on his back. He kissed the sleeping Barbara, he put both arms about his father's neck, then he followed the tall Indian who walked before him, silent, mysterious, his tall figure dim in the fog.
They crossed the wet meadow and walked for an hour by the stream-side, then Quagnant turned into the forest. They ascended a rocky hill, they followed a narrow valley, they climbed another hill. When the sun was high in the sky, they ate a lunch of corn bread and dried fish from Quagnant's pack. Then, already footsore and stiff, Conrad followed doggedly the long stride which led farther and farther into the wilderness.