At once the women prepared the feast. Portions of the meat were set aside to be smoked; the rest was divided into slices and broiled. There was no seasoning and the Indian bread was coarse, but the meal was better than many which the guest had eaten.
For a few days Conrad watched the play of the children, who showed him haunts of beaver and woodchuck, and taught him to make and spin a heart-shaped top of wood. With them he played Blind Man's Buff, in which the bandage across his eyes was his own dullness of vision which could not see the little figure lying among the leaves. He watched also the women braiding their baskets and grinding earth into the paint for the faces and bodies of their husbands.
In the evening he sat with the Indians in Quagnant's house. At first their speech was a strange jargon, but gradually the sounds stayed in his mind and were associated with the objects to which they belonged. The comfortable nights in the chief's wigwam and the good food put color into his cheeks and flesh on his thin body.
But idleness and luxury did not long endure. He had come to look upon the deerskins which served him for a bed as his own. One night, when he wished to lie down, they were gone. He asked for them and was laughed at.
"You have no deerskin," said Quagnant.
In the morning Quagnant gave him a gun and led the way into the forest. Three days later when they returned, Quagnant had two deerskins and Conrad none. Again he slept on the ground and again he went with Quagnant into the forest. On the third journey he shot a buck.
For one night after the skin was dressed, he slept upon it in the chief's house. At the next nightfall he found himself and his bed thrust outside. The Indians laughed at his astonishment and every laugh said, "Make a house for yourself!"
With the advice and aid of the children, Conrad built himself a wigwam. At once Quagnant demolished it.
"Wind come—house gone. Eyes-like-the-Sky can do better."