As they walked in the woods that day, they saw three trees that had been struck by lightning during the recent storm; all three were oaks. Then it occurred to Rolf that he had never seen any but an oak struck by lightning.
“Is it so, Quonab?”
“No, there are many others; the lightning strikes the oaks most of all, but it will strike the pine, the ash, the hemlock, the basswood, and many more. Only two trees have I never seen struck, the balsam and the birch.”
“Why do they escape?”
“My father told me when I was a little boy it was because they sheltered and warmed the Star-girl, who was the sister of the Thunder-bird.”
“I never heard that; tell me about it.”
“Sometime maybe, not now.”
Chapter 12. Hunting the Woodchucks
Cornmeal and potatoes, with tea and apples, three times a day, are apt to lose their charm. Even fish did not entirely satisfy the craving for flesh meat. So Quonab and Rolf set out one morning on a regular hunt for food. The days of big game were over on the Asamuk, but there were still many small kinds and none more abundant than the woodchuck, hated of farmers. Not without reason. Each woodchuck hole in the field was a menace to the horses' legs. Tradition, at least, said that horses' legs and riders' necks had been broken by the steed setting foot in one of these dangerous pitfalls: besides which, each chuck den was the hub centre of an area of desolation whenever located, as mostly it was, in the cultivated fields. Undoubtedly the damage was greatly exaggerated, but the farmers generally agreed that the woodchuck was a pest.