“Well, why did you, sir?” asked John Jerome, quite respectfully, but brimming over with curiosity, as he remembered the Quaker’s embarrassment when the name of Ichabod Nesbit had been mentioned at Pittsburg. He turned around on his three-legged stool and looked the older man squarely in the face as he asked the question, but Ree to hide his embarrassment rose and looked out of a loop hole.
The stranger made no answer, but giving Jerome a startled, searching look, seemed to hug the saddle bags under his arm the closer.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE FATE OF BLACK EAGLE.
“I think Mr. Hatch better not talk any more now,” said Return Kingdom, quickly looking around and noticing the Quaker’s flushed, excited manner. “You must be careful, you are still so weak,” the boy continued, adjusting the straw-filled bolster for the man to lie down again.
“I didn’t mean any harm by my question,” John spoke up, quietly.
“Thou didst no harm, young friend, but almost frightened me,” the stranger answered.
So the incident passed leaving the boys more curious than ever to know the history and true identity of Theodore Hatch. Ree would not confess that he was especially anxious to learn these things, because his fear of wounding the man’s feelings would not permit him to question the stranger; but John openly vowed that he meant to find out just who and what the stranger was, and would do so sooner or later. And in time the boys did ascertain all they could have wished to know, but in ways quite unexpected.
“There’s a lot of work to be done, building a horse shed and all,” said Ree, when the two friends were outside the cabin after the talk with Theodore Hatch, “but in spite of that, one of us should go back along the trail and bury the bones of Ichabod Nesbit. I’m afraid that some day our Quaker will ask to be taken to the place, and he would not think very well of us if he found things just as they were left.”
John fell in with this suggestion heartily, but it was agreed that there would be time to perform the task spoken of, two or three days later, and meanwhile some inkling of the whereabouts of the lone Indian might be obtained. Thus it was that after some discussion it was decided that Ree should go that very day to the village of the Delawares on the lake a few miles away, to learn all he could of this particular savage and the disposition of the Indians in general, while at the same time he showed the people of Captain Pipe, the Delaware chieftain, that the lads desired to renew their friendly relations with them. John would remain with the stranger to care for him and guard the cabin, giving his work the while to cutting small logs with which to build a barn.
Taking some presents for the Delawares, Ree set out at about nine o’clock, promising to be home by dark. John shouldered his axe and went to work. It had been Ree’s first plan to make his trip on horseback, but resolving that it would be safer to slip through the woods very quietly until he found out just what the situation with reference to the Indians was, he traveled on foot, and soon found himself upon the familiar portage trail leading from the Cuyahoga river to the headwaters of the Tuscarawas.