It is midsummer, and the corn which the Indians have planted needs hoeing. They take him into the field, put a hoe into his hands to work with the squaws.
"You hoe corn," they say. John Stark hoe corn for the Indians! Not he. He cuts up weeds and corn alike, giving a few strokes, doing what damage he can, and then flings the hoe into the river.
"Squaws hoe corn. Braves fight," he says.
Do they beat him? On the contrary, they pat him on the shoulder.
"Bono! bono!" (good! good!) they say.
The Indians look down upon work as degrading. They make their wives do all the drudgery. Women were made to work, men to fight. To humiliate their prisoners they put them to work, degrading them to the condition of women. John Stark understood their character, and acted accordingly, and his captors were so delighted that they wanted him to become an Indian.
"We make you chief," they said.
"You be my son. I give you my daughter," said the chief.
But John Stark had no idea of becoming an Indian. Nevertheless, he kept his eyes and ears open. He studied their ways. They showed him how to follow a trail over the dead leaves of the forest—how the leaves would be rustled here and there, turned up at the edges, or pressed down a little harder where men had set their feet. He saw what cowards they were unless the advantage was all on their side, and how wily they were to steal upon their enemies. He picked up a little of their language. He was ready to go with them upon a deer-hunt; but as for working, he would not.
Little did the Indians think that they were teaching one who would turn all his knowledge to good account against them a few years later; that when they were showing him how to follow a trail they were teaching him to trace their own footsteps; that when the time came he would pay them off roundly for having taken him prisoner.