“He dead. You boy do dat?” And Nathan told him all the adventure. The Indian gave the boy an approving pat on the head that made Nathan’s scalp shiver. “You big Nad-yal-we-no. Too much good for be Pastoniac. You come ’long me to Yam-as-ka, I make you Waubanakee. Den be good for sometings. Nawaa,” he said to his companion, and the other coming in, the two reached down and laid hold of the bear’s forelegs, and when, by their instructions, Nathan lifted the door, they dragged the limp, shaggy carcass out upon the floor. When the full proportions of the huge brute were revealed, the boy’s rejoicings broke forth anew, just as his father and the hired man came hurrying in, when he received fresh praise for his deed. The dinner was bounteous, if late, and the Indians, Toksoose and Tahmont, had their full share of it, with a big chunk of pork and as much bear’s meat as they cared to take, which was small, since they liked better the daintier meat of the musquash, wherewith their trapping afforded them an ample supply. When toward nightfall the mother returned, she was told the story by the victors, and with equal delight was it rehearsed when Job happened to come, and the unstinted praise of the old hunter was sweetest of all. Many a day was the tale rehearsed for the benefit of new listeners. Even when Nathan was an old man, and looked back on the many adventures of his life, not one stood forth so clearly in the haze of the past as this adventure with the bear, wherein he had borne the chief part. CHAPTER IX—A FRONTIER TRAGEDY One autumn day after the leaves had faded and fallen, Nathan was busy husking corn, with less thought upon his task and the growing pile of yellow ears than of a promised partridge hunt on the morrow with his good friend Job. His father was chopping in a new clearing. Silas had been sent with the oxen to take some logs to Lemon Fair Mill. His mother grew uneasy at her spinning, for Seth did not come home to dinner, nor yet when the afternoon was half spent. After many times anxiously looking and listening in the direction of the clearing, and as often saying to herself, “What does keep father so?” she called to Nathan. “I guess you’d better go and see what henders father so. I can’t think what it is. I hope it hain’t anything.” “Perhaps he’s gone over to Callenders or some o’ the neighbors,” said Nathan. “I hain’t heard a tree fall for ever so long nor his axe a goin’ for a long time.” “Mebby he’s cut his foot or something,” said Martha, beginning to cry. “I can’t hear nothin’ of him for all the air’s so holler and everything sounds so plain,” said Ruth, listening again. “You’d better go and see what henders him. Mebby he can’t git home.”