While the two men were talking, Don not only listened eagerly, but studied the visitor closely. He was a short man with broad sloping shoulders and a pair of long heavy arms. His musket, which he had carried in when he went to get the furs, lay beside his coonskin cap on the floor. Though the weapon lay several feet from him, Don was sure that the man could get it in a fraction of a second, if he needed it badly; for he had crossed the floor with the quick noiseless tread of a cat. Now he was lying back in his chair, and his deep-set black eyes seemed to sparkle and burn in the moving light of the fire. His face was like dark tanned leather drawn over high cheek bones; his hair was long and jet black. His pipe seemed twice the size of Uncle David’s when it was in his mouth, but when the trapper’s sinewy hand closed over the bowl it seemed very small. Glen Drake was just the sort of man to catch a boy’s fancy. All evening Don sat enthralled, listening to the stories the man told of the north, and Aunt Martha had to use all her power of persuasion to send her nephew off to bed. “No more pie for a week, Donald, unless you go this instant,” she said at last. “You like pie, Don?” asked the trapper. “Well, so do I. And I like boys also, and since I hope to be here for some little time maybe you and I can get to be real friendly.” “I--I surely hope so!” said Don and turned reluctantly toward the stairs. He did not go to sleep at once; his room was directly above the sitting-room, and he could hear his uncle and Glen Drake talking until late into the night. The month that followed was a delightful one for Don. After school hours he and the old trapper would often cross the Neck and go for a long walk through Cambridge and far beyond. The backbone of winter was broken; spring was well along, and the birds had returned from the south. Glen knew them all, by sight and by sound, and he was willing and even eager to teach his companion; he taught him also the habits of the fur-bearing animals and the best ways to trap them; he taught him how to fish the streams, the baits to use and the various outdoor methods of cooking the fish they landed. “I declare,” said Glen one evening in May when they were returning with a fine mess of fish, “you’re the quickest boy to learn a thing ever I knew. I’m as proud of ye as if you were my own son.” Don felt a thrill pass over him; he had not expected such praise as that. “I hope I can learn a lot more,” he said. But that was the last trip the two made into the country together for a long time. On arriving at the house in Pudding Lane, they found Uncle David pacing nervously back and forth across the floor. “What’s the matter, Dave?” asked Glen. “Matter enough; haven’t you heard?” Uncle David paused. Then he said with a note of anger in his voice: “I was sure all along that the King would take some means of revenge for the affair of the tea, but it’s worse than I’d suspected. He’s going to close the port.”