Some three weeks later, as Steve and Sammy were engaged in manufacturing maple sugar, Tom came and sat on a log close by and watched them carefully. They had three large iron cauldrons dangling over log fires, while a fourth, a smaller one, hung over a separate fire placed some yards from the others. And here they were making a store of sugar to last them throughout the winter. Very early that day Sammy and Steve had been out in the forest, and having blazed certain of the maples, had set their jars beneath the slashes to catch the sap. And now they were boiling the latter down, throwing fresh sap into the larger cauldrons as the bubbling mass threatened to overflow the sides. It was a long process, and for some hours now they had been engaged in the task. They had boiled and boiled the mass till their store of sap was reduced to a third of its former volume, and now that third was placed in the smaller cauldron. Tom watched as they lifted the latter from its iron support and poured its contents into stone vessels to crystallise and cool. "Steve," he called out. "Steve, I'm going away. I'll be back in a couple of months if nothing turns up to stop me." Steve was not surprised. His father had gone away from the settlement on some business on several occasions before, while he had remained to keep house. "Very well, father," he said. "I'll stay here and look out for your return. It will be winter almost by the time you come back." "Almost, lad. About the Indian summer, I fancy, Steve." He looked closely at his son as he called him again. "Steve, my lad, these are uncertain times, and--and I might not have a chance of coming back. If I should not, there is a lot that you should learn in the next few years. Things you have never dreamed of. If I am not back in a year, if anything happens to me, just go to this address and hand in this letter. There it is. Now, I'm going." It was not the backwoods fashion to take long in preparing for a journey, and so it happened that Tom Mainwaring set out for the Alleghany within half an hour of his conversation with Steve. They parted some ten miles from the log hut, Tom turning his face for the coast, while our hero stepped back to the settlement. And there for a little more than a month he went on quietly with the usual routine. He fished and shot and laid in a store of corn and dried bear's meat for the coming winter, the grinning Sammy looking after the log hut when he was away. Now and again, too, Mac and Jim would come over and spend an evening with him, while Steve would return the visit. For within ten miles of the hut there were some fifteen families, and it was the custom for all to visit one another. And so the days passed uneventfully till one bright morning in late September, when there was a crispness in the air which denoted the coming winter. A shout from Sammy brought Steve to the door of the log hut. "Marse Steve," he cried. "There's people sure on the water. They's comin' dis way."