When Henry, the oldest of the five Starkley children, went to college to study civil engineering, sixteen-year-old Peter, fourteen-year-old Flora, twelve-year-old Dick and eight-year-old Emma were at home. Peter, who was done with school, did a man's work on the farm; he owned a sorrel mare with a reputation as a trotter, contemplated spending the next winter in the lumber woods and planned agriculture activities on a scale and of a kind to astonish his father. On a Saturday morning in June Dick and Flora, who were chums, got up even earlier than usual. They breakfasted by themselves in the summer kitchen of the silent house, dug earthworms in the rich brown loam of the garden and, taking their fishing rods from behind the door of the tool house, set out hurriedly for Frying Pan River. When they were halfway to the secluded stream they overtook Frank Sacobie, the great-grandson of Two-Blanket Sacobie, who had helped Maj. Richard Starkley build his house. The young Malecite's black eyes lighted pleasantly at sight of his friends, but his lips remained unsmiling. He was a very thin, small-boned, long-legged boy of thirteen, clothed in a checked cotton shirt and the cut-down trousers of an older Sacobie. He did not wear a hat. His straight black hair lay in a fringe just above his eyebrows. "Didn't you bring any worms?" asked Flora. "Nope," said Frank. "Or any luncheon?" asked Dick. "Nope," said Frank. "You two always fetch plenty worms and plenty grub." He led the way along a lumbermen's winter road, and at last they reached the Frying Pan. Baiting their hooks, they fell to fishing. The trout were plentiful in the Frying Pan; they bit, they yanked, they pulled. The three young fishers heaved them ashore by main force and awkwardness--as folk say round Beaver Dam--and by noon the three had as many fish as they could comfortably carry. So, winding up their lines, they washed their hands and sat down in a sunny place to lunch. All were wet, for all had fallen into the river more than once. Dick had his left hand in a bandage by that time; he had embedded a hook in the fleshy part of it and had dug it out with his jack-knife. "That's nothing! Just a scratch!" he said in the best offhand military manner. "My great-grandfather once had a Russian bayonet put clean through his shoulder." "Guess my great-gran'father did some fightin', too," remarked Frank Sacobie. "He was a big chief on the big river." "No, he didn't," said Dick. "He was a chief, all right; but there wasn't any fighting on the river in his day. He was Two-Blanket Sacobie. I've read all about him in my great-grandfather's diary."