"You were eleven then," said Robert, "and I was just a shade younger. You were as strange to me as I was to you, and I thought, in truth, that you were going to run away into the wilderness. But you didn't, and you began to learn from books faster than I thought was possible for one whose mind before then had been turned in another direction." "But you helped me, Dagaeoga. After our first and only battle in the garden, which I think was a draw, we became allies." "Und you united against me," said Mynheer Huysman. "And you helped me with the books," continued Tayoga. "Ah, those first months were hard, very hard!" "And you taught me the use of the bow and arrow," continued Robert, "and new skill in both fishing and hunting." "Und the two uf you together learned new tricks und new ways uf making my life miserable," grumbled Mynheer Huysman. "But you must admit, Jacob," said Willet, "that they were not the worst boys in the world." "Well, not the worst, perhaps, David, because I don't know all the boys uf all the countries in the world, but when you put an Onondaga lad und an American lad together in alliance it iss hard to find any one who can excel them, because they haf the mischief uf two nations." "But you are tremendously glad to see them again, Jacob. Don't deny it. I read it over and over again in your eyes." Willet's own eyes twinkled as he spoke, and he saw also that there was a light in those of the big Dutchman. But Huysman would admit nothing. "Here iss your room," he said to Robert and Tayoga. Robert saw that it was not changed. All the old, familiar objects were there, and they brought to him a rush of emotion, as inanimate things often do. On a heavy mahogany dresser lay two worn volumes that he touched affectionately. One was his Caesar and the other his algebra. Once he had hated both, but now he thought of them tenderly as links with, the peaceful boyhood that was slipping away. Hanging from a hook on the wall was an unstrung bow, the first weapon of the kind with which he had practiced under the teaching of Tayoga. He passed his hand over it gently and felt a thrill at the touch of the wood.