Theodore Goodridge Roberts

“ A sick Indian would ask for food, but a well one wouldn't for fear that a little job of work might be offered him. Haying was the last time in the year to expect one of those fellows to come around asking for anything. As for the books, an Indian who was queer enough to want to read would be queer enough to take the books on the quiet and return them on the sly. That's how James McAllister figured it out.
The last load of hay was hauled in and Ben told his mother of the contemplated trip up to French River. ”

“ The deputy sheriff and the local constable returned to O'Dell's Point within two days of their first visit. They confronted Ben and Uncle Jim as the two farmers descended to the barn floor from the top of a load of hay.
“Look a here, young feller, why didn't you tell me all you knew about that pirogue?” demanded Mr. Brown in a nasty voice, with a nasty glint in his eyes. “You went an' made yerself out the champion man of honor an' truth teller in the world an' then you went an' lied to me!” ”

“ A man like Sherwood might be fooled by a clever rascal like Balenger into forgetting some of the social duties and niceties of his kind—yes, even to the extent of breaking a game law occasionally under pressure. ”

“ The McAllister hay of this year had been a heavier crop than usual and the price of beef promised to be high next Easter, so Ben O'Dell found his Uncle Ian in an obliging humor. Ian promised to sleep at the O'Dell house every night while his nephew and brother were away from home.
“It be Archie's week for the cookin',” he said, “so I reckon a decent breakfast an' human supper every day for a while won't do me no harm. ”

“ What's come over her? It ain't like Flora to be scairt. What's she scairt of?”
In justice to his mother Ben had to tell Ian something of the recent strange happenings at the point. He told of little Marion Sherwood's arrival, of her father's flight from French River and the suspicions of the deputy sheriff and of the elaborate destruction of the red pirogue, but he did not mention the thefts. He feared that Ian McAllister's attitude toward a thief, even a hungry and harmless thief, would not be as charitable as his own or his mother's or his Uncle Jim's. ”

“ Jim believed that the food and books had been taken by an Indian. He knew several Indians in the neighborhood who could read and more who were sometimes hungry because they were too lazy to work; and they were all on friendly terms with the dogs. ”

“ There's many a good horse that shies at a bit of paper on the road that has the heart to pull on a load till it drops.”
“Mighty deep reasonin',” said Ian McAllister. “That's what comes of schoolin'. We'll chaw it over, me an' Archie; but whatever kind of coward Richard Sherwood may be, I'll look after yer ma an' the little girl while yer away.”
Ben and Uncle Jim set out for French River next morning at an early hour in the canvas canoe. They made ten miles by noon, poling close inshore all the way. They boiled the teakettle, ate the plentiful cold luncheon with which Mrs. ”