He replied warmly, “She was just as kind and nice as she could be.”

“You had better have a steak now,” said Mrs. Raften, in solicitous doubt.

How tempting was the thought of that juicy brown steak!  How his empty stomach did crave it!  But the continued mockery had stirred him.  He would stand up for the warm-hearted old woman who had ungrudgingly given him the best she had—­had given her all—­to make a hearty welcome for a stranger.  They should never know how gladly he would have eaten now, and in loyalty to his recent hostess he added the first lie of his life: 

“No, thank you very much, but really I am not in the least hungry.  I had a fine dinner at Granny de Neuville’s.”

Then, defying the inner pangs of emptiness, he went about his evening chores.

XIII

The Hostile Spy

“Wonder where Caleb got that big piece of Birch bark,” said Yan; “I’d like some for dishes.”

“Guess I know.  He was over to Burns’s bush.  There’s none in ours.  We kin git some.”

“Will you ask him?”

“Naw, who cares for an old Birch tree.  We’ll go an’ borrow it when he ain’t lookin’.”

Yan hesitated.

Sam took the axe.  “We’ll call this a war party into the enemy’s country.  There’s sure ’nuff war that-a-way.  He’s one of Da’s ’friends.’”

Yan followed, in doubt still as to the strict honesty of the proceeding.

Over the line they soon found a good-sized canoe Birch, and were busy whacking away to get off a long roll, when a tall man and a small boy, apparently attracted by the chopping, came in sight and made toward them.  Sam called under his breath:  “It’s old Burns.  Let’s git.”

There was no time to save anything but themselves and the axe.  They ran for the boundary fence, while Burns contented himself with shouting out threats and denunciations.  Not that he cared a straw for the Birch tree—­timber had no value in that country—­but unfortunately Raften had quarrelled with all his immediate neighbours, therefore Burns did his best to make a fearful crime of the petty depredation.

His valiant son, a somewhat smaller boy than either Yan or Sam, came near enough to the boundary to hurl opprobrious epithets.

“Red-head—­red-head!  You red-headed thief!  Hol’ on till my paw gits hol’ o’ you—­Raften, the Baften, the rick-strick Straften,” and others equally galling and even more exquisitely refined.

“War party escaped and saved their scalps,” and Sam placidly laid the axe in its usual place.

“Nothing lost but honour,” added Yan.  “Who’s the kid?”

“Oh, that’s Guy Burns.  I know him.  He’s a mean little cuss, always sneaking and peeking.  Lies like sixty.  Got the prize—­a big scrubbing-brush—­for being the dirtiest boy in school.  We all voted, and the teacher gave it to him.”

Next day the boys made another war party for Birch bark, but had hardly begun operations when there was an uproar not far away, and a voice, evidently of a small boy, mouthing it largely, trying to pass itself off as a man’s voice:  “Hi, yer the ——­ ——.  Yer git off my ——­ ——­ place ——­ ——­”