During the week which followed, with the exception of the Sabbath, the two laboured industriously, save at such tittle as one or the other spent in hunting, and Walter could see the outlines of the structure he intended one day to build.

A large pile of rocks had been rolled together to form the lower walls, huge timbers were hewn and roughly “squared " for the framework, and a road from the riverbank to the highway, four miles distant, was “blazed” a goodly portion of the way.

During all this time, while he had laboured as industriously as if it was some project of his own, the Indian remained comparatively silent.  He had told the rescuer his name was Sewatis; that he was a member of the Penobscot tribe, and acquainted with “Jim Albert,” but never a word regarding the reason for being in that vicinity.

There had been no scarcity of food; the forest teemed with game, and if the labourers fancied deer, bear or birds, it was only necessary to go a short distance from the encampment in order to get it.

Almost unconsciously Walter had explained to his assistant what it was he hoped to do.  There had been many times when it seemed positively necessary he should speak with some one, and to the silent Indian the boy talked freely.  It was as if thinking aloud, because no reply was made unless one was absolutely required; and it is quite possible the young messenger would have been greatly surprised had some one been there to tell him he had confided more fully in Sewatis than in any other person except his mother.

More than once had Walter suggested that there was no reason why the Indian should remain if he had business elsewhere.

“I suppose you think because I pulled you from under that tree you must stay here and work, but it is all a mistake.  You have already repaid me ten-fold, and I don’t want you to believe there is any necessity of stopping with me.”

“Me wait,” Sewatis would say, whenever the conversation touched upon this subject, and by the end of a week Walter would have felt decidedly lonely without his silent companion.

“There’s one thing about it,” the boy said once, when the Indian had refused to leave him, “while you are here I feel as if I could learn at any time how matters are at home.  It wouldn’t be much of a task for you to go into Portsmouth? "

Sewatis made a gesture which signified that such a journey would be as nothing.

“I think you had better go and see my mother presently.  Of course she won’t be worrying about me, for she knows I am able to take care of myself; but at the same time it will give her some satisfaction to know what I am doing.  You could find my mother?”

Sewatis nodded.

“And it wouldn’t be too hard work for you to tell her what we have done.”

Another nod, and something very like a smile on the silent Indian’s lips.

“If you don’t open your mouth to her any oftener than you do to me, you might stay on the farm a year without her knowing what we have been doing.”