We sat up and stared at Doc and the Indians, and the Indians stared back at us. I wondered how long it would be before they drew hatchets from their girdles and split open our skulls.

Verrieul scrambled to his feet and said something to them in passionate and moving tones, at which the Indians looked puzzled. Then the one Doc had called Sponge-belly took his hatchet from his belt and hefted it thoughtfully. Instead of using it on us, however, he went to a birch tree and peeled off a sheet of bark. He folded up the edges, so that it made a crude bowl, and into it he poured nearly half the contents of the kettle. When he made signs that it was ours we pulled our spoons from our breeches pockets and spooned succotash into ourselves and into Nathaniel. To me, after my three foodless days of endless labor, it seemed the sweetest food in the world.

While we ate, the seven Indians stood around us, waiting for us to finish. When our portion of the succotash was gone—no more of a satisfaction to the aching void within us than a shrimp would be to a starving seagull—Sponge-belly took the bark bowl from us, filled it with the remainder of the succotash, and the seven red men huddled around it, picking up the soup-like mixture of corn, beans and bear fat with their fingers, throwing back their heads to gobble it down, dribbling the juice on their chins and chests, and freely splattering it on each other.

Cautioned by Verrieul, we, too, sat silent while they ate. When they were done, they removed as much of the remnants of the succotash from their necks and bodies as they could without rubbing off the black paint.

The six younger Indians sprawled negligently on the ground, but Sponge-belly hitched up his belt cloth and made coughing noises in his throat, as if to loosen his talking muscles. He walked back and forth before us, stiff-legged, like an enormous red rooster preparing to crow.

He spoke at last in deep tones, similar to those Verrieul had used; and during his speech Verrieul threw us phrases here and there, to give us an idea of what was being said.