Cap, I saw, was being facetious after his own manner, partly in relief at Verrieul’s recovery, and partly to keep the boy’s tongue wagging.

Verrieul seemed a little hurt by Cap’s words. “You must understand that my case was unusual. From the manner in which you shower kindnesses on me, I can see you find me pleasing; and that was even more the case with the Revrint Doctor. For three years there was no pupil regarded with as much warmth by the Revrint Doctor as was unworthy Joseph Verrieul.”

“You don’t say!” Cap remarked. “Well, well! Maybe that’s a compliment for the Doctor, and maybe it ain’t! Who is this Revrint Doctor, if we might make so bold as to ask?”

Verrieul was incredulous. “The Revrint Dr. Wheelock? You don’t know him? Truly, I thought he knew everybody in the world! He writes letters to all neighborhoods—to General Washington and great sachems everywhere.”

“His letters to me must have got lost,” Cap said. “Where’s he live and what’s he do?”

“He is president of the seminary in Hanover! You have heard of it: the Indian school? We call it Dartmouth College.”

“Indian school?” Cap asked quickly. “You’re an Indian?”

“No, no!” Verrieul said. “I am an American, descended from French people. My father was lieutenant colonel, living in Sillery. Now he is dead. I was at school in France for two years: then I am discovered by the Revrint Dr. Wheelock! A fine man! A man with a large, warm heart, wholly confident of my future. He paid the cost of my studies in the seminary, out of his own pocket; because, you see, I have nothing myself.”

He smiled his confiding, engaging smile; and Cap, staring at him, opened his mouth to say something, but didn’t say it.

“You met Indians at this Indian school?” Nason asked.

Verrieul laughed. “Met them! They’re my brothers! Lewis Vincent from Caughnawaga, and Joe Gill, the son of the sachem of St. Francis: they are brothers to me. It was I who went with Kendal to Caughnawaga as an interpreter when he founded the school. Kendal and James Deane and I, we are much loved in Caughnawaga.”

Nason spoke to him rapidly in a language that had a peculiar click and catch beneath and between the words.

“Indeed, yes!” Verrieul exclaimed. “It was the first I learned—Abenaki. Now I speak many, including Chippeway. All the western nations speak Chippeway. I learned it when I traveled with James Deane to the westward.”