The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare Read Free Book Online Page A

No matter how often the dog came with Attean, he never let Matt touch him. Nor did Matt like him any better. He was certainly no good at hunting. When the two boys walked through the woods the dog zigzagged ahead, sending squirrels racing up trees and jays chattering, and ruining any chance of a catch. Matt wondered why Attean wanted him along. Attean didn't pay him any mind except to shout at him and cuff him when he was too noisy. But for all his show of indifference, it was plain to Matt that Attean thought a sight of that dog.
    Attean had not brought the dog with him the day that he led Matt a long distance into a part of the forest that Matt had never seen. Following after him, Matt began to feel uneasy. If Attean should take himself off suddenly, as he had a way of doing, Matt was not sure he could find his way back to the cabin. It occurred to him that Attean knew this, that perhaps Attean had brought him so far just to show him how helpless he really was, how all the words in a white man's book were of no use to him in the woods.
    Yet he did not think this would happen. For some reason he could not explain to himself, he trusted Attean. He didn't really like him. When the Indian got that disdainful look in his eyes, Matt hated him. But somehow, as they had sat side by side, day after day, doing the lessons that neither of them wanted to do, something had changed. Perhaps it had been
Robinson Crusoe,
or the tramping through the woods together. They didn't like each other, but they were no longer enemies.
    When they came upon a row of short tree stumps, birch and aspen cut off close to the ground, Matt's heart gave a leap. Were there settlers nearby? Or Indians? There was no proper clearing. Then he noticed that whoever had cut the trees had left jagged points on each one. No axe would cut a tree in that way. He could see marks where the trees had been dragged along the ground.
    In a few steps the boys came out on the bank of an unfamiliar creek. There Matt saw what had happened to those trees. They had been piled in a mound right over the water, from one bank to the other. Water trickled through them in tiny cascades. Behind the piled-up branches, a small pond stretched smooth and still.
    "It's a beaver dam!" he exclaimed. "The first one I've ever seen."
    "
Qwa bit
" said Attean. "Have red tail. There beaver wigwam." He pointed to a heap of branches at one side, some of them new with green leaves still clinging. Matt stepped closer to look. Instantly there was the crack of a rifle. A ring of water rippled the surface of the pond. Near its edge a black head appeared for just a flash and vanished again in a splutter of bubbles.
    Attean laughed at the way Matt had started. "Beaver make big noise with tail," he explained.
    "I thought someone had shot a gun," Matt said. "I wish I had my rifle now."
    Attean scowled. "Not shoot," he warned. "Not white man, not Indian. Young beaver not ready."
    He pointed to a tree nearby. "Sign of beaver," he said. "Belong to family."
    Carved on the bark, Matt could make out the crude figure of an animal that could, with some imagination, be a beaver.
    "Sign show beaver house belong to people of beaver," Attean explained. "By and by, when young beaver all grown, people of beaver hunt here. No one hunt but people of beaver."
    "You mean, just from that mark on the tree, another hunter would not shoot here?"
    "That our way," Attean said gravely. "All Indian understand."
    Would a white man understand? Matt wondered. He thought of Ben with his stolen rifle. It wasn't likely Ben would respect an Indian sign. But he must remember to warn his father.
    When it seemed the beaver did not intend to show itself again, the two boys climbed back up the bank. At the row of stumps, Attean halted and signaled for Matt to go ahead.
    "Show way to cabin," he ordered.
    All Matt's suspicions came rushing back. Did Attean intend to sneak off behind his back and leave him to find his own way home?
    "Is this some kind