Finally he made this offer: If they would stay till September first, and so leave all in "good shape fer der vinter," he would, besides the wages agreed, give them the canoe, one axe, six mink traps, and a fox trap now hanging in the barn, and carry them in his wagon as far as the Five-mile portage from Lake George to Schroon River, down which they could go to its junction with the upper Hudson, which, followed up through forty miles of rapids and hard portages, would bring them to a swampy river that enters from the southwest, and ten miles up this would bring them to Jesup's Lake, which is two miles wide and twelve miles long.

This country abounded with game, but was so hard to enter that after Jesup's death it was deserted.
There was only one possible answer to such an offer--they stayed.
In spare moments Quonab brought the canoe up to the barn, stripped off some weighty patches of bark and canvas and some massive timber thwarts, repaired the ribs, and when dry and gummed, its weight was below one hundred pounds; a saving of at least forty pounds on the soggy thing he crossed the lake in that first day on the farm.
September came.

Early in the morning Quonab went alone to the lakeside; there on a hill top he sat, looking toward the sunrise, and sang a song of the new dawn, beating, not with a tom-tom--he had none--but with one stick on another.

And when the sunrise possessed the earth he sang again the hunter's song: "Father, guide our feet, Lead us to the good hunting." Then he danced to the sound, his face skyward, his eyes closed, his feet barely raised, but rythmically moved.

So went he three times round to the chant in three sun circles, dancing a sacred measure, as royal David might have done that day when he danced around the Ark of the Covenant on its homeward joumey.