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maple sugar. Plainly he felt bound to keep the terms of his grandfather's treaty.
    Matt stuck to his part of the bargain as well, though the lessons were an ordeal for them both. Matt knew well enough what a poor teacher he was. Sometimes it seemed that Attean was learning in spite of him. Once the Indian had resigned himself to mastering twenty-six letters, he took them in a gulp, scorning the childish
candle
and
door
and
table
that Matt had devised. Soon he was spelling out simple words. The real trouble was that Attean was contemptuous, that the whole matter of white man's words seemed to him nonsense. Impatiently they hurried through the lessons to get on with
Robinson
Crusoe. Matt suspected that the only reason Attean agreed to come back day after day was that he wanted to hear more of that story.
    Skipping over the pages that sounded like sermons, Matt chose the sections he liked best himself. Now he came to the rescue of the man Friday. Attean sat quietly, and Matt almost forgot him in his own enjoyment of his favorite scene.
    There was the mysterious footprint on the sand, the canoes drawn up on the lonely beach, and the strange, wild-looking men with two captives. One of the captives they mercilessly slaughtered. The fire was set blazing for a cannibal feast.
    Then the second captive made a desperate escape, running straight to where Crusoe stood watching. Two savages pursued him with horrid yells. Matt glanced up from the book and saw that Attean's eyes were gleaming. He hurried on. No need to skip here. Crusoe struck a mighty blow at the first cannibal, knocking him senseless. Then, seeing that the other was fitting an arrow into his bow, he shot and killed him. Matt read on:
The poor savage who fled, hut had stopped, though he saw both his enemies had fallen ... yet was so frightened with the noise and fire of my piece, that he stood stock-still, and neither came forward nor went backward.... I hallooed again to him, and made signs to him to come forward, which he easily understood, and came a little way, then stopped again.... he stood trembling as if he had been taken prisoner, and just been to be killed, as his two enemies were. I beckoned to him again to come to me, and gave him all signs of encouragement, that I could think of; and he came nearer and nearer, kneeling down every ten or twelve steps, in token of acknowledgment for saving his life. I smiled at him, and looked pleasantly, and beckoned to him to come still nearer. At length he came close to me, and then he kneeled down again, kissed the ground, and, taking my foot, set it upon his head. This, it seemed, was a token of swearing to be my slave forever....
    Attean sprang to his feet, a thundercloud wiping out all pleasure from his face.
    "
Nda!
" he shouted. "Not so."
    Matt stopped, bewildered.
    "Him never do that!"
    "Never do what?"
    "Never kneel down to white man!"
    "But Crusoe had saved his life."
    "Not kneel down," Attean repeated fiercely. "Not be slave. Better die."
    Matt opened his mouth to protest, but Attean gave him no chance. In three steps he was out of the cabin.
    Now he'll never come back, Matt thought. He sat slowly turning over the pages. He had never questioned that story. Like Robinson Crusoe, he had thought it natural and right that the wild man should be the white man's slave. Was there perhaps another possibility? The thought was new and troubling.

CHAPTER 10
    H E F E L T W E A K W I T H R E L I E F W H E N N E X T M O R N I N G Attean walked stiffly into the cabin and sat down at the table. Stumbling over himself, he set about the lesson. As soon as he could, he picked up
Robinson Crusoe.
In the night he had carefully thought out just what he was going to say, if Attean ever gave him another chance. Now he had to talk fast, because he could see that Attean was set against hearing any more of this book.
    "Let me go on," he pleaded. "It's different from now on. Friday—that's what Robinson Crusoe named him—doesn't kneel