'You a lawyer?' asked Arthur Stuart suspiciously.

Instead of answering, Davy turned tail and slunk out of the clearing just like that bear done, and in the same direction. He kept on slinking, too, though he probably wanted to run; but running would have made his hand bounce and that would hurt too much.

'I think we'll never see him again,' said Arthur Stuart.

'I think we will,' said Alvin.

'Why's that?'

"Cause I changed him deep inside, to be a little more like the bear. And I changed that bear to be a little bit more like Davy.'

'You shouldn't go messing with people's insides like that,' said Arthur Stuart.

'The Devil makes me do it,' said Alvin.

'You don't believe in the Devil.'

'Do so,' said Alvin. 'I just don't think he looks the way folks say he does.'

'Oh? What does he look like then?' demanded the boy.

'Me,' said Alvin. 'Only smarter.'

Alvin and Arthur set to work making them a dugout canoe. They cut down a tree just the right size - two inches wider than Alvin's hips - and set to burning one surface of it, then chipping out the ash and burning it deeper. It was slow, hot work, and the more they did of it, the more puzzled Arthur Stuart got.

'I reckon you know your business,' he says to Alvin, 'but we don't need no canoe.'

'Any canoe,' says Alvin. 'Miss Larner'd be right peeved to hear you talking like that.'

'First place,' says Arthur Stuart, 'you learned from Tenskwa-Tawa how to run like a Red man through the forest, faster than any canoe can float, and with a lot less work than this.'

'Don't feel like running,' said Alvin.

'Second place,' Arthur Stuart continued, 'water works against you every chance it gets. The way Miss Larner tells it, water near killed you sixteen times before you was ten.'