Van
Cortlandt's guide?" With the governor and Vandam to back him,
Quonab soon had the mob on his side, and the dock loafer's own
friends pelted him with mud as he escaped. But not a little
credit is due to Skookum, for at the critical moment he had
sprung on the ruffian's bare and abundant leg with such toothsome
effect that the owner fell promptly backward and the knife thrust
missed. It was quickly over and Quonab replaced his knife,
contemptuous of the whole crowd before, during and after the
incident. Not at the time, but days later, he said of his foe:
"He was a talker; he was full of fear."
With the backwoods only thirty miles away, and the unbroken
wilderness one hundred, it was hard to believe how little Henry
van Cortlandt knew of the woods and its life. He belonged to the
ultra-fashionable set, and it was rather their pose to affect
ignorance of the savage world and its ways. But he had plenty of
common-sense to fan back on, and the inspiring example of
Washington, equally at home in the nation's Parliament, the army
intrenchment, the glittering ball room, or the hunting lodge of
the Indian, was a constant reminder that the perfect man is a
harmonious development of mind, morals, and physique.
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