look had conveyed to the boy was: “I am Pikot, your friend, but you must not know me. Whatever happens, we are strangers. Trust me!” David drew a deep breath and felt a lightening of the heart. Whatever Pikot’s secret might be, it was not a shameful one, he decided, and he would trust him. Indeed, it might well be that Straight Arrow was but playing a part in order to rescue his old friend. Perchance he had been dispatched hither by the Council at Boston. And yet, in spite of his resolve to be trustful, David revolted at the recollection of Pikot oiled and painted and bedecked for the warpath and serving as a messenger for that outlaw, Philip of Mount Hope.
Then a new thought came to him. Was it not possible that the embassy from Philip was but a pretense, a means of entering the Wachoosett village as friends? Maybe not only Pikot, but the two Indians with him, were there for no other purpose than to rescue him, David, from Metipom. And yet the boy’s knowledge of the Indians told him beyond doubt that neither of Pikot’s companions was Nipmuck, but, unless he was much mistaken, of King Philip’s own tribe.
His further ponderings were interrupted
