"Uncle Teddy," said the Captain, as they sat around the fire at Ellen's Isle that night, talking over the events of the previous day, "I am going to do the three-day fast like the Indian boys did."
"Ho-ho-ho!" shouted Slim. "You couldn't go a day without something to eat."
"Don't judge others by yourself," retorted the Captain. "_You_ couldn't, I know well enough. But I believe the Indians were right in saying that the mind should conquer the body. I like that idea of going off by yourself and watching for some sign from nature. Being away from people and not hearing them talk gives you a great chance to think out the things that are puzzling you. I am going over on the mainland, in the woods, and keep the fast three days."
Of course, Aunt Clara didn't want him to do it. She immediately had visions of him starved to death. But there was a wonderful gleam in Uncle Teddy's eyes when he looked at his nephew. He said very little about the proposed fast, either to encourage or discourage him; simply gave his consent.
Hinpoha regarded the Captain with wondering admiration. She also burned with the desire to do something hard, to prove that girls as well as boys can practise self-control. "Oh, Captain," she said, "if you keep the fast I'll keep the silence! I'll not speak a word for three days."
There was a ripple of exclamations at this, mixed with laughter, for Hinpoha's fondness for conversation was well known. "Laugh all you want to," she said, "but I'll prove to you that I can do it."
The Captain chose the spot for his retirement and on the first day after he was released from Chiefhood he paddled across to the mainland taking his blankets and water, but no food. Hinpoha stood on the bank as he departed, with a middy tie bound over her mouth. She had feared her ability to keep silence without it as a constant reminder.
When the Captain reached the place where he planned to spread his blankets he found an Indian bed of balsam branches fully two feet high. Who could have made it? he wondered, and then he remembered that Hinpoha had gone off paddling by herself the afternoon before. She knew the place he had picked out. He threw himself down on the fragrant couch and began his long struggle for the victory of the spirit over the body. Every night at sunset Uncle Teddy went over to see if he was all right and bring him fresh water from the little sweet spring on Ellen's Isle. The third day the Captain lay with his eyes closed most of the time and dozed, the sounds of the wood and the lake coming to him as from afar off. Sometimes he slept and once he dreamed he saw an Indian girl come across the lake in a canoe, walk up to where he lay and stand looking at him steadily for a long time. He half opened his eyes and it still seemed to him as if there were someone there, but the face and the figure were Hinpoha's. He opened his eyes wider and looked again, but she had vanished, and he sank back to sleep.