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44 him. David took no pleasure from the decision, for, as toilsome as the trip would have been, he had looked forward to it eagerly,  anxious to put his strength and endurance  to the test. But his uncle was not one to be disputed and David agreed to the arrangement with the best face he could. Bedtime came early, but, after he and Raph had put  out the candle in the little sloping-roofed  room at the top of the house, they talked for  a long while. Even then it was Raph who first dropped off to slumber, and David lay  for some time more quite wide awake in the  darkness, watching through the little small-paned window the twinkling lights on the ships in the town cove.

His purchases were made by mid-morning and at a little after ten o’clock Raph accompanied him to Blackstone’s Point whither  the porters from the stores had borne his  goods and where three stolid and unattractive Indians were awaiting. Raph bade him farewell and repeated a promise to visit him  in the summer, and the canoe, propelled by  two of the savages, began its return voyage. Since but one of his copper-skinned companions carried a weapon, a battered flintlock, David could not see that he was much safer