he will go much farther away."

"Why, Tayoga?"

"Because the wind is shifting about a little, and, in another minute,
it will take him a whiff of the human odor. Then he will run away, and
run fast. Now he is running."

"I don't hear him, Tayoga, but I take it that you know what you are
saying is true."

"My ears are uncommonly keen, Black Rifle. It is no merit of mine that
they are so. Why should a man talk about a gift from Manitou, when it
really is the work of Manitou? Ah, the bear is going toward the south
and he is well frightened because he never stops to look back, nor
does he hesitate! Now he is gone and he will not come back again!"

Black Rifle glanced at the Onondaga in the dusk, and his eyes were
full of admiration.

"You have wonderful gifts, Tayoga," he said. "I don't believe such
eyes and ears as yours are to be found in the head of any other man."

"But, as I have just told you, Black Rifle, however good they may
be the credit belongs to Manitou and not to me. I am but a poor
instrument."

"Still you find 'em useful, and the exercise of such powers must yield
a certain pleasure. They're particularly valuable just now, as I'm
thinking we'll have an eventful night."

"I think so too, Black Rifle. With the warriors and the French so near
us it is not likely that it could pass in peace."

"At any rate, Dave and the lads are not worrying about it. I never saw
anybody sleep more soundly. I reckon they were pretty well worn out."

"So they were, and, unless danger comes very close, we will not awaken
them. That it will be near us soon I do not doubt because Tododaho
warns me that peril is at hand."

He was looking up at the star on which his patron saint sat and his
face had that rapt expression which it always wore when his spirit
leaped into the void to meet that of the great Onondaga chief who
had gone away four hundred years ago. Black Rifle regarded him with
respect. He too was steeped in Indian lore and belief, and, if Tayoga
said he saw and heard what others could not hear or see, then he saw
and heard them and that was all there was to it.

"What do you see, Tayoga?" he asked.

"Tododaho sits on his star with the wise snakes, coil on coil in
his hair, and the great Mohawk, Hayowentha, who is inferior only to
Tododaho, speaks to him from his own star across infinite space. They
are talking of us, but it comes only as a whisper, like the dying
voice of a distant wind, and I cannot unde