seriousness of
the situation. In some one of his unaccountable ways he had learned
that their enemies were to strike almost immediately, and his own
revelation of the Fitzhugh letters would but strengthen this evidence.
He would keep his faith with Gregson for the promised day or two. For
an hour the two men were alone in the room. At the end of that time
their plans were settled. The next morning Philip would leave for Blind
Indian Lake and prepare for war. Brokaw would follow two or three days
later.

A heavy weight seemed lifted from Philip's shoulders when he left
Brokaw. After months of worry and weeks of physical inaction he saw his
way clear for the first time. And for the first time, too, something
seemed to have come into his life that filled him with a strange
exhilaration, and made him forgetful of the gloom that had settled over
him during these last months. That night he would see Jeanne. His body
thrilled at the thought, until for a time he forgot that he would also
see and talk with Eileen. A few days before he had told Gregson that it
would be suicidal to fight the northerners; now he was eager for
action, eager to begin and end the affair--to win or lose. If he had
stopped to analyze the change in himself he would have found that the
beautiful girl whom he had first seen on the moonlit rock was at the
bottom of it. And yet Jeanne was a northerner, one of those against
whom his actions must be directed. But he had confidence in himself,
confidence in what that night would bring forth. He was like one freed
from a bondage that had oppressed him for a long time, and the fact
that he might be compelled to fight Jeanne's own people did not destroy
his hopefulness, the new joy and excitement that he had found in life.
As he hurried back to his cabin he told himself that both Jeanne and
Pierre had read what he had sent to them in the handkerchief; their
response was a proof that they understood him, and deep down a voice
kept telling him that if it came to fighting they three, Pierre,
Jeanne, and himself, would rise or fall together. A few hours had
transformed him into Gregson's old appreciation of the fighting man.
Long and tedious months of diplomacy, of political intrigue, of bribery
and dishonest financiering, in which he had played but the part of a
helpless machine, were gone. Now he held the whip-hand; Brokaw had
acknowledged his own surrender. He was to fight--a clean, fair fight on
his part, and hi