fast."

Colden, still following the advice of Willet, kept his men busy,
knowing that idleness bred discontent and destroyed discipline. At
least a dozen soldiers, taught by Willet and Robert, had developed
into excellent hunters, and as the game was abundant, owing to the
absence of Indians, they had killed deer, bear, panther and all the
other kinds of animals that ranged these forests. The flesh of such as
were edible was cured and stored, as they foresaw the day when many
people might be in Fort Refuge and the food would be needed. The skins
also were dressed and were put upon the floor or hung upon the
walls. The young men working hard were happy nevertheless, as they
were continually learning new arts. And the life was healthy to an
extraordinary degree. All the wounded were as whole as before, and
everybody acquired new and stronger muscles.

Their content would have been yet greater in degree had they been able
to learn what was going on outside, in that vast world where France
and Britain and their colonies contended so fiercely for the
mastery. But they looked at the wall of the forest, and it was a
blank. They were shut away from all things as completely as Crusoe on
his island. Nor would they hear a single whisper until Tayoga came
back--if he came back.

On the second day after the Onondaga's departure the air softened, but
became darker. The glittering white of the forest assumed a more
somber tinge, clouds marched up in solemn procession from the
southwest, and mobilized in the center of the heavens, a wind, touched
with damp, blew. Robert knew very well what the elements portended and
again he was sorry for Tayoga, but as before, after the first few
moments of discouragement his courage leaped up higher than ever. His
brilliant imagination at once painted a picture in which every detail
was vivid and full of life, and this picture was of a vast forest,
trees and bushes alike clothed in ice, and in the center of it a
slender figure, but straight, tall and strong, Tayoga himself speeding
on like the arrow from the bow, never wavering, never weary. Then his
mind allowed the picture to fade. Wilton might not believe Tayoga
could succeed, but how could this young Quaker know Tayoga as he knew
him?

The clouds, having finished their mobilization in the center of the
heavens, soon spread to the horizon on every side. Then a single great
white flake dropped slowly and gracefully from the zenith, fell withi