until a thaw
comes."

Robert laughed with genuine amusement and also with a certain scorn.

"I've told you many times, Will," he said, "that you didn't know all
about Tayoga, but now it seems that you know nothing about him."

"Well, then, wherein am I wrong, Sir Robert the Omniscient?" asked
Wilton.

"In your assumption that Tayoga would not foresee what was
coming. Having spent nearly all his life with nature he has naturally
been forced to observe all of its manifestations, even the most
delicate. And when you add to these necessities the powers of an
exceedingly strong and penetrating mind you have developed faculties
that can cope with almost anything. Tayoga foresaw this big freeze,
and I can tell you exactly what he did as accurately as if I had been
there and had seen it. He kept to the river and his canoe almost until
the first thin skim of ice began to show. Then he paddled to land, and
hid the canoe again among thick bushes. He raised it up a little on
low boughs in such a manner that it would not touch the water. Thus it
was safe from the ice, and so leaving it well hidden and in proper
condition, and situation, he sped on."

"Of course you're a master with words, Robert, and the longer they are
the better you seem to like 'em, but how is the Onondaga to make speed
over the ice which now covers the earth? Snow shoes, I take it, would
not be available upon such a smooth and tricky surface, and, at any
rate, he has left them far behind."

"In part of your assumption you're right, Will. Tayoga hasn't the
snow shoes now, and he wouldn't use 'em if he had 'em. He foresaw the
possibility of the freeze, and took with him in his pack a pair of
heavy moose skin moccasins with the hair on the outside. They're so
rough they do not slip on the ice, especially when they inclose the
feet of a runner, so wiry, so agile and so experienced as Tayoga. Once
more I close my eyes and I see his brown figure shooting through the
white forest. He goes even faster than he did when he had on the snow
shoes, because whenever he comes to a slope he throws himself back
upon his heels and lets himself slide down the ice almost at the speed
of a bird darting through the air."

"If you're right, Lennox, your red friend is not merely a marvel, but
a series of marvels."

"I'm right, Will. I do not doubt it. At the conclusion of the tenth
day when Tayoga arrives on the return from the vale of Onondaga you
will gladly admit the trut