Canada! I think he sprang into those bushes and flowers!"

The sentinel and Robert rushed into the shrubbery but nothing was
there. As they looked about in the dusk, Robert heard a refrain,
distant, faint and taunting:

"Hier sur le pont d'Avignon
J'ai oui chanter la belle
Lon, la."

It was only for an instant, then it died like a summer echo, and he
knew that St. Luc was gone. An immense weight rolled from him. He had
done what he should have done, but the result that he feared had not
followed.

"I can find nothing, sir," said the sentinel, who recognized in Robert
one of superior rank.

"Nor I, but you saw the figure, did you not?"

"I did, sir. 'Twas more like a shadow, but 'twas a man, I'll swear."

Robert was glad to have the sentinel's testimony, because in another
moment the revelers were upon him, making sport of him for his false
alarm, and asserting that not his eyes but the punch he had drunk had
seen a French spy.

"I scarce tasted the punch," said Robert, "and the soldier here is
witness that I spoke true."

A farther and longer search was organized, but the Frenchman had
vanished into the thinnest of thin air. As Robert walked with Willet
and Tayoga back to the tavern, the hunter said:

"I suppose it was St. Luc?"

"Yes, but why did you think it was he?"

"Because it was just the sort of deed he would do. Did you speak with
him?"

"Yes, and I told him I must give the alarm. He disappeared with
amazing speed and silence."

Robert made a brief report the next day to Governor Dinwiddie, not
telling that St. Luc and he had spoken together, stating merely that
he had seen him, giving his name, and describing him as one of the
most formidable of the French forest leaders.

"I thank you, Mr. Lennox," said the Governor. "Your information shall
be conveyed to General Braddock. Yet I think our force will be too
great for the wilderness bands."

On the following day they were at Alexandria on the Potomac, where the
great council was to be held. Here Braddock's camp was spread, and in
a large tent he met Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia, Governor de Lancey
of New York, Governor Sharpe of Maryland, Governor Dobbs of North
Carolina and Governor Shirley of Massachusetts, an elderly lawyer, but
the ablest and most energetic of all the governors.

It was the most momentous council yet held in North America, and all
the young officers waited with the most intense eagerness the news
from