hree ate with them, and Robert felt that
they were among friends. The Mohawks not only had Frontenac to remember,
but further back Champlain, the French soldier and explorer, who had
defeated them before they knew the use of firearms. He felt that
Duquesne at Quebec would have great difficulty in overcoming the enmity
of this warlike and powerful red nation, and he resolved to do what he
could to keep them attached to the British cause. It might be only a
little, but a little many times amounted to much.

Dayohogo and his warriors had been on a scout toward the north to the
very borders of the French settlements, and the chief told the three
that an unusual movement was going on there. Regular soldiers were
expected soon from France. War belts and splendid presents had been sent
to the tribes about the Great Lakes, both to the north and to the south,
and Onontio was addressing messages of uncommon politeness to his
brethren, the valiant Ganeagaono, otherwise the Mohawks, the Keepers of
the Eastern Gate.

"And do the Mohawk chiefs listen to the words of Onontio?" asked Robert
anxiously.

Dayohogo did not reply at once. He looked at the green woods. Birds,
blue or gray or brown, were darting here and there in the foliage, and
his eye rested for a moment on a tiny wren.

"The voice of Onontio is the voice of a bird chattering in a tree," he
said. "In the day of my father's father's father the children of
Onontio, under Champlain, came with guns, which were strange to us, and
with presents they induced the Adirondack warriors to help them. They
came up the great lake which the white people call Champlain, then they
crossed to Ticonderoga, near the outlet of the lake, Saint Sacrement,
and fell upon two hundred warriors of the Ganeagaono, who then knew only
the bow and arrow and the war club, and slew many of them. It was four
generations ago, but we do not forget. Then when my father was a young
warrior Frontenac came with a host of white soldiers and the Canadian
Indians and killed the warriors and laid waste with fire the lands of
the Five Nations, now the Six. Can the Hodenosaunee forget?"

The chief gloomed into the fire, and his eyes flashed with the memory of
ancient wrongs.

"Onontio has sent belts to the Ganeagaono also, has he not?" asked
Robert.

The eyes of the chief flashed again.

"He has tried to do so," he replied, "but the Ganeagaono are loyal to
their brethren of the Hodenosaunee since Tododahoe fi