stonnais
arrived there they would behold great lords and great ladies!

The three listened, each interested in his own way. Robert's fancy saw
the silken splendor of a vice-regal court, and, anxious to know the
larger world, he was more glad than ever that he had come upon this
errand, dangerous though it had proved to be.

They sat a while after the dinner was over, looking down at the town and
the great view beyond, a clear moon and brilliant stars casting a silver
light which illuminated almost like the day. They saw lights gleaming
in houses, and now and then shadowy figures passing. Out in the river a
boat with a mast rocked in the current, and Robert believed it was the
_Frontenac_ of Louis de Galisonniere.

As the dusk thickened over the great river, the island, the hills and
the forest, Hochelaga seemed very small, and the inn of the excellent
Monsieur Jolivet was just a tiny point of light in all that vast
darkness. It shone, nevertheless, by contrast, and was a little island
of warmth and comfort in the sea of the wilderness. Monsieur Jolivet,
who was deeply interested in the Bostonnais and the proud young
Iroquois, talked freely. Under his light and chattering manner lay great
powers of perception, and he saw that he had guests of quality, each in
his own way. The hunter even was not an ordinary hunter, but, as
Monsieur Jolivet judged, a man of uncommon intellectual power, and also
of education. He would discover as much about them as he could, for his
own personal gratification, because he might give valuable information
to the commandant at Montreal, who was his friend, and because later on
he might speak a useful word or two in the ear of Louis de Galisonniere,
whom he knew well and whose good opinion he valued.

Robert, who was in a cheerful mood and who wished to exercise his gift
of golden speech, met him half way, and enlarged upon the splendor and
power of Britain, the great kingdom that bestrode the Atlantic, seated
immovable in Europe, and yet spreading through her colonies in America,
increasing and growing mightier all the time. It was soon a test of
eloquence between him and Monsieur Jolivet, in which each was seeking
to obtain from the other an expression of the opinion that swayed his
country. The Onondaga was silent, and the hunter spoke only a word or
two, but each listened intently to the dialogue, which, however earnest
it might be, never went beyond the bounds of good humor.

"I canno