taking a stick, scattered the coals of
the fire. But he did it in such a manner that he made no noise, the
hunter and young Lennox continuing to sleep soundly. Then he watched the
embers, having lost that union which is strength, die one by one. The
conquered darkness came back, recovering its lost ground, slowly
invading the glade, until it was one in the dusk with the rest of the
forest. Then Tayoga felt better satisfied, and he looked at the
sleepers, whose faces he could still discern, despite the absence of the
fire, a fair moonlight falling.

Robert and the hunter slept peacefully, but their sleep was deep. The
youth was weary from the long march in the woods, but as he slept his
strong healthy tissues rapidly regained their vitality. The Onondaga
looked at the two longer than usual. These comrades of his were knitted
to him by innumerable labors and dangers shared. In him dwelled the soul
of a great Indian chief, the spirit that has animated Pontiac, and
Little Turtle, and Tecumseh and Red Cloud and other dauntless leaders of
his race, but it had been refined though not weakened by his white
education. Gratitude and truth were as frequent Indian traits as the
memory of injuries, and while he was surcharged with pride because he
was born a warrior of the clan of the Bear, of the nation Onondaga, of
the great League of the Hodenosaunee, he felt as truly as any knight
ever felt that he must accept and fulfill all the duties of his place.

Standing in a dusk made luminous by a silvery moonlight he was a fitting
son of the forest, one of its finest products. He belonged to it, and it
belonged to him, each being the perfect complement of the other. His
face cut in bronze was lofty, not without a spiritual cast, and his
black eyes flamed with his resolve. He looked up at the heavens, fleecy
with white vapors, and shot with a million stars, the same sky that had
bent over his race for generations no man could count, and his soul was
filled with admiration. Then he made his voiceless prayer:

"O, Tododaho, first and greatest sachem of the Onondagas, greatest and
noblest sachem of the League, look down from your home on another star,
and watch over your people, for whom the storms gather! Let the serpents
in your hair whisper to you of wisdom that you in turn may whisper it to
us through the winds! Direct our footsteps in the great war that is
coming between the white nations and save to us our green forests, our
blue la