re dry, and reclothing themselves they
returned the canoe to the lake, the Hurons still being invisible. Then
they crossed in haste, reached the cove that Willet had seen, and
plunged into the deep woods, taking the canoe with them, and hiding
their trail carefully. When they had gone a full three miles they came
to rest in a glade, and every one of the three felt that it was time.
Muscles and nerves alike were exhausted, and they remained there all the
rest of the day and the following night, except that after dark Tayoga
went back to the lake and saw the long canoe going northward.

"I don't think we'll be troubled by that band of Hurons any more," he
reported to his comrades. "They will surely think we have been drowned,
and tomorrow we can continue our own journey to the south."

"And on the whole, we've come out of it pretty well," said Willet.

"With the aid of Manitou, who so generously sent us the second storm,"
said Tayoga.

They brought the canoe back to the lake at dawn, and hugging the western
shore made leisurely speed to the south, until they came to the
neighborhood of the French works at Carillon, when they landed again
with their canoe, and after a long and exhausting portage launched
themselves anew on the smaller but more splendid lake, known to the
English as George and to the French as Saint Sacrement. Now, though,
they traveled by night and slept and rested by day. But Lake George in
the moonlight was grand and beautiful beyond compare. Its waters were
dusky silver as the beams poured in floods upon it, and the lofty
shores, in their covering of dark green, seemed to hold up the skies.

"It's a grand land," said Robert for the hundredth time.

"It is so," said Tayoga. "After Manitou had practiced on many other
countries he used all his wisdom and skill to make the country of the
Hodenosaunee."

The next morning when they lay on the shore they saw two French boats on
the lake, and Robert was confirmed in his opinion that the prevision of
the French leaders would enable them to strike the first blow. Already
their armed forces were far down in the debatable country, and they
controlled the ancient water route between the British colonies and
Canada.

On the second night they left the lake, hid the canoe among the bushes
at the edge of a creek, and began the journey by land to the vale of
Onondaga. It was likely that in ordinary times they would have made it
without event, but they felt now t