ight down to the
river edge on either side, and in the centre was a little island with a
rim of yellow sand and an out-flame of scarlet tupelo and sumach in one
bright tangle of colour in the centre.

"I've passed here before," said De Catinat. "I remember marking that
great maple with the blaze on its trunk, when last I went with the
governor to Montreal. That was in Frontenac's day, when the king was
first and the bishop second."

The Redskins, who had sat like terra-cotta figures, without a trace of
expression upon their set hard faces, pricked up their ears at the sound
of that name.

"My brother has spoken of the great Onontio," said one of them, glancing
round. "We have listened to the whistling of evil birds who tell us
that he will never come back to his children across the seas."

"He is with the great white father," answered De Catinat. "I have
myself seen him in his council, and he will assuredly come across the
great water if his people have need of him."

The Indian shook his shaven head.

"The rutting month is past, my brother," said he, speaking in broken
French, "but ere the month of the bird-laying has come there will be no
white man upon this river save only behind stone walls."

"What, then? We have heard little! Have the Iroquois broken out so
fiercely?"

"My brother, they said they would eat up the Hurons, and where are the
Hurons now? They turned their faces upon the Eries, and where are the
Eries now? They went westward against the Illinois, and who can find an
Illinois village? They raised the hatchet against the Andastes, and
their name is blotted from the earth. And now they have danced a dance
and sung a song which will bring little good to my white brothers."

"Where are they, then?"

The Indian waved his hand along the whole southern and western horizon.

"Where are they not? The woods are rustling with them. They are like a
fire among dry grass, so swift and so terrible!"

"On my life," said De Catinat, "if these devils are indeed unchained,
they will need old Frontenac back if they are not to be swept into the
river."

"Ay," said Amos, "I saw him once, when I was brought before him with the
others for trading on what he called French ground. His mouth set like
a skunk trap and he looked at us as if he would have liked our scalps
for his leggings. But I could see that he was a chief and a brave man."

"He was an enemy of the Church, and the right hand of the f