I welcome it."

They were interrupted by the whirring of the wild fowl again, though on a
much greater scale than before. The twilight was filled with feathered
bodies. Tayoga, in an instant, was all attention.

"Something has frightened them," he said.

"Perhaps a bear or a deer," said Robert.

"I think not. They are used to wild animals, and would not be startled at
their approach. There is only one being that everything in the forest
generally fears."

"Man?"

"Even so, Dagaeoga."

"Perhaps we'd better pull in close to the bank and look."

"It would be wise."

Robert saw that the Onondaga, with his acute instincts, was deeply alarmed,
and he too felt that the wild fowl had given warning. They sent the canoe
with a few silent strokes through the shallow water almost to the edge of
the land, and, as it nearly struck bottom, two dusky figures rising among
the bushes threw their weight upon them. The light craft sank almost to the
edges with the weight, but did not overturn, and both attackers and
attacked fell out of it into the lake.

Robert for a moment saw a dusky face above him, and instinctively he
clasped the body of a warrior in his arms. Then the two went down together
in the water. The Indian was about to strike at him with a knife, but the
lake saved him. As the water rushed into eye, mouth and nostril the two
fell apart, but Robert was able to keep his presence of mind in that
terrible moment, and, as he came up again, he snatched out his own knife
and struck almost blindly.

He felt the blade encounter resistance, and then pass through it. He heard
a choked cry and he shuddered violently. All his instincts were for
civilization and against the taking of human life, and he had struck merely
to save his own, but almost articulate words of thankfulness bubbled to his
lips as he saw the dark figure that had hovered so mercilessly over him
disappear. Then a second figure took the place of the first and he drew
back the fatal blade again, but a soft voice said:

"Do not strike, Dagaeoga. I also have accounted for one of the warriors who
attacked us, and no more have yet come. We may thank the wild fowl. Had
they not warned us we should have perished."

"And even then we had luck, or your Tododaho is still watching over us. I
struck at random, but the blade was guided to its mark."

"And so was mine. What you say is also proved to be true by the fact that
the canoe did not overturn, when they thre