were the first to speak, too, Robert."

"We must go on," said Tayoga. "But it is best to throw slush over the
fire and hide our traces."

The task finished they took up their vague journey, going they knew
not where, but knowing that they must go somewhere, their uncertain
way still leading along the crests of narrow ridges, across shallow
dips and through drooping forests, where the wind moaned miserably. At
intervals, it rained or snowed or hailed and once more they were wet
through and through. The recrudescence of Robert's strength was a mere
flare-up. His vitality ebbed again, and not even the fierce gnawing
hunger that refused to depart could stimulate it. By-and-by he began
to stumble, but Tayoga and Willet, who noticed it, said nothing--they
staggered at times themselves. They toiled on for hours in silence,
but, late in the afternoon, Robert turned suddenly to the Onondaga.

"Do you remember, Tayoga," he said, "something you said to me a couple
of days since, or was it a week, or maybe a month ago? I seem to
remember time very uncertainly, but you were talking about repasts,
banquets, Lucullan banquets, more gorgeous banquets than old Nero had,
and they say he was king of epicures. I think you spoke of tender
venison, and juicy bear steaks, and perhaps of a delicate broiled
trout from one of these clear mountain streams. Am I not right,
Tayoga? Didn't you mention viands? And perhaps you may still be
thinking of them?"

"I _am_, Dagaeoga. I am thinking of them all the time. I confess to
you that I am so hungry I could gnaw the inside of the fresh bark upon
a tree, and if I were turned loose upon a deer, slain and cooked, I
could eat him all from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail."

"Stop, you boys," said Willet sternly. "You only aggravate your
sufferings. Isn't that a valley to the right, Tayoga, and don't you
catch the gleam of a little lake among its trees?"

"It is a valley, Great Bear, and there _is_ a small lake in the
center. We will go there. Perhaps we can catch fish."

Hope sprang up in Robert's heart. Fish? Why, of course there were fish
in all the mountain lakes! and they never failed to carry hooks and
lines in their packs. Bait could be found easily under the rocks.
He did not conceal his eagerness to descend into the valley and the
others were not less forward than he.

The valley was about half a square mile in area, of which the lake in
the center occupied one-fourth, the rest