s we'd be a drag upon such a band as yours,
but I wish we could have gone. At least, we'll be with the army which is
going to march soon, and perhaps we'll overtake you at Lake George
before many days."

"And I," said Grosvenor to Robert and Tayoga, "am serving on the staff
of the commander. I'm perhaps the only Englishman here and I'm an
observer more than anything else. So I could be spared most readily, but
the colonel will not let me go. He says there is no reason why we should
offer a scalp without price to Tandakora, the Ojibway."

"And I abide by what I said," laughed Colonel Johnson, who heard.
"You're in conditions new to you, Grosvenor, though you've had one
tragic and dreadful proof of what the Indians can do, but there's great
stuff in you and I'm not willing to see it thrown away before it's
developed. Don't be afraid the French and Indians won't give you all the
fighting you want, though I haven't the slightest doubt you'll stand up
to it like a man."

"Thank you, sir," said Grosvenor, modestly.

The lad, Peter, was also eager to go, and he was soothed only by the
promise of Mynheer Jacobus Huysman that he might join the army on the
march to Lake George.

Then the leaders gave the word and the hundred foresters, fifty white
and fifty red, plunged into the great northern wilderness which
stretched through New York into Canada, one of the most beautiful
regions on earth, and at that particular time the most dangerous,
swarming with ruthless Indians and daring French partisans.

It was remarkable how soon they reached the wilds after leaving Albany.
The Dutch had been along the Hudson for more than a century, and the
English had come too, but all of them had clung mostly to the river.
Powerful and warlike tribes roamed the great northern forests, and the
French colonies in the north and the English colonies in the south had a
healthy respect for the fighting powers of one another. The doubtful
ground between was wide and difficult, and anyone who ventured into it
now had peril always beside him.

The forest received the hundred, the white and the red, and hid them at
once in its depths. It was mid-summer, but there was yet no brown on the
leaves. A vast green canopy overhung the whole earth, and in every
valley flowed brooks and rivers of clean water coming down from the firm
hills. The few traces made by the white man had disappeared since the
war. The ax was gone, and the scalp-hunters had taken its