s, if you had been in our
place."

They spoke in ordinary tones, being men too much hardened to danger and
mighty tasks to show emotion. Robert stood under the same inverted boat
that sheltered them, and he heard their words in a kind of daze, his
brain still benumbed after the long and terrible test. But it was a
pleasant numbing, a provision of nature, a sort of rest that was akin to
sleep.

The storm had not abated a particle. Wind and rain roared across
Andiatarocte and along the slopes and over the mountains. The waters of
the lake whenever they were disclosed were black and seething, and all
the islands were invisible.

Robert looked mostly at the great fire that crackled and blazed so near.
It was fed continually by Indians and rangers, who did not care for the
rain, and it alone defied the storm. The sheets of rain, poured upon it,
seemed to have no effect. The coals merely hissed as if it were oil
instead of water, and the flames leaped higher, deep red at the heart
and often blue at the edges.

Robert had never seen a more beautiful fire, a vast core of warmth and
light that challenged alike darkness, wind and rain. There had been a
time, so he had heard, in the remote, dim ages when man knew nothing of
fire. It might have been true, but he did not see how man could have
existed, and certainly no cheer ever came into his life. He turned
himself around, as if he were broiling on a spit, and heated first one
side and then the other, until the blood in his veins sparkled with new
life and vigor. Then he dressed, still pervaded by that enormous feeling
of comfort and content, and ate of the food that Rogers ordered to be
served to the returned and refreshed men. He also resumed his rifle and
pistol, but kept his seat under the inverted boat, where the rain could
not reach him.

He would have slept, but the ground was too wet, and he waited with the
others for the approach of day and the initiative of St. Luc. The
rangers and Mohawks had made the first move, and it was now for the
French leader to match it. Robert wondered what St. Luc would attempt,
but that he would try something he never doubted for a moment.

A log was rolled beneath the long boat under which the leaders stood,
and, spreading their blankets over it, they sat down on it. There was
room at the end for Robert and Tayoga, too, and Robert found that his
comfort increased greatly. He was in a kind of daze, that was very
soothing, and yet he s