ly stay about fifteen
minutes we ought to come within earshot of them in another half hour."

They pressed on at speed, and, within the appointed time, they sank down
in a dense clump of bushes, where Tayoga sent forth the mellow,
beautiful song of a bird, a note that penetrated a remarkable distance
in the still day.

"It is a call that Dagaeoga knows," he said. "We have used it often in
the forest."

In a few minutes the reply, exactly the same, faint but clear, came back
from the north. When the sound died away, Tayoga imitated the bird
again, and the second reply came as before.

"Now we will go forward and shake the hand of Dagaeoga," said the
Onondaga.

Rising from the bush, the two walked boldly in the direction whence the
reply had come, and they found a tall, straight young figure advancing
to meet them.

"Robert, my lad!" exclaimed Willet.

"Dagaeoga!" said the Onondaga.

Each seized a hand of Robert and shook it. Their meeting was not
especially demonstrative, but their emotions were very deep. They were
bound together by no common ties.

"You've changed, Robert," said Willet, merely as a sort of relief to his
feelings.

"And you haven't, Dave," said Robert, with the same purpose in view.
"And you, Tayoga, you're the great Onondaga chief you always were."

"I hope to be a chief some day," said Tayoga simply, "and then, when I
am old enough, to be a sachem too, but that rests with Tododaho and
Manitou. Dagaeoga has been away a long time, and we do not know where he
went, but since he has come back out of the mists and vapors, it is
well."

"I understood your call at once," said Robert, "and as you know I gave
the reply. I came from Albany with Rogers to find you, and I found you
quicker than I had hoped. We had a meeting with hostile warriors last
night, but we beat 'em off, and we've been pushing on since then."

"Your encounter last night was what enabled us to find you so quickly,"
said Willet. "Tayoga read on the ground the whole story of the combat.
He understood every trace. He recognized the footprints of Rogers and
then your own. He always believed that you'd come back, but nobody else
did. He was right, and everybody else was wrong. You're bigger, Robert,
and you're graver than you were when you went away."

"I've been where I had a chance to become both, Dave. I'll tell you all
about it later, for here's Rogers now, waiting to shake hands with you
too."

"Welcome, old friend," sa