very craft of any size. There was no strange
ship that could be on any mysterious errand.

"It is in my mind, Dagaeoga," said Tayoga, "that this lies deeper than
we had thought. The slaver would not have shown himself and he would not
have talked with you so freely if he had not known that he would leave a
hidden trail."

"It looks that way to me, Tayoga," said Robert, "and I think Garay must
be in some kind of disguise. He would not venture so boldly among us if
he did not have a way of concealing himself."

"It is in my mind, too, that we have underestimated the spy. He has
perhaps more courage and resolution than we thought, or these qualities
may have come to him recently. The trade of a spy is very useful to
Montcalm just now. After his victory at Ticonderoga he will be anxious
to know what we are doing here at Albany, and it will be the duty of
Garay to learn. Besides, we put a great humiliation upon him that time
we took his letter from him in the forest, and he is burning for
vengeance upon us. It is not in the nature of Dagaeoga to wish revenge,
but he must not blind himself on that account to the fact that others
cherish it."

"It was the fortune of war. We have our disasters and our enemies have
theirs."

"Yet we must beware of Garay. I know it, Dagaeoga."

"At any rate we can't find out anything about him and the slaver along
the river, and that being the case I suggest that we go on to the house
of Mynheer Jacobus, where we're pretty sure of a welcome."

Their greetings at the burgher's home were as warm as anybody could
wish. Master McLean had left, and the rest were talking casually in the
large front room, but the keen eyes of the Onondaga read the signs
infallibly. This was a trail that could not be hidden from him.

"Other men have been here," he said a little later to Robert, when they
were alone in the room. "There has been a council."

"How do you know, Tayoga?"

"How do I know, Dagaeoga? Because I have eyes and I use them. It is
printed all over the room in letters of the largest type and in words of
one syllable. The floor is of polished wood, Dagaeoga, and there is a
great table in the center of the chamber. The chairs have been moved
back, but eight men sat around it. I can count the faint traces made by
the chairs in the polish of the floor. They were heavy men--most of the
men of Albany are heavy, and now and then they moved restlessly, as they
talked. That was why they ground the