l time. Perhaps it will be the last great war."

Robert was listening with the closest attention, and it seemed to him
that the New Yorker was right. With Canada conquered and the French
power expelled it would be the last great war so far as North America
was concerned? How fallible men are! How prone they are to think when
they have settled things for themselves they have settled them also for
all future generations!

"And then," continued Mr. Hervey, "New York will become a yet greater
port than it now is. It may even hope to rival Philadelphia in size and
wealth. It will be London's greatest feeder."

The soup, not neglected in the least, gave way to fish, and then to many
kinds of meat, in which game, bear, deer and wild fowl were conspicuous.
Robert took a little of everything, but he was absorbed in the talk. He
felt that these men were in touch with great affairs, and, however much
they diverged from such subjects they had them most at heart. It was a
thrilling thought that the future of North America, in some degree at
least, might be determined around that very table at which he was
sitting as a guest. He had knowledge and imagination enough to
understand that it was not the armies that determined the fate of
nations, but the men directing them who stood behind them farther back,
in the dark perhaps, obscure, maybe never to become fully known, but
clairvoyant and powerful just the same. He was resolved not to lose a
word. So he leaned forward just a little in his seat, and his blue eyes
sparkled.

"Dagaeoga is glad to be here," said Tayoga in an undertone.

"So I am, Tayoga. They talk of things of which I wish to hear."

"As I told you, these be sachems with whom we sit. They be not chiefs
who lead in battle, but, like the sachems, they plan, and, like the
medicine men, they make charms and incantations that influence the souls
of the warriors and also the souls of those who lead them to battle."

"The same thought was in my own mind."

Wine smuggled from France or Spain was served to the men, though young
Lennox and the Onondaga touched none. In truth, it was not offered to
them, Master Jacobus saying, with a glance at Robert:

"I have never allowed you and Tayoga to have anything stronger than
coffee in my house, and although you are no longer under my charge I
intend to keep to the rule."

"We wish nothing more, sir," said Robert.

"As for me," said the Onondaga, "I shall never touch any kind of