He was asleep almost instantly, and Robert sat in a comfortable position with his rifle across his knees.  Responsibility brought back to him self-respect and pride.  He was now a full partner in the partnership, and will and strength together made his faculties so keen that it would have been difficult for anything about the windrow to have escaped his attention.  He heard the light rustlings of other animals coming to comfort and safety, and flutterings as birds settled on upthrust boughs, many of which were still covered with leaves.  Once he heard a faint shout deep in the forest, brought by the wind a great distance, and he was sure that it was the cry of their Indian pursuers.  Doubtless it was a signal and had connection with the search, but he felt no alarm.  Under the cover of darkness Tayoga and he were still motes in the wilderness, and, while the night lasted, Tandakora could not find them.

When he judged that the three hours had passed he awoke the Onondaga and they took their silent way north by east, covering much more distance by dawn.  But both were certain that warriors of Tandakora would pick up their traces again that day.  They would spread through the forest, and, when one of them struck the trail, a cry would be sufficient to call the others.  But they pressed on, still adopting every possible device to throw off their pursuers, and they continued their flight several days, always through an unbroken forest, over hills and across many streams, large and small.  It seemed, at times, to Robert that the pursuit must have dropped away, but Tayoga was quite positive that Tandakora still followed.  The Ojibway, he said, had divined the identity of the fugitives and every motive would make him follow, even all the way across the Province of New York and beyond, if need be.

They came at last to a lake, large, beautiful, extending many miles through the wilderness, and Tayoga, usually so calm, uttered a little cry of delight, which Robert repeated, but in fuller volume.

“I think lakes are the finest things in the world,” he said.  “They always stir me.”

“And that is why Manitou put so many and such splendid ones in the land of the Hodenosaunee,” said Tayoga.  “This is Ganoatohale, which you call in your language Oneida, and it is on its shores that I hid the canoe of which I spoke to you.  I think we shall find it just as I left it.”

“I devoutly hope so.  A canoe and paddles would give me much pleasure just now, and Ganoatohale will leave no trail.”

They walked northward along the shore of the lake, and they came to a place where many tall reeds grew thick and close in shallow water.  Tayoga plunged into the very heart of them and Robert’s heart rose with a bound, when he reappeared dragging after him a large and strong canoe, containing two paddles.

“It has rested in quiet waiting for us,” he said.  “It is a good canoe, and it knew that I would come some time to claim it.”