“Your reasoning seems conclusive to me.”

“Did I not tell you, Dagaeoga, that you had the beginnings of a mind?  Use it sedulously, and it will grow yet more.”

“And the time may come when I can talk out of a dictionary as you do, Tayoga.”

“Which merely proves, Dagaeoga, that those who learn a language always talk it better than those who are born to it.  Ah, they have turned once more, and the trail leads again to the crest of a hill, where they will take another long look backward.  It seems that the wishes of Black Rifle are about to prevail.  Now we are at the top of the hill, and they stood here several minutes talking and moving about, as the traces show very clearly.  But look, Dagaeoga, they saw something very much closer at hand than smoke.  Their talk was interrupted with great suddenness, and they took to ambush.  They crouched among these bushes, and you and I know they were a very dangerous pair with their rifles ready.  Still, Dagaeoga, instead of their taking the battle to the warriors the battle was brought to them.”

“You think, then, an encounter occurred?”

“I know it.  They did not stay crouched here until the enemy went away, but moved off down the hill, their course on the whole leading away from the lake.  The enemy was before them, because they kept among the bushes, always in the densest part of them.  Here they knelt.  The bent grass stems indicate the pressure of knees.  The warriors must have been very close.

“Now the trail divides.  Look, Dagaeoga!  Black Rifle went to the right and the Great Bear to the left.  They formed a plan to flank the enemy and to assail him from two sides.  I should judge then that the warriors did not number more than five or six.  We will follow the Great Bear, who made the slender traces, and if necessary we will come back and follow also those of Black Rifle.  But I think we can read the full account of the contest which most certainly occurred from the evidence that the Great Bear left.”

“You feel quite sure then that there was fighting?”

“Yes.  It is not an opinion formed from the signs yet seen, but it is drawn from the characters of the Great Bear and Black Rifle.  They would not have taken so much care unless there was the certainty of conflict.  Here the Great Bear knelt again, and took a long look at his enemy or at least at the place where his enemy was lying.  They were coming to close quarters or he would not have knelt and waited.  Perhaps he held his fire because Black Rifle was making the wider circuit, and they meant to use their rifles at the same time.”

The Onondaga was on his own knees now, examining the faint trail intently, his eyes alight with interest.

“The event will not be delayed long,” he said, “because the Great Bear stopped continually, seeking an opportunity for a shot.  Here he pulled the trigger.”

He picked up a minute piece of the burned wadding of the muzzle-loading rifle.