“Nearer eight I sum it up, Tayoga,” said Willet.  “The improvement is very marked.”

“I think you are right, Great Bear.  Eight it is and you also speak truly about the improvement.  If our Monsieur Garay were able to stand up and walk he would be much more graceful than he was, when he so kindly marched into our guiding hands.”

“Don’t pay him too many compliments, Tayoga.  They’ll prove trying to a modest man.  Come away, now.  Monsieur Garay wishes to spend the next two hours with his own wise thoughts and who are we to break in upon such a communion?”

“The words of wisdom fall like precious beads from your lips, Great Bear.  For two hours we will leave our guest to his great thoughts.”

At half past six came the question, “Your papers?” once more, and Garay burst forth with an angry refusal, though his voice trembled.  Willet shrugged his shoulders, turned away, and helped the lads prepare a most luxurious and abundant evening meal, Tayoga adding wild grapes and Robert nuts to their varied course of meats, the grapes being served on blazing red autumn leaves, the whole very pleasing to the eye as well as to the taste.

“I think,” said Willet, in tones heard easily by Garay, “that I have in me just a trace of the epicure.  I find, despite my years in the wilderness, that I enjoy a well spread board, and that bits of decoration appeal to me; in truth, give an added savor to the viands.”

“In the vale of Onondaga when the fifty old and wise sachems make a banquet,” said Tayoga, “the maidens bring fruit and wild flowers to it that the eye also may have its feast.  It is not a weakness, but an excellence in Great Bear to like the decorations.”

They lingered long over the board, protracting the feast far after the fall of night and interspersing it with pleasant conversation.  The ruddy flames shone on their contented faces, and their light laughter came frequently to the ears of Garay.  At half past eight the question, grown deadly by repetition, was asked, and, when only a curse came, Willet said: 

“As it is night I’ll ask you, Achille Garay, for your papers only once every four hours.  That is the interval at which we’ll change our guard, and we don’t wish, either, to disturb you many times in your pleasant slumbers.  It would not be right to call a man back too often from the land of Tarenyawagon, who, you may know, is the Iroquois sender of dreams.”

Garay, whom they had now laid tenderly upon the floor of the hut, turned his face away, and Willet went back to the fire, humming in a pleased fashion to himself.  At half past twelve he awoke Garay from his uneasy sleep and propounded to him his dreadful query, grown terrifying by its continual iteration.  At half past four Tayoga asked it, and it was not necessary then to awake Garay.  He had not slept since half past twelve.  He snarled at the Iroquois, and then sank back on the blanket that they had kindly placed for him.  Tayoga, his bronze face expressing nothing, went back to his watch by the fire.