“Do you mean, then, that Tayoga is gone?”

“I saw him go.  He went while you were talking with St. Luc.”

“Why should Tayoga leave us?”

“He saw another smoke against the sky.  It was but a faint trace.  Only an extremely keen eye would have noticed it, and having much natural curiosity, Tayoga is now on his way to see who built the fire that made the smoke.”

“And it may have been made by friends.”

“That’s our hope.”

Robert drew a long breath and looked toward the west.  The sky was now clear there, but he knew that Tayoga could not have made any mistake.  Then, his heart high once more, he settled himself down to wait.

CHAPTER III

THE SIGNAL

The day advanced, brilliant with sunshine, and the forces of St. Luc were quiet.  For a long time, not a shot was fired, and it seemed to the besieged that the forest was empty of human beings save themselves.  Robert did not believe the French leader would attempt a long siege, since an engagement could not be conducted in that manner in the forest, where a result of some kind must be reached soon.  Yet it was impossible to tell what plan St. Luc had in mind, and they must wait until Tayoga came.

Young Captain Colden was in good spirits.  It was his first taste of wilderness warfare, and he knew that he had done well.  The dead were laid decently among the bushes to receive Christian burial later, if the chance came, and the wounded, their hurts bound up, prepared to take what part they could in a new battle.  Robert crept to the edge of the cliff, and looked toward the west, whence Tayoga had gone.  He saw only a dazzling blue sky, unflecked by anything save little white clouds, and there was nothing to indicate whether the mission of his young Onondaga comrade would have any success.  He crept back to the side of Willet.

“Have you any opinion, Dave, about the smoke that Tayoga saw,” he asked.

“None, Robert, just a hope.  It might have been made by another French and Indian band, most probably it was, but there is a chance, too, that friends built the fire.”

“If it’s a force of any size it could hardly be English.  I don’t think any troop of ours except Captain Colden’s is in this region.”

“We can’t look for help from our own race.”

Robert was silent, gazing intently into the west, whence Tayoga had gone.  He recognized the immense difficulties of their position.  Indians, if an attack or two of theirs failed, would be likely to go away, but the French, and especially St. Luc, would increase their persistence and hold them to the task.  He returned to the forest, and his attention was drawn once more by Black Rifle.  The man was lying almost flat in the thicket, and evidently he had caught a glimpse of a foe, as he was writhing slowly forward like a great beast of prey, and his eyes once more had the expectant look of one who is going to strike.  Robert considered him.  He knew that the man’s whole nature had been poisoned by the great tragedy in his life, and that it gave him a sinister pleasure to inflict blows upon those who had inflicted the great blow upon him.  Yet he would be useful in the fierce war that was upon them and he was useful now.