The west was now blazing with terraces of red and yellow, rising above one another, and the east was misty, gray and dim.  Twilight was not far away.  The thread of smoke that had lain against the sky above the forest was gone, the glittering bar of red and gold being absolutely free from any trace.  St. Luc’s force opened fire again, bullets clipping twigs and leaves, but the defense lay quiet, except Black Rifle, who crept back and forth, continually seeking a target, and pulling the trigger whenever he found it.

The misty gray in the east turned to darkness, in the west the sun went down the slope of the world, and the brilliant terraces of color began to fade.  The firing ceased and another tense period of quiet, hard, to endure, came.  At the suggestion of the hunter Colden drew in his whole troop near the cliff and waited, all, despite their weariness and strain, keeping the keenest watch they could.

But Robert, instead of looking toward the east, where St. Luc’s force was, invariably looked into the sunset, because it was there that Tayoga had gone, and it was there that they had seen the smoke, of which they expected so much.  The terraces of color, already grown dim, were now fading fast.  At the top they were gone altogether, and they only lingered low down.  But on the forest the red light yet blazed.  Every twig and leaf seemed to stand individual and distinct, black against a scarlet shield.  But it was for merely a few minutes.  Then all the red glow disappeared, like a great light going out suddenly, and the western forest as well as the eastern, lay in a gray gloom.

It always seemed to Robert that the last going of the sunset that day was like a signal, because, when the night swept down, black and complete everywhere, there was a burst of heavy firing from the south and a long exultant yell.  No bullet sped through the thickets, where the defenders lay, and Willet cried: 

“Tayoga!  Tayoga and help!  Ah, here they come!  The Mohawks!”

Tayoga, panting from exertion, sprang into the bushes among them, and he was followed by a tall figure in war paint, lofty plumes waving from his war bonnet.  Behind him came many warriors, and others were already on the flanks, spreading out like a fan, filing rapidly and shouting the war whoop.  Robert recognized at once the great figure that stood before them.  It was Daganoweda, the young Mohawk chief of his earlier acquaintance, whom he had met both on the war path and at the great council of the fifty sachems in the vale of Onondaga.  Had his been the right to choose the man who was to come to their aid, the Mohawk would have been his first choice.  Robert knew his intense hatred of the French and their red allies, and he also knew his fierce courage and great ability in battle.

The soldiers looked in some alarm at the painted host that had sprung among them, but Willet and Robert assured them insistently that these were friends, and the sound of the battle they were already waging on the flank with St. Luc’s force, was proof enough.