“What is that?”

“I see no Indians, who are usually so numerous about your camps.  You needn’t tell me what has happened, but I’ve been among Indians a great deal.  I know their ways, and I’ll tell you.  They see that yours is a lost cause, and they’ve deserted you.  Now, isn’t that so?”

The young Frenchman was silent, but it was the turn of his face to flush.

“I didn’t expect you to answer me in words,” continued Robert, triumphantly, “but I can see.  The Indians never fight in a battle that they consider lost before it’s joined, and you know as well as I do, Captain de Galissonniere, that if the Marquis de Montcalm awaits our attack his army will be destroyed.”

“I do not know it at all.”

Then Robert felt ashamed because he had been led away by his enthusiasm, and apologized for a speech that might have seemed boastful to the young Frenchman, who had been so kind to him.  But De Galissonniere, with his accustomed courtesy, said it was nothing, and when he left, presently, both were in the best of humors.

Robert, convinced that he had been right about the Indians, watched for them as the morning went on, but he never saw a single warrior.  There could be no doubt now that they had gone, and while he could not consider them chivalric they were at least wise.

The next familiar face that he beheld was one far from welcome to him.  It was that of a man who happened to pass near the enclosure and who stopped suddenly when he caught sight of Robert.  He was in civilian dress, but he was none other than Achille Garay, that spy whose secret message had been wrested from him in the forest by Robert and Tayoga.

The gaze that Garay bent upon Robert was baleful.  His capture by the three and the manner in which he had been compelled to disclose the letter had been humiliating, and Robert did not doubt that the man would seek revenge.  He shivered a little, feeling that as a prisoner he was in a measure helpless.  Then his back stiffened.

“I’m glad to see, Garay, that you’re where you belong—­with the French,” he called out.  “I hope you didn’t suffer any more from hunger in the woods when Willet, the Onondaga and I let you go.”

The spy came closer, and his look was so full of venom that young Lennox, despite himself, shuddered.

“Time makes all things even,” he said.  “I don’t forget how you and your friends held me in your power in the forest, but here you are a prisoner.  I have a good chance to make the score even.”

Robert remembered also how this man had attempted his life in Albany, for some reason that he could not yet fathom, and he felt that he was now, and, in very truth, a most dangerous enemy.  Nevertheless, he replied, quietly: 

“That was an act of war.  You were carrying a message for the enemy.  We were wholly within our rights when we forced you to disclose the paper.”

“It makes no difference,” said Garay.  “I owe you and your comrades a debt and I shall pay it.”