“Come, Dagaeoga!  The Great Bear and I await you.  Tododaho, watching on his star, has sent us into your path.”

Robert, uttering a joyful cry, sprang forward, and the Onondaga and Willet, rising from the thicket, greeted him with the utmost warmth.

“I knew we’d find you again,” said Willet “How did you manage to escape?”

“A way seemed to open for me,” replied Robert.  “The last man I saw in the French camp was St. Luc.  After that I met no sentinel, although I passed where a sentinel would stand.”

“Ah!” said Willet.

They gave him food, and after sunrise they started toward the south.  Robert told how he had seen the great battle and the French victory.

“Tayoga, Black Rifle, Grosvenor and I were in the attack,” said Willet, “but we went through it without a scratch.  No troops ever fought more bravely than ours.  The defeat was the fault of the commander, not theirs.  But we’ll put behind us the battle lost and think of the battle yet to be won.”

“So we will,” said Robert, as he looked around at the great curving forest, its deep green tinted with the light brown of summer.  It was a friendly forest now.  It no longer had the aspect of the night before, when the wolves, their jaws slavering in anticipation, howled in its thickets.  Rabbits sprang up as they passed, but the little creatures of the wild did not seem to be afraid.  They did not run away.  Instead, they crouched under the bushes, and gazed with mild eyes at the human beings who made no threats.  A deer, drinking at the edge of a brook, raised its head a little and then continued to drink.  Birds sang in the dewy dawn with uncommon freshness and sweetness.  The whole world was renewed.

Creature, as he was, of his moods, Robert’s spirits soared again at his meeting with Tayoga and Willet, those staunch friends of his, bound to him by such strong ties and so many dangers shared.  The past was the past, Ticonderoga was a defeat, a great defeat, when a victory had been expected, but it was not irreparable.  Hope sang in his heart and his face flushed in the dawn.  The Onondaga, looking at him, smiled.

“Dagaeoga already looks to the future,” he said.

“So I do,” replied Robert with enthusiasm.  “Why shouldn’t I?  The night just passed has favored me.  I escaped.  I met you and Dave, and it’s a glorious morning.”

The sun was rising in a splendid sea of color, tinting the woods with red and gold.  Never had the wilderness looked more beautiful to him.  He turned his face in the direction of Ticonderoga.

“We’ll come back,” he said, his heart full of courage, “and we’ll yet win the victory, even to the taking of Quebec.”

“So we will,” said the hunter.

“Aye, Stadacona itself will fall,” said Tayoga.

Refreshed and strong, they plunged anew into the forest, traveling swiftly toward the south.

[Footnote 1:  The story of Edward Charteris and his adventures at Ticonderoga and Quebec is told in the author’s novel, “A Soldier of Manhattan.”]