“I think so too, Black Rifle.  With the warriors and the French so near us it is not likely that it could pass in peace.”

“At any rate, Dave and the lads are not worrying about it.  I never saw anybody sleep more soundly.  I reckon they were pretty well worn out.”

“So they were, and, unless danger comes very close, we will not awaken them.  That it will be near us soon I do not doubt because Tododaho warns me that peril is at hand.”

He was looking up at the star on which his patron saint sat and his face had that rapt expression which it always wore when his spirit leaped into the void to meet that of the great Onondaga chief who had gone away four hundred years ago.  Black Rifle regarded him with respect.  He too was steeped in Indian lore and belief, and, if Tayoga said he saw and heard what others could not hear or see, then he saw and heard them and that was all there was to it.

“What do you see, Tayoga?” he asked.

“Tododaho sits on his star with the wise snakes, coil on coil in his hair, and the great Mohawk, Hayowentha, who is inferior only to Tododaho, speaks to him from his own star across infinite space.  They are talking of us, but it comes only as a whisper, like the dying voice of a distant wind, and I cannot understand their words.  But both the great warriors look down warningly at us.  They tell us to beware, that we are threatened by a great peril.  I can read their faces.  But a mist is passing in the heavens.  The star of the Mohawk fades.  Lo, it is gone!  And now the vapors gather before the face of Tododaho too.  Lo, he also has gone, and there are only clouds and mists in the far heavens!  But the great chiefs, from their stars, have told us to watch and to watch well.”

“I believe you!  I believe every word you say, Tayoga,” exclaimed Black Rifle, in a tone of awe.  “The mist is coming down here too.  I think it’s floating in from the lake.  It will be all over the thickets soon.  I reckon that the danger threatening us is from the warriors, and if we are in a veil of fog we’ll have to rely on our ears.  I’m not bragging when I say that mine are pretty good, but yours are better.”

Tayoga did not reply.  He knew that the compliment was true, but, as before, he ascribed the credit to Manitou because he had made the gift and not to himself who was merely an involuntary agent.  The mist and vapors were increasing, drifting toward them in clouds from the lake, a vanguard of shreds and patches, already floating over the bushes in which they lay.  It was evident that soon they would not be able to see five yards from there.

In ten minutes the mist became a fog, white and thick.  The sleeping three were almost hidden, although they were at the feet of the watchers, and the two saw each other but dimly.  They seemed to be in a tiny island with a white ocean circling about them.  The Onondaga lay flat and put his ear to the earth.