“A reasonable religion, Tayoga.  Your Hanegoategeh is like the purgatory, in which the Catholic church believes.  Your God like ours is merciful, and the more I learn about your religion the more similar it seems to ours.”

“I think your God and our Manitou are the same, Lennox, we only see him through different glasses, but our religion is old, old, very old, perhaps older than yours.”

Although Tayoga did not raise his voice or change the inflection Robert knew that he spoke with great pride.  The young Onondaga did not believe his religion resembled the white man’s but that the white man’s resembled his.  Robert respected him though, and knowing the reasons for his pride, said nothing in contradiction.

“The whining wolf is hungry,” said Tayoga, “and since the soul of a warrior may dwell in his body I will feed him.”

He took a discarded piece of the deer and threw it far into the bushes.  A fearful growling, and the noise of struggling ensued at once.

“The wolf with the wicked soul in him may be there,” said Robert, “but even so he has to fight with the other wolves for the meat you flung.”

“It is a part of his fate,” said Tayoga gravely.  “Seeing and thinking as a man, he must yet bite and claw with beasts for his food.  Now I think we have all of the deer we wish.”

As they could not take it with them for tanning, they cut the skin in half, and each wrapped in his piece a goodly portion of the body to be carried to the canoe.  Both were fastidious, wishing to get no stain upon their clothing, and, their task completed, they carefully washed their hands and knives at the edge of a brook.  Then as they lifted up their burdens the whining and growling in the bushes increased rapidly.

“They see that we are going,” said Tayoga.  “The wolf even without the soul of a warrior in it knows much.  It is the wisest of all the animals, unless the fox be its equal.  The foolish bear and the mad panther fight alone, but the wolf, who is too small to face either, bands with his brothers into a league, even as the Hodenosaunee, and together they pull down the deer and the moose, and in the lands of the Ohio they dare to attack and slay the mighty bull buffalo.”

“They know the strength of union, Tayoga, and they know, too, just now that they’re safe from our weapons.  I can see their noses poking already in their eagerness through the bushes.  They’re so hungry and so confident that they’ll hardly wait until we get away.”

As they passed with their burdens into the bushes on the far side of the little opening they heard a rush of light feet, and angry snarling.  Looking back, Robert saw that the carcass of the stag was already covered with hungry wolves, every one fighting for a portion, and he knew it was the way of the forest.

CHAPTER II

ST. LUC

Willet hailed them joyfully when they returned.