He was conscious that all three represented strength, each in a different way, and he felt the gaze of three pairs of eyes resting upon him in a manner that contained either secret or open hostility.  But he faced them boldly, a gallant and defiant young figure himself, instinct with courage and an intellectual quality that is superior to courage itself.  The Frenchman who confronted him recognized at once the thinker.

“I bid you good day,” said Robert politely.  “I did not expect to meet travelers in these woods.”

The Frenchman smiled.

“We are all travelers,” he said, “but it is you who are our guest, since these rivers and mountains and lakes and forests acknowledge the suzerainty of my royal master, King Louis of France.”

His tone was light and bantering and Robert, seeing the advantage of it, chose to speak in the same vein.

“The wilderness itself is king,” he said, “and it acknowledges no master, save perhaps the Hodenosaunee.  But I had thought that the law of England ran here, at least where white men are concerned.”

He saw the eyes of the great savage flash when he mentioned the Hodenosaunee, and he inferred at once that he was a bitter enemy of the Iroquois.  Some of the tribes had a hereditary hatred toward one another more ferocious than that which they felt against the whites.

The Frenchman smiled again, and swept his hand in a graceful curve toward the green expanse.

“It is true,” he said, “that the forest is yet lord over these lands, but in the future I think the lilies of France will wave here.  You perhaps have an equal faith that the shadow of the British flag will be over the wilderness, but it would be most unfitting for you and me to quarrel about it now.  I infer from the canoe and the three paddles that you did not come here alone.”

“Two friends are with me.  They have gone into the forest on a brief expedition.  They should return soon.  We have food in abundance, a deer that we killed a few hours ago.  Will you share it?”

“Gladly.  Courtesy, I see, is not lost in the woods.  Permit me to introduce ourselves.  The chief is Tandakora of the Ojibways, from the region about the great western lake that you call Superior.  He is a mighty warrior, and his fame is great, justly earned in many a battle.  My friend in deerskin is Armand Dubois, born a Canadian of good French stock, and a most valiant and trustworthy man.  As for me, I am Raymond Louis de St. Luc, Chevalier of France and soldier of fortune in the New World.  And now you know the list of us.  It’s not so long as Homer’s catalogue of the ships, nor so interesting, but it’s complete.”

His manner had remained light, almost jesting, and Robert judged that it was habitual with him like a cloak in winter, and, like the cloak, it would be laid away when it was not needed.  The man’s blue eyes, even when he used the easy manner of the high-bred Frenchman, were questing and resolute.  But the youth still found it easier than he had thought to meet him in like fashion.  Now he replied to frankness with frankness.