Another deer fell to Tayoga’s deadly arrow, and on the third day as they were concealed in dense forest they saw smoke on a high hill, rising in rings, as if a blanket were passed rapidly over a fire and back again in a steady alternation.
“Can you read what they say, Tayoga?” asked Willet.
“No,” replied the Onondaga. “They are strange to me, and so it cannot be any talk of the Hodenosaunee. Ah, look to the west! See, on another hill, two miles away, rings of smoke also are rising!”
“Which means that two bands of French Indians are talking to each other, Tayoga?”
“It is so, Great Bear, and here within the lands of the Hodenosaunee! Perhaps Frenchmen are with them, Frenchmen from Carillon or some other post that Onontio has pushed far to the south.”
The young Onondaga spoke with deep resentment. The sight of the two smokes made by the foes of the Hodenosaunee filled him with anger, and Willet, who observed his face, easily read his mind from it.
“You would like to see more of the warriors who are making those signals,” he said. “Well, I don’t blame you for your curiosity and perhaps it would be wise for us to take a look. Suppose we stalk the first fire.”
Tayoga nodded, and the three, although hampered somewhat by their packs, began a slow approach through the bushes. Half the distance, and Tayoga, who was in advance, putting his finger upon his lips, sank almost flat.
“What is it, Tayoga?” whispered Willet.
“Someone else stalking them too. On the right. I heard a bush move.”
Both Willet and Robert heard it also as they waited, and used as they were to the forest they knew that it was made by a human being.
“What’s your opinion, Tayoga?” asked the hunter.
“A warrior or warriors of the Hodenosaunee, seeking, as we are, to see those who are sending up the rings of smoke,” replied the Onondaga.
“If you’re right they’re likely to be Mohawks, the Keepers of the Eastern Gate.”
Tayoga nodded.
“Let us see,” he said.
Putting his fingers to his lips, he blew between them a note soft and low but penetrating. A half minute, and a note exactly similar came from a point in the dense bush about a hundred yards away. Then Tayoga blew a shorter note, and as before the reply came, precisely like it.
“It is the Ganeagaono,” said Tayoga with certainty, “and we will await them here.”
The three remained motionless and silent, but in a few minutes the bushes before them shook, and four tall figures, rising to their full height, stood in plain view. They were Mohawk warriors, all young, powerful and with fierce and lofty features. The youngest and tallest, a man with the high bearing of a forest chieftain, said:
“We meet at a good time, O Tayoga, of the clan of the Bear, of the nation Onondaga, of the great League of the Hodenosaunee.”