Night came, and the festival was still in progress.  What the Indian did he did with his whole heart, and all his strength.  Darkness compelled the ball games to cease, but the dancing went on by the light of the fires and fresh banquets were spread for all who cared.  Robert knew that it might last for several days and that it would be useless until the end for either him or St. Luc to mention the subject so dear to their hearts.  Hence came an agreement of silence, and all the while their friendship grew.

It is true that official enemies may be quite different in private life, and Robert found that he and St. Luc had much in common.  There was a certain kindred quality of temperament.  They had the same courage, the same spirit of optimism, the same light and easy manner of meeting a crisis, with the same deadly earnestness and concentration concealed under that careless appearance.  It was apparent that Robert, who had spent so much of his life in the forest, was fitted for great events and the stage upon which men of the world moved.  He had felt it in Quebec, when he came into contact with what was really a brilliant court, with all the faults and vices of a court, one of the main objects of which was pleasure, and he felt it anew, since he was in the constant companionship of a man who seemed to him to have more of that knightly spirit and chivalry for which France was famous than any other he had ever met.  St. Luc knew his Paris and the forest equally well.  Nor was he a stranger to London and Vienna or to old Rome that Robert hoped to see some day.  It seemed to Robert that he had seen everything and done everything, not that he boasted, even by indirection, but it was drawn from him by the lad’s own questions, back of which was an intense curiosity.

Robert noticed also that Willet, to whom he owed so much, never intervened.  Apparently he still approved the growing friendship of the lad and the Frenchman, and Tayoga, too, showed himself not insensible to St Luc’s charm.  Although he was now among his own people, and in the sacred vale of which they were the keepers, he still stayed in the community house with Robert and sought the society of his white friends, including St. Luc.

“I had thought,” said Robert to the hunter the third morning after their arrival, “that you would prefer for us to show a hostile face to St. Luc, who is here to defeat our purpose, just as we are here to defeat his.”

“Nothing is to be gained by a personal enmity,” replied the hunter.  “We are the enemies not of St. Luc, but of his nation.  We will meet him fairly as he will meet us fairly, and I see good reasons why you and he should be friends.”

“But in the coming war he’s likely to be one of our ablest and most enterprising foes.”

“That’s true, Robert, but it does not change my view.  Brave men should like brave men, and if it is war I hope you and St. Luc will not meet in battle.”