“Nor I,” said Robert, and, Tayoga agreeing with them, they returned the canoe to the stream, paddling back into the lake, and continuing their course until they came to its end.  There they carried the canoe across a portage and launched it on a second lake as beautiful as the first.  None of the three spoke much now, their minds being filled with thoughts of St. Luc and his companions.

They were yet on the water when the day began to wane.  The green forest on the high western shore was touched with flame from the setting sun.  Then the surface of the lake blazed with red light, and in the east the gray of twilight came.

“It will be night in half an hour,” said Robert, “and I think we’d better make a landing, and camp.”

“Here’s a cove on the right,” said Willet.  “We’ll take the canoe up among the trees, and wrap ourselves in our blankets.  It’s a good thing we have them, as the darkness is going to bring a chill with it.”

They found good shelter among the trees and bushes, a small hollow protected by great trees and undergrowth, into which they carried the canoe.

“Since it’s not raining this is as good as a house for us,” said Willet.

“I think it’s better,” said Robert.  “The odor of spruce and hemlock is so wonderful I wouldn’t like to have it shut away from me by walls.”

The Onondaga drew in deep inhalations of the pure, healing air, and as his black eyes gleamed he walked to the edge of the little hollow and looked out in the dusk over the vast tangled wilderness of mountain and lake, forest and river.  The twilight was still infused with the red from the setting sun, and in the glow the whole world was luminous and glorified.  Now the eyes of Tayoga, which had flashed but lately, gave back the glow in a steady flame.

“Hawenneyu, the Divine Being whom all the red people worship, made many great lands,” he said, “but he spent his work and love upon that which lies between the Hudson and the vast lakes of the west.  Then he rested and looking upon what he had done he was satisfied because he knew it to be the best in all the world, created by him.”

“How do you know it to be the best, Tayoga?” asked Willet.  “You haven’t seen all the countries.  You haven’t been across the sea.”

“Because none other can be so good,” replied the Iroquois with simple faith.  “When Hawenneyu, in your language the Great Spirit, found the land that he had made so good he did not know then to whom to give it, but in the greatness of his wisdom he left it to those who were most fitted to come and take it.  And in time came the tribes which Tododaho, helped by Hayowentha, often called by the English Hiawatha, formed into the great League of the Hodenosaunee, and because they were brave and far-seeing and abided by the laws of Tododaho and Hayowentha, they took the land which they have kept ever since, and which they will keep forever.”

“I like your good, strong beliefs, Tayoga,” said the hunter heartily.  “The country does belong to the Iroquois, and if it was left to me to decide about it they’d keep it till the crack of doom.  Now you boys roll in your blankets.  I’ll take the first watch, and when it’s over I’ll call one of you.”