It was inevitable as he sat there in the silence and darkness with his sleeping comrades below that his thoughts should turn to St. Luc.  He had recognized in the first moment of their meeting that the young Frenchman was a personality.  He was a personality in the sense that Tayoga was, one who radiated a spirit or light that others were compelled to notice.  He knew that there was no such thing as looking into the future, but he felt with conviction that this man was going to impinge sharply upon his life, whether as a friend or an enemy not even Tarenyawagon, who sent the dreams, would tell, but he could not be insensible to the personal charm of the Chevalier Raymond Louis de St. Luc.

What reception would the fifty sachems give to the belt that the chevalier would bring?  Would they be proof against his lightness, his ease, his fluency and his ability to paint a glowing picture of French might and French gratitude?  Robert knew far better than most of his own race the immensity of the stake.  He who roamed the forest with Tayoga and the Great Bear understood to the full the power of the Hodenosaunee.  It was true, too, that the Indian commissioners at Albany had not done their duty and had given the Indians just cause of complaint, at the very moment when the great League should be propitiated.  Yet the friendship between the Iroquois and the English had been ancient and strong, and he would not have feared so much had it been any other than St. Luc who was going to meet the sachems in council.

Robert shook his head as if the physical motion would dismiss his apprehensions, and walked farther up the hill to a point where he could see the lake.  A light wind was blowing, and little waves of crumbling silver pursued one another across its surface.  On the far side the bank, crowned with dense forest showing black in the dusk, rose to a great height, but the lad’s eyes came back to the water, his heart missing a beat as he thought he saw a shadow on its surface, but so near the opposite shore that it almost merged with a fringe of bushes there.

Then he rebuked himself for easy alarm.  It was merely the reflection from a bough above in the water below.  Yet it played tricks with him.  The shadow reappeared again and again, always close to the far bank, but there were many boughs also to reproduce themselves in the mirror of the lake.  He convinced himself that his eyes and his mind were having sport with him, and turning away, he made a little circle in the woods about their camp.  All was well.  He heard a swish overhead, but he knew that it was a night bird, a rustling came, and an ungainly form lumbered through a thicket, but it was a small black bear, and coming back to the hollow, he looked down at his comrades.

Tayoga and Willet slept well.  Neither had stirred, and wrapped in their blankets lying on the soft leaves, they were true pictures of forest comfort.  They were fine and loyal comrades, as good as anybody ever had, and he was glad they were so near, because he began to have a feeling now that something unusual was going to occur.  The shadows on the lake troubled him again, and he went back for another look.  He did not see them now, and that, too, troubled him.  It proved that they had been made by some moving object, and not by the boughs and bushes still there.