“I was already calm, Dave,” replied Robert lightly.  “I took your first lesson to heart, learned it, and I’ve never forgotten it.  I’m so calm that I’ve unfolded my blanket and put it under me to soften the stone.”

“To think of your blanket is proof enough that you’re not excited.  I’ll do the same.  Tayoga, in whose country is this new home of ours?”

“It is the land of no man, because it lies between the tribes from the north and the tribes from the south.  Yet the Iroquois dare to come here when they choose.  It’s the fourth time I have been on this ledge, but before I was always with my brethren of the clan of the Bear of the nation Onondaga.”

“Well, Tayoga,” said Willet, in his humorous tone, “the company has grown no worse.”

“No,” said Tayoga, and his smile was invisible to them in the darkness.  “The time is coming when the sachems of the Onondagas will be glad they adopted Lennox and the Great Bear into our nation.”

Willet’s laugh came at once, not loud, but with an inflection of intense enjoyment.

“You Onondagas are a bit proud, Tayoga,” he said.

“Not without cause, Great Bear.”

“Oh, I admit it!  I admit it!  I suppose we’re all proud of our race—­it’s one of nature’s happy ways of keeping us satisfied—­and I’m free to say, Tayoga, that I’ve no quarrel at having been born white, because I’m so used to being white that I’d hardly know how to be anything else.  But if I wasn’t white—­a thing that I had nothing to do with—­and your Manitou who is my God was to say to me, ‘Choose what else you’ll be,’ I’d say, and I’d say it with all the respect and reverence I could bring into the words, ’O Lord, All Wise and All Powerful, make me a strong young warrior of the clan of the Bear, of the nation Onondaga, of the League of the Hodenosaunee, hunting for my clan and fighting to protect its women and children, and keeping my word with everybody and trying to be just to the red races and tribes that are not as good as mine, and even to be the same to the poor white men around the towns that get drunk, and steal, and rob one another,’ and maybe your Manitou who is my God would give to me my wish.”

“The Great Bear has a silver tongue, and the words drop from his lips like honey,” said Tayoga.  But Robert knew that the young Onondaga was intensely gratified and he knew, too, that Willet meant every word he said.

“You’d better make yourself comfortable on the blanket, as we’re doing, Tayoga,” the youth said.

But the Onondaga did not intend to rest just yet.  The wildness of the place and the spirit of the storm stirred him.  He stood upon the shelf and the others dimly saw his tall and erect young figure.  Slowly he began to chant in his own tongue, and his song ran thus in English: 

“The lightning cleaves the sky,
 The Brave Soul fears not;
 The thunder rolls and threatens,
 Manitou alone speeds the bolt;
 The waters are deep and swift,
 They carry the just man unhurt.”