the French power in North America, and he associated it vaguely with young officers in brilliant uniforms, powdered ladies, and all the splendor of an Old World court reproduced in the New World.  St. Luc had come from there, and with his handsome face and figure and his gay and graceful manner he had typified the Quebec of the chevaliers, which the grave and solid burghers of Albany regarded with dread and aversion and yet with a strange sort of attraction.

He did not deny to himself that he too felt the attraction.  An unknown kinship with Quebec, either in blood or imagination, was calling.  He wondered if he would see St. Luc there, but on reflection he decided that it was impossible.  The mission of the chevalier to the Hodenosaunee would require a long absence.  He might arrive in the vale of Onondaga and have to wait many days before the fifty sachems should decide to meet in council and hear him.

But Robert believed that if St. Luc should appear before the fifty he would prove to be eloquent, and he would neglect no artifice of word and manner to make the Hodenosaunee think the French power at Quebec invincible.  He would describe the great deeds of the French officers and soldiers.  He would tell them of that glittering court of Versailles, and perhaps he would make them think their salvation depended upon an alliance with France.

Robert was sorry for the moment that his mission was taking him to Quebec and not to the vale of Onondaga, where Willet and he—­and Tayoga too—­could appear before the sachems as friends true and tested, and prove to them that the English were their good and natural allies.  They would recall again what Frontenac had done.  They would dwell upon the manner in which he had carried sword and fire among the Six Nations, then the Five, and they would keep open the old wound that yet rankled.

It was a passing wish.  The Iroquois would remain faithful to their ancient allies, the English.  The blood that Frontenac had shed would be forever a barrier between the Long House and the Stadacona that was.  Once more Quebec filled his eye, and he gazed into the northeast where the French capital lay upon its mighty and frowning rock.  His curiosity concerning it increased.  He wanted to see what kind of city it was, and he wanted to see what kind of a man the Marquis Duquesne, the Governor-General of Canada, was.  Well, he would be there before many days and he would see for himself.  He and his comrades already had been triumphant over a danger so great that nothing could stop them now.  He felt all the elation and certainty that came from a victory over odds.

He rose, parted the bushes and made another tour of the region about their covert.  When he was at a point about a hundred yards away he fancied that he heard a sound in a thicket a considerable distance ahead.  Promptly taking shelter behind a large tree, he used both eyes and ears, watching the thicket closely, and listening for any other sound that might come.