Robert walked down to a small brook, bathed his face, and returned to find the food ready.  He did not wholly trust either de Courcelles or Jumonville, but their manners were good, and it was quite evident that they no longer wished to interfere with the progress of the mission.  Tayoga and Willet also seemed to have forgotten the episode of the night before, and asked no questions about Tandakora.  After breakfast, the three put their canoe back in the river, and thanking their hosts for the courtesy of a night in their camp, shot out into the stream.  De Courcelles and Jumonville, standing on the bank, waved them farewell, and they held their paddles aloft a moment or two in salute.  Then a bend shut them from view.

“I don’t trust them,” said Robert, after a long silence.  “This is our soil, but they march over it and calmly assume that it’s their own.”

“King George claims it, and King Louis claims it, too,” said Willet in a whimsical tone, “but I’m thinking it belongs to neither.  The ownership, I dare say, will not be decided for many a year.  Now, Tayoga, what do you think has become of that demon, Tandakora?”

The Onondaga looked at the walls of foliage on either side of the stream before answering.

“One cannot tell,” he said in his precise language of the schools.  “The mind of the Ojibway is a fitful thing, but always it is wild and lawless.  He longs, night and day, for scalps, and he covets ours most.  It is because we have defeated the attempts he has made already.”

“Do you think he has gone ahead with the intention of ambushing us?  Would he dare?”

“Yes, he would dare.  If he were to succeed he would have little to fear.  A bullet in one of our hearts, fired from cover on the bank, and then the wilderness would swallow him up and hide him from pursuit.  He could go to the country around the last and greatest of the lakes, where only the white trapper or explorer has been.”

“It gives me a tremendously uncomfortable feeling, Tayoga, to think that bloodthirsty wretch may be waiting for a shot at us.  How are we to guard against him?”

“We must go fast and watch as we go.  Our eyes are keen, and we may see him moving among the trees.  The Ojibway is no marksman, and unless we sit still it is not likely that he can hit us.”

Tayoga spoke very calmly, but his words set Robert’s heart to beating, understanding what an advantage Tandakora had if he sought to lie in ambush.  He knew that the soul of the Ojibway was full of malice and that his craving for scalps was as strong as the Onondaga had said it was.  Had it been anyone else he would not follow them, but Robert foresaw in Tandakora a bitter and persistent enemy.  Both he and Willet, feeling the wisdom of Tayoga’s advice, began to paddle faster.  But the hunter presently slowed down a little.

“No use to take so much out of ourselves now that we’ll just creep along later on,” he said.