“It is the one chance that Tododaho has offered to us, and we must take it,” said Tayoga, as he led the way upon the natural bridge.  Robert followed promptly and Willet brought up the rear.

The banks were high at that point, and the river flowed rather more swiftly than usual.  Robert, ten feet beyond the southern shore, looked down at a dark and sullen current, seeming in the dim moonlight to have interminable depths.  It was only about fifteen feet below him, but his imagination, heightened by time and place, made the distance three or fourfold greater.

He felt a momentary fear lest he slip and fall into the dark stream, and he clung tightly to an upthrust bough.

The fallen tree swayed a little with the weight of the three, but Robert knew that it was safe.  It was not the bridge that they had to fear, but what awaited them on the farther shore.  Tayoga stopped, and the tense manner in which he crouched among the boughs and leaves showed that he was listening with all his ears.

“Do you hear them?” Robert whispered.

“Not their footsteps,” Tayoga whispered back, “but there was a soft call in the woods, the low cry of a night bird, and then the low cry of another night bird replying.  It was the warriors signaling to one another, the first signal they have given.”

“I heard the cries, too,” said Willet, behind Robert, “and no doubt Tandakora and De Courcelles feel they are closing in on us.  It’s a good thing this tree was blown down but lately, and the leaves and boughs are so thick on it.”

“It was so provided by Tododaho in our great need,” said Tayoga.

“Do you mean that we’re likely to be besieged while we’re still on our bridge?” asked Robert, and despite himself he could not repress a shiver.

“Not a siege exactly,” replied Willet, “but the warriors may pass on the farther shore, while we’re still in the tree.  That’s the reason why I spoke so gratefully of the thick leaves still clinging to it.”

“They come even now,” said Tayoga, in the lowest of whispers, and the three, stopping, flattened themselves like climbing animals against the trunk of the tree, until the dark shadow of their bodies blurred against the dusk of its bark.  They were about halfway across and the distance of the stream beneath them seemed to Robert to have increased.  He saw it flowing black and swift, and, for a moment, he had a horrible fear lest he should fall, but he tightened his grasp on a bough and turning his eyes away from the water looked toward the woods.

“The warriors come,” whispered Tayoga, and Robert, seeing, also flattened himself yet farther against the tree, until he seemed fairly to sink into the bark.  Their likeness to climbing animals increased, and it would have required keen eyes to have seen the three as they lay along the trunk, deep among the leaves and boughs thirty feet from either shore.