“A general who made war in a country that he did not know, with an enemy that he did not understand.”

“Well, we’ll learn from it.  We were too sure.  Pride, they say, goes before a fall, but they ought to add that those who fall can rise again.  Perhaps our generals will be more cautious next time, and won’t walk into any more traps.  But I foresee now a long, a very long war.  Nearly all of Europe, if what comes across the Atlantic be true, will be involved in it, and we Americans will be thrown mostly upon our own resources.  Perhaps it will weld our colonies together and make of them a great nation, a nation great like the Hodenosaunee.”

“I think it will come to pass, Dagaeoga.  The mighty League was formed by hardship and self-denial.  A people who have had to fight long and tenaciously for themselves grows strong.  So it has been said often by the fifty sachems who are old and very wise, and who know all that it is given to men to know.  Did you hear anything stirring in the thicket, Dagaeoga?”

“I did, Tayoga.  I heard a rustling, the sound of very light footfalls, and I see the cause.”

“A black bear, is it not, seeing what strangers have invaded the bush!  Now, he steals away, knowing that we are the enemies most to be dreaded by him.  Doubtless there are other animals among the bushes, watching us, but we neither see nor hear them.  It is time to divide the watch, for we must save our strength, and it is not well for both to remain awake far into the night.”

It was arranged that Robert should sleep first and the Onondaga gave his faithful promise to awaken him in four hours.  The two lads meant to take the burden of the watch upon themselves, and, unless Willet awoke, of his own accord, he was to lie there until day.

Robert lay down upon his blanket, went to sleep in an instant, and the next instant Tayoga awakened him.  At least it seemed but an instant, although the entire four hours had passed.  Tayoga laughed at the dubious look on his face.

“The time is up.  It really is,” he said.  “You made me give my faithful promise.  Look at the moon, and it will tell you I am no teller of a falsehood.”

“I never knew four hours to pass so quickly before.  Has anything happened while I slept?”

“Much, Dagaeoga.  Many things, things of vast importance.”

“What, Tayoga!  You astonish me.  The forest seems quiet.”

“And so it is.  But the revolving earth has turned one-sixth of its way upon itself.  It has also traveled thousands and thousands of miles in that vast circle through the pathless void that it makes about the sun.  I did not know that such things happened until I went to the white man’s school at Albany, but I know them now, and are they not important, hugely important?”

“They’re among the main facts of the universe, but they happen every night.”

“Then it would be more important if they did not happen?”