“Suppose you let me hail ’em,” said Robert.  “I’ll stand on the little hill there—­a bullet from the palisades can’t reach me—­and sing ’em a song or two.”

“Go ahead,” said the hunter.

Standing at his full height, young Lennox began to shout: 

“Awake!  Awake!  Up!  Up!  We’re friends!  We’re friends!”

His musical voice had wonderful carrying power, and the forest, and the open space in which the fort stood, rang with the sound.  Robert became so much intoxicated with his own chanting that he did not notice its effect, until Willet called upon him to stop.

“They’ve heard you!” exclaimed the hunter.  “Many of them have heard you!  All of them must have heard you!  Look at the heads appearing above the palisade!”

The side of the palisade fronting them was lined with faces, some the faces of soldiers and others the faces of civilians.  Robert uttered a joyful exclamation.

“There’s Colden!” he exclaimed.  “The moonlight fell on him just then, and I can’t be mistaken.”

“And if my eyes tell me true, that’s young Wilton beside him,” said the hunter.  “But come, lads, hold up your hands to show that we’re friends, and we’ll go into the fort.”

They advanced, their hands, though they grasped rifles, held on high, but Robert, exalted and irrepressible, began to sing out anew: 

“Hey, you, Colden!  And you, too, Wilton and Carson!  It’s fine to see you again, alive and well.”

There was silence on the wall, and then a great shout of welcome.

“It’s Lennox, Robert Lennox himself!” cried someone.

“And Willet, the big hunter!”

“And there’s Black Rifle, too!”

“And Tayoga, the Onondaga!”

“Open the gate for ’em!  Let ’em come in, in honor.”

The great gate was thrown wide, and the four entered quickly, to be surrounded at once by a multitude, eager for news of the outside world, from which they had been shut off so long.  Torches, held aloft, cast a flickering light over young soldiers in faded uniforms, men in deerskin, and women in home-made linsey.  Colden, and his two lieutenants, Wilton and Carson, stood together.  They were thin, and their faces brown, but they looked wiry and rugged.  Colden shook Robert’s hand with great energy.

“I’m tremendously glad to see you,” he exclaimed, “and I’m equally glad to see Mr. Willet, the great Onondaga, and Black Rifle.  You’re the first messengers from the outside world in more than a month.  What news of victory do you bring?  We heard that a great army of ours was marching against Duquesne.”

Robert did not answer.  He could not, because the words choked in his throat, and a silence fell over the crowd gathered in the court, over soldiers and men and women and children alike.  A sudden apprehension seized the young commander and his lips trembled.

“What is it, Lennox, man?” he exclaimed.  “Why don’t you speak?  What is it that your eyes are telling me?”