“I followed Master Lennox to the parade ground again,” he said.  “The Onondaga, Tayoga, the hunter, Willet, and the Englishman, Grosvenor, were with him.  They watched the drill for a while, and spoke with Colonel Johnson.  Then Master Lennox wandered away alone to the north edge of the drill ground, where there are some woods.  Since I have received your instructions, Mynheer, I always examine the woods, and I found in them a man who might have been in hiding, or who might have been lying there for the sake of the shade, only I am quite sure it was not the latter.  Just when Master Lennox came into his view I spoke to him, and he seemed quite angry.  He asked me impatiently to go away, but I stood by and talked to him until Master Lennox was far out of sight.”

“You saw the man well, then, Peter?”

“I did, Mynheer Huysman, and I cannot be mistaken.  It was the same that talked with Mynheer Van Zoon on the deck of the Dirkkoeven.”

“I thought so.  And what kind of a looking man was he, Peter?”

“About thirty, I should say, Mynheer, well built and strong, and foreign.”

“Foreign!  What mean you, Peter?”

“French.”

“What?  French of France or French of Canada?”

“That I cannot say with certainty, Mynheer, but French he was I do believe and maintain.”

“Then he must be a spy as well as a threat to young Lennox.  This goes deeper than I had thought, but you haf done your work well, Peter.  Continue it.”

He held out a gold coin, which Peter pocketed with thanks, and went forth the next morning to resume with a proud heart the task that he liked.

Robert, all unconscious that a faithful guardian was always at his heels, was passing days full of color, variety and pleasure.  Admission into the society of Albany was easy to one of his manner and appearance, who had also such powerful friends, and there were pleasant evenings in the solid Dutch houses.  But he knew they could not last long.  Daganoweda and a chosen group of his Mohawks came back, reporting the French and Indian force to be far larger than the one that had defeated Braddock by Duquesne, and that Baron Dieskau who led it was considered a fine general.  Unless Waraiyageh made up his mind to strike quickly Dieskau would strike first.

The new French and Indian army, Daganoweda said, numbered eight thousand men, a great force for the time, and for the New World, and it would be both preceded and followed by clouds of skirmishers, savages from the regions of the Great Lakes and even from beyond.  They were flushed with victory, with the mighty taking of scalps, at Braddock’s defeat, and they expected here in the north a victory yet greater.  They were already assuming control of Champlain and George, the two lakes which from time immemorial, long before the coming of the white man, had formed the line of march between what had become the French colonies and the British colonies.  It was equally vital now to possess this passage.  Whoever became the rulers of the lakes might determine in their favor the issue of the war in America, and the youths in Johnson’s army were eager to go forward at once and fight for the coveted positions.