“Close your eyes and go to sleep without fear,” said Robert in the same vein.  “I shall hear Tandakora breathing if he comes within a mile of us, at the same distance I shall hear the moccasin of De Courcelles, when it brushes against last year’s fallen leaf, and at half a mile I shall see the look of revenge and cruelty upon the face of the Ojibway seeking for us.”

Willet laughed softly, but with evident satisfaction.

“You two boys are surely the greatest talkers I’ve heard for a long time,” he said.  “You have happy thoughts and you put ’em into words.  If I didn’t know that you had a lot of deeds, too, to your credit, I’d call you boasters, but knowing it, I don’t.  Go ahead and spout language, because you’re only lads and I can see that you enjoy it.”

“I’m going to sleep now,” said Tayoga, “but Dagaeoga can keep on talking and be happy, because he will talk to himself long after we have gone to the land of dreams.”

“If I do talk to myself,” said Robert, “it’s because I like to talk to a bright fellow, and I like to have a bright fellow talk to me.  Sleep as soundly as you please, you two, because while you’re sleeping I can carry on an intellectual conversation.”

The hunter laughed again.

“It’s no use, Tayoga,” he said.  “You can’t put him down.  The fifty wise old sachems in the vale of Onondaga proclaimed him a great orator, and great orators must always have their way.”

“It is so,” said the Onondaga.  “The voice of Dagaeoga is like a river.  It flows on forever, and like the murmur of the stream it will soothe me to deeper slumbers.  Now I sleep.”

“And so do I,” said the hunter.

It seemed marvelous that such formal announcements should be followed by fact, but within three minutes both went to that pleasant land of dreams of which they had been talking so lightly.  Their breathing was long and regular and, beyond a doubt, they had put absolute faith in their sentinel.  Robert’s mind, so quick to respond to obvious confidence, glowed with resolve.  There was no danger now that he would relax the needed vigilance a particle, and, rifle in the hollow of his arm, he began softly to patrol the bushes.

He was convinced that De Courcelles and Tandakora were not many miles away—­they might even be within a mile—­and memory of a former occasion, somewhat similar, when Tayoga had detected the presence of the Ojibway, roused his emulation.  He was determined that, while he was on watch, no creeping savage should come near enough to strike.

Hand on the hammer and trigger of his rifle he walked in an ever widening circle about his sleeping comrades, searching the thickets with eyes, good naturally and trained highly, and stopping now and then to listen.  Two or three times he put his ear to the earth that he might hear, as Tayoga had bade him, the rustle of leaves a mile away.