Willet was much affected, and he put his hand on the shoulder of his old friend.

“I hope you are wrong, Hendrik,” he said, “and that many years of good life await you, but if you do fall it is fitting, as you say, to fall at the head of your warriors.”

The old chief smiled.  It was evident that he had made his peace with his Manitou, and that he awaited the future without anxiety.

“Remember the shores of Andiatarocte,” he said.  “They are bold and lofty, covered with green forest, and they enclose the most beautiful of all the lakes.  It is a wonderful lake.  I have known it more than sixty years.  The mountains, heavy with the great forest, rise all around it.  Its waters are blue or green or silver as the skies over it change.  It is full of islands, each like a gem in a cluster.  I have gone there often, merely to sit on a great cliff a half mile above its waters, and look down on the lake, Andiatarocte, the Andiatarocte of the Hodenosaunee that Manitou gave to us because we strive to serve him.  It is a great and glorious gift to me that I should be allowed to die in battle there and take my flight from its shores to Hayowentha’s star, the star on which Hayowentha sits, and from which he talks across infinite space, which is nothing to them, to the great Onondaga chieftain Tododaho, also on his star to which he went more than four centuries ago.”

The face of the old chief was rapt and mystic.  The black eyes in the bronzed face looked into futurity and infinity.  Robert was more than impressed, he had a feeling of awe.  A great Indian chief was a great Indian chief to him, as great as any man, and he did not doubt that the words of Hendrik would come true.  And like Hendrik himself he did not see any cause for grief.  He, too, had looked upon the beautiful shores of Andiatarocte, and it was a fitting place for a long life to end, preparatory to another and eternal life among the stars.

He gravely saluted King Hendrik with the full respect and deference due him, to which the chief replied, obviously pleased with the good manners of the youth, and then he and the hunter walked to another portion of the camp.

“A great man, a really great man!” said Willet.

“He made a great speech here in Albany more than a year ago to a congress of white men, and he has made many great speeches.  He is also a great warrior, and for nearly a half century he has valiantly defended the border against the French and their Indians.”

“I wonder if what he says about falling in battle on the shores of Andiatarocte will come true.”

“We’ll wait and see, Robert, we’ll wait and see, but I’ve an idea that it will.  Some of these Indians, especially the old, seem to have the gift of second sight, and we who live so much in the woods know that many strange things happen.”