Fire leaped up in the black eyes of Daganoweda.

“Did you follow?” he asked.

“For a mile, and I found other traces of moccasins passing.  The traces met and fused into one trail.  All the owners of the moccasins knelt and drank at a Dushote (a spring), and as they were very thirsty they must have come far.”

“How do you know, Haace?”

“Because the imprints of their knees were sunk deep in the earth, showing that they drank long and with eagerness. Oneganosa (the water) was sweet to their lips, and they would not have drunk so long had they not been walking many miles.  I would have followed further, but I felt that I should come back and tell to my chief, Daganoweda, what I had seen.”

“You have done well, Haace.  Some day the Panther will turn into a chief.”

The black eyes of the young warrior flashed with pleasure, but he said nothing, silence becoming him when he was receiving precious words of praise from his leader.

“I saw sign of the savages too,” said Black Rifle.  “I came upon the coals of a dead fire about two days’ old.  By the side of it I found these two red beads that had dropped from the leggings or moccasins of some warrior.  I’ve seen beads of this kind before, and they all come from the French in Canada.”

“Then,” said Robert, speaking for the first time, “you’ve no doubt the enemy is near?”

“None in the world,” replied Black Rifle, “but I think they’re going west, away from us.  It’s not likely they know yet we’re here, but so large a band as ours can’t escape their notice long.”

“If they did not find that we are here,” said Daganoweda proudly, “we would soon tell it to them ourselves, and in such manner that they would remember it.”

“That we would,” said Black Rifle, with equal emphasis.  “Now, what do you think, Daganoweda?  Should we wake the Great Bear and the Mountain Wolf?”

“No, Black Rifle.  Let them sleep on.  They will need tomorrow the sleep they get tonight.  Man lives by day in the sleep that he has at night, and we wish the eyes of them all to be clear and the arms of them all to be strong, when the hour of battle, which is not far away, comes to us.”

“You’re right, Daganoweda, right in both things you say, right that they need all their strength, and right that we’ll soon meet St. Luc, at the head of the French and Indians, because I’m as sure as I know that I’m standing here that he’s now leading ’em.  Shall we finish out the night here, and then follow on their trail until we can bring ’em to battle on terms that suit us?”

“Yes, Black Rifle.  That is what the Great Bear and the Mountain Wolf would say too, and so I shall not awake them.  Instead, I too will go to sleep.”