“Nine of my men have been slain, but they fell as warriors of the Ganeagaono would wish to fall.  Two more will die and others are hurt, but they need not be counted, since they will be in any other battle that may come.  And what have you suffered, Great Bear?”

“Five of the rangers have gone into the hereafter, another will go, and as for the hurt, like your Mohawks they’ll be good for the next fight, no matter how soon it comes.  We’d better go along the line, Daganoweda, and caution them all to be steady.  The wind and rain are driving hard and Andiatarocte is heaving mightily.  We don’t want to lose a man or a canoe.”

“No, Great Bear, after taking the fleet in battle we must not give it up to the waters of the lake.  See, the flare of a great fire on the mainland!  The Mountain Wolf and the rest of the men await us with joy.”

Then Daganoweda achieved a feat which Willet himself would have said a moment before was impossible.  He stood suddenly upright in his rocking canoe, whirled his paddle around his head, and uttered a tremendous shout, long and thrilling, that pierced far above the roar of wind and rain.  Then Mohawks and rangers took it up in a tremendous chorus, and the force of Rogers on land joined in, too, adding to the mighty volume.  When it sank into the crash and thunder of the storm, a shrill whoop of defiance came from the island.

“Are they trying pursuit?” asked Robert.

“They would not dare,” replied Tayoga.  “They do not know, of course, that we have only the edges of our tomahawks and hunting knives with which to meet them, and even in the darkness they dread our rifles.”

Robert glanced back, catching only the dark outline of the island through the rain and fog, and that, too, for but a moment, as then the unbroken dark closed in, and wind and rain roared in his ears.  He realized for the first time, since their departure on the great adventure, that he was without clothes, and as the fierce tension of mind and body began to relax he felt cold.  The rain was driving upon him in sheets and he began to paddle with renewed vigor in order to keep up his circulation.

“I’ll welcome the fire, Tayoga,” he said.

“And I, too,” said the Onondaga in his precise fashion.  “The collapse is coming after our mighty efforts of mind and body.  We will not reach shore too soon.  The Mountain Wolf and his men build the fire high, so high that it can defy the rain, because they know we will need it.”

A shout welcomed them as they drew in to the mainland, and the spectacle of the huge fire, sputtering and blazing in the storm, was grateful to Robert.  All the captured boats and canoes were drawn out of the water, well upon the shore, and then, imitating a favorite device of the Indians, they inverted the long boats, resting the ends on logs before the fires, and sat or stood under them, sheltered from the rain, while they warmed white or brown bodies in the heat of the flames.