“We’re to stick to the task that we’ve set ourselves through thick and through thin, through everything?”

“Yes!  Yes!”

“If one falls, the four that are left keep on?”

“Yes! yes!”

“If three fall and only two are left, these must not flinch.”

“Yes! yes!”

“If four go down and only one is left, then he whoever he may be, must go on and win alone?”

“Yes! yes!” came forth with deep emphasis.

CHAPTER II

A FOREST ENVOY

A group of men were seated in a pleasant valley, where the golden beams of the sun sifted in myriads through the green leaves.  They were about fifty in number and all were white.  Most of them were dressed in Old World fashion, doublets, knee breeches, hose, and cocked hats.  Nearly all were dark; olive faces, black hair, and black pointed beards, but now and then one had fair hair, and eyes of a cold, pale blue.  Manner, speech, looks, and dress, alike differentiated them from the borderers.  They were not the kind of men whom one would expect to find in these lonely woods in the heart of North America.

The leader of the company—­and obviously he was such—­was one of the few who belonged to the blonde type.  His eyes were of the chilly, metallic blue, and his hair, long and fair, curled at the ends.  His dress, of some fine, black cloth, was scrupulously neat and clean, and a silver-hilted small sword swung it his belt.  He was not more than thirty.

The fair man was leaning lazily but gracefully against the trunk of a tree, and he talked in a manner that seemed indolent and careless, but which was neither to a youth in buckskins who sat opposite him, a striking contrast in appearance.  This youth was undeniably of the Anglo-Saxon type, large and well-built, with a broad, full forehead, but with eyes set too close together.  He was tanned almost to the darkness of an Indian.

“You tell me, Senor Wyatt,” said Don Francisco Alvarez, the leader of the Spanish band, “that the new settlers in Kaintock[A] have twice driven off the allied tribes, and that, if they are left alone another year or two, they will go down so deep in the soil that they can never be uprooted.  Is it not so?”

“It is so,” replied Braxton Wyatt, the renegade.  “The tribes have failed twice in a great effort.  Every man among these settlers is a daring and skillful fighter, and many of the boys—­and many of the women, too.  But if white troops and cannon are sent against them their forts must fall.”

The Spaniard was idly whipping the grass stems with a little switch.  Now he narrowed his metallic, blue eyes, and gazed directly into those of Braxton Wyatt.

“And you, Senor Wyatt?” he said, speaking his slow, precise English.  “Nothing premeditated is done without a motive.  You are of these people who live in Kaintock, their blood is your blood; why then do you wish to have them destroyed?”