No Indian, however brave and faithful and wise in battle, however cunning and tireless and unerring on forest trail or on uncharted waters, could remain entirely undisturbed by any menace of invisible evil.  For they were an impulsive race, ever curbing their impulses and blindly seeking for reason.  But what appealed to their emotions and their imagination still affected them most profoundly, and hampered the slow, gradual, but steady development of a noble race emerging by its own efforts from absolute and utter ignorance.

I said quietly:  “After all, the Master of Life stands sentry while the guiltless sleep!”

“Amen,” said the Mole, lifting his calm eyes to the roof of leaves above.

An owl began to hoot—­ one of those great, fierce cat-owls of the North.  Every Indian listened.

The Sagamore said pleasantly to the Wyandotte: 

“It is as though he were calling the lynxes together—­ as Amochol the Accursed summons his Cat-People to the sacrifice.”

“I know nothing of Amochol and his sacrifices,” said the Wyandotte carelessly.

“Yet you Wyandottes border the Western Gate.”

The Huron shrugged.

“Hear the Eared One squall,” said Grey-Feather, as the great owl yelled through the darkening forest.

“One would think to hear an Erie speaking,” said the Sagamore, looking steadily at the Black-Snake.  But the latter seemed totally unaware of what amounted now to a persistent baiting.

“They say,” continued the Sagamore, “that the Erie priesthood learned from the Nez Perces a strange and barbarous fashion.”

“What fashion?” asked Grey-Feather, so innocently that I could not determine whether he was playing into the Sagamore’s hands.

“The fashion of wearing the hair in a short, stiff ridge,” said the Mohican.  “Has the Black-Snake ever seen it worn that way?”

“Never,” said the Huron.  And there was neither in his voice nor on his features the slightest tremour that we could discover in the fading light of the afterglow.

I rose to put an end to this, for my own nerves were now on edge; and I directed the two sentinels to their posts, the Wyandotte and the Oneida, Tahoontowhee.

Then I lay down beside the Mohican.  All the Indians had unrolled and put on their hunting shirts; I spread my light blanket and pillowed my head on my pack.

In range of my vision the Mole had dropped to his knees and was praying with clasped hands.  Shamed, I arose and knelt also, to say in silence my evening prayer, so often slurred over while I lay prone, or even entirely neglected.

Then I returned to my blanket to lie awake and think of Lois, until at last I dreamed of her.  But the dream was terrible, and I awoke, sweating, and found the Sagamore seated upright in the darkness beside me.

“Is it time to change the guard?” I asked, still shivering from the horror of my dream.