They ate deer meat, drank water from a brook, and then, refreshed greatly by their long rest, started at utmost speed for Fort Refuge, keeping in the deepest shadows of the wilderness, eager to carry the alarm to the garrison, and anxious to avoid any intervening foe.  The day was fortunate, no enemy appearing in their path, and they traveled many miles, hope continually rising that they would reach the fort before a cloud of besiegers could arrive.

Thus they continued their journey night and day, seeing many signs of the foe, but not the foe himself, and the hope grew almost into conviction that they would pass all the Indian bands and gain the fort first.

CHAPTER III

THE FLIGHT

They were within twenty-four hours of the fort, when they struck a new trail, one of the many they had seen in the forest, but Tayoga observed it with unusual attention.

“Why does it interest you so much?” asked Robert.  “We’ve seen others like it and you didn’t examine them so long.”

“This is different, Dagaeoga.  Wait a minute or two more that I may observe it more closely.”

Young Lennox and Willet stood to one side, and the Onondaga, kneeling down in the grass, studied the imprints.  It was late in the afternoon, and the light of the red sun fell upon his powerful body, and long, refined, aristocratic face.  That it was refined and aristocratic Robert often felt, refined and aristocratic in the highest Indian way.  In him flowed the blood of unnumbered chiefs, and, above all, he was in himself the very essence and spirit of a gentleman, one of the finest gentlemen either Robert or Willet had ever known.  Tayoga, too, had matured greatly in the last year under the stern press of circumstance.  Though but a youth in years he was now, in reality, a great Onondaga warrior, surpassed in skill, endurance and courage by none.  Young Lennox and the hunter waited in supreme confidence that he would read the trail and read it right.

Still on his knees, he looked up, and Robert saw the light of discovery in the dusky eyes.

“What do you read there, Tayoga?” he asked.

“Six men have passed here.”

“Of what tribe were they?”

“That I do not know, save as it concerns one.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“Five were of the Indian race, but of what tribe I cannot say, but the sixth was a white man.”

“A Frenchman.  It certainly can’t be De Courcelles, because we’ve left him far behind, and I hope it’s not St. Luc.  Maybe it’s Jumonville, De Courcelles’ former comrade.  Still, it doesn’t seem likely that any of the Frenchmen would be with so small a band.”

“It is not one of the Frenchmen, and the white man was not with the band.”

“Now you’re growing too complex for my simple mind, Tayoga.  I don’t understand you.”

“It is one trail, but the Indians and the white man did not pass over it at the same time.  The Indian imprints were made seven or eight hours ago, those of the white man but an hour or so since.  Stoop down, Great Bear, and you will see that it is true.”