“Your idea is pretty sound, Tayoga,” said Willet, who had imbibed more than a little of the Iroquois philosophy, “and it does look as if the gods were at play because there is so much thunder and lightning and no rain.  Look at that flash on the mountain toward the east!  I think it struck.  Yes, there goes a tree!  When the gods play among the peaks it’s just as well for us to stay down here in the gorge.”

“But the crashes still run regularly from north to east and on around,” said Robert.  “I suppose that when they finish talking, the rain will come, and we’ll have plenty of need for our spruce shelter.”

The deep rumbling continued all through the rest of the afternoon.  A dusk as of twilight arrived long before sunset, but it was of an unusually dull, grayish hue, and it affected Robert as if he were breathing an air surcharged with gunpowder.  It colored and intensified everything.  The peaks and ridges rose to greater heights, the gorges and valleys were deeper, the reports of the thunder, extremely heavy, in fact, were doubled and tripled in fancy; all that Tayoga had said about the play of the gods was true.  Tododaho, the great Onondaga, spoke across the void to Hayowentha, the great Mohawk, and Areskoui, the Sun God, conversed with Manitou, the All Powerful, Himself.

The imaginative lad felt awe but no fear.  The gods at play in the heavens would not condescend to harm a humble mortal like himself and it was an actual pleasure because he was there to hear them.  Just before the invisible sun went over the rim of the horizon, a brilliant red light shot for a minute or two from the west through the gray haze, and fell on the faces of the three, sitting in silence before their spruce shelter.

“It is Areskoui throwing off his most brilliant beams before he goes,” said Tayoga.  “Now I think the play will soon be over, and we may look for the rain.”

The crashes of thunder increased swiftly and greatly in violence, and then, as the Onondaga had predicted, ceased abruptly.  The silence that followed was so heavy that it was oppressive.  No current of air was moving anywhere.  Not a leaf stirred.  The grayish haze became thicker and every ridge and peak was hidden.  Presently a sound like a sigh came down the gorge, but it soon grew.

“We’ll go inside,” said Tayoga, “because the deluge is at hand.”

They crowded themselves into their crude little hut, and in five minutes the flood was upon them, pouring with such violence that some of it forced its way through the hasty thatch, but they were able to protect themselves with their blankets, and they slept the night through in a fair degree of comfort.

In the morning they saw a world washed clean, bright and shining, and they breathed an autumnal air wonderful in its purity.  Feeling safe now from pursuit, they were no longer eager to flee.  A brief council of three decided that they would hang once more on the French and Indian flank.  It had been their purpose to discover what was intended by the formidable array they had seen, and it was their purpose yet.