They saw the Ojibway warrior twice that afternoon.  Either he concealed the effects of the wound in his shoulder or it had healed rapidly, since he was apparently as vigorous as ever and gave them murderous glances.  Tayoga shrugged his shoulders.

“Tandakora has followed us far,” he said, “but this is not the ground that suits him.  The forest is better than a city for the laying of an ambush.”

“Still, we’ll watch him,” said Willet.

The evening witnessed the arrival at the Inn of the Eagle of two new guests to whom Monsieur Berryer paid much deference, Colonel de Courcelles and Captain de Jumonville, who had been on an expedition in behalf of His Majesty, King Louis, into the forests of the south and west, and who, to the great surprise of the innkeeper, seemed to be well acquainted with the three.

Robert, Tayoga and Willet were having their dinner, or supper as it would have been called in the Province of New York, when the two Frenchmen dressed in their neat, close-fitting uniforms and with all the marks of travel removed, came into the large room.  They rose at once and exchanged greetings.  Robert, although he did not trust them, felt that they had no cause of quarrel with the two, and it was no part of his character to be brusque or seek trouble.

De Courcelles gave them a swift, comprehensive glance, and then said, as if they were chance visitors to Quebec: 

“You’ve arrived ahead of us, I see, and as I learn, you find the Marquis Duquesne away.  Perhaps, if your letters are urgent, you would care to present them to the Intendant, Monsieur Bigot, a man of great perception and judgment.”

Robert turned his examining look with interest.  Was he also one of Bigot’s men, or did he incline to the cause of the honnetes gens? Or, even if he were not one of Bigot’s followers, did he prefer that Robert’s mission should fail through a delivery of his letters to the wrong man?  Bigot certainly was not one with whom the English could deal easily, since so far as Robert could learn he was wrapped in the folds of a huge conceit.

“We might do that,” the youth replied, “but I don’t think it’s quite proper.  I make no secret of the fact that I bear letters for the Governor General of Canada, and it would not be pleasing to the Governor of the Province of New York for me to deliver them to someone else.”

“It was merely a suggestion.  Let us dismiss it.”

He did not speak again of the immediate affairs that concerned them so vitally, but talked of Paris, where he had spent a gay youth.  He saw the response in the glowing eyes of Robert, and exerted himself to please.  Moreover his heart was in his subject.  Quebec was a brilliant city for the New World, but Paris was the center of the whole world, the flower of all the centuries, the city of light, of greatness and of genius.  The throne of the Bourbons was the most powerful in modern times, and they were a consecrated family.