“What are you thinking so hard about, Robert?” asked Willet.

“Of St. Luc.  I think we’ll meet him in the vale of Onondaga.  Do you ever feel that you can look into the future, Dave?”

“Just what do you mean?”

“Nothing supernatural.  Don’t the circumstances and conditions sometimes make you think that events are going to run in a certain channel?  At the very first glance the Chevalier de St. Luc interested me uncommonly, and even in our exciting days in Quebec I thought of him.  Now I have a vision about him.  His life and mine are going to cross many times.”

The hunter looked sharply at the lad.

“That’s a queer idea of yours, Robert,” he said, “but when you think it over it’s not so queer, after all.  It seems to be the rule that queer things should come about.”

“Now I don’t understand you, Dave.”

“Well, maybe I don’t quite understand myself.  But I know one thing, Robert.  St. Luc is always going to put you on your mettle, and you’ll always appear at your best before him.”

“That’s the way I feel about it, Dave.  He aroused in me an odd mixture of emotions, both emulation and defiance.”

“Perhaps it’s not so odd after all,” said Willet.

Robert could not induce him to pursue the subject.  He shied away from St. Luc, and talked about the more immediate part of their journey, recalling the necessity of finding another deer, as their supplies of food were falling very low.  Just before sunset they drew into the mouth of a large creek and made the canoe fast.  Tayoga, taking bow and quiver, went into the woods for his deer, and within an hour found him.  Then they built a small fire sheltered well by thickets, and cooked supper.

The Onondaga reported game abundant, especially the smaller varieties, and remarkably tame, inferring from the fact that no hunting parties had been in the region for quite a while.

“We’re almost in the country of the Hodenosaunee,” he said, “but the warriors have not been here.  All of the outlying bands have gone back toward Canada or westward into the Ohio country.  This portion of the land is deserted.”

“Still, it’s well to be careful, Tayoga,” said the hunter.  “That savage, Tandakora, is going to make it the business of his life to hunt our scalps, and if there’s to be a great war I don’t want to fall just before it begins.”

That night they dressed as much of their deer as they could carry, and the next day they passed into Lake Champlain, which displayed all of its finest colors, as if it had been made ready especially to receive them.  Its waters showed blue and green and silver as the skies above them shifted and changed, and both to east and west the high mountains were clothed in dark green foliage.  Robert’s eyes kindled at the sight of nature’s great handiwork, the magnificent lake more than a hundred miles long, and the great scenery in which it was placed.  It had its story and legend too.  Already it was famous in the history of the land and for unbroken generations the Indians had used it as their road between north and south.  It was both the pathway of peace and the pathway of war, and Robert foresaw that hostile forces would soon be passing upon it again.