had the supreme command.

"I could reach Tandakora from here with a bullet," whispered Willet,
"and almost I am tempted to do it."

"But the Great Bear will not yield to his temptation," Tayoga
whispered back. "There are two reasons. He knows that he could slay
Tandakora, but it would mean the death of us all, and the price is too
great. Then he remembers that the Ojibway chief is mine. It is for me
to settle with him, in the last reckoning."

"Aye, lad, you're right. Either reason is good enough. We'll let him
pass, if pass he means, and I hope devoutly that he does."

The fleet preserving its formation was now almost abreast of the
island, and once Robert thought it was going to turn in toward them.
The long boat of Tandakora wavered and the red giant looked at the
island curiously, but, at the last moment the empty canoe, far ahead
and dim in the dark, beckoned them on more insistently than ever.

"Now the die is cast," whispered the Onondaga tensely. "In twenty
seconds we shall know our fate, and I think the good spirit that has
gone into our canoe means to save us."

Tandakora said something to the French officers, and they too looked
at the island, but the fleeing canoe danced on the crest of a high
wave and its call was potent in the souls of white men and red alike.
It was still too far away for them to tell that it was empty. Sudden
fear assailed them in the darkness, that it would escape and with it
the three who had eluded them so often, and whom they wanted most to
take. Tandakora spoke sharply to the paddlers, who bent to their task
with increased energy. The long canoe leaped forward, and with it the
others.

"Manitou has stretched forth his hand once more, and he has stretched
it between our enemies and us," said Tayoga, in a voice of deep
emotion.

"It's so, lad," said the hunter, his own voice shaking a little. "I
truly believe you're right when you say that as the bird was sent to
save Robert so a good spirit was put into the canoe to save us all.
Who am I and who is anybody to question the religion and beliefs of
another man?"

"Nor will I question them," said Robert, with emphasis.

They were stalwart men in the Indian fleet, skilled and enduring with
the paddle, and the fugitive canoe danced before them, a will o'
the wisp that they must pursue without rest. Their own canoes leaped
forward, and, as the arrow into which they were formed shot past the
island, the three hidden in its heart