wice their size. To attempt to pass the
warriors in such a light would be like walking on an open plain,
thought the hunter, and, always quick to decide, he took his
resolution.

It was characteristic of David Willet that no matter what the
situation he always made the best of it. His mind was a remarkable
mingling of vigor, penetration and adaptability. If one had to wait,
well, one had to wait and there was nothing else in it. He sank down
in the little cove in the cliff and rested his back against the stony
wall. He, Robert and Tayoga filled it, and his moccasined feet touched
the dwarfed shrubs which made the thin green curtain before the
opening. He realized more fully now in the intense light of a
brilliant day what a slender shelf it was. Any one of them might have
pitched from it to a sure death below. He was glad that the white lad
and the red lad had been so tired that they lay like the dead. Their
positions were exactly the same as when they sank to sleep. They had
not stirred an inch in the night, and there was no sign now that
they intended to awake any time soon. If they had gone to the land of
dreams, they were finding it a pleasant country and they were in no
hurry to return from it.

The giant hunter smiled. He had promised the Onondaga to awaken him at
dawn, and he knew that Robert expected as much, but he would not keep
his promise. He would let nature hold sway; when it chose to awaken
them it could, and meanwhile he would do nothing. He moved just a
little to make himself more comfortable and reclined patiently.

Willet was intensely grateful for the little curtain of evergreens.
Without it the sharp eyes of the warriors could detect them even in
the side of the lofty cliff. Only a few bushes stood between them and
torture and death, but they stood there just the same. Time passed
slowly, and the morning remained as brilliant as ever. He paid little
attention to what was passing on the lake, but he listened with all
the power of his hearing for anything that might happen on the cliff
above them. He knew that the warriors were far from giving up the
chase, and he expected a sign there. About two hours after sunrise it
came. He heard the cry of a wolf, and then a like cry replying, but
he knew that the sounds came from the throats of warriors. He pressed
himself a little harder against the stony wall, and looked at his two
young comrades. Their souls still wandered in the pleasant land of
dreams a