while a quiver full of arrows hung over his shoulder. He wore less
clothing than when he was in the white man's school at Albany, his
arms and shoulders being bare, though not painted.

The young Indian's aspect, too, had changed. The great struggle
between English and French, drawing with it the whole North American
wilderness, had begun and, although the fifty sachems still sought to
hold the Six Nations neutral, many of their bravest warriors were
already serving with the Americans and English, ranging the forest as
scouts and guides and skirmishers, bringing to the campaign an
unrivaled skill, and a faith sealed by the long alliance.

Tayoga had thrown himself into the war heart and soul. Nothing could
diminish by a hair his hostility to the French and the tribes allied
with them. The deeds of Champlain and Frontenac were but of yesterday,
and the nation to which they belonged could never be a friend of the
Hodenosaunee. He trusted the Americans and the English, but his chief
devotion, by the decree of nature was for his own people, and now,
that fighting in the forest had occurred between the rival nations, he
shed more of the white ways and became a true son of the wilderness,
seeing as red men saw and thinking as red men thought.

He was bent over a little, as he walked slowly among the bushes, in
the position of one poised for instant flight or pursuit as the need
might be. His eyes, black and piercing, ranged about incessantly,
nothing escaping a vision so keen and trained so thoroughly that he
not only heard everything passing in the wilderness, but he knew the
nature of the sound, and what had made it.

The kindly look that distinguished Tayoga in repose had
disappeared. Unnumbered generations were speaking in him now, and the
Indian, often so gentle in peace, had become his usual self, stern and
unrelenting in war. His strong sharp chin was thrust forward. His
cheek bones seemed to be a little higher. His tread was so light that
the grass scarcely bent before his moccasins, and no leaves
rustled. He was in every respect the wilderness hunter and warrior,
fitted perfectly by the Supreme Hand into his setting, and if an enemy
appeared now he would fight as his people had fought for centuries,
and the customs and feelings of the new races that had come across the
ocean would be nothing to him.

A hundred yards more, and he sat down by the trunk of a great oak,
convinced that no foe was near. His own five