aze.
The glow of the flames fell upon him, disclosing his lofty countenance,
his splendidly molded figure, and his superiority to the other Indians,
who were not of the Hodenosaunee and who to him were, therefore, as much
barbarians as all people who were not Greeks were barbarians to the
ancient Greeks. Not a word of kinship or friendship had passed between
him and them. For him, haughty and uncompromising, they did not exist.
For a long time his deep unfathomable eyes had never turned from the
fire, but now he rose suddenly and said:

"Someone comes in the forest!"

De Courcelles looked up in surprise.

"I hear nothing," he said.

"Someone comes in the forest!" repeated Tayoga with emphasis.

De Courcelles glanced at his own Indians. They had not yet moved, but in
a moment or two they too rose to their feet, and then he knew that the
Onondaga was right. Now Robert also heard a moccasined and light
footstep approaching. A darker shadow appeared against the darkness, and
the figure of an Indian, gigantic and sinister, stepped within the
circle of the firelight.

It was Tandakora, the Ojibway.

CHAPTER VII

NEW FRANCE

The huge and savage warrior had never looked more malignant. His face
and his bare chest were painted with the most hideous devices, and his
eyes, in the single glance that he cast upon Robert and his comrades,
showed full of black and evil passions. Then, as if they were no longer
present, he stalked to the fire, took up some cooked deer meat that lay
beside it, and, sitting down Turkish fashion like the other Indians,
began to eat, not saying a word to the Frenchmen.

It was the action of a savage of the savages, but Robert, startled at
first by the unexpected appearance of such an enemy, called to his aid
the forest stoicism that he had learned and sat down, calm, outwardly at
least. The initiative was not his now, nor that of his comrades, and he
glanced anxiously at de Courcelles to see how he would take this rude
invasion of his camp. The French colonel looked at Tandakora, then at
Jumonville, and Jumonville looked at him. The two shrugged their
shoulders, and in a flash of intuition he was convinced that they knew
the Ojibway well.

Whatever anger de Courcelles may have felt at the manners of the savage
he showed none at all. All the tact and forbearance which the French
used with such wonderful effect in their dealings with the North
American Indians were summoned to his aid.