"Nothing is to be gained by a personal enmity," replied the hunter. "We
are the enemies not of St. Luc, but of his nation. We will meet him
fairly as he will meet us fairly, and I see good reasons why you and he
should be friends."

"But in the coming war he's likely to be one of our ablest and most
enterprising foes."

"That's true, Robert, but it does not change my view. Brave men should
like brave men, and if it is war I hope you and St. Luc will not meet in
battle."

"You, too, seem to take an interest in him, Dave."

"I like him," said Willet briefly. Then he shrugged his shoulders, and
changed the subject.

The great festival went on, and the agents of Corlear and Onontio were
still kept waiting. The sachems would not hear a word from either. As
Robert understood it, they felt that the Maple Dance might not be
celebrated again for years. These old men, warriors and statesmen both,
saw the huge black clouds rolling up and they knew they portended a
storm, tremendous beyond any that North America had known. France and
England, and that meant their colonies, too, would soon be locked fast
in deadly combat, and the Hodenosaunee, who were the third power, must
look with all their eyes and think with all their strength.

While the young warriors and the maidens sang and danced without
ceasing, the sachems and the chiefs sat far into the night, and as
gravely as the Roman Senate, considered the times and their needs.
Runners, long of limb, powerful of chest, and bare to the waist, came
from all points of the compass and reported secretly. One from Albany
said that Corlear and the people there and at New York were talking of
war, but were not preparing for it. Another, a Mohawk who came out of
the far east, said that Shirley, the Governor of Massachusetts, was
thinking of war and preparing for it too. A third, a Tuscarora, who had
traveled many days from the south, said that Dinwiddie, the Governor of
Virginia, was already acting. He was sending men, led by a tall youth
named Washington, into the Ohio country, where the French had already
gone to build forts. An Onondaga out of the north said that Quebec and
Montreal were alive with military preparations. Onontio was giving to
the French Indians muskets, powder, bullets and blankets in a profusion
never known before.

The red fagots were rapidly displacing the white, and the secret
councils of the fifty sachems were filled with anxiety, but they hid all
their