r it
again."

He went back to the two lads and helped them to put out the fire.
Garay set up a cry for food, and then began to threaten them with the
vengeance of the Indians, but they paid no attention to him. At half
past ten as indicated by the sun, Willet returned to him.

"The letter?" he said.

"How many times am I to tell you that I have no letter?"

"Very well. At half past twelve I shall ask for it again."

At half past twelve Garay returned the same answer, and then the
three ate their noonday meal, which, like the breakfast, was rich and
luscious. Once more the savory odors of bear, deer, wild turkey and
wild pigeon filled the forest, and Garay, lying in the doorway of the
hut, where he could see, and where the splendid aroma reached his
nostrils, writhed in his bonds, but still held fast to his resolution.

Robert said nothing, but the sardonic humor of both the Onondaga and
the hunter was well to the fore. Holding a juicy bear steak in
his hand, Tayoga walked over to the helpless spy and examined him
critically.

"Too fat," he said judicially, "much too fat for those who would roam
the forest. Woodsmen, scouts and runners should be lean. It burdens
them to carry weight. And you, Achille Garay, will be much better off,
if you drop twenty pounds."

"Twenty pounds, Tayoga!" exclaimed Willet, who had joined him, a whole
roasted pigeon in his hands. "How can you make such an underestimate!
Our rotund Monsieur would be far more graceful and far more healthy
if he dropped forty pounds! And it behooves us, his trainers and
physicians, to see that he drops 'em. Then he will go back to Albany
and to his good friend, Mynheer Hendrik Martinus, a far handsomer man
than he was when he left. It may be that he'll be so much improved
that Mynheer Hendrik will not know him. Truly, Tayoga, this wild
pigeon has a most savory taste! When wild pigeon is well cooked and
the air of the forest has sharpened your appetite to a knife edge
nothing is finer."

"But it is no better than the tender steak of young bear," said
Tayoga, with all the inflections of a gourmand. "The people of my
nation and of all the Indian nations have always loved bear. It is
tenderer even than venison and it contains more juices. For the hungry
man nothing is superior to the taste or for the building up of sinews
and muscles than the steak of fat young bear."

Garay writhed again in his bonds, and closed his eyes that he might
shut away the vi