uch and Tayoga would hear the sharp, lashing report. Then the
horde was upon him. Someone struck him a stunning blow on the side of
the head with the flat of a tomahawk, and he fell unconscious.

When he returned to the world, the twilight had come, the hole in the
snow had been enlarged very much, and so had the fire. Seated around
it were a dozen Indians, wrapped in thick blankets and armed heavily,
and one white man whose attire was a strange compound of savage and
civilized. He wore a three-cornered French military hat with a great,
drooping plume of green, an immense cloak of fine green cloth, lined
with fur, but beneath it he was clothed in buckskin.

The man himself was as picturesque as his attire. He was young, his
face was lean and bold, his nose hooked and fierce like that of a
Roman leader, his skin, originally fair, now tanned almost to a
mahogany color by exposure, his figure of medium height, but obviously
very powerful. Robert saw at once that he was a Frenchman and he felt
instinctively that it was Langlade. But his head was aching from the
blow of the tomahawk, and he waited in a sort of apathy.

"So you've come back to earth," said the Frenchman, who had seen his
eyes open--he spoke in good French, which Robert understood perfectly.

"I never had any intention of staying away," replied young Lennox.

The Frenchman laughed.

"At least you show a proper spirit," he said. "I commend you also for
managing to fire your rifle, although the bullet hit none of us. It
gave the alarm to your comrade and he got clean away. I can make a
guess as to who you are."

"My name is Robert Lennox."

"I thought so, and your comrade was Tayoga, the Onondaga who is not
unknown to us, a great young warrior, I admit freely. I am sorry we
did not take him."

"I don't think you'll get a chance to lay hands on him. He'll be too
clever for you."

"I admit that, too. He's gone like the wind on his snowshoes. It seems
queer that you and he should be here in the mountain wilderness so far
north of your lines, in the very height of a fierce winter."

"It's just as queer that you should be here."

"Perhaps so, from your point of view, though it's lucky that I should
have been present with these dark warriors of mine when you were
taken. They suffered heavily in the battle by Andiatarocte, and but
for me they might now be using you as fuel. Don't wince, you know
their ways and I only tell a fact. In truth, I can't make yo