otect them.

"Areskoui, after smiling upon us for so long, has now turned his face from
us," said Tayoga.

"What else can you expect?" said the valiant Willet. "It is always so in
war. You're up and then you're down. We were masters of the peaks for a
while, and by our capture of Garay's letter we kept St. Luc from attacking
Albany, but the stars never fight for you all the time. We couldn't do
anything that would save the rangers from defeat."

The Onondaga looked up. The others could not see his face, but it was
reverential, and the cold rain that fell upon it had then no chill for
him. Instead it was soothing.

"Tododaho is on his great star beyond the clouds," he said, "and he is
looking down on us. We have done wrong or he and Areskoui would not have
withdrawn their favor from us, but we have done it unknowingly, and, in
time, they will forgive us. As long as the Onondagas are true to him
Tododaho will watch over them, although at times he may punish them."

That Tododaho was protecting them even then was proved conclusively to
Tayoga before the night was over. A great war party passed within a hundred
yards of them, going swiftly southward, but the three, swathed in their
blankets, and, hidden in the dark thickets, had no fear. They were merely
three motes in the wilderness and the warriors did not dream that they were
near. When the last sound of their marching had sunk into nothingness,
Tayoga said:

"It was not the will of Tododaho that they should suspect our presence, but
I fear that they go to a triumph."

They rose from the thicket early the following morning, and resumed their
flight, but it soon came to a halt, when the Onondaga pointed to a trail in
the forest, made apparently by about twenty warriors. The hawk eye of
Tayoga, however, picked out one trace among them which all three knew was
made by a white man.

"I know, too," said the red youth, "the white man who made it."

"Tell us his name," said the hunter, who had full confidence in the
wonderful powers of the Onondaga.

"It is the Frenchman, Langlade, who held Dagaeoga a prisoner in his village
so long. I know his traces, because I followed them before. His foot is
very small, and it has been less than an hour since he passed here. They
are ahead of us, directly in our path."

"What do you think we ought to do, Dave?" asked Robert, anxiously. "You
know we want to go south as fast as we can."

"We must try to go around Langlade," repl