and the singing of
birds soothed the ear.

"It's a wonderful, a noble wilderness!" said Robert. "I'm glad I'm here,
even if there are Frenchmen and Indians in it, seeking our lives. Why,
Tayoga, I can feel myself growing in such an atmosphere! Tell me, am I
not an inch taller than I was when I left that hollow in the rocks?"

"You do look taller," said the Onondaga, "but maybe it's because you
stand erect now. Dagaeoga, since the wolves have been defeated, has
become proud and haughty again."

"At any rate, your wonderful cure is still going on at wonderful speed.
You use your left arm pretty freely and you seem to have back nearly all
your old strength."

"Yes, Tododaho still watches over me. He is far better to me than I
deserve."

They pushed on at good speed, returning on the path they had taken, when
Tayoga received his wound, and though they slept one night on the way,
to give Tayoga's wound a further chance, they came in time to the place
where the rangers and the Mohawks had met St. Luc's force in combat. The
heavy rains long since had wiped out all traces of footsteps there, but
Robert hoped that the keen eyes of the Onondaga would find other signs
to indicate which way the battle had gone. Tayoga looked a long time
before he said anything.

"The battle was very fierce," he said at last. "Our main force lay along
here among these bushes."

"How do you know, Tayoga?" asked Robert.

"It is very simple. For a long distance the bushes are shattered and
broken. It was rifle balls and musket balls that did it. Indians are not
usually good marksmen, and they shot high, cutting off twigs above the
heads of the Mohawks and rangers."

"Suppose we look at the opposing ridge and line of bushes where St.
Luc's warriors must have stationed themselves."

They crossed the intervening space of sixty or seventy yards and found
that the bushes there had not been cut up so much.

"The rangers and Mohawks are the better marksmen," said Tayoga. "They
aimed lower and probably hit the target much oftener. At least they did
not cut off so many twigs."

He walked back into the open space between the two positions, his eye
having been caught by something dark lying in a slight depression of the
earth. It was part of the brushy tail of a raccoon, such as the
borderers wore in their caps.

"Our men charged," said the Onondaga.

"Why do you say so?" asked Robert.

"Because of the raccoon tail. It was shot from the cap of