in his voice, and Robert, obeying it,
stepped close to the bed. The old man raised his head a little, and
looked at him long with hawk's eyes. Robert felt that intent gaze
cutting into him, but he did not move. Then the Seigneur Louis Henri
Anatole de Chatillard laughed scornfully and said to Father Drouillard:

"Why do you deceive me, Father? Why do you tell me that is one, Robert
Lennox, a youth of the Bostonnais, who stands before me, when my own
eyes tell me that it is the Chevalier Raymond Louis de St. Luc, come as
befits a soldier of France to say farewell to an old man before he
dies."

Robert felt an extraordinary thrill of emotion. M. de Chatillard, seeing
with the eyes of the past, had taken him for the Chevalier. But why?

"It is not the Chevalier de St. Luc," said Father Drouillard, gently.
"It is the lad, Robert Lennox, from the Province of New York."

"But it is St. Luc!" insisted the old man. "The face is the same, the
eyes are the same! Should I not know? I have known the Chevalier, and
his father and grandfather before him."

The priest signed to Robert, and he withdrew into the shadow of the
room. Then Father Drouillard whispered into M. de Chatillard's ear, one
of the servants gave him medicine from a glass, and presently he sank
into quiet, seeming to be conscious no longer of the presence of the
strangers. Willet, Robert and the others withdrew softly. Robert was
still influenced by strong emotion. Did he look like St. Luc? And why?
What was the tie between them? The question that had agitated him so
often stirred him anew.

"Very old men, when they come to their last hours, have many illusions,"
said Willet.

"It may be so," said Robert, "but it was strange that he should take me
for St. Luc."

Willet was silent. Robert saw that as usual the hunter did not wish to
make any explanations, but he felt once more that the time for the
solution of his problem was not far away. He could afford to wait.

"The Seigneur cannot live to know whether Quebec will fall," said
Tayoga.

"No," said Willet, "and it's just as well. His time runs out. His mind
at the last will be filled with the old days when Frontenac held the
town against the New Englanders."

The rangers were disposed well about the house, and they also watched
the landing. Tandakora and his men might come in canoes, stealing along
in the shadow of the high cliffs, or they might creep through the fields
and forest. Zeb Crane, who could