called together. Send a runner to the next village with word to
bring on the fighting men. I shall not see the New-Comer. Do thou,
Chugungatte, have talk with him. Tell him he may go at once, if he
would go in peace. And if fight there be, kill, kill, kill, to the
last man; but let my word go forth that no harm befall our man,--the
man whom my daughter hath wedded. It is well."

Chugungatte rose and tottered out; Thom followed; but as Keen stooped
to the entrance the voice of Tantlatch stopped him.

"Keen, it were well to hearken to my word. The man remains. Let no
harm befall him."

Because of Fairfax's instructions in the art of war, the tribesmen did
not hurl themselves forward boldly and with clamor. Instead, there was
great restraint and self-control, and they were content to advance
silently, creeping and crawling from shelter to shelter. By the river
bank, and partly protected by a narrow open space, crouched the Crees
and _voyageurs_. Their eyes could see nothing, and only in vague
ways did their ears hear, but they felt the thrill of life which
ran through the forest, the indistinct, indefinable movement of an
advancing host.

"Damn them," Fairfax muttered. "They've never faced powder, but I
taught them the trick."

Avery Van Brunt laughed, knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and put it
carefully away with the pouch, and loosened the hunting-knife in its
sheath at his hip.