and Robert regarded them with the deepest interest. Those who were not
in uniform wore long frock coats of dark gray or dark brown, belted at
the waist with a woolen sash of bright colors, decorated heavily with
beads. Trousers and waistcoats were of the same material as the coats,
but their feet were inclosed in Indian moccasins, also adorned
profusely with beads. They wore long hair in a queue, incased in an
eel-skin, and with their swarthy complexions and high cheek bones they
looked like wild sons of the forest to Robert. Tayoga, the Onondaga, was
to him a more civilized being. All the Canadians were smoking short
pipes, and, while they did not speak, their black eyes, restless with
eager curiosity, inspected the strangers.

The Indians in de Courcelles' party were of two types, the converted
Indians of Canada, partly in white man's costume, and utterly savage
Indians of the far west, in very little costume at all, one or two of
them wearing only the breech cloth. The looks they bestowed upon Robert
and his comrades were far from friendly, and he wondered if any Ojibway,
a warrior who perhaps owned Tandakora as a chief, was among them. They
were sitting about the fire and none of them spoke.

"We cannot offer you a banquet," said de Courcelles, "but we can give
you variety, none the less. This portion of His Majesty's territory is a
wilderness, but it provides an abundance of fish and game."

Robert believed that he had alluded purposely to the territory as "His
Majesty's," and, his mind challenging it instantly, he was about to
reply that in reality it was the northern part of the Province of New
York, but his second and wiser thought caused him to refrain. He would
enter upon no controversy with the older man, especially when he saw
that the latter wished to draw him into one. De Courcelles, seeing that