The Onondaga looked at the walls of foliage on either side of the stream
before answering.

"One cannot tell," he said in his precise language of the schools. "The
mind of the Ojibway is a fitful thing, but always it is wild and
lawless. He longs, night and day, for scalps, and he covets ours most.
It is because we have defeated the attempts he has made already."

"Do you think he has gone ahead with the intention of ambushing us?
Would he dare?"

"Yes, he would dare. If he were to succeed he would have little to fear.
A bullet in one of our hearts, fired from cover on the bank, and then
the wilderness would swallow him up and hide him from pursuit. He could
go to the country around the last and greatest of the lakes, where only
the white trapper or explorer has been."

"It gives me a tremendously uncomfortable feeling, Tayoga, to think that
bloodthirsty wretch may be waiting for a shot at us. How are we to
guard against him?"

"We must go fast and watch as we go. Our eyes are keen, and we may see
him moving among the trees. The Ojibway is no marksman, and unless we
sit still it is not likely that he can hit us."

Tayoga spoke very calmly, but his words set Robert's heart to beating,
understanding what an advantage Tandakora had if he sought to lie in
ambush. He knew that the soul of the Ojibway was full of malice and that
his craving for scalps was as strong as the Onondaga had said it was.