Dry sticks were burning in a sunken place surrounded by great trees, and
they increased the fire, veiling the smoke as much as possible. Then
they broiled luscious steaks of the deer and ate abundantly, though
without the appearance of eagerness. Robert had been educated carefully
at Fort Orange, which men were now calling Albany, and Tayoga and the
hunter were equally fastidious.

"The deer is the friend of both the red man and the white," said Willet,
appreciatively. "In the woods he feeds us and clothes us, and then his
horn tips the arrow with which you kill him, Tayoga."

"It was so ordered by Manitou," said the young Onondaga, earnestly.
"The deer was given to us that we might live."

"And that being the case," said Willet, "we'll cook all you and Robert
have brought and take it with us in the canoe. Since we keep on going
north the time will come when we won't have any chance for hunting."

The fire had now formed a great bed of coals and the task was not hard.
It was all cooked by and by and they stowed it away wrapped in the two
pieces of skin. Then Willet and Tayoga decided to examine the country
together, leaving Robert on guard beside the canoe.

Robert had no objection to remaining behind. Although circumstances had
made him a lad of action he was also contemplative by nature. Some
people think with effort, in others thoughts flow in a stream, and now
as he sat with his back to a tree, much that he had thought and heard
passed before him like a moving panorama and in this shifting belt of
color Indians, Frenchmen, Colonials and Englishmen appeared.