It was an hour until midnight, and the radius of his circle had
increased another fifty yards, when he came again to the great spaces
among the oaks and beeches. Halfway through and he sank softly down
behind the trunk of a huge oak. Either in fact or in a sort of mental
illusion, he had heard a moccasin brush a dry leaf far away. The command
of Tayoga, though spoken in jest, had been so impressive that his ear
was obeying it. Firm in the belief that his own dark shadow blurred
with the dark trunk, and that he was safe from the sight of a questing
eye, he lay there a long time, listening.

In time, the sound, translated from fancy into fact, came again, and now
he knew that it was near, perhaps not more than a hundred yards away,
the rustling of a real moccasin against a real dry leaf. Twice and
thrice his ear signaled to his brain. It could not be fancy. It was
instead an alarming fact.

He was about to creep from the tree, and return to his comrades with
word that the enemy was near, but he restrained his impulse, merely
crouching a little lower that his dark shadow might blend with the dark
earth as well as the dark trunk. Then he heard several rustlings and the
very low murmur of voices.

Gradually the voices which had been blended together, detached
themselves and Robert recognized those of Tandakora and De Courcelles.
Presently they came into the moonlight, followed by the savage band, and
they passed within fifty yards of the youth who lay in the shelter of
the trunk, pressing himself into the earth.

The Frenchman and the Ojibway were talking with great earnestness and