Robert's imagination, plumbing the distance, told him the words they
said. Tandakora was stating with great emphasis that the three whose
trail they had found had gone on very fast, obviously with the intention
of warning the garrison at the fort, and if they were to be cut off the
band must hasten, too. De Courcelles was replying that in his opinion
Tandakora was right, but it would not be well to get too far ahead. They
must throw out flankers as they marched, but there was no immediate
need of them. If the band spread out before dawn it would be sufficient.

Robert's fancy was so intense and creative that, beginning by imagining
these things so, he made them so. The band therefore was sure to go on
without searching the thickets on either right or left at present, and
all immediate apprehension disappeared from his mind. Tandakora and De
Courcelles were in the center of the moonlight, and although knowing
them evil, he was surprised to see how very evil their faces looked,
each in its own red or white way. He could remember nothing at that
moment but their wickedness, and their treacherous attacks upon his life
and those of his friends, and the memory clothed them about with a
hideous veil through which only their cruel souls shone. It was
characteristic of him that he should always see everything in extreme
colors, and in his mind the good were always very good and the bad were
very bad.

Hence it was to him an actual physical as well as mental relief, when
the Frenchman, the Ojibway and their band, passing on, were blotted from
his eyes by the forest. Then he turned back to the thicket in which his
comrades lay, and bent over them for the purpose of awakening them. But
before he could speak or lay a hand upon either, Tayoga sat up, his eyes
wide open.