"The face of Areskoui is turned from us," said Tayoga. "We have done
something to anger him, or we have failed to do what he wished, and
now he sends upon us a hard trial to test us and purify us! A great
storm with fierce cold comes!"

The wind rose suddenly, and it began to make a sinister hissing among
all the passes and gorges. Robert felt something damp upon his face,
and he brushed away a melting flake of snow. But another and another
took its place and the air was soon filled with white. And the flakes
were most aggressive. Driven by the storm they whipped the cheeks
and eyes of the three, and sought to insert themselves, often with
success, under their collars, even under the edges of the protecting
blankets, and down their backs. Robert, despite himself, shivered
violently and even the hunter was forced to walk vigorously back and
forth in the effort to keep warm. It was evident that the Onondaga had
told the truth, and that the face of Areskoui was in very fact turned
from them.

Robert awaited the word, looking now and then at Willet, but the
hunter hung on for a long time. The leaves fell in showers before the
storm, making a faint rustling like the last sigh of the departing,
and the snow, driven with so much force, stung his face like hail when
it struck. He was anxious for a fire, and its vital heat, but he was
too proud to speak. He would endure without complaint as much as his
comrades, and he knew that Tayoga, like himself, would wait for the
older man to speak.

But he could not keep, meanwhile, from thinking of the French and
Indians beside their vast heaps of glowing coals, fed and warmed to
their hearts' content, while the three lay in the dark and bitter cold