He crept back into the thicket, burying himself deep, and was careful
not to break a twig or brush a leaf which to the unerring eyes of
those who followed could mark where he was. Hidden well, but yet lying
where he could see, he turned his gaze back to the bird. It was now
pouring out an unbroken volume of song as it swayed on a twig, like
a leaf shaken in the wind. Its voice was thrillingly sweet, and it
seemed mad with joy, as its tiny throat swelled with the burden of its
melody. Robert, in the thicket, smiled, because he too shared in so
much gladness.

A faint sound out of the far west came to him. It was so slight
that it was hard to tell it from the whisper of the wind. It barely
registered on the drum of the ear, but when he listened again and with
all his powers he was sure that it was a new and foreign note. Then he
separated it from the breeze among the leaves, and it seemed to him
to contain a quality like that of the human voice. If so, it might
be hostile, because his friends, Willet, the hunter, and Tayoga, the
Onondaga, were many miles away. He had left them on the shore of the
lake, called by the whites, George, but more musically by the Indians,
Andiatarocte, and there was nothing in their plans that would now
bring them his way. However welcome they might be he could not hope
for them; foes only were to be expected.

The faint cry, scarcely more than a variation of the wind, registered
again though lightly on the drum of his ear, and now he knew that it
came from the lungs of man, man the pursuer, man the slayer, and so,
in this case, the red man, perhaps Tandakora, the fierce Ojibway chief
himself. Doubtless it was a signal, one band calling to another, and
he listened anxiously for the reply, but he did not hear it, the point
from which it was sent being too remote, and he settled back into his