"And so you noticed it!" said Willet, looking pleased. "I made six such thrusts, but Robert met them every time. I've trained him to be on the watch for it, because in a real combat it's sure to be fatal, unless it's parried with the swiftness of thought." "Then teach me," said de Galisonniere eagerly. "We're a fighting lot here in Quebec, and it may save my life some day." Willet was not at all averse, and for nearly an hour he taught the young Frenchman. Then de Galisonniere departed, cautioning Robert to sleep well, and saying that he would come early in the morning with his friend, Glandelet. "His advice about sleeping was good, Robert," said Willet. "Now roll into bed and off with you to slumberland at once." Robert obeyed and his nerves were so steady and his mind so thoroughly at peace that in fifteen minutes he slept. The hunter watched his steady breathing with satisfaction and said to Tayoga: "If our bibulous friend, Count Jean de Mezy, doesn't have a surprise in the morning, then I'll go back to the woods, and stay there as long as I live." "Will Lennox kill him?" asked Tayoga. "I hadn't thought much about it, Tayoga, but he won't kill him. Robert isn't sanguinary. He doesn't want anybody's blood on his hands, and it wouldn't help our mission to take a life in Quebec." "The man de Mezy does not deserve to live." Willet laughed. "That's so, Tayoga," he said, "but it's no part of our business to go around taking the lives away from all those who don't make good use of 'em. Why, if we undertook such a job we'd have to work hard for the next thousand years. I think we'd better fall on, ourselves, and snatch about eight good hours of slumber." In a few minutes three instead of one slept, and when the first ray of sunlight entered the room in the morning Tayoga awoke. He opened the window, letting the fresh air pour in, and he raised his nostrils to it like a hound that has caught the scent. It brought to him the aromatic odors of his beloved wilderness, and, for a time, he was back in the great land of the Hodenosaunee among the blue lakes and the silver streams. He had been educated in the white man's schools, and his friendship for Robert and Willet was strong and enduring, but his heart was in the forest. Enlightened and humane, he had nevertheless asked seriously the night before the question: "Will Lennox kill him?" He had discovered something fetid in Quebec and to him de Mezy was a noxious animal that should be destroyed. He wished, for an instant, that he knew the sword and that he was going to stand in Lennox's place.