"It did look like it," he said, "and it was war, red war, but nobody was responsible for it. The Marquis Duquesne, the Governor General of Canada, who is Onontio to our Iroquois, will raise his jeweled hand, and protest that he knew nothing about those Indians, that they were wild warriors from the west, that none of his good, pious Indians of Canada could possibly have been among them. And the Intendant, Francois Bigot, the most corrupt and ambitious man in North America, will say that they obtained no rifles, no muskets, no powder, no lead from him or his agents. Oh, no, these fine French gentlemen will disown the attack upon us, as they would have disavowed it, just the same, if we had been killed. I want to warn you, Robert, and you, Tayoga, that when you reach Quebec you'll breathe an air that's not that of the woods, nor yet of Albany or New York. It's a bit of old Europe, it's a reproduction on a small scale of the gorgeous Versailles over there that's eating the heart out of France. The Canadian Frenchman is a good man, brave and enduring, as I ought to know, but he's plundered and fooled by those people who come from France to make fame or quick fortunes here." He spoke with earnestness, but not as a hunter. Rather he seemed now to Robert, despite his forest dress, to be a man of the world, one who understood cities as well as the wilderness. "I don't know all your life, Dave," said young Lennox, "but I'm quite sure you know a great deal more than you would have people to think. Sometimes I believe you've been across the great water." "Then you believe right, Robert. I never told you in so many words before, but I've been in Europe. I'll talk to you about it another time, not now, and I'll choose where and when." He spoke so positively that Robert did not pursue the topic, knowing that if the hunter wished to avoid it he had good reasons. Yet he felt anew that David Willet, called the Great Bear by the Iroquois, had not spent his whole life in the woods and that when the time came he could tell a tale. There was always the fact that Willet spoke excellent English, so unlike the vernacular of the hunters. The afternoon was waning fast. The sun was setting in an ocean of fire that turned the blue line of the mountains in the east to red. The slope of the land made the current of the river much swifter, and Robert and Willet drew in their paddles, leaving the work to Tayoga alone, who sat in the prow and guided their light craft with occasional strokes, letting the stream do the rest.