"Few of us do in the forest. The night grows chill, but two of our good Canadians will keep the coals alive until morning. And now I suppose you are weary with your day's travels and wish sleep. I see that you have blankets of your own or I should offer you some of ours." Tayoga had been sitting before the fire, as silent as the Canadian Indians, his rifle across his knees, his eyes turned toward the blaze. The glow of the flames fell upon him, disclosing his lofty countenance, his splendidly molded figure, and his superiority to the other Indians, who were not of the Hodenosaunee and who to him were, therefore, as much barbarians as all people who were not Greeks were barbarians to the ancient Greeks. Not a word of kinship or friendship had passed between him and them. For him, haughty and uncompromising, they did not exist. For a long time his deep unfathomable eyes had never turned from the fire, but now he rose suddenly and said: "Someone comes in the forest!" De Courcelles looked up in surprise. "I hear nothing," he said. "Someone comes in the forest!" repeated Tayoga with emphasis. De Courcelles glanced at his own Indians. They had not yet moved, but in a moment or two they too rose to their feet, and then he knew that the Onondaga was right. Now Robert also heard a moccasined and light footstep approaching. A darker shadow appeared against the darkness, and the figure of an Indian, gigantic and sinister, stepped within the circle of the firelight. It was Tandakora, the Ojibway. CHAPTER VII NEW FRANCE The huge and savage warrior had never looked more malignant. His face and his bare chest were painted with the most hideous devices, and his eyes, in the single glance that he cast upon Robert and his comrades, showed full of black and evil passions. Then, as if they were no longer present, he stalked to the fire, took up some cooked deer meat that lay beside it, and, sitting down Turkish fashion like the other Indians, began to eat, not saying a word to the Frenchmen. It was the action of a savage of the savages, but Robert, startled at first by the unexpected appearance of such an enemy, called to his aid the forest stoicism that he had learned and sat down, calm, outwardly at least. The initiative was not his now, nor that of his comrades, and he glanced anxiously at de Courcelles to see how he would take this rude invasion of his camp. The French colonel looked at Tandakora, then at Jumonville, and Jumonville looked at him. The two shrugged their shoulders, and in a flash of intuition he was convinced that they knew the Ojibway well.