In the one canoe which the Cayugas had left to them, the little party headed to the east, now skimming close to the silent beach, now cutting a straight path across some bay from point to point, out over the depths where lay the sturgeon and the pickerel and trout and whitefish. The gulls swooped at them; then, frightened, soared away in wide, rushing circles, dropping here and there for an overbold minnow. The afternoon went by with hardly the passing of a word. Each of them, the Captain, the maid, the priest, looked over the burnished water, now a fair green or blue sheet, now a space of striped yellow and green and purple, newly marked by every phase of sun and cloud; and to each it meant that the journey was done. Here was solitude, with none of the stir of the forest to bring companionship; but as they looked out to the cloud-puffs that dipped behind the water at the world's end, they knew that far yonder were other men whose skins were white, for all of beard and tan, whose tongue was the tongue of Montreal, of Quebec, of Paris,--and neither tree nor rock nor mountain lay between. The water that bore them onward was the water that washed the beach at Frontenac. Days might pass and find them still on the road; but they would be glorious days, with the sun overhead and the breeze at their backs, and at evening the wonder of the western sky to make the water golden with promise. As they swung their paddles, the maid with them, their eyes were full of dreams,--all save Teganouan. His eyes were keen and cunning, and when they looked to the north it was not with thoughts of home. It may be that he was dreaming of the deed which might yet win back his lost name as an Onondaga warrior. The sun hung over the lake when at last the canoe touched the beach. They ate their simple meal almost in silence, and then sat near the fire watching the afterglow that did not fade from the west until the night was dark and the moon high over the dim line that marked the eastern end of the lake. The sense of relief that had come to them with the first sight of the lake was fading now. They were thinking of Frontenac, and of what might await them there,--the priest soberly, the maid bravely, the Captain grimly. Later, when the maid had said good-night, and Father Claude had wandered down the beach to the water's edge, Menard dragged a new log to the fire and threw it on, sending up the flame and sparks high above the willows of the bank. He stretched out and looked into the flames.