"I thank you, sir, for the offer, which is very kind," said Robert, "but I have spent a large part of my life in the woods with Mr. Willet, and I feel that I can be of more use as a scout and skirmisher. You know that they will be needed badly in the forest. Moreover, Mr. Willet would not be separated from Tayoga, who in the land of the Six Nations, known to themselves as the Hodenosaunee, is a great figure." Governor Dinwiddie regarded the Onondaga, who gave back his gaze steadily. The shrewd Scotchman knew that here stood a man, and he treated him as one. "Have your way," he said. "Perhaps you are right. Many think that General Braddock has little to fear from ambush, they say that his powerful army of regulars and colonials can brush aside any force the French and Indians may gather, but I've been long enough in this country to know that the wilderness always has its dangers. Such eyes as the eyes of you three will have their value. You shall have the commissions you wish." Willet was highly pleased. He had been even more insistent than Robert on the point, saying they must not sacrifice their freedom and independence of movement, but Grosvenor was much surprised. "An army rank will help you," he said. "It's help that we don't need," said Robert smiling. The governor showed them great courtesy. He liked them and his penetrating Scotch mind told him that they had quality. Despite his hunter's dress, which he had resumed, Willet's manners were those of the great world, and Dinwiddie often looked at him with curiosity. Robert seemed to him to be wrapped in the same veil of mystery, and he judged that the lad, whose manners were not inferior to those of Willet, had in him the making of a personage. As for Tayoga, Dinwiddie had been too long in America and he knew too much of the Hodenosaunee not to appreciate his great position. An insult or a slight in Virginia to the coming young chief of the Clan of the Bear, of the nation Onondaga would soon be known in the far land of the Six Nations, and its cost would be so great that none might count it. Just as tall oaks from little acorns grow, so a personal affront may sow the seed of a great war or break a great alliance, and Dinwiddie knew it. The governor, assisted by his wife and two daughters, entertained at his house, and Robert, Tayoga, Willet, and Grosvenor, arrayed in their best, attended, forming conspicuous figures in a great crowd, as the Virginia gentry, also clad in their finest, attended. Robert, with his adaptable and imaginative mind, was at home at once among them. He liked the soft southern speech, the grace of manner and the good feeling that obtained. They were even more closely related than the great families of New York, and it was obvious that they formed a cultivated society, in close touch with the mother country, intensely British in manner and mode of thought, and devoted in both theory and practice to personal independence.