"Perhaps reinforcements will be sent." "Hardly, in the face of an order to leave the post." "Why did he wear the British flag?" "Perhaps to secure safe passage through the country; perhaps to indicate an alliance with the enemy." "Lieutenant Howard has said all along that the Indians were with the British and against us. It begins to look as though he were right." "My boy," said Mackenzie, with a sigh, "wherever that flag waves, you'll find blood. The colour of it isn't an accident--it's a challenge and a warning." "Well," returned Robert, after a silence, "we'll have to do the best we can, and that's all any one can do." "I've wondered sometimes," said the other, thoughtfully, "if I haven't done wrong." "How, Uncle?" "Coming here--with Eleanor. I've brought her into danger, but God knows I haven't meant to. I've always had an adventurous spirit, and I couldn't live in the East--the hills choke me. Somebody has to blaze the trail to the new places, and I thought I might as well do it as anybody else. Things are moving westward, and some day, in this valley, there ought to be a great city about where the Fort stands now. It's the place for it--the river and the lake, with good farming country all around. I knew I couldn't live to see it, but I--I thought my children might." The man's voice wavered, but did not break. "It's a commonplace thing to do," he went on,--"go to a new place to live,--and our people have been doing it for more than two centuries. No soldiery, no blare of trumpets, nothing to make it seem fine--only discomfort, privation, and danger. The first settlers came from across the water, and since then we've been moving along, a step or two at a time. Some day, perhaps, people will leave this place to go to another farther on, and so keep going, till we reach the ocean on the other side. I haven't done anything," he added, with a short laugh, "only what the men of our race must do for a century and more to come." "You've done what was right, Uncle, and what seemed for the best--no one could do more. You've given Aunt Eleanor and the children a good home--shelter, warmth, food, and clothing. You've given your children sound minds, sound bodies, free air to breathe, and you're giving them an education. You'll find danger anywhere and everywhere--life hangs by a thread at its best. If it comes to a fight, we have arms and ammunition and fifty men, as strong and true as steel. We have modern weapons against arrows and tomahawks, military skill against savage instincts; and as for the British, why, I have my grandfather's sword, that fought them once at Lexington. They tried it and they failed--they'll fail again; but I say, let them come!" "God bless you, boy; you put new courage into me!"