"And our reception is like to be different, too. What was that? It sounded like the splash of a paddle ahead of us." "It was only a great fish leaping out of the water and then falling back again," said Tayoga. "There is no enemy on the stream. Truly Manitou to-night has blinded the French and the warriors, their allies. Montcalm is a great leader, and so is St. Luc, but they do not know what is coming. We shall meet them in the morning. Tododaho has said so to me." The boats passed on in their slow drifting with the tide. Once near to a lofty headland, they were hailed by a French sentinel, who heard the creaking of the boats, and who saw dim outlines in the dark, but a Scotch officer, who spoke good French, made a satisfactory reply. The boats drifted on, and the sentinel went back to his dreams, perhaps of the girl that he had left in France. "Did I not tell you that Manitou had blinded the French and the warriors, their allies, to-night?" whispered Tayoga to Robert. "Ninety-nine times out of a hundred the sentinel would have asked more, or he would have insisted upon seeing more in the dark, but Manitou dulled his senses. The good spirits are abroad, and they work for us." "Truly, I believe it is so, Tayoga," said Robert. "The French don't lack in vigilance, but they must be worn out," said Willet. "It's one thing to sail on ships up and down a river, but it's quite another for an army racing along lofty, rough and curving shores to keep pace with it." They were challenged from another point of vantage by a sentinel and they saw him running down to the St. Lawrence, pistol in hand, to make good his question. But the same Scotch officer who had answered the first placated him, telling him that theirs were boats loaded with provisions, and not to make a noise or the English would hear him. Again was French vigilance lulled, and they passed on around the headland above Anse du Foulon. "The omens are ours," whispered Tayoga, with deep conviction. "Now, I know that we shall arrive at the place to which we want to go. Unless Manitou wishes us to go there, he would not have twice dulled the senses of French sentinels who could have brought a French army down upon us while we are yet in the river. And, lo! here where we are going to land there is no sentinel!" "Under heaven, I believe you're right, Tayoga!" exclaimed Willet, with intense earnestness.