"I don't think we'll need to use 'em again for a long time," said the hunter, "but they're mighty fine as decorations, and sometimes a decoration is worth while. It impresses. Now, Tayoga, you kindle the fire, and Robert, you find a spring. It's pleasant to feel that you're again on land that belongs to nobody, and can do as you please."
Robert found a spring less than a hundred yards away, and Tayoga soon kindled a fire near it with his flint and steel, on which the hunter warmed their food. Each had a small tin cup from which he drank clear water as they ate, and Robert, elastic of temperament, rejoiced with the hunter.
"You are right, Dave," he said. "These are splendid trees, and every leaf on 'em is splendid, too, and the little spring I found is just about as fine a spring as the forest holds. I slept in a good bed at the Inn of the Eagle, but when I scrape up the dead leaves here, roll myself in my blanket and lie on 'em I think I'll sleep better than I did between four walls. What did you think of the Marquis Duquesne, Dave?"
"A man of parts, Robert. He has more military authority than any of our
Governors have, and if war comes he'll be a dangerous opponent."
"And it will come, Dave?"
"Looks like a certainty. You see, Robert, the King of France and the King of England sitting on their golden thrones, only three or four hundred miles apart, but three or four thousand miles from us, have a dyspeptic fit, make faces at each other, and here in the woods we must fall to fighting. Even Tayoga's people—and the King of France and the King of England are nothing to them—must be drawn into it."
"Both Kings claim the Ohio country, which they will never see, and of which they know nothing," said Tayoga, with a faint touch of sarcasm, "but perhaps it belongs to the people who live in it."
"Maybe so, Tayoga! Maybe!" said Willet briskly, "but we'll not look for trouble or unpleasant thoughts now. We three are too glad to be in the woods again. Tayoga, suppose you scout about and see that no enemy's near. Then we'll build up the fire, till it's burning bright, and rejoice."
"It is well!" said Tayoga, as he slipped away among the trees, making no sound as he went. Robert meanwhile gathered dead wood which lay everywhere in abundance, and heaped it beside the fire ready for use. But as Tayoga was gone some time he sat down again with his back to a tree, taking long deep breaths of the cool fresh air, and feeling his pulses leap. The hunter sat in a similar position, gazing meditatively into the fire. Robert heard a rattling of bark over his head, but he knew that it was a squirrel scuttling up the trunk of the tree, and pausing now and then to examine the strange invaders of his forest.
"Do you see the squirrel, Dave?" he asked.