"That, I know not, Dagaeoga, save that he has been getting himself captured; how, I know not either, but I saw him brought in a prisoner. Tandakora came, while I watched, and smote the captive heavily in the face with his hand. That debt I take upon myself, in addition to my own."
"You will pay both, Tayoga, and with interest," said the hunter with conviction. "But you were right when you assumed that we could not go away and leave Grosvenor a prisoner in their hands. Because we're here, and because you saw him, your Manitou has laid upon us the duty of saving him."
Robert's face glowed in the dusk.
"We're bound to see it that way," he said. "We'd be disgraced forever with ourselves, if we went away and left him. Now, how are we to do it?"
"I don't know how yet," replied the Onondaga, "but we must first go down to the water. We've forgotten our thirst in the news I bring, but it will soon be on us again, fiercer and more burning than ever. And we must have all our strength for the great task before us."
"I think it's better for all three of us to go down to the lake at once," said Willet. "If anything happens we'll be together, and we are stronger against danger, united than separated. I'll lead the way."
It was a long and slow descent, every step taken with minute care, and as they approached the lake Robert found that his thirst was up and leaping.
"I feel that I could drink the whole lake dry," he said.
"Do not do that, Dagaeoga," said Tayoga in his precise way. "Lake
George is too beautiful to be lost."
"We might swim across it," said Willet, looking at the silvery surface of the water unbroken by the dark line of any canoe. "A way has opened to us here, but we can't follow it now."