It was a little bit formal, and a little bit youthful, but Willet accepted the words in the fine spirit in which they were uttered.
"What we did was no more than we should have done," he replied, "and you'll pay us back. In such times as these everybody ought to help everybody else. Caution your soldiers, captain, won't you, not to make any noise at all. The wolf will howl no more, and I fancy their scouts are now within two or three hundred yards of the fire. I'm glad it's turned darker."
The troop, hidden in the bushes, was now completely silent. The Philadelphia men, used to contiguous houses and streets, were not afraid, but they were appalled by their extraordinary position at night, in the deep brush of an unknown wilderness with a creeping foe coming down upon them. Many a hand quivered upon the rifle barrel, but the heart of its owner did not tremble.
The moonlight was scant and the stars were few. To the city men trees and bushes melted together in a general blackness, relieved only by a single point of light where the fire yet smoldered, but Robert, kneeling by the side of Tayoga, saw with his trained eyes the separate trunks stretching away like columns, and then far beyond the fire he thought he caught a glimpse of a red feather raised for a moment above the undergrowth.
"Did you see!" he whispered to Tayoga.
"Yes. It was a painted feather in the scalp lock of a Huron," replied the Onondaga.
"And where he is others are sure to be."
"Well spoken, Dagaeoga. They have discovered already that the soldiers are not by the fire, and now they will search for them."
"They will lie almost flat on their faces and follow, a little, the broad trail the city men have left."
"Doubtless, Dagaeoga."