"So once more the path of duty has been the path of safety, as old Dr. Birch was so fond of saying."
"The only pleasant feature, apart from our marvellous escape, that I can see, is that the Iroquois as a part of the Six Nations are allied with the English against the French in this war, and they speak of the English king as their Great Father across the water."
During this time the Indians, who had not followed the fugitives into the forest, had been overhauling the three big canoes which belonged to the fur-traders, and examining their contents.
They had made a great capture, for the canoes were deeply laden with provisions, arms, ammunition and trading goods. The first thing that White Eagle did was to pour out all the fire-water into the river, lest his men should drink it, for he knew what dire consequences would ensue to the whole band if that "devil in solution" were only permitted to pass their lips.
That night they camped on the same clearing where the battle had been fought, but next morning at sunrise they took the captured canoes along with their own, and paddled rapidly up-stream towards Lake Ontario. The youths were both invited into the chief's canoe, and as their wounds were still painful, they took no part in the paddling, but remained sitting in the bottom of the canoe, or lying upon the skins which had belonged to Major Ridout.
The chief and several of his men spoke a little broken English, and one spoke the Canadian patois, for he had been a prisoner amongst the Algonquin tribes for some time, so that they were able to converse a little during the day.
Towards evening they reached the "Thousand Islands," where the St. Lawrence broadens out into a lake studded with a multitude of islets, just before it leaves Lake Ontario. Here the hand of the great Landscape Painter seems to have made the "beauty spot" of the world, and our heroes were charmed and even roused to a pitch of enthusiasm, as they passed one green, verdant, or pine-wooded island after another, while the setting sun, flinging its last ruddy beams upon the trees and the water, completed the enchanting picture.
"'Tis well to be a red man when the Great Manitou gives His children such hunting and fishing grounds as these," said Jamie to the chief, for he had been deeply stirred by the beauty that surrounded him.
"The Great Spirit loves His red children," said the chief solemnly. "He made for them the fish in the stream, and the deer in the forest; but He has forgotten them for a while, for they have displeased Him, and the children of the sun-rising have chased them from their hunting-grounds."
Jamie made no reply, for he saw that the chief's heart was not a little sad, for they were approaching Fort Frontenac at the entrance of the lake, where the presence of the French behind their wooden palisades was a constant reminder to the Indians that even the graves and the hunting-grounds of their fathers were defiled by the presence of the paleface children of the Canadas.