"How have they taught the lad to regard his father? Perhaps they have told him that I am dead! Well, maybe 'tis better so! Or perhaps they have said, 'He is an exile in a far-off land, and he will return no more, for in the eyes of the law he is a criminal.' Then so it must remain, lest the father's curse should blight the lad; but what would I not give to see my child again after all these years."
Then he flung himself down upon a pile of skins and wept again. That night sleep fled from his eyelids, as it had often done before when these longings for the homeland had come over him, but never, never before had his agony been so great. He prayed his God for something he had never dared to ask before. It was that he might be permitted, before he died, to look upon the face of his child again, even though the lad should not know him. And his prayer was answered, for an angel from the stars above came down and kissed him, as he lay beneath the silent pines, and whispered--
"It shall be!"
And he slept, for his cares had fled, and a deep peace had filled his soul.
Such were thy sons, oh, England! Their bold, proud spirits chafed and were cramped within thy narrow limits, and narrower laws, made by and for the selfish few, in days, happily, long past. And yet they loved their native land, though exiled from hearth and home; and when duty called, they lined thy distant frontiers; they held thy far-flung borders, and were content to leave their bones to bleach beside some lonely outpost of the Empire they helped to build. But let us for a while leave this lonely frontiersman, and return to our friends and their Iroquois companions.
Four days had been spent in navigating Lake Ontario, and they were now approaching Niagara, below whose thunderous rapids stood the French fort that guarded both the river and the lakes.
Towards evening on the fourth day a distant speck was seen approaching from the westward, and the White Eagle, standing in the bow of the foremost canoe, as he gazed into the face of the setting sun, permitted a sudden cry of surprise to escape from his lips--
"Algonquins!"
'Twas only too true, for there, rapidly approaching and hugging the southern shore of the lake, was a large party of their hated foes, in their big canoes of elm-bark.
The discovery appeared to be mutual, for both parties rent the air with their respective war-cries, and hastened ashore to make ready for the coming battle. Darkness soon settled over forest and lake, but all through the night the woods resounded with the dreadful war-whoops of the Indians, as they chanted their war-songs, and worked themselves into a frenzy of fury.