Young Lennox undeniably felt exultation.  It fairly permeated his system.  The taking of Garay had been so easy that it seemed as if the greater powers had put him squarely in their path, and had deprived him of all vigilance, in order that he might fall like a ripe plum into their hands.  Surely the face of Areskoui was still turned toward them, and the gods, having had their play, were benevolent of mood ­that is, so far as Robert and Tayoga were concerned, although the spy might take a different view of the matter.  The triumph, and the whimsical humor that yet possessed him, moved him to flowery speech.

“Monsieur Garay, Achille, my friend,” he said.  “You are surprised that we know you so well, but remember that you left a visiting card with us in Albany, the time you sent an evil bullet past my head, and then proved too swift for Tayoga.  That’s a little matter we must look into some time soon.  I don’t understand why you wished me to leave the world prematurely.  It must surely have been in the interest of someone else, because I had never heard of you before in my life.  But we’ll pass over the incident now as something of greater importance is to the fore.  It was really kind of you, Achille, to sit down there in the middle of the trail, beside a fire that was sure to serve as a beacon, and wait for us to come.  It reflects little credit, however, on your skill as a woodsman, and, from sheer kindness of heart, we’re not going to let you stay out in the forest after dark.”

Garay turned a frightened look upon him.  It was mention of the bullet in Albany that struck renewed terror to his soul.  But Robert, ordinarily gentle and sympathetic, was not inclined to spare him.

“As I told you,” he continued, “Tayoga and I are disposed to be easy with you, but Willet has a heart as cold as a stone.  We saw you going to the French and Indian camp, and we laid an ambush for you on your way back.  We were expecting to take you, and Willet has talked of you in merciless fashion.  What he intends to do with you is more than I’ve been able to determine.  Ah, he comes now!”

The parting bushes disclosed a tall figure, rifle ready, and Robert called cheerily: 

“Here we are, Dave, back again, and we bring with us a welcome guest.  Monsieur Achille Garay was lost in the forest, and, taking pity on him, we’ve brought him in to share our hospitality.  Mr. David Willet, Monsieur Achille Garay of everywhere.”

Willet smiled grimly and led the way back to the spruce shelter.  To Garay’s frightened eyes he bore out fully Robert’s description.

“You lads seem to have taken him without trouble,” he said.  “You’ve done well.  Sit down, Garay, on that log; we’ve business with you.”

Garay obeyed.

“Now,” said the hunter, “what message did you take to St. Luc and the French and Indian force?”

The man was silent.  Evidently he was gathering together the shreds of his courage, as his back stiffened.  Willet observed him shrewdly.

“You don’t choose to answer,” he said.  “Well, we’ll find a way to make you later on.  But the message you carried was not so important as the message you’re taking back.  It’s about you, somewhere.  Hand over the dispatch.”

“I’ve no dispatch,” said Garay sullenly.

“Oh, yes, you have!  A man like you wouldn’t be making such a long and dangerous journey into the high mountains and back again for nothing.  Come, Garay, your letter!”

The spy was silent.

“Search him, lads!” said Willet.

Garay recoiled, but when the hunter threatened him with his pistol he submitted to the dextrous hands of Robert and Tayoga.  They went through all his pockets, and then they made him remove his clothing piece by piece, while they thrust the points of their knives through the lining for concealed documents.  But the steel touched nothing.  Then they searched his heavy moccasins, and even pulled the soles loose, but no papers were disclosed.  There was nowhere else to look and the capture had brought no reward.

“He doesn’t seem to have anything,” said Robert.

“He must have!  He is bound to have!” said the hunter.

“You have had your look,” said Garay, a note of triumph showing in his voice, “and you have failed.  I bear no message because I am no messenger.  I am a Frenchman, it is true, but I have no part in this war.  I am not a soldier or a scout.  You should let me go.”

“But that bullet in Albany.”

“I did not fire it.  It was someone else.  You have made a mistake.”

“We’ve made no mistake,” said the hunter.  “We know what you are.  We know, too, that a dispatch of great importance is about you somewhere.  It is foolish to think otherwise, and we mean to have it.”

“I carry no dispatch,” repeated Garay in his sullen, obstinate tones.

“We mean that you shall give it to us,” said the hunter, “and soon you will be glad to do so.”

Robert glanced at him, but Willet did not reveal his meaning.  It was impossible to tell what course he meant to take, and the two lads were willing to let the event disclose itself.  The same sardonic humor that had taken possession of Robert seemed to lay hold of the older man also.

“Since you’re to be our guest for a while, Monsieur Garay,” he said, “we’ll give you our finest room.  You’ll sleep in the spruce shelter, while we spread our blankets outside.  But lest you do harm to yourself, lest you take into your head some foolish notion to commit suicide, we’ll have to bind you.  Tayoga can do it in such a manner that the thongs will cause you no pain.  You’ll really admire his wonderful skill.”

The Onondaga bound Garay securely with strips, cut from the prisoner’s own clothing, and they left him lying within the spruce shelter.  At dawn the next day Willet awoke the captive, who had fallen into a troubled slumber.

“Your letter,” he said.  “We want it.”

“I have no letter,” replied Garay stubbornly.

“We shall ask you for it once every two hours, and the time will come when you’ll be glad to give it to us.”

Then he turned to the lads and said they would have the finest breakfast in months to celebrate the good progress of their work.

Robert built up a splendid fire, and, taking their time about it, they broiled bear meat, strips of the deer they had killed and portions of wild pigeon and the rare wild turkey.  Varied odors, all appetizing, and the keen, autumnal air gave them an appetite equal to anything.  Yet Willet lingered long, seeing that everything was exactly right before he gave the word to partake, and then they remained yet another good while over the feast, getting the utmost relish out of everything.  When they finally rose from their seats on the logs, two hours had passed since Willet had awakened Garay and he went back to him.

“Your letter?” he said.

“I have no letter,” replied Garay, “but I’m very hungry.  Let me have my breakfast.”

“Your letter?”

“I’ve told you again and again that I’ve no letter.”

“It’s now about 8:30 o’clock; at half past ten I’ll ask you for it again.”

He went back to the two lads and helped them to put out the fire.  Garay set up a cry for food, and then began to threaten them with the vengeance of the Indians, but they paid no attention to him.  At half past ten as indicated by the sun, Willet returned to him.

“The letter?” he said.

“How many times am I to tell you that I have no letter?”

“Very well.  At half past twelve I shall ask for it again.”

At half past twelve Garay returned the same answer, and then the three ate their noonday meal, which, like the breakfast, was rich and luscious.  Once more the savory odors of bear, deer, wild turkey and wild pigeon filled the forest, and Garay, lying in the doorway of the hut, where he could see, and where the splendid aroma reached his nostrils, writhed in his bonds, but still held fast to his resolution.

Robert said nothing, but the sardonic humor of both the Onondaga and the hunter was well to the fore.  Holding a juicy bear steak in his hand, Tayoga walked over to the helpless spy and examined him critically.

“Too fat,” he said judicially, “much too fat for those who would roam the forest.  Woodsmen, scouts and runners should be lean.  It burdens them to carry weight.  And you, Achille Garay, will be much better off, if you drop twenty pounds.”

“Twenty pounds, Tayoga!” exclaimed Willet, who had joined him, a whole roasted pigeon in his hands.  “How can you make such an underestimate!  Our rotund Monsieur would be far more graceful and far more healthy if he dropped forty pounds!  And it behooves us, his trainers and physicians, to see that he drops ’em.  Then he will go back to Albany and to his good friend, Mynheer Hendrik Martinus, a far handsomer man than he was when he left.  It may be that he’ll be so much improved that Mynheer Hendrik will not know him.  Truly, Tayoga, this wild pigeon has a most savory taste!  When wild pigeon is well cooked and the air of the forest has sharpened your appetite to a knife edge nothing is finer.”

“But it is no better than the tender steak of young bear,” said Tayoga, with all the inflections of a gourmand.  “The people of my nation and of all the Indian nations have always loved bear.  It is tenderer even than venison and it contains more juices.  For the hungry man nothing is superior to the taste or for the building up of sinews and muscles than the steak of fat young bear.”

Garay writhed again in his bonds, and closed his eyes that he might shut away the vision of the two.  Robert was forced to smile.  At half past two, as he judged it to be by the sun, Willet said to Garay once more: 

“The papers, Monsieur Achille.”

But Garay, sullen and obstinate, refused to reply.  The hunter did not repeat the question then, but went back to the fire, whistling gayly a light tune.  The three were spending the day in homely toil, polishing their weapons, cleaning their clothing, and making the numerous little repairs, necessary after a prolonged and arduous campaign.  They were very cheerful about it, too.  Why shouldn’t they be?  Both Tayoga and the hunter had scouted in wide circles about the camp, and had seen that there was no danger.  For a vast distance they and their prisoner were alone in the forest.  So, they luxuriated and with abundance of appetizing food made up for their long period of short commons.

At half past four Willet repeated his question, but the lips of the spy remained tightly closed.

“Remember that I’m not urging you,” said the hunter, politely.  “I’m a believer in personal independence and I like people to do what they want to do, as long as it doesn’t interfere with anybody else.  So I tell you to think it over.  We’ve plenty of time.  We can stay here a week, two weeks, if need be.  We’d rather you felt sure you were right before you made up your mind.  Then you wouldn’t be remorseful about any mistake.”

“A wise man meditates long before he speaks,” said Tayoga, “and it follows then that our Achille Garay is very wise.  He knows, too, that his figure is improving already.  He has lost at least five pounds.”

“Nearer eight I sum it up, Tayoga,” said Willet.  “The improvement is very marked.”

“I think you are right, Great Bear.  Eight it is and you also speak truly about the improvement.  If our Monsieur Garay were able to stand up and walk he would be much more graceful than he was, when he so kindly marched into our guiding hands.”

“Don’t pay him too many compliments, Tayoga.  They’ll prove trying to a modest man.  Come away, now.  Monsieur Garay wishes to spend the next two hours with his own wise thoughts and who are we to break in upon such a communion?”

“The words of wisdom fall like precious beads from your lips, Great Bear.  For two hours we will leave our guest to his great thoughts.”

At half past six came the question, “Your papers?” once more, and Garay burst forth with an angry refusal, though his voice trembled.  Willet shrugged his shoulders, turned away, and helped the lads prepare a most luxurious and abundant evening meal, Tayoga adding wild grapes and Robert nuts to their varied course of meats, the grapes being served on blazing red autumn leaves, the whole very pleasing to the eye as well as to the taste.

“I think,” said Willet, in tones heard easily by Garay, “that I have in me just a trace of the epicure.  I find, despite my years in the wilderness, that I enjoy a well spread board, and that bits of decoration appeal to me; in truth, give an added savor to the viands.”

“In the vale of Onondaga when the fifty old and wise sachems make a banquet,” said Tayoga, “the maidens bring fruit and wild flowers to it that the eye also may have its feast.  It is not a weakness, but an excellence in Great Bear to like the decorations.”

They lingered long over the board, protracting the feast far after the fall of night and interspersing it with pleasant conversation.  The ruddy flames shone on their contented faces, and their light laughter came frequently to the ears of Garay.  At half past eight the question, grown deadly by repetition, was asked, and, when only a curse came, Willet said: 

“As it is night I’ll ask you, Achille Garay, for your papers only once every four hours.  That is the interval at which we’ll change our guard, and we don’t wish, either, to disturb you many times in your pleasant slumbers.  It would not be right to call a man back too often from the land of Tarenyawagon, who, you may know, is the Iroquois sender of dreams.”

Garay, whom they had now laid tenderly upon the floor of the hut, turned his face away, and Willet went back to the fire, humming in a pleased fashion to himself.  At half past twelve he awoke Garay from his uneasy sleep and propounded to him his dreadful query, grown terrifying by its continual iteration.  At half past four Tayoga asked it, and it was not necessary then to awake Garay.  He had not slept since half past twelve.  He snarled at the Iroquois, and then sank back on the blanket that they had kindly placed for him.  Tayoga, his bronze face expressing nothing, went back to his watch by the fire.

Breakfast was cooked by Robert and Willet, and again it was luscious and varied.  Robert had risen early and he caught several of the fine lake trout that he broiled delicately over the coals.  He had also gathered grapes fresh with the morning dew, and wonderfully appetizing, and some of the best of the nuts were left over.  Bear, deer, venison and turkey they still had in abundance.

The morning itself was the finest they had encountered so far.  Much snow had fallen in the high mountains, but winter had not touched the earth here.  The deep colors of the leaves, moved by the light wind, shifted and changed like a prism.  The glorious haze of Indian summer hung over everything like a veil of finest gauze.  The air was surcharged with vitality and life.  It was pleasant merely to sit and breathe at such a time.

“I’ve always claimed,” said Robert, as he passed a beautifully broiled trout to Tayoga and another to the hunter, “that I can cook fish better than either of you.  Dave, I freely admit, can surpass me in the matter of venison and Tayoga is a finer hand with bear than I am, but I’m a specialist with fish, be it salmon, or trout, or salmon trout, or perch or pickerel or what not.”

“Your boast is justified, in very truth, Robert,” said Willet.  “I’ve known none other who can prepare a fish with as much tenderness and perfection as you.  I suppose ’tis born in you, but you have a way of preserving the juices and savors which defies description and which is beyond praise.  ’Tis worth going hungry a long while to put one’s tooth into so delicate a morsel as this salmon trout, and ’tis a great pity, too, that our guest, Monsieur Achille Garay, will not join us, when we’ve an abundance so great and a variety so rich.”

The wretched spy and intermediary could hear every word they said, and Robert fell silent, but the hunter and the Onondaga talked freely and with abounding zest.

“’Tis a painful thing,” said Willet, “to offer hospitality and to have it refused.  Monsieur Garay knows that he would be welcome at our board, and yet he will not come.  I fear, Robert, that you have cooked too many of these superlative fish, and that they must even go to waste, which is a sin.  They would make an admirable beginning for our guest’s breakfast, if he would but consent to join us.”

“It is told by the wise old sachems of the great League,” said Tayoga, “that warriors have gone many days without food, when plenty of it was ready for their taking, merely to test their strength of body and will.  Their sufferings were acute and terrible.  Their flesh wasted away, their muscles became limp and weak, their sight failed, pain stabbed them with a thousand needles, but they would not yield and touch sustenance before the time appointed.”

“I’ve heard of many such cases, Tayoga, and I’ve seen some, but it was always warriors who were doing the fasting.  I doubt whether white men could stand it so long, and ’tis quite sure they would suffer more.  About the third day ’twould be as bad as being tied to the stake in the middle of the flames.”

“Great Bear speaks the truth, as he always does.  No white man can stand it.  If he tried it his sufferings would be beyond anything of which he might dream.”

A groan burst suddenly from the wretched Garay.  The hunter and the Onondaga looked at each other and their eyes expressed astonishment.

“Did you hear a sound in the thicket?” asked Willet.

“I think it came from the boughs overhead,” said Tayoga.

“I could have sworn ’twas the growl of a bear.”

“To me it sounded like the croak of a crow.”

“After all, we may have heard nothing.  Imagination plays strange tricks with us.”

“It is true, Great Bear.  We hear queer sounds when there are no sounds at all.  The air is full of spirits, and now and then they have sport with us.”

A second groan burst from Garay, now more wretched than ever.

“I heard it again!” exclaimed the hunter. “’Tis surely the growl of a bear in the bush!  The sound was like that of an angry wild animal!  But, we’ll let it go.  The sun tells meet’s half past eight o’clock and I go to ask our guest the usual question.”

“Enough!” exclaimed Garay.  “I yield!  I cannot bear this any longer!”

“Your papers, please!”

“Unbind me and give me food!”

“Your papers first, our fish next.”

As he spoke the hunter leaned over, and with his keen hunting knife severed Garay’s bonds.  The man sat up, rubbed his wrists and ankles and breathed deeply.

“Your papers!” repeated Willet.

“Bring me my pistol, the one that the Indian filched from me while I slept,” said Garay.

“Your pistol!” exclaimed the hunter, in surprise.  “Now I’d certainly be foolish to hand you a deadly and loaded weapon!”

But Robert’s quick intellect comprehended at once.  He snatched the heavy pistol from the Onondaga’s belt, drew forth the bullet and then drew the charge behind it, not powder at all, but a small, tightly folded paper of tough tissue, which he held aloft triumphantly.

“Very clever! very clever!” said Willet in admiration.  “The pistol was loaded, but ’twould never be fired, and nobody would have thought of searching its barrel.  Tayoga, give Monsieur Garay the two spare fish and anything else he wants, but see that he eats sparingly because a gorge will go ill with a famished man, and then we’ll have a look at his precious document.”

The Onondaga treated Garay as the honored guest they had been calling him, giving him the whole variety of their breakfast, but, at guarded intervals, which allowed him to relish to the full all the savors and juices that had been taunting him so long.  Willet opened the letter, smoothed it out carefully on his knee, and holding it up to the light until the words stood out clearly, read: 

“To Hendrik Martinus At Albany.

“The intermediary of whom you know, the bearer of this letter, has brought me word from you that the English Colonial troops, after the unfortunate battle at Lake George, have not pushed their victory.  He also informs us that the governors of the English colonies do not agree, and that there is much ill feeling among the different Colonial forces.  He says that Johnson still suffering from his wound, does not move, and that the spirit has gone out of our enemies.  All of which is welcome news to us at this juncture, since it has given to us the time that we need.

“Our defeat but incites us to greater efforts.  The Indian tribes who have cast their lot with us are loyal to our arms.  All the forces of France and New France are being assembled to crush our foes.  We have lost Dieskau, but a great soldier, Louis Joseph de Saint Verán, the Marquis de Montcalm-Gozon, is coming from France to lead our armies.  He will be assisted by the incomparable chieftains, the Chevalier de Levis, the Chevalier Bourlamaque and others who understand the warfare of the wilderness.  Even now we are preparing to move with a great power on Albany and we may surprise the town.

“Tell those of whom you know in Albany and New York to be ready with rifles and ammunition and other presents for the Indian warriors.  Much depends upon their skill and promptness in delivering these valuable goods to the tribes.  It seals them to our standard.  They can be landed at the places of which we know, and then be carried swiftly across the wilderness.  But I bid you once more to exercise exceeding caution.  Let no name of those associated with us ever be entrusted to writing, as a single slip might bring our whole fabric crashing to the ground, and send to death those who serve us.  After you have perused this letter destroy it.  Do not tear it in pieces and throw them away but burn it to the last and least little fragment.  In conclusion I say yet again, caution, caution, caution.

Raymond Louis de St. Luc.”

The three looked at one another.  Garay was in the third course of his breakfast, and no longer took notice of anything else.

“Those associated with us in Albany and New York,” quoted Willet.  “Now I wonder who they are.  I might make a shrewd guess at one, but no names are given and as we have no proof we must keep silent about him for the present.  Yet this paper is of vast importance and it must be put in hands that know how to value it.”

“Then the hands must be those of Colonel William Johnson,” said Robert.

“I fancy you’re right, lad.  Yet ’tis hard just now to decide upon the wisest policy.”

“The colonel is the real leader of our forces,” persisted the lad.  “It’s to him that we must go.”

“It looks so, Robert, but for a few days we’ve got to consider ourselves.  Now that we have his letter I wish we didn’t have Garay.”

“You wouldn’t really have starved him, would you, Dave?  Somehow it seemed pretty hard.”

The hunter laughed heartily.

“Bless your heart, lad,” he replied.  “Don’t you be troubled about the way we dealt with Garay.  I knew all the while that he would never get to the starving point, or I wouldn’t have tried it with him.  I knew by looking at him that his isn’t the fiber of which martyrs are made.  I calculated that he would give up last night or this morning.”

“Are we going to take him back with us a prisoner?”

“That’s the trouble.  As a spy, which he undoubtedly is, his life is forfeit, but we are not executioners.  For scouts and messengers such as we are he’d be a tremendous burden to take along with us.  Moreover, I think that after his long fast he’d eat all the game we could kill, and we don’t propose to spend our whole time feeding one of our enemies.”

“Call Tayoga,” said Robert.

The Onondaga came and then young Lennox said to his two comrades: 

“Are you willing to trust me in the matter of Garay, our prisoner?”

“Yes,” they replied together.

Robert went to the man, who was still immersed in his gross feeding, and tapped him on the shoulder.

“Listen, Garay,” he said.  “You’re the bearer of secret and treacherous dispatches, and you’re a spy.  You must know that under all the rules of war your life is forfeit to your captors.”

Garay’s face became gray and ghastly.

“You ­you wouldn’t murder me?” he said.

“There could be no such thing as murder in your case, and we won’t take your life, either.”

The face of the intermediary recovered its lost color.

“You will spare me, then?” he exclaimed joyfully.

“In a way, yes, but we’re not going to carry you back in luxury to Albany, nor are we thinking of making you an honored member of our band.  You’ve quite a time before you.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“You will soon.  You’re going back to the Chevalier de St. Luc who has little patience with failure, and you’ll find that the road to him abounds in hard traveling.  It may be, too, that the savage Tandakora will ask you some difficult questions, but if so, Monsieur Achille Garay, it will be your task to answer them, and I take it that you have a fertile mind.  In any event, you will be equipped to meet him by your journey, which will be full of variety and effort and which will strengthen and harden your mind.”

The face of Garay paled again, and he gazed at Robert in a sort of dazed fashion.  The imagination of young Lennox was alive and leaping.  He had found what seemed to him a happy solution of a knotty problem, and, as usual in such cases, his speech became fluent and golden.

“Oh, you’ll enjoy it, Monsieur Achille Garay,” he said in his mellow, persuasive voice.  “The forest is beautiful at this time of the year and the mountains are so magnificent always that they must appeal to anyone who has in his soul the strain of poetry that I know you have.  The snow, too, I think has gone from the higher peaks and ridges and you will not be troubled by extreme cold.  If you should wander from the path back to St. Luc you will have abundant leisure in which to find it again, because for quite a while to come time will be of no importance to you.  And as you’ll go unarmed, you’ll be in no danger of shooting your friends by mistake.”

“You’re not going to turn me into the wilderness to starve?”

“Not at all.  We’ll give you plenty of food.  Tayoga and I will see you well on your way.  Now, since you’ve eaten enough, you start at once.”

Tayoga and the hunter fell in readily with Robert’s plan.  The captive received enough food to last four days, which he carried in a pack fastened on his back, and then Robert and Tayoga accompanied him northward and back on the trail.

Much of Garay’s courage returned as they marched steadily on through the forest.  When he summed it up he found that he had fared well.  His captors had really been soft-hearted.  It was not usual for one serving as an intermediary and spy like himself to escape, when taken, with his life and even with freedom.  Life!  How precious it was!  Young Lennox had said that the forest was beautiful, and it was!  It was splendid, grand, glorious to one who had just come out of the jaws of death, and the air of late autumn was instinct with vitality.  He drew himself up jauntily, and his step became strong and springy.

They walked on many miles and Robert, whose speech had been so fluent before, was silent now.  Nor did the Onondaga speak either.  Garay himself hazarded a few words, but meeting with no response his spirits fell a little.  The trail led over a low ridge, and at its crest his two guards stopped.

“Here we bid you farewell, Monsieur Achille Garay,” said Robert.  “Doubtless you will wish to commune with your own thoughts and our presence will no longer disturb you.  Our parting advice to you is to give up the trade in which you have been engaged.  It is full perilous, and it may be cut short at any time by sudden death.  Moreover, it is somewhat bare of honor, and even if it should be crowned by continued success ’tis success of a kind that’s of little value.  Farewell.”

“Farewell,” said Garay, and almost before he could realize it, the two figures had melted into the forest behind him.  A weight was lifted from him with their going, and once more his spirits bounded upward.  He was Achille Garay, bold and venturesome, and although he was without weapons he did not fear two lads.

Three miles farther on he turned.  He did not care to face St. Luc, his letter lost, and the curious, dogged obstinacy that lay at the back of his character prevailed.  He would go back.  He would reach those for whom his letter had been intended, Martinus and the others, and he would win the rich rewards that had been promised to him.  He had plenty of food, he would make a wide curve, advance at high speed and get to Albany ahead of the foolish three.

He turned his face southward and walked swiftly through the thickets.  A rifle cracked and a twig overhead severed by a bullet fell upon his face.  Garay shivered and stood still for a long time.  Courage trickled back, and he resumed his advance, though it was slow.  A second rifle cracked, and a bullet passed so close to his cheek that he felt its wind.  He could not restrain a cry of terror, and turning again he fled northward to St. Luc.