CONTENTSCHAPTERI. IN THE DEEP WOODSII. ON THE RIDGESIII. THE BRAVE DEFENCEIV. THE GODS AT PLAYV. TAMING A SPYVI. PUPILS OF THE BEARVII. THE SLEEPING SENTINELSVIII. BEFORE MONTCALMIX. THE SIGN OF THE BEARX. THE FLIGHT OF THE TWOXI. THE MYSTIC VOYAGEXII. THE MARVELOUS TRAILERXIII. READING THE SIGNSXIV. ST. LUC'S REVENGECHAPTER IIN THE DEEP WOODSA light wind sang through the foliage, turned to varying and vividhues now by the touch of autumn, and it had an edge of cold that madeRobert Lennox shiver a little, despite a hardy life in wilderness andopen. But it was only a passing feeling. A moment or two later heforgot it, and, turning his eyes to the west, watched the vastterraces of blazing color piled one above another by the sinking sun.Often as he had seen it the wonderful late glow over the mighty forestnever failed to stir him, and to make his pulse beat a little faster.His sensitive mind, akin in quality to that of a poet, responded witheagerness and joy to the beauty and majesty of nature. Forgettingdanger and the great task they had set for themselves, he watched thebanks of color, red and pink, salmon and blue, purple and yellow,shift and change, while in the very heart of the vast panorama thehuge, red orb, too strong for human sight, glittered and flamed.The air, instinct with life, intoxicated him and he became rapt as ina vision. People whom he had met in his few but eventful years passedbefore him again in all the seeming of reality, and then his spiritleaped into the future, dreaming of the great things he would see, andin which perhaps he would have a share.Tayoga, the young Onondaga, looked at his comrade and he understood.The same imaginative thread had been woven into the warp of whichhe was made, and his nostrils and lips quivered as he drank in thesplendor of a world that appealed with such peculiar force to him, ason of the woods."The spirit of Areskoui (the Sun God) is upon Dagaeoga, and he hasleft us to dwell for a little while upon the seas of color heapedagainst the western horizon," he said.Willet, the hunter, smiled. The two lads were very dear to him. Heknew that they were uncommon types, raised by the gift of God farabove the normal."Let him rest there, Tayoga," he said, "while those brilliant bankslast, which won't be long. All things change, and the glorious hueswill soon give way to the dark.""True, Great Bear, but if the night comes it, in turn, must yield tothe dawn. All things change, as you say, but nothing perishes. The suntomorrow will be the same sun that we see today. Black night will nottake a single ray from its glory."