Tayoga had thrown himself into the war heart and soul. Nothing could
diminish by a hair his hostility to the French and the tribes allied
with them. The deeds of Champlain and Frontenac were but of yesterday,
and the nation to which they belonged could never be a friend of the
Hodenosaunee. He trusted the Americans and the English, but his chief
devotion, by the decree of nature was for his own people, and now,
that fighting in the forest had occurred between the rival nations, he
shed more of the white ways and became a true son of the wilderness,
seeing as red men saw and thinking as red men thought.
He was bent over a little, as he walked slowly among the bushes, in
the position of one poised for instant flight or pursuit as the need
might be. His eyes, black and piercing, ranged about incessantly,
nothing escaping a vision so keen and trained so thoroughly that he
not only heard everything passing in the wilderness, but he knew the
nature of the sound, and what had made it.
The kindly look that distinguished Tayoga in repose had
disappeared. Unnumbered generations were speaking in him now, and the
Indian, often so gentle in peace, had become his usual self, stern and
unrelenting in war.
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