"
It was agreeable to Robert, Willet and Tayoga, and they spent the
remainder of the day most pleasantly at the bower. Colonel Johnson,
feeling that they were three whom he could trust, talked freely and
unveiled a mind fitted for great affairs.
"I tell you three," he said, "that this will be one of the most
important wars the world has known. To London and Paris we seem lost
in the woods out here, and perhaps at the courts they think little of
us or they do not think at all, but the time must come when the New
World will react upon the Old. Consider what a country it is, with its
lakes, its forests, its rivers, and its fertile lands, which extend
beyond the reckoning of man. The day will arrive when there will be a
power here greater than either England or France. Such a land cannot
help but nourish it."
He seemed to be much moved, and spoke a long time in the same vein,
but his Indian wife never said a word. She moved about now and then,
and, as before, her footsteps making no noise, being as light as those
of any animal of the forest.
The dusk came up to the door. They heard the ripple of the creek, but
could not see its waters. Madam Johnson lighted a wax candle, and
Colonel Johnson stopped suddenly.
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