They carry with them the authority of His Majesty, King Louis." A week later they reached a small Indian village on Lake Ontario where the Owl at present made his abode, and in the largest lodge of which his patient spouse, the Dove, was awaiting him.

She was young, much taller than the average Indian woman, and, in her barbaric fashion, quite handsome.

But her face was one of the keenest and most alert Robert had ever seen.

All the trained observation of countless ancestors seemed stored in her and now he understood why Langlade had boasted so often and so warmly of her skill as a guard.

She regarded him with a cold eye as she listened attentively to her husband's instructions, and, for the remainder of that winter and afterward, she obeyed them with a thoroughness beyond criticism.
The village included perhaps four hundred souls, of whom about a hundred were warriors.