THE AMBUSH Robert now had much experience of Indian attack and forest warfare, but it always made a tremendous impression upon his vivid and uncommon imagination.

The great pulses in his throat and temples leaped, and his ear became so keen that he seemed to himself to hear the fall of the leaf in the forest.

It was this acute sharpening of the senses, the painting of pictures before him, that gave him the gift of golden speech that the Indians had first noticed in him.

He saw and heard much that others could neither hear nor see, and the words to describe it were always ready to pour forth.
Willet and Tayoga were crouched near him, their rifles thrust forward a little, and just beyond them was Captain Colden who had drawn a small sword, more as an evidence of command than as a weapon.

The men, city bred, were silent, but the faces of some of them still expressed amazement and incredulity.