"I couldn't mistake his size, but it was only a glimpse, and I missed." "The time of the Ojibway has not come," said Tayoga with conviction, "but it will come before this war is over." "The sooner the better for our people and yours, Tayoga." "That is so, Dagaeoga." They did not talk much more for a long time because the combat in the forest and the dark deepened, and the thirty were so active that there was little time for question or answer.

They crept back and forth from bush to bush and from log to log, firing whenever they saw a flitting form, and reloading with quick fingers.

Now and then Willet, or some other, would reply with a defiant shout to the yells of the warriors, and thus, while the combat of the sharpshooters surged to and fro in the dim light, many hours passed.
But the thirty held the line.

Robert knew that the illusion of at least a hundred, doubtless more, was created in the minds of the warriors, and, fighting with their proverbial caution, they would attempt no rush.
He had a sanguine belief now that they could hold the entire host until day, and then the fleeing train would be at least twenty miles farther on.

A few of the thirty had been wounded, though not badly enough to put them out of the combat, but Robert himself had not been touched.