He would encounter many perils, but for the present at least he did not fear them.

Much of his vivid youth was returning to him.
He saw the surface of the lake from where he lay, a beautiful silver in the clear moonlight, and he could even perceive wild fowl swimming at the far edge, unfrightened by the presence of man, or by the fires that he built.

The skies were a great silver curve, in which floated a magnificent moon and noble stars in myriads.

There was the one on which Tayoga's Tododaho lived, and so powerful was Robert's fancy that he believed he could see the great Onondaga sage with the wise snakes in his hair.

And there too was the star upon which Hayowentha lived and the Onondaga and the Mohawk undoubtedly talked across space as they looked down on their people.
Out of the forest came the calls of night birds, and Robert saw one shoot down upon the lake and then rise with a fish in its talons.