He saw that Willet's eyes were upon him, that every muscle was attuned and that the tomahawk would leap from his belt like a flash of lightning, and seeing, Tandakora paused.
The two Frenchmen looked at Tayoga, at Tandakora and at Willet.

Then they looked at each other, and being acute men with a full experience of forest life, they understood the silent drama.
"I don't undertake to pass any judgment here," said de Courcelles, after a pause.

"It is the word of one warrior against another, and I cannot say which is the better.

But since you are going to the Marquis Duquesne at Quebec, Mr.Lennox, the matter may be laid before him, and it is for those who make charges to bring proof." The words were silky, but Robert saw that they were intended to weave a net.
"We are on an official mission from the Governor of the Province of New York to the Governor General of Canada," he said.

"We cannot be tried at Quebec for an offense that we have never committed, and for our commission of which you have only the word of a barbarian who twice tried to murder us." The hand of Tandakora on the handle of his tomahawk again made a convulsive movement, but the gaze of the hunter was fixed upon him with deadly menace, and another hand equally as powerful and perhaps quicker than his own was clutched around the handle of another tomahawk.