He knew enough of the warriors of the wilderness to know that nobody could wait longer than they.

Patience was one of the chief commodities of savage life, because their habits were not complex, and all the time in the world was theirs.
He took lessons, too, from Tayoga and Willet.

The Onondaga, an Indian himself, had an illimitable patience, and Willet, from long practice, had acquired the ability to remain motionless for hours at a time.

He looked at them as they crouched beside him, still and silent figures in the dusk, apparently growing from the earth like the bushes about them, and fixed as they were.

The suggestion to go on that had risen to his lips never passed them and he settled into the same immobility.
Another hour, that was three to Robert, dragged by, and Tayoga led the way again down the stream, Robert and the hunter following without a word.