His heart leaped at the belief that he should have a part in them, no matter how small the part.
He lay on the grass with his blanket beneath him, his head on a pillow of dead leaves.

Not far away was Tayoga, already asleep.

They had built no fires, and as the night was dark the bronze figures of the Indian sentinels soon grew dim.

Rogers and Willet also slept, but Robert still lay there awake, seeing many pictures through his wide-open eyes, Quebec, the lost Stadacona of the Mohawks, the St.Lawrence, Tandakora, the huge Ojibway who had hunted him so fiercely, St.Luc, De Courcelles, and all the others who had passed out of his life for a while, though he felt now, with the prescience of old King Hendrik, that they were coming back again.

His path would lie for a long time away from cities and the gay and varied life that appealed to him so much, and would lead once more through the wilderness, which also appealed to him, but in another way.