Robert always remembered the place at which they held their brief
council. They stood in a little grove of oaks and elms, clear of
underbrush. The trees were heavy with foliage, and the leaves were yet
green. The dawn had not yet fully come, and the heavens, save low down
in the east, were still silver, casting a silvery veil which gave an
extraordinary and delicate tint to the green of foliage. In the distance
on the right was the gleam of water, silver like the skies, but it was
one of the beautiful lakelets abundant in that region and not yet
Andiatarocte, which was still far away. The bronze figures of the
Indians, silent and impassive as they listened to their chief, fitted
wonderfully into the wilderness scene, and the white men in forest
green, their faces tanned and fierce, were scarcely less wild in look
and figure. Robert felt once more a great thrill of pride that he had
been chosen a member of such a company.
They talked less than five minutes. Then Black Rifle, alone as usual
because he preferred invariably to be alone, disappeared in the woods to
the right of the great trail.
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