I suppose we shall have war,
Mr. Lennox, but doesn't it seem strange that England and France should
fight about American territory, when there's so much of it? Here's a
continent that civilized man cannot occupy for many generations. Both
England and France could be hidden away in its forests, and it would
take explorers to find them, and yet we must fight over a claim to
regions that we cannot occupy."
Robert decided then that he liked young de Galisonniere very much. Some
such thoughts had been passing through his own mind, and he was glad
that he could talk frankly about the coming war with one who would be on
the other side, one who would be an official but not a personal enemy.
As the _Frontenac_ slid on through the tumbling green current they
talked earnestly. Willet, sitting near, glanced at them occasionally,
but he too had plenty of thoughts of his own, while Tayoga, saying
nothing, gazed at the high green southern shore. This, so the old men
said, had once been the land of the Mohawks, one of the great nations
of the Hodenosaunee, and now the children of Onontio, who had come with
firearms against bows and arrows, spoke of it as theirs since Manitou
first made the land rise from the deep.
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