s is the end, O you wise men and sachems, told since the beginning
to us People of the Morning. Hiro [I have spoken]!"

Then a startling thing occurred; up from the underbrush behind us rose a
tall Indian warrior, naked to the waist, painted from belt to brow with
terrific, nameless emblems and signs. I sprang to my feet,
horror-struck; the savage folded his arms, quietly smiling; and I saw
knife and hatchet resting in his belt and a long rifle on the moss
at his feet.

"Koue! That was a true tale," he said, in good English. "It is a miracle
that one among you sings the truth concerning us poor Mohawks."

"Do you come in peace?" I asked, almost stunned.

He made a gesture. "Had I come otherwise, you had known it!" He looked
straight at Dorothy. "You are the patroon's daughter. Does he speak as
truthfully of the Mohawks as do you?"

"Who are you?" I asked, slowly.

He smiled again. "My name is Brant," he said.

"Joseph Brant! Thayendanegea!" murmured Dorothy, aloud.

"A cousin of his," said the savage, carelessly. Then he turned sternly
on me. "Tell that man who follows me that I could have slain him twice
within the hour; once at the ford, once on Stoner's hill. Does he take
me for a deer? Does he believe I wear war-paint? There is no war betwixt
the Mohawks and the Boston people--yet! Tell that fool to go home!"

"What fool?" I asked, troubled.

"You will meet him--journeying the wrong way," said the Indian, grimly.

With a quick, guarded motion he picked up his rifle, turned short, and
passed swiftly northward straight into the forest, leaving us listening
there together long after he had disappeared.

"That chief was Joseph Brant, ... but he wore no war-paint," whispered
my cousin. "He was painted for the secret rites of the False-Faces."

"He could have slain us as we sat," I said, bitterly humiliated.

She looked up at me thoughtfully; there was not in her face the
slightest trace of the deep emotions which had shocked me.

"A tribal fire is lighted somewhere," she mused. "Chiefs like Brant do
not travel alone--unless--unless he came to consult that witch Catrine
Montour, or to guide her to some national council-fire in the North."

She pondered awhile, and I stood by in silence, my heart still beating
heavily from my astonishment at the hideous apparition of a
moment since.

"Do you know," she said, "that I believe Brant spoke the truth. There is
no war yet, as far as concerns the Mohawks. The s