, dropping his voice to a lower tone, "what was
it you saw in the forest to-day?"

So Mount had already reported the apparition of the painted savage!

I told what I had seen, describing the Indian in detail, and repeating
word for word his warning message to Mount.

The General looked inquiringly at Dorothy. "I understand," he said,
"that you know as much about the Iroquois as the Iroquois do
themselves."

"I think I do," she said, simply.

"May I ask how you acquired your knowledge, Miss Dorothy?"

"There have always been Iroquois villages along our boundary until last
spring, when the Mohawks left with Guy Johnson," she said. "I have
always played with Iroquois children; I went to school with Magdalen
Brant. I taught among our Mohawks and Oneidas when I was thirteen. Then
I was instructed by sachems and I learned what the witch-drums say, and
I need use no signs in the six languages or the clan dialects, save
only when I speak with the Lenni-Lenape. Maybe, too, the Hurons and
Algonquins have words that I know not, for many Tuscaroras do not
understand them save by sign."

"I wish that some of my interpreters had your knowledge, or a fifth of
it," said the General, smiling. "Tell me, Miss Dorothy, who was that
Indian and what did that paint mean?"

"The Indian was Joseph Brant, called Thayendanegea, which means, 'He who
holds many peoples together,' or, in plainer words, 'A bundle
of sticks.'"

"You are certain it was Brant?"

"Yes. He has dined at this table with us. He is an educated man." She
hesitated, looking down thoughtfully at her own reflection in the
polished table. "The paint he wore was not war-paint. The signs on his
body were emblems of the secret clan called the 'False-Faces.'"

The General looked up at Jack Mount.

"What did Stoner say?" he asked.

"Stoner reports that all the Iroquois are making ready for some unknown
rite, sir. He saw pyramids of flat river-stones set up on hills and he
saw smoke answering smoke from the Adirondack peaks to the
Mayfield hills."

"What did Timothy Murphy observe?" asked Schuyler, watching Mount
intently.

"Murphy brings news of their witch, Catrine Montour, sir. He. chased her
till he dropped--like all the rest of us--but she went on and on a
running, hop! tap! hop! tap! and patter, patter, patter! It stirs my
hair to think on her, and I'm no coward, sir. We call her 'The
Toad-woman.'"

"I'll make you chief of scouts if you catch her," said the G