ing traits, no more indicate their genuine character than
war-paint and shaven head display the customary costume they appear in
among their own people. The cruelties of war are not peculiar to any
one people; and God knows that in all the Iroquois confederacy no
savage could be found to match the British Provost, Cunningham, or
Major Bromfield--no atrocities could obscure the atrocities in the
prisons and prison-ships of New York, the deeds of the Butlers, of
Crysler, of Beacraft, and of Bettys.

For, among the Iroquois, I can remember only two who were the peers in
cruelty of Walter Butler and the Tory Beacraft, and these were the
Indian called Seth Henry, and the half-breed hag, Catrine Montour.

Pondering on these things, perplexed and greatly depressed, I presently
emerged from the forest-belt through which I had been riding, and found
our little column halted in the open country, within a few minutes'
march of the Schenectady highway.

The rangers looked up at me curiously as I passed, doubtless having an
inkling of what had been going on from questioning the Oneida scouts,
for Murphy broke out impulsively, "Sure, Captain, we was that onaisy,
alanna, that Elerson an' me matched apple-pipps f'r to inthrojuce wan
another to that powwow forninst the big pine."

"Had you appeared yonder while I was talking to that belt-bearer it
might have gone hard with me, Tim," I said gravely.

Riding on past the spot where Jack Mount stood, his brief authority
ended, I heard him grumbling about the rashness of officers and the
market value of a good scalp in Quebec; and I only said: "Scold as much
as you like, Jack, only obey." And so cantered forward to where Elsin
sat her black mare, watching my approach. Her steady eyes welcomed,
mine responded; in silence we wheeled our horses north once more,
riding stirrup to stirrup through the dust. On either side stretched
abandoned fields, growing up in weeds and thistles, for now we were
almost on the Mohawk River, the great highway of the border war down
which the tides of destruction and death had rolled for four terrible
years.

There was nothing to show for it save meadows abandoned to willow
scrub, fallow fields deep in milk-weed, goldenrod, and asters; and here
and there a charred rail or two of some gate or fence long since
destroyed.

Far away across the sand-flats we could see a ruined barn outlined
against the sunset sky, but no house remained standing to the westward