by fraternal conflict, might assume. God
knows the white man's strife was barbarous enough, brother murdering
brother beneath the natal roof. What, then, might be looked for from
the fierce, proud people whose Confederacy was steadily crumbling
beneath our touch; whose crops and forests and villages had gone
roaring up into flames as the vengeance of Sullivan, with his Rangers,
his Continentals, and his Oneidas, passed over their lands in fire!

"Where sits the council?" I asked soberly.

"At the Dead-Water."

It was an all-night journey by the Fish House-trails, for we dared not
strike the road, with Sir John's white demons outlying from the
confluence to Frenchman's creek.

I looked at my horse. Little Otter had strapped ammunition and
provisions to the saddle, leaving room for a rider. I turned to Lyn
Montour; she laid her hands on my shoulders, and I swung her up astride
the saddle.

"Now," I said briefly; and we filed away into the north, the Oneida
leading at a slow trot.

I shall never forget the gloom, the bitter misery of that dark trail
where specters ever stared at me as I journeyed, where ghosts arose in
every trail--pale wraiths of her I loved, calling me back to love
again. And "Lost, lost, lost!" wept the little brooks we crossed, all
sobbing, whispering her name.

What an end of all--to die now, leaving life's work unfinished, life's
desire unsatisfied--all that I loved unprotected and alone on earth.
What an end to it all--and I had done nothing for the cause, nothing
except the furtive, obscure work which others shrank from! And now,
skulking to certain death, was denied me even the poor solace of an
honored memory. Here in this shaggy desolation no ray of glory might
penetrate to gild my last hour with a hero's halo; contempt must be my
reward if I failed. I must die amid the scornful laughter of Iroquois
women, the shrill taunts of children, the jeers of renegade white men,
who pay a thief more honor at the cross-roads gallows than they pay a
convicted spy. Why, I might not even hope for the stern and dignified
justice that the Oneida awaited--an iron justice that respected the
victim it destroyed; for he came openly as a sachem of a disobedient
nation in revolt, daring to justify his nation and his clan. But I was
to act if not to speak a lie; I was to present myself as a sleek
non-partizan, symbolizing only a nobility of the great Wolf clan. And if
any man accused me as a spy, and if suspi