rteen, clad and armed in the same fashion, but without the painted
face and without the horrid dried trophies upon the leggings. It was
his first campaign, and already his eyes shone and his nostrils twitched
with the same lust for murder which burned within his elder. So they
advanced, silent, terrible, creeping out of the shadows of the wood, as
their race had come out of the shadows of history, with bodies of iron
and tiger souls.

They were just abreast of the bush when something caught the eye of the
younger warrior, some displaced twig or fluttering leaf, and he paused
with suspicion in every feature. Another instant and he had warned his
companion, but Du Lhut sprang out and buried his little hatchet in the
skull of the older warrior. De Catinat heard a dull crash, as when an
axe splinters its way into a rotten tree, and the man fell like a log,
laughing horribly, and kicking and striking with his powerful limbs.
The younger warrior sprang like a deer over his fallen comrade and
dashed on into the wood, but an instant later there was a gunshot among
the trees in front, followed by a faint wailing cry.

"That is his death-whoop," said Du Lhut composedly. "It was a pity to
fire, and yet it was better than letting him go."

As he spoke the two others came back, Ephraim ramming a fresh charge
into his musket.

"Who was laughing?" asked Amos.

"It was he," said Du Lhut, nodding towards the dying warrior, who lay
with his head in a horrible puddle, and his grotesque features contorted
into a fixed smile. "It's a custom they have when they get their
death-blow. I've known a Seneca chief laugh for six hours on end at the
torture-stake. Ah, he's gone!"

As he spoke the Indian gave a last spasm with his hands and feet, and
lay rigid, grinning up at the slit of blue sky above him.

"He's a great chief," said Du Lhut. "He is Brown Moose of the Mohawks,
and the other is his second son. We have drawn first blood, but I do
not think that it will be the last, for the Iroquois do not allow their
war-chiefs to die unavenged. He was a mighty fighter, as you may see by
looking at his neck."

He wore a peculiar necklace which seemed to De Catinat to consist of
blackened bean pods set upon a string. As he stooped over it he saw to
his horror that they were not bean pods, but withered human fingers.

"They are all right fore-fingers," said Du Lhut, "so everyone represents
a life. There are forty-two in all. Eigh