o die, leastways,
I still have hope; but ef we do, remember that we don't have to die but
oncet."

"I'll remember, Sol," Paul whispered back.

"Silence, there!" exclaimed Braxton Wyatt. But the two had said all they
wanted to say, and fortunately their senses were somewhat dulled. They
had passed through so much that they were like those who are under the
influence of opiates. The path was now dark, although both torches and
fires burned in the distance. Presently they heard that chant with which
they had become familiar, the dreadful notes of the hyena woman, and
they knew that they were being taken into her presence, for what purpose
they could not tell, although they were sure that it was a bitter one.
As they approached, the woman's chant rose to an uncommon pitch of
frenzy, and Paul felt the blood slowly chilling within him.

"Get up there!" exclaimed Braxton Wyatt, and the Senecas gave them both
a push. Other warriors who were standing at the edge of an open space
seized them and threw them forward with much violence. When they
struggled into a sitting position, they saw Queen Esther standing upon a
broad flat rock and whirling in a ghastly dance that had in it something
Oriental. She still swung the great war hatchet that seemed always to be
in her hand. Her long black hair flew wildly about her head, and her red
dress gleamed in the dusk. Surely no more terrible image ever appeared
in the American wilderness! In front of her, lying upon the ground, were
twenty bound Americans, and back of them were Iroquois in dozens, with a
sprinkling of their white allies.

What it all meant, what was about to come to pass, nether Paul nor
Shif'less Sol could guess, but Queen Esther sang:

We have found them, the Yengees
Who built their houses in the valley,
They came forth to meet us in battle,
Our rifles and tomahawks cut them down,
As the Yengees lay low the forest.
Victory and glory Aieroski gives to his children,
The Mighty Six Nations, greatest of men.

There will be feasting in the lodges of the Iroquois,
And scalps will hang on the high ridge pole,
But wolves will roam where the Yengees dwelt
And will gnaw the bones of them all,
Of the man, the woman, and the child.
Victory and glory Aieroski gives to his children,
The Mighty Six Nations, greatest of men.

Such it sounded to Shif'less Sol, who knew the tongue of the Iroquois,
and so it went on, verse after verse, and at the end o