faded, marked at first by cut undergrowth, then only by the white
scars on the tree-trunks.

These my cousin followed, her horse at a canter, and I followed her,
halting now and again to verify the white triangle on the solid flank of
some forest giant, passing a sugar-bush with the shack still standing
and the black embers of the fire scattered, until we came to a
logging-road and turned into it, side by side. A well-defined path
crossed this road at right angles, and Dorothy pointed it out. "The
Iroquois trail," she said. "See how deeply it is worn--nearly ten inches
deep--where the Five Nations have trodden it for centuries. Over it
their hunting-parties pass, their scouts, their war-parties. It runs
from the Kennyetto to the Sacandaga and north over the hills to
the Canadas."

We halted and looked down the empty, trodden trail, stretching away
through the forest. Thousands and thousands of light, moccasined feet
had worn it deep and patted it hard as a sheep-path. On what mission
would the next Mohawk feet be speeding on that trail?

"Those people at Fonda's Bush had best move to Johnstown," said Dorothy.
"If the Mohawks strike, they will strike through here at Balston or
Saratoga, or at the half-dozen families left at Fonda's Bush, which some
of them call Broadalbin."

"Have these poor wretches no one to warn them?" I asked.

"Oh, they have been warned and warned, but they cling to their cabins as
cats cling to soft cushions. The Palatines seem paralyzed with fear, the
Dutch are too lazy to move in around the forts, the Scotch and English
too obstinate. Nobody can do anything for them--you heard what that
Schell woman said when I urged her to prudence."

I bent my eyes on the ominous trail; its very emptiness fascinated me,
and I dismounted and knelt to examine it where, near a dry, rotten log,
some fresh marks showed.

Behind me I heard Dorothy dismount, dropping to the ground lightly as a
tree-lynx; the next moment she laid her hand on my shoulder and bent
over where I was kneeling.

"Can you read me that sign?" she asked, mischievously.

"Something has rolled and squatted in the dry wood-dust--some bird, I
think."

"A good guess," she said; "a cock-partridge has dusted here; see those
bits of down? I say a cock-bird because I know that log to be a
drumming-log."

She raised herself and guided her horse along the trail, bright eyes
restlessly scanning ground and fringing underbrush.

"Deer passed