"Stoner and Timothy Murphy say so," replied Mount. "Sir John and the
Butlers are busy with the Onondagas and Oneidas; Dominic Kirkland is
doing his best to keep them peaceable; and our General played his last
cards at their national council. We can only wait and see,
Mistress Varick."

He hesitated, glancing at me askance.

"The fact is," he said, "I've been sniffing at moccasin tracks for the
last hour, up hill, down dale, over the ford, where I lost them, then
circled and picked them up again on the moss a mile below the bridge. If
I read them right, they were Mohawk tracks and made within the hour, and
how that skulking brute got away from me I cannot think."

He looked at us in an injured manner, for we were striving not to smile.

"I'm counted a good tracker," he muttered. "I'm as good as Walter
Butler or Tim Murphy, and my friend, the Weasel, now with Morgan's
riflemen, is no keener forest-runner than am I. Oh, I do not mean to
brag, or say I can match my cunning against such a human bloodhound as
Joseph Brant."

He paused, in hurt surprise, for we were laughing. And then I told him
of the Indian and what message he had sent by us, and Mount listened,
red as a pippin, gnawing his lip.

"I am glad to know it," he said. "This will be evil news to General
Schuyler, I have no doubt. Lord! but it makes me mad to think how close
to Brant I stood and could not drill his painted hide!"

"He spared you," I said.

"That is his affair," muttered Mount, striding on angrily.

"There speaks the obstinate white man, who can see no good in any
savage," whispered Dorothy. "Nothing an Indian does is right or
generous; these forest-runners hate them, distrust them, fear
them--though they may deny it--and kill all they can. And you may argue
all day with an Indian-hater and have your trouble to pay you. Yet I
have heard that this man Mount is brave and generous to enemies of his
own color."

We had now come to the road in front of the house, and Mount set his cap
rakishly on his head, straightened cape and baldrick, and ran his
fingers through the gorgeous thrums rippling from sleeve and thigh.

"I'd barter a month's pay for a pot o' beer," he said to me. "I learned
to drink serving with Cresap's riflemen at the siege of Boston; a
godless company, sir, for an innocent man to fall among. But Morgan's
rifles are worse, Mr. Ormond; they drink no water save when it rains in
their gin toddy."

"Sir Lupus says you tried to