t the cat rose, took three stealthy steps, and lay down at
her feet, closing its emerald eyes.

The girl raised her head: "Ask me concerning the truth, you sachems of
the Oneida, and speak for the five war-chiefs who stand in their paint
behind you!"

An old sachem rose, peering out at her from dim, aged eyes.

"Is it war, O Woman of the Rose?" he quavered.

"Neah!" she said, sweetly.

An intense silence followed, shattered by a scream from the hag,
Catrine.

"A lie! It is war! You have struck the post, Cayugas! Senecas! Mohawks!
It is a lie! Let this young sorceress speak to the Oneidas; they are
hers; the Tuscaroras are hers, and the Onondagas and the Lenape! Let
them heed her and her dreams and her witchcraft! It concerns not you, O
Mountain-snakes! It concerns only these and False-Faces! She is their
prophetess; let her dream for them. I have dreamed for you, O Elder
Brothers! And I have dreamed of war!!"

"And I of peace!" came the clear, floating voice, soothing the harsh
echoes of the hag's shrieking appeal. "Take heed, you Mohawks, and you
Cayuga war-chiefs and sachems, that you do no violence to this
council-fire!"

"The Oneidas are women!" yelled the hag.

Magdalen Brant made a curiously graceful gesture, as though throwing
something to the ground from her empty hand. And, as all looked,
something did strike the ground--something that coiled and hissed and
rattled--a snake, crouched in the form of a letter S; and the lynx
turned its head, snarling, every hair erect.

"Mohawks and Cayugas!" she cried; "are you to judge the Oneidas?--you
who dare not take this rattlesnake in your hands?"

There was no reply. She smiled and lifted the snake. It coiled up in her
palm, rattling and lifting its terrible head to the level of her eyes.
The lynx growled.

"Quiet!" she said, soothingly. "The snake has gone, O Tahagoos, my
friend. Behold, my hand is empty; Sa-kwe-en-ta, the Fanged One
has gone."

It was true. There was nothing where, an instant before, I myself had
seen the dread thing, crest swaying on a level with her eyes.

"Will you be swept away by this young witch's magic?" shrieked Catrine
Montour.

"Oneidas!" cried Magdalen Brant, "the way is cleared! Hiro [I have
spoken]!"

Then the sachems of the Oneida stood up, wrapping themselves in their
blankets, and moved silently away, filing into the forest, followed by
the war-chiefs and those who had accompanied the Oneida delegation as
attestan