He was a tall powerful man, and his bristle of scalp-locks and eagle feathers made him look a giant in the dim light, for a good eight feet lay between his beaded moccasin and the topmost plume of his headgear.  One side of his face was painted in soot, ochre, and vermilion to resemble a dog, and the other half as a fowl, so that the front view was indescribably grotesque and strange.  A belt of wampum was braced round his loin-cloth, and a dozen scalp-locks fluttered out as he moved from the fringe of his leggings.  His head was sunk forward, his eyes gleamed with a sinister light, and his nostrils dilated and contracted like those of an excited animal.  His gun was thrown forward, and he crept along with bended knees, peering, listening, pausing, hurrying on, a breathing image of caution.  Two paces behind him walked a lad of fourteen, 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.”