“It is worse,” said Sir George, bitterly.  “Scarce a year has she been at Guy Park, yet to-day she is in full sympathy with Guy and Sir John and her dusky kinsman, Brant.  Outwardly she is a charming, modest maid, and I do not for an instant mean you to think she is not chaste!  The Irish nation is no more famed for its chastity than the Mohawk, but I know that she listens when the forest calls—­listens with savant ears, Ormond, and her dozen drops of dusky blood set her pulses flying to the free call of the Wolf clan!”

“Do you know her well?” I asked.

“I?  No.  I saw her at my aunt Livingston’s.  It was the other night that I talked long with her—­for the first time in my life.”

He stood silent, knee-deep in the dewy weeds, hand worrying his sword-hilt, long cloak flung back.

“You have no idea how much of a woman she is,” he said, vaguely.

“In that case,” I replied, “you might influence her.”

He raised his thoughtful face to the stars, studying the Twin Pointers.

“May I try?” he asked.

“Try?  Yes, try, in Heaven’s name, Sir George!  If she must speak to the Oneidas, persuade her to throw her influence for peace, if you can.  At all events, I shall know whether or not she goes to the fire, for I am charged by the General to find the False-Faces and report to him every word said....  Do you speak Tuscarora, Sir George?”

“No; only Mohawk,” he said.  “How are you going to find the False-Faces’ meeting-place?”

“If Magdalen Brant goes, I go,” said I.  “And while I’m watching her, Jack Mount is to range, and track any savage who passes the Iroquois trail....  What do you mean to do with Murphy and Elerson?”

“Elerson rides back to the manor with our horses; we’ve no further use for them here.  Murphy follows me....  And I think we should be on our way,” he added, impatiently.

We walked back to the house, where old man Stoner and his two big boys stood with our riflemen, drinking flip.

“Elerson,” I said, “ride my mare and lead the other horses back to Varicks’.  Murphy, you will pilot us to Beacraft’s.  Jack, go forward with Murphy.”

Old Stoner wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, bit into a twist of tobacco, spat derisively, and said:  “This pup Beacraft swares he’ll lift my haar ’fore he gits through with me!  Threatened men live long.  Kindly tell him me an’ my sons is to hum.  Sir George.”

The big, lank boys laughed, and winked at me as I passed.

“Good trail an’ many skelps to ye!” said old Stoner.  “If ye see Francy McCraw, jest tell him thar’s a rope an’ a apple-tree waitin’ fur him down to Fundy’s Bush!”

“Tell Danny Redstock an’ Billy Bones that the Stoner boys is smellin’ almighty close on their trail!” called out the elder youth.

Elerson, in his saddle, gathered the bridles that Mount handed him and rode off into the darkness, leading Mount’s horse and Sir George’s at a trot.  We filed off due west, Murphy and Mount striding in the lead, the noise of the river below us on our left.  A few rods and we swung south, then west into a wretched stump-road, which Sir George said was the Mayfield road and part of the Sacandaga trail.