“Will you not tell me what you mean to do, Magdalen?”

“No, Sir George.”

“When will you tell me?”

“Never.  But you will know what I have done.  You will see that I hold three nations back.  What else can you ask?  I shall obey you.  What more is there?”

Her voice lingered in the air like an echo of flowing water, then died away as they moved on, until nothing sounded in the forest stillness save the low ripple of the stream.  An hour later I picked my way back to the house and saw Sir George standing in the starlight, and Mount beside him, pointing towards the east.

“I’ve found the False-Faces’ trysting-place,” said Mount, eagerly, as I came up.  “I circled and struck the main Iroquois trail half a mile yonder in the bottom land—­a smooth, hard trail, worn a foot deep, sir.  And first comes an Onondaga war-party, stripped and painted something sickening, and I dogged ’em till they turned off into the bush to shoot a doe full of arrows—­though all had guns!—­and left ’em eating.  Then comes three painted devils, all hung about with witch-drums and rattles, and I tied to them.  And, would you believe it, sir, they kept me on a fox-trot straight east, then south along a deer-path, till they struck the Kennyetto at that sulphur spring under the big cliff—­you know, Sir George, where Klock’s old line cuts into the Mohawk country?”

“I know,” said Sir George.

Mount took off his cap and scratched his ear.

“The forest is full of little heaps of flat stones.  I could see my painted friends with the drums and rattles stop as they ran by, and each pull a flat stone from the river and add it to the nearest heap.  Then they disappeared in the ravine—­and I guess that settles it, Captain Ormond.”

Sir George looked at me, nodding.

“That settles it, Ormond,” he said.

I bade Mount cook us something to eat.  Sir George looked after him as he entered the house, then began a restless pacing to and fro, arms loosely clasped behind him.

“About Magdalen Brant,” he said, abruptly.  “She will not speak to the three nations for Butler’s party.  The child had no idea of this wretched conspiracy to turn the savages loose in the valley.  She thought our people meant to drive the Iroquois from their own lands—­a black disgrace to us if we ever do!...  They implored her to speak to them in council.  Did you know they believe her to be inspired?  Well, they do.  When she was a child they got that notion, and Guy Johnson and Walter Butler have been lying to her and telling her what to say to the Oneidas and Onondagas.”

He turned impatiently, pacing the yard, scowling, and gnawing his lip.

“Where is she?” I asked.

“She has gone to bed.  She would eat nothing.  We must take her back with us to Albany and summon the sachems of the three nations, with belts.”

“Yes,” I said, slowly.  “But before we leave I must see the False-Faces.”