“With me?” she repeated, smiling.  “Am I a youngster to be coddled and protected?  You have not seen our hunting.  I lead, my friend; you follow.”

She unclasped her arms, which till now had held her bright head cradled, and sat up, hands on her knees, grave as an Egyptian goddess guarding tombs.

“I’ll wager I can outrun you, outshoot you, outride you, throw you at wrestle, cast the knife or hatchet truer than can you, catch more fish than you—­and bigger ones at that!”

With an impatient gesture, peculiarly graceful, like the half-salute of a friendly swordsman ere you draw and stand on guard: 

“Read the forest with me.  I can outread you, sign for sign, track for track, trail in and trail out!  The forest is to me Te-ka-on-do-duk [the place with a sign-post].  And when the confederacy speaks with five tongues, and every tongue split into five forked dialects, I make no answer in finger-signs, as needs must you, my cousin of the Se-a-wan-ha-ka [the land of shells].  We speak to the Iroquois with our lips, we People of the Morning.  Our hands are for our rifles!  Hiro [I have spoken]!”

She laughed, challenging me with eye and lip.

“And if you defy me to a bout with bowl or bottle I will not turn coward, neah-wen-ha [I thank you]! but I will drink with you and let my father judge whose legs best carry him to bed!  Koue!  Answer me, my cousin, Tahoontowhe [the night hawk].”

We were laughing now, yet I knew she had spoken seriously, and to plague her I said:  “You boast like a Seminole chanting the war-song.”

“I dare you to cast the hatchet!” she cried, reddening.

“Dare me to a trial less rude,” I protested, laughing the louder.

“No, no!  Come!” she said, impatient, unbolting the heavy door; and, willy-nilly, I followed, meeting the pack all sulking on the stairs, who rose to seize me as I came upon them.

“Let him alone!” cried Dorothy; “he says he can outcast me with the war-hatchet!  Where is my hatchet?  Sammy!  Ruyven! find hatchets and come to the painted post.”

“Sport!” cried Harry, leaping down-stairs before us.  “Cecile, get your hatchet—­get mine, too!  Come on, Cousin Ormond, I’ll guide you; it’s the painted post by the spring—­and hark, Cousin George, if you beat her I’ll give you my silvered powder-horn!”

Cecile and Sammy hastened up, bearing in their arms the slim war-hatchets, cased in holsters of bright-beaded hide, and we took our weapons and started, piloted by Harry through the door, and across the shady, unkempt lawn to the stockade gate.

Dorothy and I walked side by side, like two champions in amiable confab before a friendly battle, intimately aloof from the gaping crowd which follows on the flanks of all true greatness.

Out across the deep-green meadow we marched, the others trailing on either side with eager advice to me, or chattering of contests past, when Walter Butler and Brant—­he who is now war-chief of the loyal Mohawks—­cast hatchets for a silver girdle, which Brant wears still; and the patroon, and Sir John, and all the great folk from Guy Park were here a-betting on the Mohawk, which, they say, so angered Walter Butler that he lost the contest.  And that day dated the silent enmity between Brant and Butler, which never healed.