He snorted in self-contempt and puffed savagely at his clay pipe.

“La patroon?  Dammy, I’m an old woman!  Get me my knitting!  I want my knitting and a sunny spot to mumble my gums and wait for noon and a dish o’ porridge!...  George, my rents are cut in half, and half my farms left to the briers and wolves in one day, because his Majesty, General Schuyler, orders his Highness, Colonel Dayton, to call out half the militia to make a fort for his Eminence, Colonel Gansevoort!”

“At Stanwix?”

“They call it Fort Schuyler now—­after his Highness in Albany.

“Sir Lupus,” I said, “if it is true that the British mean to invade us here with Brant’s Mohawks, there is but one bulwark between Tryon County and the enemy, and that is Fort Stanwix.  Why, in Heaven’s name, should it not be defended?  If this British officer and his renegades, regulars, and Indians take Stanwix and fortify Johnstown, the whole country will swarm with savages, outlaws, and a brutal soldiery already hardened and made callous by a year of frontier warfare!

“Can you not understand this, sir?  Do you think it possible for these blood-drunk ruffians to roam the Mohawk and Sacandaga valleys and respect you and yours just because you say you are neutral?  Turn loose a pack of famished panthers in a common pasture and mark your sheep with your device and see how many are alive at daybreak!”

“Dammy, sir!” cried Sir Lupus, “the enemy are led by British gentlemen.”

“Who doubtless will keep their own cuffs clean; it were shame to doubt it!  But if the Mohawks march with them there’ll be a bloody page in Tryon County annals.”

“The Mohawks will not join!” he said, violently.  “Has not Schuyler held a council-fire and talked with belts to the entire confederacy?”

“The confederacy returned no belts,” I said, “and the Mohawks were not present.”

“Kirkland saw Brant,” he persisted, obstinately.

“Yes, and sent a secret report to Albany.  If there had been good news in that report, you Tryon County men had heard it long since, Sir Lupus.”

“With whom have you been talking, sir?” he sneered, removing his pipe from his yellow teeth.

“With one of your tenants yesterday, a certain Christian Schell, lately returned with Stoner’s scout.”

“And what did Stoner’s men see in the northwest?” he demanded, contemptuously.

“They saw half a thousand Mohawks with eyes painted in black circles and white, Sir Lupus.”

“For the planting-dance!” he muttered.

“No, Sir Lupus.  The castles are empty, the villages deserted.  There is not one Mohawk left on their ancient lands, there is not one seed planted, not one foot of soil cultivated, not one apple-bough grafted, not one fish-line set!

“And you tell me the Mohawks are painted for the planting-dance, in black and white?  With every hatchet shining like silver, and every knife ground to a razor-edge, and every rifle polished, and every flint new?”