“And now you know, you Mohican mongrel, why Amochol was at Otsego.  His arm reaches even into the barracks of Clinton!  Because to Atensi the sacrifice of these two would be grateful—­ the maiden Lois and your Loskiel.  Only the pure and guarded pleasure her.  And these two are Hidden Children.  One has died.  The other shall not escape us.  She shall die strangled by Amochol upon his own altar!”

I sat up, sick with horror and surprise, and stared at the Mohican for an explanation.  He and the Oneidas were now looking at me very gravely and in silence.  And after a moment my head dropped.

I knew well enough what the brutal Erie meant by “Hidden Children.”  But that I was one I never dreamed, nor had it occurred to me that Lois was one, in spite of her strange history.  For among the Iroquois and their adopted captives there are both girls and boys who are spoken of as “Hidden Persons” or “Hidden Children.”  They are called Ta-neh-u-weh-too, which means, “hidden in the husks,” like ears of corn.

And the reason is this:  a mother, for one cause or another, or perhaps for none at all, decides to make of her unborn baby a Hidden Child.  And so, when born, the child is instantly given to distant foster-parents, and by them hidden; and remains so concealed until adolescence.  And, being considered from birth pure and unpolluted, a girl and a boy thus hidden are expected to marry, return to their people when informed by their foster-parents of the truth, and bring a fresh, innocent, and uncontaminated strain into their clan and tribe.

What the Erie said seemed to stun me.  What did this foul creature know of me?  What knowledge had this murdering beast of Lois?  And Amochol—­ what in God’s name did the Red Sorcerer know of us, or of our history?

Even the horrid threat against Lois seemed so fantastic, so unreal, so meaningless, that at the moment. it did not impress me even with its unspeakable wickedness.

The Sagamore touched my arm as though with awe and pity, and I lifted my head.

“Is this true, brother?” he asked gently.

“I do not know if it is,” I said, dazed.

“Then—­ it is the truth.”

“Why do you say that, Mayaro?”

“I know it, now.  I suspected it when your eyes first fell on the Ghost-bear rearing on my breast.  I thought I knew you, there at Major Lockwood’s house in Poundridge.  It was your name, Loskiel, and your knowledge of your red brothers, that stirred my suspicions.  And when I learned that Guy Johnson had sheltered you, then I was surer still.”

“Who, then, am I?” I asked, bewildered.

The three Indians were staring at me as though that murderer aloft on his eyrie did not exist.  I, too, had forgotten him for the moment; and it was only the loud explosion of his smooth-bore that shocked us to the instant necessity of the situation.

The bullet screamed through the leaves above us; we clapped our rifles to our cheeks, striving to glimpse him.  Nothing moved on the rocky shelf.