“This,” said Boyd slowly; “and this is the real secret with which I am charged—­ a secret not to be entrusted to paper—­ a secret which you, sir, and even my comrade, Mr. Loskiel, now learn for the first time.  May I speak with safety in this room, Major?”

The Major rose, opened the door into the hall, dismissed the sentry, closed and locked the door, and returned to us.

“I am,” he said smiling, “almost ashamed to make so much circumstance over a small matter of which you have doubtless heard.  I mean that the lower party has seen fit to distinguish me by placing a price upon my very humble head; and as I am not only Major in Colonel Thomas’s regiment, but also a magistrate, and also, with my friend Lewis Morris, a member of the Provincial Assembly, and of the Committee of Safety, I could not humour the lower party by permitting them to capture so many important persons in one net,” he added, laughing.  “Now, sir, pray proceed.  I am honoured by General Clinton’s confidence.”

“Then, sir,” said Boyd very gravely, “this is the present matter as it stands.  His Excellency has decided on a daring stroke to be delivered immediately; General Sullivan has been selected to deal it, General Clinton is to assist.  A powerful army is gathering at Albany, and another at Easton and Tioga.  The enemy know well enough that we are concentrating, and they have guessed where the blow is to be struck.  But, sir, they have guessed wrong!”

“Not Canada, then?” inquired the Major quietly.

“No, sir.  We demonstrate northward; that is all.  Then we wheel west by south and plunge straight into the wilderness, swift as an arrow files, directly at the heart of the Long House!”

“Sir!” he exclaimed, astonished.

“Straight at the heart o! the Iroquois Confederacy, Major!  That is what is to be done—­ clean out, scour out, crush, annihilate those hell-born nations which have so long been terrorizing the Northland.  Major Lockwood, you have read in the New England and Pennsylvania papers how we have been threatened, how we have been struck, how we have fought and suffered.  But you, sir, have only heard; you have not seen.  So I must tell you now that it is far worse with us than we have admitted.  The frontier of New York State is already in ashes; the scalp yell rings in our forests day and night; and the red destructives under Brant, and the painted Tories under Walter Butler, spare neither age nor sex—­ for I myself have seen scalps taken from the tender heads of cradled infants—­ nay, I have seen them scalp the very hound on guard at the cabin door!  And that is how it goes with us, sir.  God save you, here, from the blue-eyed Indians!”

He stopped, hesitated, then, softly smiting one fist within the other: