"Who are they?" I questioned, as anxious as a small boy for further details.
"The Ho-nun-ne-gwen-ne-yuh," he repeated. "So far as we know, Master Ormerod—and we know only what our agents have been able to learn at second and third hand—they are bands of mercenaries, Cahnuagas, Adirondacks and Shawendadies, all renegades of the Iroquois, who are retained by Murray to protect the Trail.
"They roam that belt of forest you saw depicted on the map, and 'tis death for them to find any man, white or red, within it, save he bears Murray's sign manual. The Indians are a superstitious people, and they have come to believe that there is some supernatural agency behind the Keepers of the Trail. In plain English, they fear the Trail is haunted."
"By what?"
He shrugged his shoulders.
"You would have to make a more profound study of their folk-lore than I have been able to in order to comprehend the precise gist of their belief. But they tell us that the False Faces, a race of demons from the underworld, to whom Murray has sold his soul, have rallied to his aid."
"Ridiculous!" I exclaimed.
"No doubt," assented the surveyor-general; "but the superstition is a factor in the problem."
"At every turn we run against the shrewdness and wit of this fellow Murray," exploded the governor. "'Tis at once a tribute to his ability, and perhaps an index to our inferiority, that we have never been able to secure certain information of his operations."
"'Tis evident, your Excellency," I ventured, "that the Lords of Trade will accept only positive evidence that he hath evaded the law."