“Now!” he said, when Robert joined him; and he opened a little package that he took from his pouch. “I will make a French Mohawk of you. You can march with them who do not know you in the Mohawk paint. Then maybe you can get ahead of the ambush and find Washington and Scarouady.”
“What do you do?” asked the Hunter.
“I war with the English. If the red-coats caught me now they would kill me. But you can tell Washington and Scarouady to look out.”
With his sharp knife Guyasuta slashed off Robert’s brown hair close to the head and left only a Mohawk scalp-lock. He rubbed reddish grease into the fuzzy crown and daubed the scalp-lock black and red so that it lay stiffly; and he rapidly painted Robert’s face with red and black; and when Robert had slipped off his buckskin shirt he painted his brown chest and arms.
“Here are hatchet and knife, and powder flask and bullet pouch,” said Guyasuta. “You will find plenty gun outside. Go quickly. I do this because my heart is good toward Washington and Scarouady, and you and I are brothers too.”
“Wah!” uttered the Hunter. “I go.”
Then looking like a young Mohawk warrior, for he was straight and well formed, Robert the Hunter boldly ran to the gate and went out among the other Indians bustling to and fro.
All were still painting and arming—jostling to seize the guns piled ready for the taking, and to fill up with powder and lead.
Robert glanced at the top of the wall near the gate. He saw Jim there, clinging fast; and Jim looked down upon him and did not recognize him! Nobody paid any attention to him amid the excitement.
Within the fort drums had been rolling, commands were being shouted. Soldiers stood in line. Here came Beaujeu, in Indian buckskin shirt and leggins and moccasins, upon his head a soft, black hat with brim fastened up at one side by an eagle feather, upon his chest a dangling silver brooch as sign that he was an officer. He was to lead.