Taken aback, I stared at the young warrior for a moment, then, recovering composure, I translated for Nick what he had just told me.
Then I turned again to Tahioni, the Wolf:
"Where is this same war-party?" I demanded, still scarce convinced.
"At West River, near the Big Eddy," said he. "They have taken scalps."
"Why—why, then, it is war!" I exclaimed excitedly. "And what people are these who have taken scalps in the North? Are they Caniengas?"
"Mohawks!" He fairly spat out the insulting term, which no friendly Iroquois would dream of using to a Canienga; and the contemptuous word seemed to inflame the other Oneidas, for they all picked up their rifles and crowded around me, watching my face with gleaming eyes.
"How many?" I asked, still a little stunned by this reality, though I had long foreseen the probability.
"Thirty," said the girl Thiohero, turning from Nick, to whom she had been translating what was being said in the Oneida tongue.
Now, in a twinkling, I found myself faced with an instant crisis, and must act as instantly.
I had two good men on Maxon, the French trapper, Johnny Silver and Benjamin De Luysnes; Nick and I counted two more. With four Oneida, and perhaps Joe de Golyer and Godfrey Shew—if we could pick them up on the Vlaie—we would be ten stout men to stop this Mohawk war-party until the garrisons at Summer House Point and Fish House could drive the impudent marauders North again.