The Little Red Foot

by Robert W. Chambers

"I hear you. I listen attentively. I am glad," she said. "And I continue to listen for your voice, my Captain."

"Then—have you talked secretly with the fire-flies?" I asked gravely.

"I have talked with them."

"And have they told you anything, little sister?"

"The fire-flies say that many green-coats and Maquas have gone to Stanwix," she replied seriously, "and that other green-coats,—who now wear red coats,—are following from Oswego."

I nodded: "Sir John's Yorkers," I said to Tahioni.

"Also," she said, "there are with them men in strange uniforms, which are not American, not British."

"What!" I exclaimed, startled in spite of myself.

"Strange men in strange dress," she murmured, "who speak neither English nor French nor Iroquois nor Algonquin."

Then, all in an instant, it came to me what she meant—what Penelope had meant.