I seated myself beside Dorothy, exchanging a smile with Mount.
"Now," said the General, dropping his voice to a lower tone, "what was it you saw in the forest to-day?"
So Mount had already reported the apparition of the painted savage!
I told what I had seen, describing the Indian in detail, and repeating word for word his warning message to Mount.
The General looked inquiringly at Dorothy. "I understand," he said, "that you know as much about the Iroquois as the Iroquois do themselves."
"I think I do," she said, simply.
"May I ask how you acquired your knowledge, Miss Dorothy?"
"There have always been Iroquois villages along our boundary until last spring, when the Mohawks left with Guy Johnson," she said. "I have always played with Iroquois children; I went to school with Magdalen Brant. I taught among our Mohawks and Oneidas when I was thirteen. Then I was instructed by sachems and I learned what the witch-drums say, and I need use no signs in the six languages or the clan dialects, save only when I speak with the Lenni-Lenape. Maybe, too, the Hurons and Algonquins have words that I know not, for many Tuscaroras do not understand them save by sign."
"I wish that some of my interpreters had your knowledge, or a fifth of it," said the General, smiling. "Tell me, Miss Dorothy, who was that Indian and what did that paint mean?"
"The Indian was Joseph Brant, called Thayendanegea, which means, 'He who holds many peoples together,' or, in plainer words, 'A bundle of sticks.'"