"You are certain it was Brant?"
"Yes. He has dined at this table with us. He is an educated man." She hesitated, looking down thoughtfully at her own reflection in the polished table. "The paint he wore was not war-paint. The signs on his body were emblems of the secret clan called the 'False-Faces.'"
The General looked up at Jack Mount.
"What did Stoner say?" he asked.
"Stoner reports that all the Iroquois are making ready for some unknown rite, sir. He saw pyramids of flat river-stones set up on hills and he saw smoke answering smoke from the Adirondack peaks to the Mayfield hills."
"What did Timothy Murphy observe?" asked Schuyler, watching Mount intently.
"Murphy brings news of their witch, Catrine Montour, sir. He. chased her till he dropped--like all the rest of us--but she went on and on a running, hop! tap! hop! tap! and patter, patter, patter! It stirs my hair to think on her, and I'm no coward, sir. We call her 'The Toad-woman.'"
"I'll make you chief of scouts if you catch her," said the General, sharply.
"Very good, sir," replied Mount, pulling a wry face, which made us all laugh.
"It has been reported to me," said the General, quietly, "that the Butlers, father and son, are in this county to attend a secret council; and that, with the help of Catrine Montour, they expect to carry the Mohawk nation with them as well as the Cayugas and the Senecas.