"Until the night-sun comes be these your barriers, O Iroquois!" they chanted. And all answered:
"The Cherry-maid shall lock the gates to the People of the Morning! A-e! ja-e! Wild cherry and cherry that is red!"
Then came the Cherry-maid, a slender creature, hung from head to foot with thick bunches of wild cherries which danced and swung when she walked; and the False-Faces plucked the fruit from her as she passed around, laughing and tossing her black hair, until she had been despoiled and only the garment of sewed leaves hung from shoulder to ankle.
A green blanket was spread for her and she sat down under the branch of witch-hazel.
"The barrier is closed!" she said. "Kindle your coals from Onondaga, O you Keepers of the Central Fire!"
An aged sachem arose, and, lifting his withered arm, swept it eastward.
"The hearth is cleansed," he said, feebly. "Brothers, attend! She-who-runs is coming. Listen!"
A dead silence fell over the throng, broken only by the rustle of the flames. After a moment, very far away in the forest, something sounded like the muffled gallop of an animal, paddy-pad! paddy-pad, coming nearer and ever nearer.
"It's the Toad-woman!" gasped Mount in my ear. "It's the Huron witch! Ah! My God! look there!"
Hopping, squattering, half scrambling, half bounding into the firelight came running a dumpy creature all fluttering with scarlet rags. A coarse mat of gray hair masked her visage; she pushed it aside and raised a dreadful face in the red fire-glow--a face so marred, so horrible, that I felt Mount shivering in the darkness beside me.