horse-holding is a nigger's job. Besides, I wasn't exactly dressed for it.' 'D'you mean you were dressed like an Indian?' Dan demanded. Pharaoh looked a little abashed. 'This didn't happen at Lebanon,' he said, 'but a bit farther north, on the Reservation; and at that particular moment of time, so far as blanket, hair-band, moccasins, and sunburn went, there wasn't much odds 'twix me and a young Seneca buck. You may laugh,' he smoothed down his long-skirted brown coat. 'But I told you I took to their ways all over. I said nothing, though I was bursting to let out the war-whoop like the young men had taught me.' 'No, and you don't let out one here, either,' said Puck before Dan could ask. 'Go on, Brother Square-toes.' 'We went on.' Pharaoh's narrow dark eyes gleamed and danced. 'We went on--forty, fifty miles a day, for days on end--we three braves. And how a great tall Indian a-horseback can carry his war-bonnet at a canter through thick timber without brushing a feather beats _me_! My silly head was banged often enough by low branches, but they slipped through like running elks. We had evening hymn-singing every night after they'd blown their pipe-smoke to the quarters of Heaven. Where did we go? I'll tell you, but don't blame me if you're no wiser. We took the old war-trail from the end of the Lake along the East Susquehanna through the Nantego country, right down to Fort Shamokin on the Senachse river. We crossed the Juniata by Fort Granville, got into Shippensberg over the hills by the Ochwick trail, and then to Williams Ferry (it's a bad one). From Williams Ferry, across the Shanedore, over the Blue Mountains, through Ashby's Gap, and so south-east by south from there, till we found the President at the back of his own plantations. I'd hate to be trailed by Indians in earnest. They caught him like a partridge on a stump. After we'd left our ponies, we scouted forward through a woody piece, and, creeping slower and slower, at last if my moccasins even slipped Red Jacket 'ud turn and frown. I heard voices--Monsieur Genêt's for choice--long before I saw anything, and we pulled up at the edge of a clearing where some niggers in grey and red liveries were holding horses, and half-a-dozen gentlemen--but one was Genêt--were talking among felled timber. I fancy they'd come to see Genêt a piece on his road, for his portmantle was with him. I hid in between two logs as near to the company as I be to that old windlass there. I didn't need anybody to show me Big Hand. He stood up, very still, his legs a little apart, listening to Genêt, that French Ambassador, which never had more manners than a Bosham tinker. Genêt was as good as ordering him to declare war on England at once. I had heard that clack before on the _Embuscade_. He said he'd stir up the whole United States to have war with England, whether Big Hand liked it or not.