There was, just below us, a string of rocks crossing the stream. I sprang from one to another and came out on their bank of the creek; and Nick followed, leaping the boulders like a lithe tree-cat. The Oneidas, who had been seated, rose as I came up to them. I gave my hand to each of them in turn, until I faced the girl. And then I hesitated. For never anywhere, among any nation of the Iroquois Confederacy, had I seen any woman so costumed, painted, and accoutred. For this girl looked more like a warrior than a woman; and, save for her slim and hard young body's shape, and her full hair, must have passed for an adolescent wearing his first hatchet and his first touch of war paint. She, also, was naked to the waist, her breasts scarce formed. Two braids of hair lay on her shoulders, and her skin was palely bronzed and smooth in its oil, as amber without a flaw. But she wore leggins of doe-skin, deeply fringed with pale green and cinctured in at her waist, where war-axe and knife hung on her left thigh, and powder horn and bullet pouch on her right. And over these she wore knee moccasins of green snake-skin, the feet of which were deer-hide sewn thick with scarlet, purple, and greenish wampum, which glistened like a humming-bird's throat. I said, wondering: "Who is this girl in a young warrior's dress, who wears a disk of blue war-paint on her forehead?" But Nick pulled my arm and said in my ear: "Have you heard of the little maid of Askalege? Yonder she stands, thank God! For the Oneida follow their prophetess; and the Oneida are with us in this war if she becomes our friend!" I had heard of the little Athabasca girl, found in the forest by Skenandoa and Spencer, and how she grew up like a boy at Askalege, with the brave half-breed interpreter, Thomas Spencer; and how it was her delight to roam the forests and talk--they said--to trees and beasts by moonlight; how she knew the language of all things living, and could hear the tiny voices of the growing grass! Legends and fairy tales, but by many believed. Yet, Sir William had seen the child at Askalege dancing in the stream of sparks that poured from Spencer's smithy when the Oneida blacksmith pumped his home-made bellows or struck fire-flakes from the cherry-red iron. I said: "Are you sure, Nick? For never have I seen an Indian maid play boy in earnest." "She is the little witch-maid of Askalege--their prophetess," he repeated. "I saw her once at Oneida Lake, dancing on the shore amid a whirl of yellow butterflies at their strawberry feast. God send she favours our party, for the Oneidas will follow her." I turned to the girl, who was standing quietly beside a young silver birch-tree. "Who are you, my sister, who wear a little blue moon on your brow, and the dress and weapons of an adolescent?"