"It will take too long to do my hair. Oh, tell me! You have frightened me." "It is nothing to frighten you," I said. "Put off your armor and come to my door. Will you promise?" "Ye-es," she faltered; and I turned and hastened to my own chamber, to prepare for the business which lay before me. I dressed rapidly, my thoughts in a whirl; but I had scarcely slung powder-horn and pouch, and belted in my hunting-shirt, when there came a rapping at the door, and I opened it and stepped out into the dim hallway. At sight of me she understood, and turned quite white, standing there in her boudoir-robe of China silk, her heavy, burnished hair in two loose braids to her waist. In silence I lifted her listless hands and kissed the fingers, then the cold wrists and palms. And I saw the faint circlet of the ghost-ring on her bridal finger, and touched it with my lips. Then, as I stepped past her, she gave a low cry, hiding her face in her hands, and leaned back against the wall, quivering from head to foot. "Don't go!" she sobbed. "Don't go--don't go!" And because I durst not, for her own sake, turn or listen, I reeled on, seeing nothing, her faint cry ringing in my ears, until darkness and a cold wind struck me in the face, and I saw horses waiting, black in the starlight, and the gigantic form of a man at their heads, fringed cape blowing in the wind. "All ready?" I gasped. "All is ready and the night fine! We ride by Broadalbin, I think.... Whoa! back up! you long-eared ass! D'ye think to smell a Mohawk?... Or is it your comrades on the picket-rope that bedevil you?... Look at the troop-horses, sir, all a-rolling on their backs in the sand, four hoofs waving in the air. It's easier on yon sentry than when they're all a-squealin' and a-bitin'--This way, sir. We swing by the bush and pick up the Iroquois trail 'twixt the Hollow and Mayfield." XIV ON DUTY As we galloped into Broadalbin Bush a house on our right loomed up black and silent, and I saw shutters and doors swinging wide open, and the stars shining through. There was something sinister in this stark and tenantless homestead, whose void casements stared, like empty eye-sockets. "They have gone to the Middle Fort--all of them except the Stoners," said Mount, pushing his horse up beside mine. "Look, sir! See what this red terror has already done to make a wilderness of County Try on--and not a blow struck yet!" We passed another house, doorless, deserted; and as I rode abreast of it, to my horror I saw two shining eyes staring out at me from the empty window. "A wolf--already!" muttered Mount, tugging at his bridle as his horse sheered off, snorting; and I saw something run across the front steps and drop into the shadows.