"I think my heart is merciful," she said--"more merciful than even I knew. The restless blood in me set me afire when I saw the wrong done to these patient people of the Long House.... And when they appealed to me I came here to justify them, and bid them stand for their own hearths.... And now you come, teaching me the truth concerning right and wrong, and how God views justice and injustice; and how this tempest, once loosened, can never be chained until innocent and guilty are alike ingulfed.... I am very young to know all these things without counsel.... I needed aid--and wisdom to teach me--your wisdom. Now, in my turn, I shall teach; but you must let me teach in my way. There is only one way that the Long House can be taught.... You do not believe it, but in this I am wiser than you--I know." "Will you not tell me what you mean to do, Magdalen?" "No, Sir George." "When will you tell me?" "Never. But you will know what I have done. You will see that I hold three nations back. What else can you ask? I shall obey you. What more is there?" Her voice lingered in the air like an echo of flowing water, then died away as they moved on, until nothing sounded in the forest stillness save the low ripple of the stream. An hour later I picked my way back to the house and saw Sir George standing in the starlight, and Mount beside him, pointing towards the east. "I've found the False-Faces' trysting-place," said Mount, eagerly, as I came up. "I circled and struck the main Iroquois trail half a mile yonder in the bottom land--a smooth, hard trail, worn a foot deep, sir. And first comes an Onondaga war-party, stripped and painted something sickening, and I dogged 'em till they turned off into the bush to shoot a doe full of arrows--though all had guns!--and left 'em eating. Then comes three painted devils, all hung about with witch-drums and rattles, and I tied to them. And, would you believe it, sir, they kept me on a fox-trot straight east, then south along a deer-path, till they struck the Kennyetto at that sulphur spring under the big cliff--you know, Sir George, where Klock's old line cuts into the Mohawk country?" "I know," said Sir George. Mount took off his cap and scratched his ear. "The forest is full of little heaps of flat stones. I could see my painted friends with the drums and rattles stop as they ran by, and each pull a flat stone from the river and add it to the nearest heap. Then they disappeared in the ravine--and I guess that settles it, Captain Ormond." Sir George looked at me, nodding. "That settles it, Ormond," he said. I bade Mount cook us something to eat. Sir George looked after him as he entered the house, then began a restless pacing to and fro, arms loosely clasped behind him.