"Squirrel pelts," nodded Mount, as I picked up the packet and looked at the sealed cords. The parcel was addressed: "General Barry St. Leger, in camp before Stanwix." I sat down on the grass and began to open it, when a groan from the prostrate prisoner startled me. He had struggled to a sitting posture, and was facing me, eyes bulging from their sockets. Every vestige of color had left his visage. "For God's sake don't open that!" he gasped--"there is naught there, sir--" "Silence!" roared Mount, glaring at him, while Murphy and Elerson, dropping their armfuls of pelts, came across the road to the bank where I sat. "I will not be silent!" screamed the man, rocking to and fro on the ground. "I did not do that!--I know nothing of what that packet holds! A Mohawk runner gave it to me--I mean that I found it on the trail--" The riflemen stared at him in contempt while I cut the strings of the parcel and unrolled the bolt of heavy miller's cloth. At first I did not comprehend what all that mass of fluffy hair could be. A deep gasp from Mount enlightened me, and I dropped the packet in a revulsion of horror indescribable. For the parcel was fairly bursting with tightly packed scalps. In the deathly silence I heard Redstock's hoarse breathing. Mount knelt down and gently lifted a heavy mass of dark, silky hair. At last Elerson broke the silence, speaking in a strangely gentle and monotonous voice. "I think this hair was Janet McCrea's. I saw her many times at Half-moon. No maid in Tryon County had hair like hers." Shuddering, Mount lifted a long braid of dark-brown hair fastened to a hoop painted blue. And Elerson, in that strange monotone, continued speaking: "The hair on this scalp is braided to show that the woman was a mother; the skin stretched on a blue hoop confirms it. "The murderer has painted the skin yellow with red dots to represent tears shed for the dead by her family. There is a death-maul painted below in black; it shows how she was killed." He laid the scalp back very carefully. Under the mass of hair a bit of paper stuck out, and I drew it from the dreadful packet. It was a sealed letter directed to General St. Leger, and I opened and read the contents aloud in the midst of a terrible silence. "SACANDAGA VLAIE, August 17, 1777 "General Barry St. Leger "SIR,--I send you under care of Daniel Redstock the first packet of scalps, cured, dried, hooped, and painted; four dozen in all, at twenty dollars a dozen, which will be eighty dollars. This you will please pay to Daniel Redstock, as I need money for tobacco and rum for the men and the Senecas who are with me. "Return invoice with payment acquitted by the bearer, who will know where to find me. Below I have prepared a true invoice. Your very humble servant, "F. MCCRAW. "Invoice.