"The fact is," he said, "I've been sniffing at moccasin tracks for the last hour, up hill, down dale, over the ford, where I lost them, then circled and picked them up again on the moss a mile below the bridge. If I read them right, they were Mohawk tracks and made within the hour, and how that skulking brute got away from me I cannot think." He looked at us in an injured manner, for we were striving not to smile. "I'm counted a good tracker," he muttered. "I'm as good as Walter Butler or Tim Murphy, and my friend, the Weasel, now with Morgan's riflemen, is no keener forest-runner than am I. Oh, I do not mean to brag, or say I can match my cunning against such a human bloodhound as Joseph Brant." He paused, in hurt surprise, for we were laughing. And then I told him of the Indian and what message he had sent by us, and Mount listened, red as a pippin, gnawing his lip. "I am glad to know it," he said. "This will be evil news to General Schuyler, I have no doubt. Lord! but it makes me mad to think how close to Brant I stood and could not drill his painted hide!" "He spared you," I said. "That is his affair," muttered Mount, striding on angrily. "There speaks the obstinate white man, who can see no good in any savage," whispered Dorothy. "Nothing an Indian does is right or generous; these forest-runners hate them, distrust them, fear them--though they may deny it--and kill all they can. And you may argue all day with an Indian-hater and have your trouble to pay you. Yet I have heard that this man Mount is brave and generous to enemies of his own color." We had now come to the road in front of the house, and Mount set his cap rakishly on his head, straightened cape and baldrick, and ran his fingers through the gorgeous thrums rippling from sleeve and thigh. "I'd barter a month's pay for a pot o' beer," he said to me. "I learned to drink serving with Cresap's riflemen at the siege of Boston; a godless company, sir, for an innocent man to fall among. But Morgan's rifles are worse, Mr. Ormond; they drink no water save when it rains in their gin toddy." "Sir Lupus says you tried to join them," said Dorothy, to plague him. "So I did, Mistress Varick, so I did," he stammered; "to break 'em o' their habits, ma'am. Trust me, if I had that corps I'd teach 'em to let spirits alone if I had to drink every drop in camp to keep 'em sober!" "There's beer in the buttery," she said, laughing; "and if you smile at Tulip she'll see you starve not." "Nobody," said I, "goes thirsty or hungry at Varick Manor." "Indeed, no," said Dorothy, much amused, as old Cato came down the path, hat in hand. "Here, Cato! do you take Captain Mount and see that he is comfortable and that he lacks nothing." So, standing together in the stockade gateway, we watched Cato conducting Mount towards the quarters behind the guard-house, then walked on to meet the children, who came dancing down the driveway to greet us.