could he do? To approach the medicine-man and offer a bribe for an amulet with which to charm Heather Flower would bring only exposure and disgrace; to importune the chieftain, without first obtaining the maiden's consent, was certain to bring only humiliation, and his proud spirit fairly writhed in the contemplation of the rebuff he was certain to meet that he was only a squaw, and if he could not win the consent of the daughter he was not worthy of her affection. Arriving at the brow of the rocky bluff, he surprised a flock of crows who had alighted upon a narrow sand-pit below and were dissecting the carcass of a fish that had been cast up by the waves. Taking aim at one of the fleeing scavengers, he let fly an arrow and the next instant the stricken bird was fluttering upon the bosom of the waves where it had fallen. Descending the cliff, the marksman waited for the bird to drift ashore, and, concealing it about his person, he made his way to his wigwam, where he arrived just as the shadows of evening were falling. The moon, only a silver crescent, was sinking below the western horizon when the young warrior stole with a soundless tread from his lodge, and crept, cat-like among the shadows cast by the clustered wigwams, halting at last at the entrance of his rival's lodge. Only a brief period, and when he stole silently away a dead crow, pierced through with an arrow, was swaying beside the entrance. When Mandush at early dawn emerged from his lodge he found the object which served as a gauntlet fastened to his lodge-pole, a challenge to deadly combat. An examination of the arrow proved its ownership. Not for an instant did he hesitatehe must accept the challenge, or ever after wear the white feather, and be accounted only worthy to be a squaw. Ere the sun had skirted the horizon the bird was hanging to the lodge-pole of his rival's lodge, pierced with a second arrow from the opposite side, a shaft from Mandush's quiver. The gauntlet had been thrown and taken. According to code the challenged had the choice of weapons, and before the sun was an hour in the heavens the rumour spread through the village that Mandush and To-cus were to settle their feud by a duel with knives. The remonstrances of their friends and kinsmen were unavailing. Their meeting in deadly strife could signify naught but the death of one or both, for nothing but the life of the rival would appease the fierce hatred of the other. CHAPTER VI INCONSTANCY "Holy St. Francis! what a change is here! Я GRAND mansion for the period, and the colonies, was Gardiner Hall, the only residence on the Isle of Wight, as its proprietor had named his estate. Lyon Gardiner, late commandant of Saybrook Fort, had an innate dislike for modern dwellings and modern furnishing, and his mansion had been built after an antique style, a copy of the manor in Scotland where many generations of his ancestors had been born, lived and died, and if the old hall, standing grim and grey upon the Scottish coast, had been, like Aladdin's palace, transported across seas and planted upon the green island, the ancient could not have been told from the new. In 1635, late in November, a barque of twenty-five tons, sent by Lords Say and Brook, with Lyon Gardiner on board, with provisions of all sorts to begin a fort, arrived at the mouth of the Connecticut River. Gardiner, an expert engineer, or work-base, who had been employed to superintend the construction of the fort, was a man of worth and great ability, and had served with distinction as a lieutenant in the British army in the Low Countries. He was a staunch Republican, with Hamden, Oliver Cromwell, and others of the same spirit. In 1639 he took possession of and removed to the island he had purchased. The woodland had been cleared of undergrowth for a distance from the hall at a comparatively slight expense, and the forest trees were as grand as those that dotted the Scottish park, and here the deer roamed in all their wild freedom. The building was an irregular, cumbrous structure of grey stone, the main edifice flanked by two wings enclosing a wide court-yard on three sides. There was a keeper's lodge beside the great gate, opening beneath the stone arch, upon which the family coat-of-arms was emblazoned, a mailed hand grasping a battle-axe, with the motto, "Veni, vidi, vici." A strong palisade bristling with sharp, iron spikes enclosed the extensive grounds surrounding the mansion, a long avenue of horse-chestnuts led from the gateway to the ponderous entrance of the central building, a door of oak set deep in the wall, studded with spikes, and hooded by a massive porch supported by thick oak columns. Palisaded and strongly built, it was a veritable stronghold that might serve as a fortress in case of an invasion of hostile Indians of the warlike tribes upon the mainland. And here, in almost regal state, dwelt Lyon Gardiner with his lady and their three children, a son, David, a stripling of athletic mould, and two lovely daughters, Elizabeth and Mary, aged respectively twelve and nine years. The son and eldest daughter had been born at Saybrook Fort, but pretty Mary's birthplace was the beautiful Island of Wight. Four stout yeomen and two bondsmen, all of English birth, and two Mohicans from the region. about the mouth of the Connecticut River, made up the force of plantation hands, and a like number of female servitors were employed about the mansion. Of the latter, three were staunch family servants who emigrated with the family in the barque that brought Lyon Gardiner from England to Saybrook Fort, four were deft-handed, strong-armed dames from the Connecticut colony, and one, named by her master, "Xantippe," an African slave who had been brought from the Virginia plantation in a trading vessel. A stern-faced overseer, one Cyrus Howell, superintended the plantation hands, while Patience, his wife, filled the position of housekeeper at the hall. The couple occupied a one-story frame building adjoining the manor house. Twenty-three souls, men, women, and children, made up the household at the date of which we write, but Gardiner Hall was the very abode of colonial hospitality, and guests were the rule rather than the exception. Damaris Gordon's stay upon the island promised to be an indefinite visit, and Major Gordon, with Guy Kingsland, his prospective son-in-law, made the mansion a kind of headquarters while they made frequent journeys, visiting the villages of the friendly tribes upon the islands and the mainland. Many times Guy Kingsland had crossed to Montauk, sometimes for a day's hunting, but oftener his visit was confined to the lodge of Wyandance, with whom he was on a more familiar footing than the haughty chieftain usually accorded to any of the English race, with the exception of Lyon Gardiner, who had won the entire confidence of the Sachem. On several occasions Kingsland had met Heather Flower, but only in the presence of her father, Wicchi-tau-bit, her mother, or of Damaris Gordon, who |