“What!”

“I am more than twice your age. You were then three years old.”

In my astonishment it occurred to me that instead of twenty-two I was now twenty-five years of age, if what the Mohican said were true.

“Listen, Loskiel, blood-brother of mine, for you shall hear the truth now — the truth which Guy Johnson never told you.

“It was in ‘57; Munro lay at Fort William Henry; Webb at Fort Edward; and Montcalm came down from the lakes with his white-coats and Hurons and shook his sword at Munro and spat upon Webb.

“Then came Sir William Johnson to Webb with half a thousand Iroquois. And because Sir William was the only white man we Delawares trusted, and in spite of his Iroquois, three Mohicans offered their services —