“She might have done this,” said the Sagamore quietly. “She asked me at Poundridge how this might be accomplished. But when I made it clear to her that it meant her mother’s death, she said no more about it.”

“But pushed on blindly by herself,” I exclaimed, “braving the sombre Northland forests with her little ragged feet — half naked, hungry, friendless, and alone, facing each terror calmly, possessed only of her single purpose! O Sagamore of a warrior clan that makes a history of brave deeds done, can you read in the records of your most ancient wampum a braver history than this?”

He said: “Let what this maid has done be written in the archives of the white men, where are gathered the records of brave but unwise deeds.