Well they might! They were destined to behold this woman again, under conditions the most awful of which the human mind can conceive, and to witness savagery almost unbelievable in either man or woman.

The two did not yet know it, but they were looking upon Catharine Montour, daughter of a French Governor General of Canada and an Indian woman, a chieftainess of the Iroquois, and of a memory infamous forever on the border, where she was known as "Queen Esther." Shif'less Sol shuddered again, and whispered to Henry: "I didn't think such women ever lived, even among the Indians." A dozen warriors followed Queen Esther, stepping in single file, and their manner showed that they acknowledged her their leader in every sense.

She was truly an extraordinary woman.

Not even the great Thayendanegea himself wielded a stronger influence among the Iroquois.
In her youth she had been treated as a white woman, educated and dressed as a white woman, and she had played a part in colonial society at Albany, New York, and Philadelphia.

But of her own accord she had turned toward the savage half of herself, had become wholly a savage, had married a savage chief, bad been the mother of savage children, and here she was, at midnight, striding into an Iroquois camp in the wilderness, her head aflame with visions of blood, death, and scalps.
The procession passed with the terrifying female figure still leading, still singing her chant, and the curiosity of Henry and Shif'less Sol was so intense that, taking all risks, they slipped along in the rear to see her entry.
Queen Esther strode into the lighted area of the camp, ceased her chant, and looked around, as if a queen had truly come and was waiting to be welcomed by her subjects.