And now an old paw-wah, or sachem, passed the pipe he had been smoking to another sitting by his side, and spake as follows:
"Chiefs and braves of the tribe who are ever now allies, and you, the pale faces who dwell to the east of us, hearken unto me. For ere the sun sets to night it shall be, perhaps, that peace is settled between us for ever; ay! until the sun shall rise no more and the moon shall be darkened always."
"Speak," said one of the tribe, while others gave the peculiar grunt of the Indian and those of our party also bade him speak.
"It is good," he answered, "and I will speak of the far-off days when first the pale face came amongst us, though not then as a foe, until even now when, if the great Spirit so wills it, he shall never more be one. For the wrongs that have been done by the one to the other may be atoned for ever now."
He paused a moment to collect his thoughts, as it seemed, and then again he went on: "When first the great waterhouses brought the pale face to our land they brought not enemies but friends. This all know. They came among us and they were welcome. We gave them of the fish of our streams and the beasts of our forests and the fruits of the earth, and in return they gave us the fire-weapons with which to slay the beasts. They taught us also how to prepare them in better ways than we knew, they showed us how to build houses that should be more secure against the sun's heat and the winter's cold than those we made of the red cedar's bark. All was well between us; we were friends. Nay, as all know, we were brothers. We lay on the white man's hearth and he cherished us; he slept in our cabins and wigwams and he was safe. Why remained it not so? Hear me, and I will tell you.
"The white man spake not always truth to us. He told us that our lands were worthless, and he bought them from us for nothing, unless it was the accursed fire-drink which made us mad, or for fire-weapons that in our hands would slay nothing. Yet the lands thrived in his grasp and he possessed them and we had lost them. And when we reproached him he used fire-weapons that slew us without failure, and our prisoners whom he took he sent away for ever across the deep waters.[5] So he took our lands and our men, and got all, and we had nothing. And the Indian never forgets. Thus, while we drew away from where the pale face dwelt, some coming to these mountains and some going even farther towards the unknown land of the setting sun, we had naught to cherish but our revenge, and naught to comfort us but the exercise of that revenge."