e, for this strange
weapon was a combination of sun and shadow; it held within itself the
unique capabilities of being a tomahawk, the most savage instrument in
Indian warfare, and also a peace pipe, that most beautiful of all Indian
treasures.

"It is so strange," said the boy, fingering the weapon lovingly. "Your
people are the most terrible on the warpath of all the nations in the
world, yet they seem to think more of that word 'peace,' and to honor it
more, than all of us put together. Why, you even make silver chains for
emblems of peace, like this," and he tangled his slim fingers in the
links that looped from the lower angle of the steel edge to the handle.

"Yes," replied Queetah, "we value peace; it is a holy word to the red
man, perhaps because it is so little with us, because we know its face
so slightly. The face of peace has no fiery stripes of color, no streaks
of the deadly black and red, the war paints of the fighting Mohawks. It
is a face of silver, like this chain, and when it smiles upon us, we
wash the black and red from off our cheeks, and smoke this pipe as a
sign of brotherhood with all men."

"Brotherhood with all men," mused the boy, aloud. "We palefaces have
no such times, Queetah. Some of us are always at war. If we are not
fighting here, we are fighting beyond the great salt seas. I wish we had
more of your ways, Queetah--your Indian ways. I wish we could link a
silver chain around the world; we think we are the ones to teach, but I
believe you could teach us much. Will you not teach me now? Tell me the
story of this tomahawk. I may learn something from it--something of
Indian war, peace and brotherhood."

"The story is yours to hear," said the Mohawk, "if you would see how
peace grows out of deeds of blood, as the blue iris grows from the
blackness of the swamp; but it is the flower that the sun loves, not
the roots, buried in the darkness, from which the blossom springs. So
we of the red race say that the sun shines on peace alone, not the
black depths beneath it."

The Mohawk paused and locked his hands about his knees, while the boy
stretched himself at full length and stared up at the far sky beyond the
interlacing branches overhead. He loved to lie thus, listening to the
quaint tales of olden days that Queetah had stored up in his wonderful
treasure-house of memory. Everything the Indian possessed had associated
with it some wild tale of early Canadian history, some strange
half-f