that the chiefs were here only to carry out
their own purposes and make mock of every offering of peace.

After several moments of this painful silence, the chief with the long
white hair deliberately lighted a large pipe drawn from his belt. It
was curiously and grotesquely fashioned, the huge bowl carved to
resemble the head of a bear. He drew from the stem a single thick
volume of smoke, breathed it out into the air, and solemnly passed the
pipe to the warrior seated upon his right. With slow deliberation, the
symbol moved around the impassive and emotionless circle, passing from
one red hand to another, until it finally came back to him who had
first lighted it. Without so much as a word being uttered, he gravely
offered it to Captain Heald. I heard, and understood, the quick sigh
of relief with which my companion grasped it; he drew a breath of the
tobacco, and I followed his example, handing back the smoking pipe to
the white-haired chief without rising, amid the same impressive silence.

The Indian leader spoke for the first time, his voice deep and guttural.

"The Pottawattomies have met in council with the White Chief and the
Long Knife," he said soberly, "and have smoked together the peace-pipe.
For what have the white men come to disturb Gomo and his warriors?"

I gazed at him with new interest. No name of savage chief was wider
known along the border in those days, none more justly feared by the
settlers. He was a tall, spare, austere man, his long coarse hair
whitened by years, but with no stoop in his figure. His eyes, small
and keen, blazed with a strange ferocity, as I have seen those of
wildcats in the dark; while his flesh was drawn so closely against his
prominent cheek-bones as to leave an impression of ghastliness, as of a
corpse suddenly returned by some miracle to life. With dabs of paint
across the forehead, and thin lips drawn in a narrow line of cruelty,
his face formed a picture to be long remembered with a shudder.

It was easy enough to see that Captain Heald felt uncertain how far to
venture in his proposals, though he spoke up boldly, and with no tremor
in his voice. His long frontier experience had taught him the danger
that lay in exhibiting timidity in the face of Indian scorn.

"Gomo," he said firmly, "and you other Chiefs of the Pottawattomies,
there has never been war between us. We have traded together for many
seasons; you have eaten at my table, and I have rested by