t of beautifully tanned deerskin, with blanket of bright color looped
gracefully over the shoulder. In one of the rows in a group sat the six
renegades, Girty, Blackstaffe, McKee, Eliot, Quarles, and Braxton Wyatt.
Every man was bent forward in the stooped formal attitude of one who
listens, and every one had the stem of a pipe in his mouth.

In one group sat the chiefs of the Ottawas, the most distant of the
tribes, dwellers on the far shores of Lake Huron, sometimes fish-eaters,
and fugitives at an earlier day from the valley of the Ottawa River in
Canada, whence they took their name. The word "Ottawa" in their language
meant "trader," and they had received it in their ancient home because
they had ideas of barter and had been the "go betweens" for other
tribes. They worshiped the sun first and the stars second. Often they
held festivals to the sun, and asked his aid in fishing and hunting.
They occupied a secondary position in the Ohio Valley because they were
newer and were not as fierce and tenacious in war as the older tribes.
Ottawa chiefs did not thrust themselves forward, and when they spoke it
was in a deprecatory way.

Next to the Wyandots were the Illinois, who lived in the valley of the
Illinois and who were not numerous. They had been beaten often in tribal
wars, until their spirit lacked that fine exaltation which means
victory. Like the Ottawas, they felt that they should not say much, but
should listen intently to the words of the chiefs who sat with them, and
who represented great warrior nations.

Next to the Illinois were the Delawares, or, in their own language, the
Lenni Lenape, who also were an immigrant race. Once they had dwelt much
farther east, even beyond the mountains, but many warlike tribes,
including the great league of the Iroquois, the Six Nations, had made
war upon them, had reduced their numbers, and had steadily pushed them
westward and further westward, until they reached the region now called
Ohio. Here their great uncles, the Wyandots, received them with
kindness, told them to rest in peace and gave them extensive lands, fine
for hunting, along the Muskingum River.

The Lenni Lenape throve in the new land and became powerful again. But
never in their darkest days, when the world seemed to be slipping
beneath their feet, had they lost the keen edge of their spirit. The
warrior of the Lenni Lenape had always been willing to laugh in the face
of flames and the stake, and now, as t