uprooted
their corn, but they are more than they were last year, and next year
they will be more than they are now."

He paused again and looked over the circle of his auditors. His eyes
were flashing, and his great figure seemed to swell and grow. Like so
many men of the woods he was a born orator, and practice had increased
his eloquence. A deep, angry murmur came from the crowd. The passion in
their hearts responded to the passion in his voice. Even the white men,
the renegades, black with treason and crime, were moved.

"They will be more next year than they are now," resumed Timmendiquas,
"if we do not drive them back. Our best hunting grounds are there beyond
the Beautiful River, in the land that we call Kain-tuck-ee, and it is
there that the smoke from their cabins lies like a threat across the
sky. It is there that they continually come in their wagons across the
mountains or in the boats down the river.

"The men of our race are brave, they are warriors, they have not yielded
humbly to the coming of the white man. We have fought him many times.
Many of the white scalps are in our wigwams. Sometimes Manitou has given
to us the victory, and again he has given it to this foe of ours who
would eat up our whole country. We were beaten in the attack on the
place they call Wareville, we were beaten again in the attack on the
great wagon train, and we have failed now in our efforts against the
fort and the fleet. Warriors of the allied tribes, is it not so?"

He paused once more, and a deep groan burst from the great circle. He
was playing with the utmost skill upon their emotions, and now every
face clouded as he recalled their failures and losses to them, failures
and losses that they could not afford.

"He is a genius," said Simon Girty to Braxton Wyatt. "I do not like him,
but I will say that he is the greatest man in the west."

"Sometimes I'm afraid of him," said Braxton Wyatt.

The face of Timmendiquas was most expressive. When he spoke of their
defeats his eyes were sad, his features drooped, and his voice took on a
wailing tone. But now he changed suddenly. The head was thrown back, the
chin was thrust out fiercely and aggressively, the black eyes became
coals of fire, and the voice, challenging and powerful, made every heart
in the circle leap up.

"But a true warrior," he said, "never yields. Manitou does not love the
coward. He has given the world, its rivers, its lakes, its forests, and
its game,