eal and in a clear, beautiful voice that carried
like a trumpet. After the first minute, all embarrassment and hesitation
passed away, and his gift shone, resplendent. The freshness and fervor
of youth were added to the logic and power of maturer years, and golden
words flowed from his lips. The Indians, always susceptible to oratory,
leaned forward, attentive and eager. The eyes of the fifty sachems began
to shine and the fierce and implacable Mohawks, who would not relax a
particle for any of the others, nodded with approval, as the speaker
played upon the strings of their hearts.

He dwelled less upon the friendship of the English than upon the
hostility of the French. He knew that Champlain and Frontenac were far
away in time, but near in the feelings of the Hodenosaunee, especially
the Mohawks, the warlike Keepers of the Eastern Gate. He said that while
the French had often lived with the Indians, and sometimes had married
Indian women, it was not with the nations of the Hodenosaunee, but with
their enemies, Huron, Caughnawaga, St. Regis, Ojibway and other savages
of the far west. Onontio could not be the friend of their foes and their
friends also. Manitou had never given to any man the power to carry
water on both shoulders in such a manner.

The promises of the French to the great nations of the League had never
been kept. He and Willet, the hunter whom they called the Great Bear,
and the brave young warrior, Tayoga, whom they all knew, had just
returned from the Stadacona of the Mohawks, which the French had seized,
and where they had built their capital, calling it Quebec. They had
covered it with stone buildings, palaces, fortresses and churches, but,
in truth and right, it was still the Stadacona of the Mohawks. When
Tayoga and Willet and he walked there, they saw the shades of the great
Mohawk sachems of long ago, come down from the great shining stars on
which they now lived, to confound the French, and to tell the children
of the Ganeagaono never to trust them.

Stirred beyond control, a fierce shout burst from the nine Mohawk
sachems. It was the first time within the memory of the council that any
of its members had given evidence of feeling, while a question lay
before it, but their cry touched a common chord of sympathy. Applause
swept the crowd, and then, deep silence coming again, the orator
continued, his fervor and power increasing as he knew now that all the
nations of the Hodenosaunee were with