chair, so I sat on the button-box.

'He was a clever man. He had got hold of the gossip that the President
meant to make a peace treaty with England at any cost. He had found
out--from Genet, I reckon, who was with the President on the day the two
chiefs met him. He'd heard that Genet had had a huff with the President
and had ridden off leaving his business at loose ends. What he
wanted--what he begged and blustered to know--was just the very words
which the President had said to his gentlemen _after_ Genet had left,
concerning the peace treaty with England. He put it to me that in
helping him to those very words I'd be helping three great countries as
well as mankind. The room was as bare as the palm of your hand, but I
couldn't laugh.

'"I'm sorry," I says, when he wiped his forehead. "As soon as Red Jacket
gives permission----"

'"You don't believe me, then?" he cuts in.

'"Not one little, little word, abbe," I says; "except that you mean to
be on the winning side. Remember, I've been fiddling to all your old
friends for months."

'Well, then, his temper fled him and he called me names.

'"Wait a minute, ci-devant," I says at last. "I _am_ half English and
half French, but I am not the half of a man. I will tell thee something
the Indian told me. Has thee seen the President?"

'"Oh yes!" he sneers, "I had letters from the Lord Lansdowne to that
estimable old man."

'"Then," I says, "thee will understand. The Red Skin said that when thee
has met the President thee will feel in thy heart he is a stronger man
than thee."

'"Go!" he whispers. "Before I kill thee, go."

'He looked like it. So I left him.'

'Why did he want to know so badly?' said Dan.

'The way I look at it is that if he _had_ known for certain that
Washington meant to make the peace treaty with England at any price,
he'd ha' left old Fauchet fumbling about in Philadelphia while he went
straight back to France and told old Danton--"It's no good your wasting
time and hopes on the United States, because she won't fight on our
side--that I've proof of!" Then Danton might have been grateful and
given Talleyrand a job, because a whole mass of things hang on knowing
for sure who's your friend and who's your enemy. Just think of us poor
shopkeepers, for instance.'

'Did Red Jacket let you tell, when he came back?' Una asked.

'Of course not. He said, "When Cornplanter and I ask you what Big Hand
said to the whites you can tell the Lame Chief.