grow tall and sweet; and had ordered
his suns to ripen it in the beginning of the harvest-moon, that they
might make a great feast for the strangers, who had come from a far
country on the wings of a great bird to warm themselves at the
Walkullas' fire. He told them they must love the Great Spirit, take care
of the old men(6), tell no lies, and never break the faith of the pipe
of peace; that they must not harm the strangers, for they were their
brothers, but must live in peace with them, and give them lands, and
wives from among their women. If they should do these things, the Great
Spirit, he said, would make their corn grow taller than ever, and direct
them to hunting-grounds where the mooses should be as thick as the
stars.

"Fathers and warriors, we heard these words, but we knew not what to do.
We feared not the Walkullas; the God of War(7), we saw, had given them
into our hands. But who were the strange tribe? Were they armed as we
were, and was their Great Medicine[A] like ours? Warriors, you all knew
the Young Eagle, the son of the Old Eagle, who is here with us; but his
wings are feeble, and he flies no more to the feast of blood. Now, the
Young Eagle feared nothing but shame. He said, 'I see many men sit
around a fire, I will go and see who they are.' He went. The Old Eagle
looks at me as if he would say, Why went not the head warrior himself? I
will tell you. The Mad Buffalo is a head taller than the tallest man of
his tribe. Can the moose crawl into the fox's hole?--can the swan hide
himself under a hazle-leaf? The Young Eagle was little, save in his
soul. He was not full grown, save in his heart. He could go, and not be
seen or heard. He was the cunning black snake, which creeps silently in
the grass, and none think him near till he strikes; not the foolish
rattlesnake, which makes a great noise to let you know he is coming.

[Footnote A: Great Medicine, Supreme Being; medicine simply means a
spirit.]

"He came back, and told us that which made us weep. He told us, there
were many strange men a little way from us, whose faces were white, and
who wore no skins, whose cabins were white as the snow upon the Backbone
of the Great Spirit[A], flat at the top, and moving with the wind like
the reeds on the bank of a river; that they did not talk like the
Walkullas, but spoke a strange tongue, the like of which he had never
heard before. Many of our warriors would have turned back to their own
lands; the Flying