after
smoking the pipe of peace with the Saganaw? Why did he destroy the
wigwams of the settlers, and carry off the scalps even of their weak
women and children? All this has the Ottawa done; and yet he says that
he wished to be friendly with my young men. But the Saganaw is not a
fool. He knows the Ottawa chief had no will of his own. On the right
hand of the Ottawa sits the great chief of the Delawares, and on his
left the great chief of the Shawanees. They have long been the sworn
enemies of the Saganaw; and they came from the rivers that run near the
salt lake to stir up the red skins of the Detroit to war. They
whispered wicked words in the ear of the Ottawa chief, and he
determined to take up the bloody hatchet. This is a shame to a great
warrior. The Ottawa was a king over all the tribes in the country of
the fresh lakes, and yet he weakly took council like a woman from
another."

"My father lies!" fiercely retorted the warrior, half springing to his
feet, and involuntarily putting his hand upon his tomahawk. "If the
settlers of the Saganaw have fallen," he resumed in a calmer tone,
while he again sank upon his mat, "it is because they did not keep
their faith with the red skins. When they came weak, and were not yet
secure in their strong holds, their tongues were smooth and full of
soft words; but when they became strong under the protection of their
thunder, they no longer treated the red skins as their friends, and
they laughed at them for letting them come into their country." "But,"
he pursued, elevating his voice, "the Ottawa is a great chief, and he
will be respected." Then adverting in bitterness to the influence
supposed to be exercised over him,--"What my father has said is false.
The Shawanees and the Delawares are great nations; but the Ottawas are
greater than any, and their chiefs are full of wisdom. The Shawanees
and the Delawares had no talk with the Ottawa chief to make him do what
his own wisdom did not tell him."

"Then, if the talk came not from the Shawanees and the Delawares, it
came from the spies of the warriors of the pale flag. The great father
of the French was angry with the great father of the Saganaw, because
he conquered his warriors in many battles; and he sent wicked men to
whisper lies of the Saganaw into the ears of the red skins, and to make
them take up the hatchet against them. There is a tall spy at this
moment in the camp of the red skins," he pursued with earnestness, a