arnation is that?"

"A white flag," said Paul. A piece of cloth that had once been white had
been hoisted on the barrel of a rifle at a point about sixty yards away.

"They want a talk with us," said Henry.

"If it's Braxton Wyatt," said Long Jim, "I'd like to take a shot at him,
talk or no talk, an' ef I missed, then take another."

"We'll see what they have to say," said Henry, and he called aloud:
"What do you want with us?"

"To talk with you," replied a clear, full voice, not that of Braxton
Wyatt.

"Very well," replied Henry, "show yourself and we will not fire upon
you."

A tall figure was upraised upon a grassy hummock, and the hands were
held aloft in sign of peace. It was a splendid figure, at least six feet
four inches in height. At that moment some rays of the setting sun broke
through the gray clouds and shone full upon it, lighting up the defiant
scalp lock interwoven with the brilliant red feather, the eagle face
with the curved Roman beak, and the mighty shoulders and chest of red
bronze. It was a genuine king of the wilderness, none other than the
mighty Timmendiquas himself, the great White Lightning of the Wyandots.

"Ware," he said, "I would speak with you. Let us talk as one chief to
another."

The five were amazed. Timmendiquas there! They were quite sure that he
had come up with the second force, and he was certain to prove a far
more formidable leader than either Braxton Wyatt or Moses Blackstaffe.
But his demand to speak with Henry Ware might mean something.

"Are you going to answer him?" said Shif'less Sol.

"Of course," replied Henry.

"The others, especially Wyatt and Blackstaffe, might shoot."

"Not while Timmendiquas holds the flag of truce; they would not dare."

Henry stood up, raising himself to his full height. The same ruddy
sunlight piercing the somber gray of the clouds fell upon another
splendid figure, a boy only in years, but far beyond the average height
of man, his hair yellow, his eyes a deep, clear blue, his body clothed
in buckskin, and his whole attitude that of one without fear. The two,
the white and the red, kings of their kind, confronted each other across
the marsh.

"What do you wish with me, Timmendiquas?" asked Henry. In the presence
of the great Wyandot chief the feeling of hate and revenge that had held
his heart vanished. He knew that Paul and Shif'less Sol would have sunk
under the ruthless tomahawk of Queen Esther, if it had not been for
Whit