ted a
large concourse. "They came together," said the narrator, "along the
creeks, from all parts, to the general council-fire." But what effect
the grand projects of the chief, enforced by the eloquence for which he
was noted, might have had upon his auditors, could not be known. For
there appeared among them a well-known figure, grim, silent and
forbidding, whose terrible aspect overawed the assemblage. The unspoken
displeasure of Atotarho was sufficient to stifle all debate, and the
meeting dispersed. This result, which seems a singular conclusion of an
Indian council--the most independent and free-spoken of all
gatherings--is sufficiently explained by the fact that Atotarho had
organized among the more reckless warriors of his tribe a band of
unscrupulous partisans, who did his bidding without question, and took
off by secret murder all persons against whom he bore a grudge. The
knowledge that his followers were scattered through the assembly,
prepared to mark for destruction those who should offend him, might make
the boldest orator chary of speech. Hiawatha alone was undaunted. He
summoned a second meeting, which was attended by a smaller number, and
broke up as before, in confusion, on Atotarho's appearance. The
unwearied reformer sent forth his runners a third time; but the people
were disheartened. When the day of the council arrived, no one attended.
Then, continued the narrator, Hiawatha seated himself on the ground in
sorrow. He enveloped his head in his mantle of skins, and remained for a
long time bowed down in grief and thought. At length he arose and left
the town, taking his course toward the southeast. He had formed a bold
design. As the councils of his own nation were closed to him, he would
have recourse to those of other tribes. At a short distance from the
town (so minutely are the circumstances recounted) he passed his great
antagonist, seated near a well-known spring, stern and silent as usual.
No word passed between the determined representatives of war and peace;
but it was doubtless not without a sensation of triumphant pleasure that
the ferocious war-chief saw his only rival and opponent in council going
into what seemed to be voluntary exile. Hiawatha plunged into the
forest; he climbed mountains; he crossed a lake; he floated down the
Mohawk river in a canoe. Many incidents of his journey are told, and in
this part of the narrative alone some occurrences of a marvellous cast