So through filth and gnats, heat, toil, and lack of food, I followed
Ambition.
CHAPTER XXX
THE MEANING OP CONQUEST
When I stumbled along the bank of the little stream that marked our rendezvous, I was mud-splashed, torn, and insect-poisoned, and I led a brutish set of ruffians. Yet I heard a muffled cheer roar out as I came into view. The Winnebagoes were in camp and in waiting.
I forgot ache and weariness. The Winnebagoes were fifty in all, picked men, and I looked them over and exulted. Erect and clean-limbed, they were as dignified and wonderful as a row of fir trees, and physically I felt a sorry object beside them. Yet they hailed me as leader, and placing me on a robe of deerskins carried me into camp. They smoked the pipe of fealty with me, and when I slept that night I knew that my dream castles of the last two years were at last shaping into something I could touch and handle. Their glitter was giving way to masonry.
The morning brought the Malhominis, the noon the Chippewas. I hoped for the French and the Pottawatamies by night.
But the night did not bring them, nor the next morning, nor the next day, nor yet the day following.
And in the waiting days I lived in four camps of savages, and it was my duty to cover them with the robe of peace.
The wolf-eyed Sacs, the stately Winnebagoes, the Chippewas, and Malhominis,—they sat like gamecocks, quiet, but alert for a ruffle of one another's plumage. In council they were men; in idleness, children. When I was with them, they talked of war and spoke like senators. When I turned my back they gambled, lied, bragged, and stole. I needed four bodies and uncounted minds.
And I saw how my union was composed. The tribes would unite and destroy the Senecas,—that done, it was probable they would find the game merry, and fall upon one another.