Gi-en-gwa-tah could not speak: surprise had struck him dumb.
Mahaska looked around the room with an air of queenly satisfaction. A great oaken chest, clamped with brass, stood in the room. She lifted the lid, revealing a glittering store of beads, knives, gorgeous stuffs and embroidered blankets. She filled her arms with these things and went forth among the people on the lawn, to whom she distributed them generously, buying golden opinions with every lift of her hand.
“It is the great Mineto who sends them to his chosen tribe; see what care he takes of my people.”
The savages gave their simple hearts to this woman, whose powers they considered divine.
CHAPTER VII
THE FIRST STORM.
Some new trouble had again broken out with a neighboring tribe, and Gi-en-gwa-tah went with a band of warriors to desolate their territory.
Mahaska, ever on the alert, perceived that a favorable moment had arrived for bringing the great body of chiefs to her views in regard to the English alliance. She had been craftily at work for weeks, but now she intended to urge her cause with boldness.
Delegates from several of the Six Nations chanced to be there, and that, added to the absence of Gi-en-gwa-tah, rendered the time a favorable one for acting promptly. She feared the honest rectitude of the chief, and knew that he would have great influence among the people; so she trusted to having matters so far settled before his return that any opposition on his part would prove useless.
The old chiefs were debating about the council-fire upon some unimportant matter. She sent them word, by one of her honorary body-guard, that she was coming to hold a consultation. Mahaska had appropriated to herself a guard of one hundred warriors, to be always at her command. When she wished to go upon the war-path the band swelled to twice that number, and, during all the after years of her life, it was a mark of high distinction to be chosen a member of that body.
She had not yet gone personally into battle, though the time came when there was no carnage in which she did not take part—when for years and years her very name was a sickening terror among the whites, and the sight of one of the white queen’s private guard was a signal for coming slaughter which knew neither distinction nor mercy.