“Fathers and warriors, we heard these words; but we knew not what to do. We feared not the Walkullas; the God of War, we saw, had given them into our hands. But who were the strange tribe? Were they armed as we were, and was their Great Medicine (Great Spirit) like ours? Warriors, you all knew the Young Eagle, the son of the Old Eagle, who is here with us; but his wings are feeble, he flies no more to the field of blood. The Young Eagle feared nothing but shame, and he said—
“‘I see many men sit round a fire, I will go and see who they are!’
“He went. The Old Eagle looks at me as if he would say, ‘Why went not the chief warrior himself?’ I will tell you. The Head Buffalo is a head taller than the tallest man of his tribe. Can the moose crawl into the fox’s hole? Can the swan hide himself under a little leaf? The Young Eagle was little, save in his soul. He was not full-grown, save in his heart. He could go and not be seen or heard. He was the cunning black-snake which creeps silently in the grass, and none thinks him near till he strikes.
“He came back and told us there were many strange men a little way before us whose faces were white, and who wore no skins, whose cabins were white as the snow upon the Backbone of the Great Spirit (the Alleghany Mountains), flat at the top, and moving with the wind like the reeds on the bank of a river; that they did not talk like the Walkullas, but spoke a strange tongue, the like of which he had never heard before. Many of our warriors would have turned back to our own lands. The Flying Squirrel said it was not cowardice to do so; but the Head Buffalo never turns till he has tasted the blood of his foes. The Young Eagle said he had eaten the bitter root and put on the new moccasins, and had been made a man, and his father and the warriors would cry shame on him if he took no scalp. Both he and the Head Buffalo said they would go and attack the Walkullas and their friends alone. The young warriors then said they would also go to the battle, and with a great heart, as their fathers had done. Then the Shawanos rushed upon their foes.
“The Walkullas fell before us like rain in the summer months. We were as a fire among rushes. We went upon them when they were unprepared, when they were as children; and for a while the Great Spirit gave them into our hands. But a power rose up against us that we could not withstand. The strange men came upon us armed with thunder and lightning. Why delays my tongue to tell its story? Fathers, your sons have fallen like the leaves of a forest-tree in a high wind, like the flowers of spring after a frost, like drops of rain in the sturgeon moon! Warriors, the sprouts which sprang up from the withered oaks have perished, the young braves of our nation lie food for the eagle and the wild-cat by the arm of the Great Lake!
“Fathers, the bolt from the strangers’ thunder entered my flesh, yet I did not fly. These six scalps I tore from the Walkullas, but this has yellow hair. Have I done well?”
The head chief and the counsellors answered he had done very well, but Chenos answered—
“No. You went into the Walkullas’ camp when the tribe were feasting to the Great Spirit, and you disturbed the sacrifice, and mixed human blood with it. Therefore has this evil come upon us, for the Great Spirit is very angry.”
Then the head chief and the counsellors asked Chenos what must be done to appease the Master of Breath.
Chenos answered—