"He is a chief of the Hodenosaunee, a great nation of the Eastern Indians, who are allied with the English. He is my brother."
Wiki nodded a third time. He was obviously a man of unusual intellectual ability. His face was thoughtful. His forehead was high, and his deep-set eyes were inscrutable. There was about him nothing of the trickster, the charlatan, the types of most Indian priests or medicine-men. And plainly, he was well-informed. He had an air of concealing more knowledge than he admitted.
"All we ask," I continued, "is permission to rest in your valley before we continue our journey."
An enigmatic smile flickered across Wiki's face. He waved an arm toward the smoke-puffs that were beginning to spurt up from the rocks bordering the defile.
"The Awataba would not let you go as easy as that," he replied. And after a moment: "If you went, you might lead Spaniards to Homolobi."
"We have nothing to do with the Spaniards," I denied.
"You speak their language," he observed.
"So do you. I learned it when I was in the army of the French in Spain."
He shrugged his shoulders.
"You seem to be all things," he remarked. "You are an Englishman, yet you have been a French soldier and in Spain."