The Andastes scowled and bunched closer together, with a tentative poising of weapons. Tawannears drew his tomahawk and held it aloft.
"I am Tawannears, Warden of the Western Door," he said slowly. "I am fresh come from Deonundagaa. Say which it is to be, Andastes, peace or war?"
They shrank away from him. All save two or three disappeared into the lodges or the forest. But they had no thought of violence. The heart was taken out of them. Tawannears was more than Tawannears. He was the embodiment of that dread power which these inferior savages knew could carry annihilation in any direction and almost to any distance north, south and west. He stood there, ax upraised, the spirit of the Long House, which even the white men feared.
The Andaste chief lowered his eyes.
"We do not want war," he answered. "Take the canoe. We found it. We did not know——"
"You know that you have no rights here," Tawannears cut him off. "This is the hunting ground of the Long House. Here, too, may come Mohicans, Eries and the People of the Cat.* But Andastes belong in the Susquehanna valley. Get back there. If I find you here when I pass this way again, I will carry fire and tomahawk against you and all your people."
* Jegosasa, sometimes called Neuter Nation.
He turned on his heel, and with a gesture to us, stalked down to the shore and pushed the canoe into the water.
"Let us go on, brothers," he urged. "Here the air is unclean."
He took the bow paddle, and I crouched amidships. Corlaer, gentle as a girl for all his bulk, slipped gingerly into the stern. Their blades bit into the shallow water, and under the impulse of those slow, easy strokes, the light craft fairly danced downstream, gaining speed as it caught the drift of the current. We rounded a curve, and the Andaste encampment disappeared from view.