“Well! Let it fail, sir. I don’t half understand about this clan business of yours, sir. I don’t approve of it, sir. How will war effect that, sir?”
Colonel Telfair’s ignorance as to the Indian clans was no greater than that of nine-tenths of his fellow citizens, whether of his own times or of later ones, dense ignorance having commonly prevailed not only as to the nature but as to the very existence of the clans.
But Jack knew them. Much had he forgotten, but in the last hour much had come back to him. Thoughts, memories, bits of ritual, learned long before and buried beneath later knowledge, struggled upward through the veil of the years and rose to his lips.
“They—they are like Masonic orders, father,” he began, vaguely. “They know no tribe, no nation. Mohawks and Shawnees and Creeks of the same clan are brothers, and yet—and yet—if the Shawnee sends a war belt to the Creeks, clan ties are suspended—just as between Masons of different nations. But when the battle is over, fraternity brothers are bound to succor each other, bound to ransom each other from the flame. This they may perhaps do by persuading the tribe to adopt them in place of some warrior who has been slain.”
“Humph! I thought they had been adopted already?”
“As members of the clan, yes! Adoption by the tribe is different. It changes the entire blood of him who is adopted. He becomes the man whose name and place he takes, and he is bound to live and fight as his predecessor would have lived and fought and to forget that he ever lived another life. Membership in the clans by birth is strictly in the female line. The women control them and decide who shall be adopted into them.”
“All right. I don’t half understand. But I suppose you do. Anyway, I’m glad you’ve got your membership to help you—Look here, Jack!” An idea had struck the elder man. “D—d if I don’t believe that warrior of yours was Tecumseh himself. I started to speak of it when you first named him. I met Colonel Hawkins—he’s the Indian agent—this morning and he told me that a big chief from the north was down here, powwowing to the Creeks at Takabatchi—urging them to dig up the hatchet, I reckon. Tecumseh was here a year ago, you know. Maybe he’s come back!”
Jack nodded, absently. “Maybe it was Tecumseh, father,” he answered. He had just remembered Sally Habersham and he was wondering if she would grieve when she heard that he had gone away. For a time, perhaps! But not for long. She would have other thoughts to engross her. Jack knew it and was glad to know it. He wanted no one to be unhappy because of him—least of all Sally Habersham. She who had been so kind—so kind—His lips burned at the memory of her kiss. “I’ll prove myself worthy of it!” he swore to himself. “I’ll carry it unsullied to the end. No other woman——”
Telfair broke in. “Damme! sir! What are you moonshining about now?” he roared. “About your cousin Estelle? Bring her back and marry her, Jack. She’s a great heiress, my lad, a great heiress.”
Jack drew himself up. Strangely enough he had thought little about the girl-child for whose sake he was going to undertake the long journey. His father’s words grated on him.