“Because he does not fear the cold and dark,” said Christopher Gist. “His heart is strong. In marking out lands he lives besides the trail and the forest is his house.”
Scarouady nodded.
“Wah! That is good. He is a warrior. Do you come, Gist, and open the road to the English and close the road to the French.”
“Onondago will permit?” inquired Christopher Gist.
As everybody knew, or should know, the Grand Council of the Six Nations of the Iroquois, at Onondago in New York, would expect to be asked about this matter of white men building houses in the Ohio Country. Scarouady stood up and made a speech.
“For many years, and before I was born,” he said, “the Iroquois have been friends of the English. The first French of Onontio helped the Huron dogs against the Iroquois. The hatchets of the Iroquois have not forgotten. The Iroquois have conquered from the big water to the setting sun, they own the country where the Beautiful River flows, and they give the land beyond the mountains to the English. Scarouady and Gist will set out in the morning to open a short road and carry the word that the English are coming with horses and great guns.”
Scarouady suddenly held out his hand to George Washington, who took it, and Scarouady tested his grip.
“Wah! I have heard the truth,” Scarouady uttered. “Strong hand, strong heart. My young brother is not a squirrel, he is a bear. If his brother is sick, let him himself go upon the road to the Ohio. He has this old hawk for councillor. Now I will sleep.”
So he lay down, and likewise did Robert, with their feet to the fire. But the three white men sat up for some time, talking in English.
They talked of the French who threatened to come down from Canada and seize the Ohio Country, beyond the Alleghany Mountains; of the necessity of holding the country for the English King across the water; of the big tracts of lands west of the mountains and along the Ohio, that had been granted by the King to the Ohio Company; of what Christopher Gist should say to the Mingos, the Delawares, the Wyandots, the Shawnees and the Miamis, to win their friendship; and of the chance of war between the English and the French, to see which should keep the country that both claimed.