To protect Christopher Gist and to show him the way, Robert the Hunter rode beside him southward down the wintry Ohio Valley. Soon they cut west across the country for the town of the Wyandots or Little Mingos, on the upper Muskingum River which means Elk’s Eye.
Here they caught George Croghan and Captain Andrew Montour, who had been giving out presents. The Wyandots were many. They numbered one hundred families, so that Muskingum of eastern Ohio was larger than Logstown.
The English traders were gathering here. The French Ottawas to the north had captured three traders and sent them to Canada. Part of the Wyandots had been in favor of the French of Onontio, but now George Croghan laughed gaily when he shook hands with Christopher Gist.
“Unpack,” he said. “We are brothers. I have raised the flag over my house and over the house of the chief. The Wyandots say that the French have spread evil in the land with their lead plates and are trying to drive out the traders. We are to hold a council soon. After that we will travel together.”
The Wyandots crowded forward to shake hands also with Gist.
“The French of Onontio have broken the chain of friendship,” they said. “Let the English come and live with us. Bring great guns and make a fort.”
When the council was held Christopher Gist and George Croghan and Captain Montour dressed in their best. Captain Montour was as famous as Captain Joncaire, but was better looking. His mother was half French and half Indian, his father was a Seneca; and he stood high in the councils of the Iroquois. He spoke well in the Iroquois tongues, and was white of skin.
At the council he wore a long coat of reddish cloth, a red vest of satin, a white shirt outside his trousers, which were tucked into his shoes and stockings; around his neck a black tie with silver stars, upon his head a tall, hard hat, in his ears brass wire rings plaited like a basket handle; and his face was painted with a broad circle of bear’s grease and blue clay.
He spoke the words of George Croghan, and the Hunter spoke the words of Christopher Gist; and the Wyandots listened.
“We accept the wampum of our brothers from the English of Pennsylvania and of Virginia,” they said. “The French have soiled the peace path.”