"Why have my white brothers stolen in at night upon the village of War Eagle and slain his young men?"
"It is what you have been doing all last year, chief," Pearson, who spoke the dialect better than Peter, replied. "But we injured no one. We didn't kill women and children, as your warriors have done in the white villages. We only came to take what you had stolen from us, and ef your young men have been killed it's only because they tried to attack us."
"The white men must see," the chief said, "that they cannot get away. The water is hard, and their canoe will not swim in it. The snow is deep, and the tender feet cannot walk through it. My warriors are very numerous, and the white men cannot fight their way through them. The white settlements are very far away, and their friends cannot reach them; and it will be many months before the water softens, and long before that the white men will have eaten their moccasins."
"Waal, chief," Pearson said, "we're in a tight hole, I grant you; but I'm far from allowing that we aint no chances left to us yet. What do you propose? I suppose you've some proposition to make."
"Let the white men leave behind them their guns and their powder and the maidens they have taken from War Eagle's camp; then let them go in peace. They shall not be harmed."
Pearson gave a short laugh.
"War Eagle must think the white men are foolish. What's to prevent the red warriors from taking all our scalps when our arms are in their hands?"
"The word of a great chief," War Eagle said. "War Eagle never lies."
"You may not lie, chief," Pearson said bluntly, "but I've known many a treaty broken afore now. You and your people may not touch us, but there's other redskins about, and I wouldn't give a beaver's skin for our sculps ef we were to take the back trail to the settlements without arms in our hands. Besides that, we've among us the father of the gal who was stole far away off from Lake Champlain, and a relative of hers whose parents you've killed down on the lake. Ef we were to agree to give up our arms, it stands to reason it aint likely they'd agree to give up the gals. No, no, chief; your terms aren't reasonable. But I tell ye what we will do; ef you'll give us your word that neither you nor your tribe'll molest us in our retreat we'll go back to the settlements, and 'll engage that, when we get back there, we'll send you nine of the best rifles money can buy, with plenty of powder and ball, and blankets and such like."
The chief waved his hand in contemptuous refusal of the terms.