"Is what you say quite true, my father?" the young man asked, with exultation.
"I swear it: still we must set to work immediately." The chief examined him for a moment carefully, but the old man remained impassive.
"I understand you," he at length said, slowly, and in a deep voice; "you offer me your hand on the verge of an abyss. Thanks, my father, I will not be unworthy of you; I swear to you by the Wacondah."
"Good; believe me, my son, I recognize you," the old man said, shaking his head mournfully. "One's country is often an ungrateful mistress; but it is the only one which gives us true enjoyment of mind, if we serve her disinterestedly for herself alone."
The two men shook hands affectionately; the compact was sealed. We shall soon see whether Natah Otann had really conquered his love as he imagined.
[CHAPTER X.]
THE GREAT COUNCIL.
Natah Otann set to work immediately, with that feverish ardour that distinguished him. He sent emissaries in every direction to the principal chiefs of the western prairies, and convoked them to a great plain in the valley of the Missouri, at a spot called "The Tree of the Master of Life," on the fourth day of the moon of the hardened snow. This spot was held in great veneration by the Missouri Indians, who went there constantly to hang up presents. It was an immense sandy plain, completely denuded of vegetation; in the centre of the desert rose a gigantic tree, an oak, twenty feet in circumference at least, the trunk being hollow, and the tufted branches covering an enormous superficies. This tree, which was a hundred and twenty feet in height, and which grew there by accident, necessarily was regarded by the Indians as something miraculous; hence the name they gave it.
On the appointed day, the Indians arrived from all sides, marching in good order, and camping at a short distance from the spot selected for the council. An immense fire had been kindled at the foot of the tree, and at a signal given by the drummers, or Chichikouès, the chiefs collected around it, a few paces behind the sachems. The Blackfeet, Nez Percés, Assiniboins, Mandans, and other horsemen, formed a tremendous cordon round the council fire; while scouts traversed the desert in every direction, to keep off intruders, and insure the secrecy of the deliberations.