Bill had become a father for wisdom after having been a brother for valour.
"What is my son's desire?" was the counter query.
"The Piegans want the Cherokee sage's advice."
"The Piegans are boys of mine at my knee. Speak away."
"The Raven is a wise bird—a bird that scents a battlefield from afar. He flies straight to the mark. As the coyotes and wolves join to track the deer, so the bad whites and mixed bloods join to take hold of the red man's territory. What is my father's opinion on this? What ought the redskins to do when the mine robbers threaten to invade the holy ground of the Basin of Fire?"
Without replying in words, the Cherokee looked about him. In one spot a chalky seam cropping out was soaked with blood from the butchered game. He pointed to the white earth on one side of the red stain, and then scratched the soft substance up with his fingernail. But to scrape the blood-caked chalk, hardened into stone, he was forced to use his hunting knife. He took up a handful of the soft dust and slowly let it fall through his open fingers.
"This dust is the Indians, uncemented by their blood; they are grains that a child's breath could spin into the river. United by blood, a block is formed which turns the edge of a knife. Do my brothers comprehend?"
"I do," answered Red Knife. "The Raven of the Cherokee counsels us to be one. Before now we have done the same, and waged war. Perhaps, had not some weaklings and traitors fallen away, a great and lasting victory would have been ours. But our enemies are powerful as they are. What if the white trappers and hunters unite with these Canadians and the Men of Montana?"
"You need not fear that. Oil and water do not blend."
"But the Old Man of the Mountain, the friend of the Cherokee, would he not come to the aid of the Piegans?" asked the chief, subtly.