“There’s a big crowd of savages over that way,” pointed out Ben presently.
“Must be the place,” was Tom’s reply.
The big council, composed of all the leading chiefs of the principal tribes was already in session. Whirling Thunder, a Sac chief, and Shaubena, whose sons were involved, had turned the matter over to the solemn assemblage. The young Indian maiden, cause of the quarrel, was standing at one side with her father, the giant “Wampum,” a famous chief of the Chippeways, who had his village some three hundred miles to the north in the vast, somber “pineries.”
Tom and Ben had hardly arrived, when a coppery warrior got to his feet and launched an oration that seemed to the attentive boys to be both stirring and forceful. He was a tall, strong savage, of handsome mien; he knew all the tricks of good oratory; his voice was deep and full-toned; and he accompanied his words with graceful and telling gestures. To the boys’ surprise, however, his eloquence seemed to carry little weight. His fellow savages appeared to have small regard for his utterances. Hardly a murmur arose from the stolid circle about him.
But now there arose a stubby, thickset Indian with a stern, rugged countenance, who had sat smoking in stony silence. His speech was quite short, and it was delivered in a blunt, almost awkward manner. As an orator, he could not compare with the other; for he had neither the style nor the smooth flow of words. Yet his crude utterances bore heavily on his hearers. Nods of approval ran around the red circle; muttered expressions of agreement could be heard on every hand.
“How do you figure it out, Ben?” puzzled Tom.
“It’s got me in a fog, Tom. Why, that tall chief talked rings around him!”
“Sure did. He had a real gift of gab.”
A big frontiersman, evidently a veteran woodcrafter, who stood nearby, volunteered an explanation. He pointed out that the superb orator of the high-sounding words had in his hair only a single eagle feather, while the other, the thickest savage, had eagle feathers all around his head and trailing down his back to touch the very ground at his heels.
“You mean,” inquired Ben incredulously, “that the chief who can sport the longest string of pretty feathers has the most say-so?”