“When one has loved, one stops reasoning,” I quickly defended. “I can not bear to see even a shadow of a chance of harm come to you.”
“That was said very pretty,” she smiled, her gaze all softness.
Then with calm pride she unfastened several strings of white wampum from around her slender waist and holding them up simply said:
“My father’s belts.”
Among the strings was a strip some seven or eight rows in width and two hundred beads long. It was pictographic and showed a man leading a pack-horse along a white road to a wigwam. The figures, like the road, were worked in white beads, the background being dark for contrast.
Refastening them about her waist, she said:
“There is no danger for me here so long as I wear my father’s belts. There are none of the Ohio Indians who would refuse to accept them and respect them. When they see the Pack-Horse-Man walking along the white road to their villages they will lift that belt up very high.”
“When one sees you, there should be no need of belts,” I ventured.
She smiled graciously and lightly patted my fringed sleeve, and ignoring my fervid declaration, she gently reminded:
“Even if I had no belts I am no better than any of the other women on the creek. Don’t think for a moment I would hide behind my father’s trade wampum. The belts must protect all of us, or none of us. But there is no more danger for me than there is for them even if I threw the belts away. Not so much; because I am Ericus Dale’s daughter. Basdel, it makes me unhappy to fear that when we leave here the danger may return to these people. I carry my safety with me. I wish I could leave it for them. I wish a general and lasting peace could be made.”