“Yet is it wise that they travel their separate paths alone. The ways of the Paleface are not the ways of the Indian. The Great Spirit has made them both as they are and they cannot be otherwise. Time and the conflicts that every day take place will at last draw a line between them and there will be peace and happiness. To the west will live the Indians as the Great Spirit has taught them to do. To the east, the Palefaces will cut down trees, drive off the game and build and dwell in noisy towns. It is as they have been taught. Still, only by war can the line of separation be drawn, and it is well for the Delawares and their Paleface brothers to go in different ways. Today the trail they have followed together divides. They say farewell. They hope for friendship’s sake their paths may never meet in war.”
With a few words in reply Kingdom hurried to John Jerome, whom the warriors quickly loosened from his bonds. The two boys clasped hands in silence.
Fishing Bird had already sent Long-Hair and Little Wolf for John’s rifle and other belongings and when the lad had shaken hands with Neohaw, Gentle Maiden and Captain Pipe, his property was handed him.
Ree also took leave of the Indians whose friendship he had once enjoyed and, two of the woodsmen bearing the body of the Englishman, all the white men left the village.
Silently, their untamed spirits for the time subdued, the Indians gathered near the Council House to watch the departure of the Palefaces. To the portage trail Ree and John were accompanied by Fishing Bird. They asked him to go with them—to remain with them permanently. He shook his head.
“Paleface brothers heard the words of Captain Pipe,” he said, significantly but sorrowfully, and they said good-bye forever.
An hour later, beside the portage path, the great highway of the wilderness, the body of Lobb was buried; and the sun went down and darkness enveloped the vast forest and all within it.
CHAPTER XXVI—DOWN THE SUN-KISSED SLOPE TOGETHER
Beside their campfire, near the spot where a mossy stone marked Lobb’s last resting place, the two boys and their friends discussed their future movements. All were interested in visiting the murderer’s camp in the ravine, and Jim Small declared his intention of making search for the Seneca’s lead mine. He believed the Indian had some good reason for telling the Delawares he knew of such a mine, and, though the others did not agree with him, he held to his theory.
In substance Small’s idea was that, inasmuch as out-and-out lying was not an Indian trait, Lone-Elk must have had some basis for his story more than had been discovered. However, time proved that this theory was not well founded. Jim was right in his assertion that Indians did not make lying a practice, but in this as well as in his ambition to be a leader, whatever the cost, the Seneca was less honorable than Indians were as a rule, before trickery and firewater had corrupted them.