"I think not, sir. It does not appear to me that there is valor enough in that tribe, to face this. In general, the white man is fully a match for the redskin; but it may be doubted whether chiefs like these would not prove too much for twice their number of varlets, of the breed of yonder skulking scoundrels."
"Why do the chiefs manifest so much interest in us?" asked my uncle, of the interpreter. "Is it possible that they pay so much respect to us, on account of our connection with this estate?"
"Not at all—not at all. They know the difference between a chief and a common man well enough, it is true," was the answer; "and twenty times, as we have come down through the country, have they expressed their surprise to me, that so many common men should be chiefs, among the pale-faces; but they care nothing for riches. He is the greatest man among them, who is best on a war-path, and at a council-fire; though they do honor them that has had great and useful ancestors."
"But, they seem to betray some unusual and extraordinary interest in us, too; perhaps they are surprised at seeing gentlemen in such dresses?"
"Lord, sir, what do men care for dresses, that are used to see the heads of factories and forts half the time dressed in skins? They know that there be holidays and workin'-days; times for every-day wear, and times for feathers and paint. No—no—they look at you both, with so much interest, on account of their traditions."
"Their traditions! What can these have to do with us? We have never had anything to do with Indians."
"That's true of you, and may be true of your fathers; but it's not true of some of your ancestors. Yesterday, after we had got to our night's stopping-place, two of the chiefs, this smallish man with the double plate on his breast, and that elderly warrior, who has been once scalped, as you can see by his crown, began to tell of some of the treacheries of their own tribe, which was once a Canada people. The elderly chief related the adventures of a war-path, that led out of Canada, across the large waters, down to a settlement where they expected to get a great many scalps, but where in the end they lost more scalps than they found; and where they met Susquesus, the upright Onondago, as they call him in that tongue, as well as the Yengeese owner of the land, at this very spot, whom they called by a name something like your own, who was a warrior of great courage and skill by their traditions. They suppose you to be the descendants of the last, and honor you accordingly; that's all."
"And, is it possible that these untutored beings have traditions as reliable as this?"
"Lord, if you could hear what they say among themselves, about the lies that are read to them out of the pale-face prints, you would l'arn how much store they set by truth! In my day, I have travelled through a hundred miles of wilderness, by a path that was no better, nor any worse, than an Indian tradition of its manner of running; and a tradition that must have been at least a hundred summers old. They know all about your forefathers, and they know something about you, too, if you be the gentleman that finds the upright Onondago, or the Withered Hemlock, in his old age, with a wigwam, and keeps it filled with food and fuel."
"Is this possible! And all this is spoken of, and known among the savages of the Far West?"