“And now, my brothers,” said La Salle, “we come to a matter of much consequence”—and he presented the Miamis with six guns. “There is a great master across the sea. He is famous everywhere. He loves peace. He is strong to help us, but he wants us to listen to his words. He is called the King of France, the greatest chief of all those who rule on the other shore. He is anxious that peace shall come upon all people and that no one shall wage war without asking permission of his servant Onontio, the governor at Quebec. Therefore, be at peace with your neighbors and most of all with the Illinois. You have had your quarrels with them. But have you not been enough avenged by their losses? They want peace with you, yet they are still strong enough to do you harm. Content yourselves with the glory of having them ask for peace. And their interest is yours. If they are destroyed, will not the Iroquois destroy you the more easily? So take these guns, but use them not for waging war, but for the hunt and for self-defense.”
Then at last La Salle chose from his bundles two wampum necklaces—the gifts most common among Indians. Turning to the thirty New England Indians who were with him, he said: “These are other Miamis who come to take with you the places of the warriors whom the Iroquois have killed. Their bodies are the bodies of Indians from New England, but they have the spirit and the heart of the Miamis. Receive them as your brothers.”
The council broke up in a tumult of joy and brotherly feeling. High honor had been paid to the dead and splendid gifts bestowed upon the living. On the next day the Miamis came before La Salle to dance and present gifts. They did homage to the good spirits of the sky and the sun and to the God of the French. Then one of their chiefs, Ouabibichagan, presented to their new brother ten beaver skins saying:—
“Never, my brother Ouabicolcata, have we seen so wonderful an event. Never before have we seen a dead man come to life. He must be a great spirit who can thus bring back life. He makes the sky more fair and the sun more bright. He has given you with life, clothes with which to cover us who are wont to be naked.
“We are ashamed that we have not equal gifts to give you. But you, Ouabicolcata, are a brother. You will excuse us. For it was to redeem your bones from the Iroquois that we made ourselves poor. We gave them three thousand beaver skins. This little gift of ten skins is but a sign—is only like the paper which you Frenchmen give to one another—it only means that we promise you all the beavers in the river when next spring shall come.”
Again he gave him ten beavers and told him of the joy the Miamis would feel as they went upon their hunts with their brother alive again, and the spirit that gave him back his breath guarding over their happiness. With a third gift of skins he spoke of the French king in these words:—
“We will listen to him; we will put aside our arms; we will break our arrows, and hide our war-clubs at the bottom of the earth. The Illinois are our brothers since they acknowledge our father, and the French king is our father since he has given life back to our brothers.” A fourth and a fifth gift of beaver skins he made and bound the Miamis to Ouabicolcata and their new brothers from New England. At last he handed the white chief for the sixth time ten beavers and said:—
“Do not count the skins, my brother, for we have none left. The Iroquois have all the rest. But accept our hearts in trust for what we will do when spring has come again.”
After the gifts the dancing began again and also the feasting from the new kettles. And all day long the three wives of Ouabibichagan, sisters to one another, and the wives of Michetonga, also sisters, danced in the sunshine of spring and in the joy of a people reconciled to their neighbors and happy in the pleasant childlike pretension of a lost brother come back to live with them once more.
As the Miamis danced a band of Illinois were following swift trails westward to the banks of the Mississippi. They had talked with the great white chief who had left Fort Crèvecœur so long ago in the good old days when Chassagoac was alive and when their villages smiled in the sun along the Illinois River. They were carrying back to the Peorias and the Kaskaskias and the Tamaroas and to all their brethren the message from La Salle, that he was still determined to make his trip to the mouth of the Great River, and that he had come to reunite the Miami and Illinois, to plant his men as a guard against the Iroquois, and to snatch back for them the beautiful valley of the Illinois.