"Said she as much?"
"Ay. 'Onawa, your sister, has brought this trouble upon you and us,' said I, as she pushed away. 'She it was who smote down George Flower by treachery, and she it was who brought the Frenchman to our hiding-place.'"
"Said she anything?"
"Never a word. But her eyes strained upon the knife."
Then the two lonely men returned to New Windsor, the slow day passed, and night enwrapped in cloud fell upon the land. The fires of the allied tribes spotted the forest with scarlet, and between the black trees the upright figures of warriors, fully painted and feathered, crossed as they threaded the mazes of the dance. Five thousand fighters were there gathered, the best and bravest of the Oneidas, Senacas, and Onandagas, mad to avenge their wrongs. Spies were posted at every point; a hundred watched the fortress, passing the word from man to man. In a chain they stretched from the height above the river to the council fire, where the nine sachems sat muttering in whispers and drawing omens from the flight of the smoke and the burning of the logs.
"Shuswap, great chief of the Cayugas, the woman your daughter would speak to you," a voice sounded.
"Let her come near," answered the old man.
His keen eyes distended. He had looked, prepared to behold his younger daughter, but instead his eyes fell upon Tuschota, her sister. The father noted her warlike bearing, the bow slung upon her shoulders, the arrows and knife thrust through her girdle. He saw also the sternness of her countenance.
"What would you, daughter?"
"Where is Onawa, my sister?"