"Accursed be the gifts of the pale faces!" exclaimed Ohquamehud. "For such rags our fathers sold our hunting-grounds, and gave permission to the strangers to build walls in the rivers so that the fish cannot swim up."
"Peéna sold nothing for these," said the squaw, mildly. "Because the young Longbeard loved Peéna he gave them all to her."
"Did not Peéna preserve his life? But she is right. The white face has an open hand, and pays more for his life than it is worth."
"The words of my husband's brother are very bitter. What has the boy whom Huttamoiden's arm saved from the flames, done, that blackness should gather over the face of Ohquamehud?"
"Quah! Does Peéna ask? She is more foolish than the bird, from which she takes her name, when it flies into a tree. Is he not the son of Onontio?"
"Peéna never saw Onontio. She has only heard of him as one, who like the red men, loves scalps. The Longbeard is a man of peace, and loves them not. The eyes of Ohquamehud are getting dim."
"The eyes of Ohquamehud are two fires, which throw a light upon his path, and he sees clearly what is before him. It is only blood that can wash out from the eyes of a warrior the remembrance of his enemy, and nothing but water has cleansed Ohquamehud's. Thrice have I meet Onontio, once on the yellow Wabash: again, where the mighty Mississippi and Ohio flow into each other's bosoms, and a third time on the plains of the Upper Illinois. Look," he cried suddenly, throwing open his shirt, and exposing his breast, "the bullet of Onontio made that mark like the track of a swift canoe in the water. It talks very plain and will not let Ohquamehud forget."
"If the Longbeard be Onontio, his son has done my brother no injury."
"The gifts of the pale face have blinded the eyes, and stopped the ears of my sister, so that she can neither see nor hear the truth. Who, when he kills the old panther, lets the cubs escape?"
"There is peace between the red man and the white on the banks of the Sakimau. The long knives are as plenty as the leaves of the western forests. Ohquamehud must forget the bullet of Onontio until he finds him on the prairie, or where the streams run towards the setting sun."