"Don't you have sport with me, Tayoga, because bear in mind that if you do I will pay you back some day. Have these creatures a mean, vicious look?"
"I could not claim, Dagaeoga, that they are as beautiful as the deer that came to look at us but lately."
"Then I make so bold as to say, Tayoga, that they have tufted ear tips, spotted fur, and short tails, in brief a gentleman lynx and a lady lynx, his wife. They are gazing at us with respect and fear as the wolf did, and also with just as much malice and hate. They're wondering who and what we are, and why we come into their woods, the pair of bloodthirsty rabbit slayers."
"Did I not say you would be a sachem some day, Dagaeoga? You have read aright. An Onondaga warrior could not have done better. The two lynxes are on a bough ten feet from the ground, and perhaps in their foolish hearts they think because they are so high above the earth that we cannot reach them."
"You're not going to shoot at 'em, Tayoga? We don't want to waste good bullets on a lynx."
"Not I, Dagaeoga, but I will make them acquainted with something they will dread as much as bullets. It's right that those who come to look at us should be made to pay the price of it."
"So you think that Monsieur and Madame Lynx have looked long enough at the illustrious three?"
"Yes, Dagaeoga. It is time for them to go. And since they do not go of their own will I must make them go."
He snatched a long brand from the fire, and whirling it around his head, and shouting at the same time, he dashed toward an old dead tree some distance away. Two stump-tailed, tuft-eared animals, uttering loud ferocious screams, leaped from the boughs and tore away through the thickets, terror stabbing at their hearts, as the circling flame of red pursued them. Tayoga returned laughing.
"They will run and they will run," he said, throwing down his brand.