"It's what I mainly came here to talk to you about. Timmendiquas is young, but he's a mighty man among the Wyandots. All the older chiefs are willing to step aside in his favor, and when men do that without being made to do it, there's something great in the one that's favored, something that everybody is bound to see. He's first among the Wyandots, and you know what that means when I tell you that the last of the Wyandots are as good as the first of most people."
"Why do you talk to me about Timmendiquas?" asked Henry. "I've seen him, I've been with him for days, I know what he is."
"I'm coming to it. Timmendiquas likes you. He thinks you're fitted for the forest and a life like the one he leads. Other Wyandots who have observed you agree with him, and to tell you the truth I think so, too, myself."
"Well!" said Henry. He now divined what Girty was going to reveal, but he wished the renegade to tell it himself.
"Timmendiquas will be in the council house several days longer, purifying himself, but when he does come out, they'll say to you: 'Be a Wyandot or die.' They'll put it to you plain, just as it has been put to white men before you."
Henry stirred a little. Certainly he did not wish to die, nor did he expect to die, but he would risk the alternative.
"Girty," he said, slowly, "an offer something like this was made to me once before. It was made by a Spaniard far down in the south. You never knew him—he's dead now—but your friend, Braxton Wyatt did—but the other thing wasn't death, nor did he ask me, if I took his offer, to make war upon the settlements in Kentucky. Before I'd turn Indian like you and Braxton Wyatt and the others, and murder my own people, you infamous renegade, I'd be torn to pieces or burned at the stake a dozen times over!"
The words were hurled out by passion and feeling as the flash of powder sends forth the bullet. The renegade shrank back, and rose to his feet, his eyes aflame, but in a moment or two he sank down again, laughing a little.
"That's what I knew you'd say," he said, "and I came here to hear you say it. I wanted to force the hand of Timmendiquas, and I've done it. I don't want you to join us, and I'll tell you why. I intend to be first here, first among the white leaders of the Indians, but if you were to come with us you'd be first yourself in three or four years, and I'd be only second. See how much I think of your powers."
"I don't thank you for your compliment," said Henry boldly, "but I'll thank you if you'll get out of this lodge. I think you're the worst man I've ever seen."