The bruised wrist and wounded forearm made no matter, for the rifle was the weapon next day—but White Arrow went another way to look for game. Each had twelve bullets. Black Wolf came in with a deer and one bullet. White Arrow told them where they could find a deer, a bear, a buffalo, and an elk, and he showed eight bullets in the palm of his hand. And he noted now that the Indian girl was always an intent observer of each contest, and that she always went swiftly back to her tent to tell his deeds to the white woman within.
There was a feast and a dance that night, and Kahtoo could have gone to his fathers and left the lad, young as he was, as chief, but not yet was he ready, and Crooked Lightning, too, bided his time.
XII
Dressed as an Indian, Erskine rode forth next morning with a wampum belt and a talk for the council north where the British were to meet Shawnee, Iroquois, and Algonquin, and urge them to enter the great war that was just breaking forth. There was open and angry protest against sending so young a lad on so great a mission, but the old chief haughtily brushed it aside:
“He is young but his feet are swift, his arm is strong, his heart good, and his head is old. He speaks the tongue of the paleface. Besides, he is my son.”
One question the boy asked as he made ready:
“The white woman must not be burned while I am gone?”
“No,” promised the old chief. And so White Arrow fared forth. Four days he rode through the north woods, and on the fifth he strode through the streets of a town that was yet filled with great forest trees: a town at which he had spent three winters when the game was scarce and the tribe had moved north for good. He lodged with no chief but slept in the woods with his feet to the fire. The next night he slipped to the house of the old priest, Father André, who had taught him some religion and a little French, and the old man welcomed him as a son, though he noted sadly his Indian dress and was distressed when he heard the lad’s mission. He was quickly relieved.
“I am no royalist,” he said.
“Nor am I,” said Erskine. “I came because Kahtoo, who seemed nigh to death, begged me to come. There is much intrigue about him, and he could trust no other. I am only a messenger and I shall speak his talk; but my heart is with the Americans and I shall fight with them.” The old priest put his fingers to his lips: