He spread open on the bench Barbe had occupied a present of fine furs and dried meat.
“Why does my brother bring me these things?” inquired Tonty, realizing as he looked at the gift how much of this barbarian’s wealth was bestowed in such an offering.
“Listen,” said Sanomp.[14] He had a face of benevolent gravity,—the unhurried, sincere face of man living close to Nature. “It is a chief of the Seneca tribe who speaks to my white brother.”
“I have met a chief of the Seneca tribe before,” remarked Tonty, smiling. “It was in the country of the Illinois, and he wrapped my scalp-lock around his fingers.”
Sanomp smiled, too, without haste, and continued his story.
“I left my people to live near the fort of my French brothers because it was told me the man with a hand of iron was here. When I came here the man with a hand of iron was gone. So I waited for him. Our lives are consumed in waiting for the best things. Five years have I stood by the mouth of Cataraqui. And this morning the man with a hand of iron passed before my face.”
He spoke a mixture of French and Iroquois which enabled Tonty to catch his entire meaning.
“But this hand could not betray me from the lake, to eyes that had never seen me before,” objected the Italian.
Advancing one foot and folding his arms in the attitude of a narrator, the Indian said,—
“Listen. At that time of life when a young Iroquois retires from his tribe to hide in the woods and fast until his okie[15] is revealed to him, four days and four nights the boy Sanomp lay on the ground, rain and dew, moonlight and sunlight passing over him. The boy Sanomp looked up, for an eagle dropped before his eyes. He then knew that the eagle was his okie, and that he was to be a warrior, not a hunter or medicine-man. But the eagle dropped before the feet of a soldier the image of my white brother, and the soldier held up a hand of yellow metal. The boy heard a voice coming from the vision that said to him, ‘Warrior, this is thy friend and brother. Be to him a friend and brother. After thou hast seven times followed the war path go and wait by the mouth of Cataraqui until he comes.’ So when I had seven times followed the war path I came, and my brother being passed by, I waited.”