The trader did not understand this. He became furiously angry, and went to make his complaint to the chief of the tribe.
"I am an honest man." said he to the chief. "I came here to trade honestly: but your people are thieves; they have stolen all my goods."
The old chief looked at him some time in silence, smoking a meditative pipe, at last he blew a puff of smoke into the air, removed the pipe from his lips, and then said: "My children are all honest. They have not stolen your goods. They will pay you as soon as they gather their gun powder harvest."
TARHE, OR THE CRANE, THE PATRIOTIC WYANDOT CHIEF.
At the commencement of the War of 1812 a council was called by the British officer commanding at Malden, in upper Canada. It was held at Brownstown in the State of Michigan, and its object was to induce the Wyandots to take sides with the British in the war which was inevitable.
Several speeches were first delivered, and great promises made by the British agent about what their Great Father, King George, would do for them if the nation would fight the Americans; and he closed by presenting Tarhe with a likeness of King George.
Holding it in his hand, the head chief arose and said: "We have no confidence in King George. He is always quarreling with his white children in this country. He sends his armies over the great water, in their big canoes, and then he gets his Indian friends here to join with him to conquer his children, and promises if they will fight for him, he will do great things for them. So he promised if we would fight Wayne and if he whipped us, he would open his gates of his fort on the Maumee and let us in, and open his big guns on our enemies; but when we were whipped, and the flower of our nation were killed, we fled to this place, but instead of opening his gates, and letting us in, you shut yourselves up in your ground-hog hole, and kept out of sight, while my warriors were killed at your gates. {FN} We have no confidence in any promise you make. When the Americans scratch your backs with their war-clubs, you jump into your big canoes and run home, and leave the poor Indians to fight it out, or make peace with them, the best they may."
{FN} See Battle of Fallen Timbers; in sketch of Little Turtle.
He then took the likeness of General Washington from his bosom and said: "This is our Great Father, and for him we will fight." Then taking the likeness of King George in his left hand he drew his tomahawk and with the edge struck the likeness, and added, "And so we will serve your Great Father."