"Does a single coal from Onondaga still burn under the great tree, my elder brother?" I asked cautiously.
"The great tree is at Onondaga," he answered sullenly; "the fire is covered."
Which was as much as to say that there was no sanctuary guaranteed an Oneida, even at a federal council.
"Tell them," I said deliberately, "that a belt requires a belt; and, when the Wolves talk to the Oneidas, they at Thendara shall be answered. I have spoken."
"Do the Three Wolves take counsel with the Six Bears and Turtles?" he asked, with a crafty smile.
"The trapped wolf has no choice; his howls appeal to the wilderness entire," I replied emphatically.
"But—a trapped wolf never howls, my younger brother; a lone wolf in a pit is always silent."
I flushed, realizing that my metaphor had been at fault. Yet now there was to be nothing between this red ambassador and me except the subtlest and finest shades of metaphor.
"It is true that a trapped wolf never howls," I said; "because a pitted wolf is as good as a dead wolf, and a dead wolf's tongue hangs out sideways. But it is not so when the pack is trapped. Then the prisoners may call upon the Wilderness for aid, lest a whole people suffer extermination."
"Will my younger brother take counsel with Oneidas?" he asked curiously.