“Then all these three brothers were the children of Wingenund?”
“Yes.”
“And who was he?”
“One of the old Lenapé:—first in council, and foremost in the fight! I remember him well when I was a boy,” said the guide, warming with his subject. “He taught me to follow a trail, and to travel in the woods, with no other guide than the wind, the stars, and the bark of the trees; and before I was as old as that boy, his grandson, he lent me his rifle to shoot the first Dahcotah as ever I killed.”
“What was the party, Baptiste?” said Reginald (anxious to keep the guide from the subject of the Dahcotahs), “what party was it that committed the atrocious murder upon the Indians in time of peace?”
“Why, Master Reginald, though you were but a youngster, don’t you remember hearing that twelve or fourteen years ago a party of white men, led by Williamson, Harvey, and some other rough chaps from the Kentucky side, fell upon a village of friendly Indians on the banks of Tuscarawas river, and murdered all they found—man, woman, and child? Some of these poor red–skins had been made Christians, and were called Moravians; and their village as was destroyed was called by some outlandish name, too long by half for me to speak or to remember.[17] They had given over their own nat’ral life of smoking, hunting, and fighting, and did nothing but plant, and sow, and pray! And, after all, that’s the way they was served, Master Reginald!”
“Horrible and disgraceful cruelty!” said the young man: and rather thinking aloud, than addressing his companion, he added, “It is no wonder that the Indians should receive so unwillingly Christian precepts, when they have such examples of Christian practice. I am not surprised that War–Eagle should find it hard to forgive such injuries.”
“And yet you are surprised, Master Reginald,” said the guide, in a deep voice, almost hoarse from repressed emotion, “that I do not forgive the Dahcotah? Did he not burn the log–hut where I was born and raised? Did he not murder those who gave me birth? Did he not drive me out, a child, into the woods, to live by berries, or wild fruits, or what I could find or kill? Is not my father’s scalp (not half revenged!) now hanging before a Dahcotah lodge! Oh! let me come but within rifle range of the throat–cutter,[18] and if he comes off with a whole skin, I will forgive him!”
Our hero, seeing that further discussion would only increase an excitement which already mastered his companion’s self–control, said to him kindly, “Well, Baptiste, it must be owned that you have received from these people deep, irreparable wrong! You are a man, and would not pay them in their own base coin, by killing one of their squaws or children: but if it is ever your fortune to meet them in a fair stand–up fight, when I am with you, then you shall see that I can stand by a friend, and share in his just feelings of resentment.”
“I know it—I know it, Master Reginald,” said the guide, grasping the hand extended to him; and having now recovered an equanimity which nothing but the Dahcotah subject ever disturbed, he added,