A man so old he was that even the Indian’s back was bent.  His face was of weird effect, for amid its many wrinkles were streaks of parti-colored paint such as he had worn more than three quarters of a century earlier, when his fleet foot and the old war-trace were familiar.  In common with all the Cherokees, his head was polled and bare save for a tuft, always spared to afford a grasp for any hand bold enough and strong enough to take the scalp; but this lock, although still dense and full, was of a snowy whiteness, contrasting sharply with the red paint and belying the warlike aspect of the red-feathered crest that trembled and shivered with the infirmities of his step.  A heavy robe of fur reached almost to his feet, and a mantle, curiously wrought of the iridescent feathers of the neck and breast of the wild turkey, bespoke his consequence and added to the singularity of his aspect; for Indians seldom attained such age in those wild days, the warriors being usually cut off in their prime.  It is to be doubted if Tscholens had ever seen so old a man, for this was Tsiskwa of Citico, reputed then to be one hundred and ten years of age.

The step of the young grandfather, sauntering along, came to an abrupt halt.  He stood staring, exclaiming to the Cherokee warrior Savanukah, “Pennau wullih!  Auween won gintsch pat?” (Look yonder!  Who is that who has just come?)

It was an eagle-like majesty which looked forth from the eyes of Tsiskwa of Citico, as he seated himself on the long cane-wrought divan, just within the entrance of the cabin on the eastern side of the “beloved square.”  Time can work but little change in such a spirit.  An eagle, however old, is always an eagle.

The sage lifted one august claw and majestically waved it at the young Delaware illau (war-captain) standing before him, while Savanukah turned away to join the dancers.  “Lenni Lenape?—­I remember—­I remember very well when you came from the West!”

Tscholens was not stricken with astonishment, although that migration is held by investigators of pre-Columbian myths[11] to have occurred before the ninth century!  It was formerly a general trait among the Indians to use the, first person singular in speaking of the tribe, and to avoid, even in its name, the plural termination.  Tsiskwa went on with the tone of reminiscence rather than legendary lore, and with an air of bated rancor, as of one whose corroding grievance still works at the heart, to describe how the Lenni Lenape crossed the Mississippi and fell upon the widespread settlements of the Alligewi (or Tallegwi) Indians—­considered identical with the Cherokee (Tsullakee)—­and warred with them many years in folly, in futility, in hopeless defeat.

He lifted his eyes and gazed at the sun.  A curve of pride steadied his old lips.  His face was as resolute, as victorious, in looking backward as ever it had been in vaunting forecast.  His was the temperament that always saw in prophecy or retrospect what he would wish to see.  And that sun, now going down, had lighted him all his life along a path of conscious triumph.