“The belt bearers are Big Fox, Brown Bear, and The Bat,” said Yellow Panther, looking at Braxton Wyatt.  “You have heard of them?  The Shawnee villages are full of their fame.”

“I never saw them, and I never heard of them before,” replied Braxton Wyatt, in a tone of mingled anger and bewilderment, “but I do know that all the Shawnees wish the Miamis to go south with them at once, on the great war trail against the white settlements.”

The old chief, Gray Beaver, looked from the belt bearers to Braxton Wyatt and from Braxton Wyatt to the belt bearers.  His aged brain was bewildered by the conflicting tales, but he put little trust in the white youth.  Already Big Fox had sowed in his mind the seeds of unbelief in the words of Braxton Wyatt.

“Scarcely a moon ago the Shawnees, as we all know, wished to go on the great war trail at once,” said Yellow Panther, “but now three come, who say they are from them, bearing peace belts.  Moreover, here is another who says that the Shawnees would send war belts.  What shall the Miamis think?”

There was another murmur, and then silence.  The surcharged air was heavy in the great lodge.  But Big Fox merely shrugged his shoulders slightly, and answered in tones of lofty indifference: 

“Big Fox, Brown Bear, and The Bat were sent by the old chiefs of the Shawnees to deliver peace belts to the chiefs of the Miamis, and they have delivered them.”

Brown Bear and The Bat nodded, but said nothing.  Yellow Panther looked at Braxton Wyatt, who was shaken by varying emotions.  As he truly said, he had long been in the Shawnee villages, but he had never seen or heard of the three warriors who now sat calmly before him—­Big Fox, Brown Bear, and The Bat.  Yet he could not say that no such men existed, because small parties had roved far and long on the hunt or the war trail.  He gazed at them before answering.  He, too, was struck by the splendid figure and pose of Big Fox, and he was impressed, moreover, by a sense of something familiar, though he could not name it.  It haunted him and troubled him, but remained a mystery.  He collected his shrewd wits and said: 

“As I told you, the warriors who bring the peace belts are strangers to me.  Yet the Shawnees, when I left the head village, but a few days ago, wished war at once against the white settlements, and the Shawnees do not change their minds quickly.”

“Is the word of a renegade, of one who would slay his own people, to be weighed against that of a warrior?”

Big Fox spoke with lofty contempt, not gazing at Braxton Wyatt, but straight into the eyes of Gray Beaver.  The old chief felt the power of that look, and wavered under it.

“It is true,” he said, “that the Shawnees, a moon ago, were for war; but Big Fox, Brown Bear, and The Bat have come, bearing peace belts from them, and what our eyes see must be true.”

There was a murmur again, but it was very faint now.  The authority of Gray Beaver, in his time a mighty warrior, and now wise with years and experience, was great, and the under chiefs were impressed—­all but Yellow Panther, whose eyes flashed vindictively at the belt bearers.  Angry blood also flushed Braxton Wyatt’s face, and he did not know at the moment what to say or do.