Brant felt very keenly for the Senecas, who had done him such yeoman service in the war.  They could be cruel in combat, but were very loyal to their friends, and he knew that something must be done for them.  Accordingly, he repaired a second time to Quebec and again discussed the situation with General Haldimand.  The outcome was that he obtained another grant of land, on the Grand river, which runs with a southerly course into the waters of Lake Erie.  A tract six miles wide on each side of this stream, extending from its source to its mouth, was allotted to the Six Nations.  This beautiful district, bordering on the shore of Lake Erie, only forty miles from the outer fringe of the Seneca villages, was in a direct line of intercourse between the Six Nations and the many tribes of the west and the upper lakes.  Brant obtained the title-deeds to this territory for the Indians in the autumn of 1784, under the seal of royal authority.  It was a gift, as indicated by the terms of the award, ’which the Mohawks and others of the Six Nations... with their posterity,’ were to enjoy for ever.

Having been provided with a new home, the band of copper-hued patriots now began to cross the Niagara.  They were loyalists of another than the white race, and, like the other Loyalists, they had left their Long Houses behind in the hands of the stranger.  On their bodies were the marks and scars of many a campaign; their limbs had become suppler with the long march and swarthier in the summer sun; they did not dare to cast a glance back at the fair land that had been the hunting-ground of their fathers.  With them were their women, dark-eyed Amazons of the north.  Their little ones toddled by their side.  The journey was shortly over and they beheld the waters of the Grand river, flowing between their narrow banks.  Here, in the flowering glades, they raised their tents and lit anew their council fires.  Then they toiled up against the current, searching out the borders of their country; down-stream they shot again, their glad eyes beaming as they saw how wide and goodly was their heritage.

The nation of the Mohawks had come to Canada to stay.  Among them settled many from their kindred tribes, red men who would not forsake their Great White Father the King.  By the sheltering boughs of the regal maple, the silver-garbed beech, or the drooping willow they built the rough huts of a forest people.  Then they tilled the soil, and learned to love their new abode.  Although of a ferocious stock, unrivalled in the arts of savage warfare, the Mohawks and other Indians of the Six Nations in Canada have rarely, if ever, been surpassed by any other red men in the ways of peace.

CHAPTER XII

ENGLAND ONCE MORE