The Indian leader spoke for the first time, his voice deep and guttural.

“The Pottawattomies have met in council with the White Chief and the Long Knife,” he said soberly, “and have smoked together the peace-pipe.  For what have the white men come to disturb Gomo and his warriors?”

I gazed at him with new interest.  No name of savage chief was wider known along the border in those days, none more justly feared by the settlers.  He was a tall, spare, austere man, his long coarse hair whitened by years, but with no stoop in his figure.  His eyes, small and keen, blazed with a strange ferocity, as I have seen those of wildcats in the dark; while his flesh was drawn so closely against his prominent cheek-bones as to leave an impression of ghastliness, as of a corpse suddenly returned by some miracle to life.  With dabs of paint across the forehead, and thin lips drawn in a narrow line of cruelty, his face formed a picture to be long remembered with a shudder.

It was easy enough to see that Captain Heald felt uncertain how far to venture in his proposals, though he spoke up boldly, and with no tremor in his voice.  His long frontier experience had taught him the danger that lay in exhibiting timidity in the face of Indian scorn.

“Gomo,” he said firmly, “and you other Chiefs of the Pottawattomies, there has never been war between us.  We have traded together for many seasons; you have eaten at my table, and I have rested by your fires.  We have been as brothers, and more than once have I judged between you and those who would wrong you.  I have remembered all this, and have now come into your camp through the night, without fear and unarmed, that I might talk with you as friends.  Am I not right to do this?  In all the time I have been the White Chief at Dearborn, have I ever done wrong to a Pottawattomie?”

He paused; but no warrior made reply.  A low guttural murmur ran around the line of listeners, but the bead-like eyes never left his face.  He went on: 

“Why should I fear to meet the Pottawattomies, even though word had come to me that their young men talk war, and seek alliance with our enemy the red-coats?  The Chiefs have seen war, and are not crazed for the blood of their friends.  They will restrain such wild mutterings.  They know that the White Father to the east is strong, and will drive the red-coats back into the sea as he did when they fought before.  They will ally themselves with the strong one, and make their foolish young man take up arms for their friends.”

Still no one spoke, no impassive bronze face exhibited the faintest interest.  It was as if he appealed to stone.

“Is this not so?”

“The White Chief has spoken,” was the cold reply.  “His words are full of eloquence, but Gomo hears nothing that calls for answer.  The White Chief says not why he has come and demanded council of the Pottawattomies.”