In the way of attire, Onoah was simply dressed, consulting the season and his journey.  He had a single eagle’s feather attached to the scalp-lock, and wore a belt of wampum of more than usual value, beneath which he had thrust his knife and tomahawk; a light, figured and fringed hunting-shirt of cotton covered his body, while leggings of deerskin, with a plain moccasin of similar material, rose to his knee.  The latter, with the lower part of a stout sinewy thigh, was bare.  He also carried a horn and pouch, and a rifle of the American rather than of the military fashion that is, one long, true, and sighted to the deviation of a hair.

On landing, Peter (for so he was generally called by the whites, when in courtesy they omitted the prefix of “Scalping”) courteously saluted the party assembled around the bow of the canoe.  This he did with a grave countenance, like a true American, but in simple sincerity, so far as human eye could penetrate his secret feelings.  To each man he offered his hand, glancing merely at the two females; though it may be questioned if he ever before had looked upon so perfect a picture of female loveliness as Margery at that precise instant presented, with her face flushed with excitement, her spirited blue eye wandering with curiosity, and her beautiful mouth slightly parted in admiration.

“Sago, sago!” said Peter, in his deep, guttural enunciation, speaking reasonably good English.  “Sago, sago all, ole and young, friend come to see you, and eat in your wigwam—­which head—­chief, eh?”

“We have neither wigwam nor chief here,” answered le Bourdon, though he almost shrunk from taking the hand of one of whom he had heard the tales of which this savage had been the hero; “we are common people, and have no one among us who holds the States’ commission.  I live by taking honey, of which you are welcome to all you can want, and this man is a helper of the sutlers at the garrisons.  He was travelling south to join the troops at the head of the lake, and I was going north to Mackinaw, on my way in, toward the settlements.”

“Why is my brother in such haste?” demanded Peter, mildly.  “Bees get tired of making honey?”

“The times are troubled, and the red men have dug up the hatchet; a pale-face cannot tell when his wigwam is safe.”

“Where my brodder wigwam?” asked Peter, looking warily around him.  “See he an’t here; where is he?”

“Over in the openings, far up the Kalamazoo.  We left it last week, and had got to the hut on the other shore, when a party of Pottawattamies came in from the lake, and drove us over here for safety.”

On hearing this, Peter turned slowly to the missionary, raising a finger as one makes a gesture to give emphasis to his words.

“Tole you so,” said the Indian.  “Know dere was Pottawattamie dere.  Can tell ’em great way off.”

“We fear them, having women in our party,” added the bee-hunter, “and think they might fancy our scalps.”