“We hope this is so; but it does not seem thus to out poor weak eyes, Onoah.  We count the pale-faces, and every summer they grow fast as the grass on the prairies.  We can see more when the leaf falls than when the tree is in bud; and, then, more when the leaf is in bud than when it falls.  A few moons will put a town where the pine stood, and wigwams drive the wolves from their homes.  In a few years we shall have nothing but dogs to eat, if the pale-face dogs do not eat us.”

“Squaws are impatient, but men know how to wait.  This land was given to the red man by the Great Spirit, as I have often told you, my children; if he has let in the pale-faces for a few winters, it is to punish us for having done wrong.  Now that we are sorry for what we have done, he will help us to drive away the strangers, and give us the woods again to hunt in by ourselves.  Have not messengers from our Great Father in Montreal been among the Pottawattamies to strengthen their hearts?”

“They are always whispering in the ears of our tribes.  I cannot remember the time when whispers from Montreal have not been among us.  Their blankets are warm, their fire-water is strong, their powder is good, and their rifles shoot well; but all this does not stop the children of Uncle Sam from being more at night than they were in the morning.  The red men get tired of counting them.  They have become plentier than the pigeons in the spring.  My father has taken many of their scalps, but the hair must grow after his knife, their scalps are so many.”

“See!” rejoined Peter, lowering his pole so that all might examine his revolting trophies, “these come from the soldiers at the head of the lake.  Blackbird was there with his young men; no one of them all got as many scalps!  This is the way to stop the white pigeon from flying over us in such flocks as to hide and darken the sun.”

Another murmur of admiration passed through the crowd, as each young warrior bent forward to count the number of the scalps, and to note, by signs familiar to themselves, the ages, sex, and condition of the different victims.  Here was another instance among a hundred others of which they had heard, of the prowess of the mysterious Onoah, as well as of his inextinguishable hatred of the race, that was slowly, but unerringly, supplanting the ancient stock, causing the places that once knew the people of their tribes “to know them no more.”  As soon as this little burst of feeling had subsided, the conversation went on.

“We have had a pale-face medicine-man among us, Onoah,” continued Crowsfeather, “and he has so far blinded us that we know not what to think.”