“Brothers, I have taken many scalps.  This stick will tell the number.”  Here one of those terrible gleams of ferocity to which we have before alluded, passed athwart the dark countenance of the speaker, causing all present to feel a deeper sympathy in the thoughts he would express.  “There are many.  Every one has come from the head of a pale-face.  It is now twenty winters since I took the scalp of a red man.  I shall never take another.  We want all of our own warriors, to drive back the strangers.

“Brothers, some Injins tell us of different tribes.  They talk about distant tribes as strangers.  I tell you we are all children of the same father.  All our skins are red.  I see no difference between an Ojebway, and a Sac, or a Sioux.  I love even a Cherokee.”  Here very decided signs of dissatisfaction were manifested by several of the listeners; parties of the tribes of the great lakes having actually marched as far as the Gulf of Mexico to make war on the Indians of that region, who were generally hated by them with the most intense hatred.  “He has the blood of our fathers in him.  We are brothers, and should live together as brothers.  If we want scalps, the pale-faces have plenty.  It is sweet to take the scalp of a pale-face.  I know it.  My hand has done it often, and will do it again.  If every Injin had taken as many scalps as I have taken, few of these strangers would now remain.

“Brothers, one thing more I have to say.  I wish to hear others, and will not tell all I know this time.  One thing more I have to say, and I now say it.  I have told you that we must take the scalps of all the pale-faces who are now near us.  I thought there would have been more, but the rest do not come.  Perhaps they are frightened.  There are only six.  Six scalps are not many.  I am sorry they are so few.  But we can go where there will be more.  One of these six is a medicine-man.  I do not know what to think.  It may be good to take his scalp.  It may be bad.  Medicine-men have great power.  You have seen what this bee-hunter can do.  He knows how to talk with bees.  Them little insects can fly into small places, and see things that Injins cannot see.  The Great Spirit made them so.  When we get back all the land, we shall get the bees with it, and may then hold a council to say what it is best to do with them.  Until we know more, I do not wish to touch the scalp of that bee-hunter.  It may do us great harm.  I knew a medicine-man of the pale-faces to lose his scalp, and small-pox took off half the band that made him prisoner and killed him.  It is not good to meddle with medicine-men.  A few days ago, and I wanted this young man’s scalp, very much.  Now, I do not want it.  It may do us harm to touch it.  I wish to let him go, and to take his squaw with him.  The rest we can scalp.”