But, although the chiefs preserved their presence of mind, the sudden appearance of the soldiers had excited alarm among their warriors, who, grouped in and around the bomb-proof, were watching every movement of the conferring parties, with an interest proportioned to the risk they conceived their head men had incurred in venturing under the very walls of their enemies.  Fierce yells were uttered; and more than a hundred dusky warriors, brandishing their tomahawks in air, leaped along the skirt of the common, evidently only awaiting the signal of their great chief, to advance and cover his retreat.  At the command of the governor, however, the men had again suddenly disappeared from the surface of the rampart; so that when the Indians finally perceived their leader stood unharmed and unmolested, on the spot he had previously occupied, the excitement died away, and they once more assumed their attitude of profound attention.

“What thinks the great chief of the Ottawas now?” asked the governor;—­“did he imagine that the young white men lie sleeping like beavers in their dams, when the hunter sets his traps to catch them?—­did he imagine that they foresee not the designs of their enemies? and that they are not always on the watch to prevent them?”

“My father is a great warrior,” returned the Indian; “and if his arm is full of strength, his head is fall of wisdom.  The chiefs will no longer hesitate;—­they will enter the strong hold of the Saganaw, and sit with him in the council.”

He next addressed a few words, and in a language not understood by those upon the walls, to one of the younger of the Indians.  The latter acknowledged his sense and approbation of what was said to him by an assentient and expressive “Ugh!” which came from his chest without any apparent emotion of the lips, much in the manner of a modern ventriloquist.  He then hastened, with rapid and lengthened boundings, across the common towards his band.  After the lapse of a minute or two from reaching them, another simultaneous cry arose, differing in expression from any that had hitherto been heard.  It was one denoting submission to the will, and compliance with some conveyed desire, of their superior.

“Is the gate of the Saganaw open?” asked the latter, as soon as his ear had been greeted with the cry we have just named.  “The Ottawa and the other great chiefs are ready;—­their hearts are bold, and they throw themselves into the hands of the Saganaw without fear.”

“The Ottawa chief knows the path,” drily rejoined the governor:  “when he comes in peace, it is ever open to him; but when his young men press it with the tomahawk in their hands, the big thunder is roused to anger, and they are scattered away like the leaves of the forest in the storm.”  “Even now,” he pursued, as the little band of Indians moved slowly round the walls, “the gate of the Saganaw opens for the Ottawa and the other chiefs.”