or Were-Wolf.  And a double ensign worn by any priest, hunter, or warrior I had never before beheld.  No Delaware wore it unless belonging to the Wolf Clan of the Lenni-Lenape, or unless he was a Siwanois Mohican and a Sagamore.  For there existed nowhere at that time any social and political society among any Indian nation which combined clan and tribal, and, in a measure, national identity, except only among the Siwanois people, who were all three at the same time.

As I salted my parched corn and ate it, sitting cross-legged on my hillock, my eyes wandered from one Indian to another, reading their clan insignia; and I saw that my Oneida youth wore the little turtle, as did his comrade; that the Stockbridge Indian had painted a Christian Cross over his tattooed clan-totem—­ no doubt the work of the Reverend Mr. Kirkland—­ and that the squatting Wyandotte wore the Hawk in brilliant yellow.

“What is yonder fellow’s name?” I asked Mayaro, dropping my voice.

“Black-Snake,” replied the Mohican quietly.

“Oh!  He seems to wear the Hawk.”

The Sagamore’s face grew smooth and blank, and he made no comment.

“It’s a Western clan, is it not, Mayaro?”

“It is Western, Loskiel.”

“That clan does not exist among the Eastern nations?”

“Clans die out, clans are born, clans are altered with the years,
Loskiel.”

“I never heard of the Hawk Clan at Guy Park,” said I.

He said, with elaborate carelessness: 

“It exists among the Senecas.”

“And apparently among the Wyandottes.”

“Apparently.”

I said in a low voice: 

“Yonder Huron differs from any Indian I ever knew.  Yet, in what he differs I can not say.  I have seen Senecas like him physically.  But Senecas and Hurons not only fought but interbred.  This Wyandotte may have Seneca blood in him.”

The Sagamore made no answer, and after a moment I said: 

“Why not confess, Mayaro, that you also have been perplexed concerning this stranger from Fort Pitt?  Why not admit that from the moment he joined us you have had your eye on him—­ have been furtively studying him?”

“Mayaro has two eyes.  For what are they unless to observe?”

“And what has my brother observed?”

“That no two people are perfectly similar,” he said blandly.

“Very well,” I said, vexed, but quite aware that no questions of mine could force the Sagamore to speak unless he was entirely ready.  “I suppose that there exist no real grounds on which to suspect this Wyandotte.  But you know as well as do I that he crossed not the river with the others when they did to death that wretched St. Regis hunter.  Also, that there are Wyandottes in our service at Fortress Pitt, I did not know before.”

I waited a moment, but the Mohican said nothing, and I saw his eyes, veiled like a dreaming bird of prey, so immersed did he seem to be in his own and secret reflections.