As for me, I knew as well as did the others what the pagan and burly Wyandotte meant.

To every Indian—­ even to many who had been supposedly converted—­ air, earth, and water still remained thronged with demons.  The vast and sunless wilderness was peopled with goblins and fairies.  No natural phenomenon occurred except by their agency.  Where the sun went after it had set, where the moon hid, the stars, the four great winds, the eight thunders—­ all remained mysteries to these red children of the forest.  And to these mysteries demons held the keys.  For no star fell, showering the night with incandescence, no comet blazed aloft, its streaming hair sweeping from zenith to horizon, no eclipse devoured sun or moon, no sunrise painted the Long House golden, no sunset stained its lodge-poles crimson, no waters ran, no winds blew, no clouds piled up quivering with lightning, no thunder rumbled, except that it was done by demons.

Fur, feather, and silver-scale also had souls, and slyly took council together when alone; the great trees talked to one another in forest depths; moonlit rocks conversed in secret; and peak whispered to peak above the flowing currents of the mist.

It was useless to dispute such matters with them, while every phenomenon of nature remained to them a mystery.  For they had brains and a matchless imagination, and they were obliged to solve these things for themselves as best they knew how, each people according to its personal characteristics.

So, among the Onondagas, Oneidas, and Mohawks, evil demons were few, and good fairies many; among the Cayugas good and bad seemed fairly balanced; but among the sullen, brutal, and bestial Senecas, devils, witches, demons, and goblins were in the vast majority.  And their perverted Erie priesthood, which had debauched some of their own Sachems, was a stench in the nostrils of any orthodox Sachem, and, to an ordained Sagamore, an offense and sacrilege unspeakable.

I sat looking hard at the Wyandotte, inclined to speak, yet unwilling to meddle where intervention must be useless.

His small, unwinking eyes met mine.

“There are demons,” he said in a low voice.

“Demons in human form,” I nodded.  “Some were at Cherry Valley a year ago.”

“There are witches,” he said.

I shook my head:  “None.”

“And Giants of Stone, and Flying Heads, and the Dead Hunter, and the Lake Serpent,” he persisted sullenly.

“There never were either giants or witches,” I replied.

The Mole looked up from his Testament in surprise, but said nothing.  Yet, by his expression I knew he was thinking of the Witch of Endor, and the Dukes of Edom, and the giants of the scriptures.  But it seemed hopeless to modify his religious teachings by any self-developed theories of mine.

All I desired to do was to keep this pagan Huron from tampering with my warriors’ nerves.  And it required but little of the supernatural to accomplish this.