“This is the great Sagamore, Mayaro, Mr. Loskiel; and I have attempted to persuade him to come north with us tomorrow.  Perhaps your eloquence will succeed where my plain speech has failed.”  And to the tall Sagamore he said:  “My brother, this is Ensign Loskiel, of Colonel Morgan’s command—­ my comrade and good friend.  What this man’s lips tell you has first been taught them by his heart.  Squirrels chatter, brooks babble, and the tongues of the Iroquois are split.  But this is a man, Sagamore, such as are few among men.  For he lies not even to women.”  And though his countenance was very grave, I saw his eyes laughing at me.

The Indian made no movement until I held out my hand.  Then his sinewy fingers touched mine, warily at first, like the exploring antennae of a nervous butterfly.  And presently his steady gaze began to disturb me.

“Does my brother the Sagamore believe he has seen me somewhere heretofore?” I asked, smilingly.  “Perhaps it may have been so—­ at Johnson Hall—­ or at Guy Park, perhaps, where came many chiefs and sachems and Sagamores in the great days of the great Sir William—­ the days that are no more, O Sagamore!”

And:  “My brother’s given name?” inquired the savage bluntly.

“Euan—­ Euan Loskiel, once of the family of Guy Johnson, but now, for these three long battle years, officer in Colonel Morgan’s regiment,” I said.  “Has the wise Sagamore ever seen me before this moment?”

The savage’s eyes wavered, then sought the floor.

“Mayaro has forgotten,” he replied very quietly, using the Delaware phrase—­ a tongue of which I scarcely understood a word.  But I knew he had seen me somewhere, and preferred not to admit it.  Indian caution, thought I, and I said: 

“Is my brother Siwanois or Mohican?”

A cunning expression came into his features: 

“If a Siwanois marries a Mohican woman, of what nation are the children, my new brother, Loskiel?”

“Mohican,” I said in surprise,—­ “or so it is among the Iroquois,” and the next moment could have bitten off my tongue for vexation that I should have so clumsily reminded a Sagamore of a subject nation of his servitude, by assuming that the Lenni-Lenape had conformed even to the racial customs of their conquerors.

The hot flush now staining my face did not escape him, and what he thought of my stupid answer to him or of my embarrassment, I did not know.  His calm countenance had not altered—­ not even had his eyes changed, which features are quickest to alter when Indians betray emotion.

I said in a mortified voice: 

“The Siwanois Sagamore will believe that his new brother, Loskiel, meant no offense.”  And I saw that the compliment had told.