“Mayaro has heard,” he said, without the slightest emphasis of resentment.  Then, proudly and delicately yielding me reason, and drawing his superb figure to its full and stately height:  “When a Mohican Sagamore listens, all Algonquins listen, and the Siwanois clan grow silent in the still places.  When a real man speaks, real men listen with respect.  Only the Canienga continue to chirp and chatter; only the Long House is full of squirrel sounds and the noise of jays.”  His lip curled contemptuously.  “Let the echoes of the Long House answer the Kanonsis.  Mayaro’s ears are open.”

Boyd, with a triumphant glance at me, said eagerly: 

“Is not this hour the hour for the great Siwanois clan of the Lenni-Lenape to bid defiance to the Iroquois?  Is it not time that the Mohawks listen to the reading of those ancient belts, and count their dishonoured dead with brookside pebbles from the headwaters of the Sacandaga to the Delaware Capes?”

“Can squirrels count?” retorted Mayaro disdainfully.  “Does my white brother understand what the blue-jays say one to another in the yellowing October woods?  Not in the Kanonsis, nor yet in the Kanonsionni may the Mohicans read to the Mohawks the ancient wampum records.  The Lenni-Lenape are Algonquin, not Huron-Iroquois.  Let those degraded Delawares who still sit in the Long House count their white belts while, from both doors of the Confederacy, Seneca and Mohawk belt-bearers hurl their red wampum to the four corners of the world.”

“The Mohicans, while they wait, may read of glory and great deeds,” I said, “but the belts in their hands are not white.  How can this be, my brother?”

The Sagamore’s eyes flashed: 

“The belts we remember are red!” he said.  “We Mohicans have never understood Iroquois wampum.  Let the Lenape of the Kansonsionni bear Iroquois belts!”

“In the Long House,” said I, “the light is dim.  Perhaps the Canienga’s ambassadors can no longer perceive the red belts in the archives of the Lenape.”

It had so far been a careful and cautious exchange of subtlest metaphor between this proud and sensitive Mohican and me; I striving to win him to our cause by recalling the ancient greatness and the proud freedom of his tribe, yet most carefully avoiding undue pressure or any direct appeal for an immediate answer to Boyd’s request.  But already I had so thoroughly prepared the ground; and the Sagamore’s responses had been so encouraging, that the time seemed to have come to put the direct and final question.  And now, to avoid the traditional twenty-four hours’ delay which an Indian invariably believes is due his own dignity before replying to a vitally important demand, I boldly cast precedent and custom to the four winds, and once more seized on allegory to aid me in this hour of instant need.

I began by saluting him with the most insidious and stately compliment I could possibly offer to a Sagamore of a conquered race—­ a race which already was nearly extinct—­ investing this Mohican Sagamore with the prerogatives of his very conquerors by the subtlety of my opening phrase: