“Not good,” again echoed Fish-Carrier.

“Still the Delawares are not really bad people,” said Wampum.  “I don’t like their hideous idol, and some day I hope to see it cut down,” he added earnestly.

“Then it will be a brave man who will do it,” asserted Fire-Flower.  “The Delawares are a fierce tribe.  Their eyes are too black.  They cannot be trusted.  We Mohawks are brave, but I know of none who would dare cut down that idol.”

“I hope the Black Coat* won’t try it himself,” said Fish-Carrier.  “He is a good man.  I don’t want to see the Delawares kill him.”

[The Indians call missionaries “The Black Coats.”]

“He certainly will try it himself,” said Wampum.  “His heart is set on turning the dark Delaware to his Christianity.”

Fire-Flower sneered.  “How little those white men know, even such great white men as the Black-Coat!” he remarked loftily.  “He thinks because the Mohawks all turned to his Christianity, that he can get the dark Delawares.  He seems to think there is small difference in Indians, that they are all alike.  He does not know that we Mohawks despise the Delawares because they worship idols.  Before we were Christians we worshipped the Great Spirit, the God of all good, but never idols.  What good can come of people who dance round idols?” and the old hunter wrinkled his very nose in contempt.

Young Wampum knew his place too well to argue with the arrogant old hunter, so he smilingly said good-bye, and leaving them to their pipes and their memories, he set out for the Mission house, from whence he was to drive the Reverend James Nelson over to the “Delaware Line” to have one of his frequent talks with the stubborn old chief, “Single-Pine,” who for ten years had held out against Christianity, clinging with determined loyalty to the religion of his forefathers, worshipping the repulsive wooden idol that, even in their old pagan state, the Mohawks so despised.  Wampum was a great friend of Mr. Nelson’s.  He was only a boy of sixteen, but he helped in all the church work, translated Mr. Nelson’s speeches from English into Mohawk and the various other Indian dialects spoken on the Reserve, drove him about through the rough forest roads, paddled him down the river, and was the closest companion the good missionary had in all that wild, remote country.  Even Wampum’s parents were Christian church workers, but, kindly as their hearts were, they, too, shook their heads sorrowfully over the hopelessness of trying to Christianize the dark, idol-worshipping Delawares.

“Ah, Wampum, boy,” greeted the missionary as the young Indian presented himself at the mission house, “we have good work before us to-day.  I hear the Delawares are having a feast day.  They have been dancing about that deplorable idol for two days and two nights.  They tell me that old Chief Single-Pine danced eight hours without ceasing; that they have decorated the idol with silver brooches, wampum beads, every precious thing they possess.  It is terrible, and my heart aches, boy, when I think how hopeless it seems.  I fear they will be worshipping that wooden thing long after you and I have ceased working for Christ’s kingdom.”