"Small wonder I read such signs," I said. "I am an Oneida chief, an ensign, and a sachem. Come freely to me when signs of the Iroquois puzzle you. It would not have been very wise to open fire on our own scouts."
It seemed strange to them--it seemed strange to me--that I should be instructing the two most accomplished foresters in America. Yet it is ever the old story; all else they could read that sky and earth, land and water, tree and rock held imprinted for savant eyes, but they could not read the simple signs and symbols by which the painted men of the woods conversed with one another. Pride, contempt for the savage--these two weaknesses stood in their way. And no doubt, now, they consoled themselves with the thought that a dead Iroquois, friendly or otherwise, was no very great calamity. This was a danger, but I did not choose to make it worse by harping on it.
About two o'clock a ranger of the advanced guard came running back to say that some two score Iroquois, stripped and painted for war, were making signs of amity from the edge of the forest in front of us.
I heard Mount grunt and Murphy swearing softly under his breath as I rode forward, with a nod to Elsin.
"Now you will see some friends of my boyhood," I said gaily, unlacing the front of my hunting-shirt as I rode, and laying it open to the wind.
"Carus!" she exclaimed, "what is that blue mark on your breast?"
"Only a wolf," I said, laughing. "Now you shall see how we Oneidas meet and greet after many years! Look, Elsin! See that Indian standing there with his gun laid on his blanket? The three rangers have taken to cover. There they stand, watching that Oneida like three tree-cats."
As I cantered up and drew bridle Elerson called out that there were twenty savages in the thicket ahead, and to be certain that I was not mistaken.
The tall Oneida looked calmly up at me; his glittering eyes fell upon my naked breast, and, as he looked, his dark face lighted, and he stretched out both hands.
"Onehda!" he ejaculated.
I leaned from my saddle, holding his powerful hands in a close clasp.
"Little Otter! Is it you, my younger brother? Is it really you?" I repeated again and again, while his brilliant eyes seemed to devour my face, and his sinewy grip tightened spasmodically.
"What happiness, Onehda!" he said, in his softly sonorous Oneida dialect. "What happiness for the young men--and the sachems--and the women and children, too, Onehda. It is well that you return to us--to the few of us who are left. Koue!"