ed up the paper to wrap his
fiddle-strings in, I spelled out a piece about the yellow fever being in
Philadelphia so dreadful every one was running away. I was scared, for I
was fond of Toby. We never said much to each other, but we fiddled
together, and music's as good as talking to them that understand.'

'Did Toby die of yellow fever?' Una asked.

'Not him! There's justice left in the world still. He went down to the
City and bled 'em well again in heaps. He sent back word by Red Jacket
that, if there was war or he died I was to bring the oils along to the
city, but till then I was to go on working in the garden and Red Jacket
was to see me do it. Down at heart all Indians reckon digging a squaw's
business, and neither him nor Cornplanter, when he relieved watch, was a
hard task-master. We hired a nigger-boy to do our work, and a lazy
grinning runagate he was. When I found Toby didn't die the minute he
reached town, why, boylike, I took him off my mind and went with my
Indians again. Oh! those days up north at Canasedago, running races and
gambling with the Senecas, or bee-hunting in the woods, or fishing in
the lake.' Pharaoh sighed and looked across the water. 'But it's best,'
he went on suddenly, 'after the first frostes. You roll out o' your
blanket and find every leaf left green over night turned red and
yellow, not by trees at a time, but hundreds and hundreds of miles of
'em, like sunsets splattered upside down. On one of such days--the
maples was flaming scarlet and gold, and the sumach bushes were
redder--Cornplanter and Red Jacket came out in full war-dress, making
the very leaves look silly: feathered war-bonnets, yellow doe-skin
leggings, fringed and tasselled, red horse-blankets, and their bridles
feathered and shelled and beaded no bounds. I thought it was war against
the British till I saw their faces weren't painted, and they only
carried wrist-whips. Then I hummed "Yankee Doodle" at 'em. They told me
they was going to visit Big Hand and find out for sure whether he meant
to join the French in fighting the English or make a peace treaty with
England. I reckon those two would ha' gone out on the war-path at a nod
from Big Hand, but they knew well, if there was war 'twixt England and
the United States, their tribe 'ud catch it from both parties same as in
all the other wars. They asked me to come along and hold the ponies.
That puzzled me, because they always put their ponies up at the "Buck"
or Epply'