d bring hither the pounded corn. Taunt him not, for he is
valiant, and has fought like a hungry lion."

[Footnote A: Great wigwam, an Indian expression, signifying the
council-house.]

As the wise Chenos spoke these words to the grey-headed counsellors and
warriors, the Mad Buffalo walked, calm and cool, into the midst of them.
There he stood, tall and straight as a young pine; but he spoke no word,
looking with a full eye on the head chief and the counsellors. There was
blood upon his body, dried on by the sun, and the arm next his heart was
bound up with the skin of the deer. His eye looked hollow, and his body
gaunt, as though he had fasted long. His quiver had no arrows; but he
had seven scalps hanging to the pole on his back, six of which had long
black hair, but that which grew upon the seventh was yellow as the
fallen leaf, and curled like the tendrils of the wild ivy.

"Where are our sons?" enquired the head chief of the warrior.

"Ask the wolf and the panther," he answered.

"Brother, tell us where are our sons!" exclaimed the head chief, louder
than before. "Our women ask us for their sons--they want their sons.
Where are they?"

"Where are the snows of the last year?" asked the head warrior. "Have
they not gone down the swelling river into the Great Lake? They have,
and even so have your sons descended the stream of Time into the lake of
Death. The great star sees them as they lie by the water of the
Walkulla, but they see him not. The panther and the wolf howl unheeded
at their feet, and the eagle screams, but they hear him not. The vulture
whets his beak on their bones; the wild cat rends their flesh: both are
unfelt--because they are dead."

When the head warrior had told these things to our people, they set up
their loud death-howl. The women cried; but the men sprung up, and took
down their war-spears, and their bows and arrows(2), and filled their
skins with parched corn, and prepared to dry meat for their journey,
intending to go to war with the Walkullas and their allies, the slayers
of their sons. But the chief warrior rose again, and said--

"Fathers and warriors, hear me, and believe my words, for I will tell
you the truth. Who ever heard the Mad Buffalo lie, and who ever saw him
afraid of his enemies? Never, since the time that he chewed the bitter
root, and put on the new mocassins(3), has he lied, or fled from his
foes. He has neither a forked tongue nor a faint heart. Fathers, the
Walk