started
up its shallow slope, the rubber soles of my basketball shoes
soundless on the smooth surface.

He appeared suddenly, without warning, in the doorway. He was quite
tall, slim in the hips, and his naked shoulders seemed almost as wide
as the opening. Elaborate beadwork designs had been worked into the
buckskin breeches, and his headdress resembled a Sioux warbonnet, its
twin rows of red-tipped feathers hanging almost to his moccasins. A
hunting knife hung in a snake-skin sheath at his right hip. He was as
gauntly handsome as a Blackfoot--and they don't come any
better-looking than that.

He stood there, arms folded across his chest, looking as immovable as
Pike's Peak. This time I stopped. My back was as stiff as his, my head
as erect, my shoulders as square if not as wide. For a long time we
stood that way staring straight into each other's eyes, our
expressions blank, our tongues locked.

When enough time had passed for me to open the conversation without
being accused of impetuousness, I said, "I am Long Rock, of the
Potawatomi. I have come in peace, to hold counsel with you."

My words, in the language of the Delaware because of Wetzel's earlier
remark, had no immediate effect, which was par for the course with any
Indian. Not even his eyelids moved. The silence went on, building into
tension. Anyone unfamiliar with the ways of the Indian would have
taken another stab at it. I knew better. I had made my pitch; now it
was strictly up to him.

Finally his strong lips came unstuck. "I am Lo-as-ro, War Chief of the
Kornesh." It was the Delaware tongue, all right, but with inflexions
and nuances strange to me. "How is it that your skin is white but you
speak in the way of the Orbiwah?"

That last word, I judged, was what the Indian in general was called
wherever this specimen had come from. I said, "In my blood is the
blood of the Orbiwah. That is why I am here, sent by the Great Chief
of all white men."

We squatted down facing each other on the ramp. At once a young brave
brought out a long, elaborately carved peace-pipe. Lo-as-ro put the
bit to his mouth and puffed smoke toward the four cardinal points of
the compass, then passed the pipe to me. The tobacco was far more
aromatic than any I had come across before.

With the amenities out of the way, the Chief said, "Why has the White
Chief sent you to me?"

"To welcome you to the land of the white man."

"I come not to the land of the white man in