rvation by
themselves away off by their lake. Toby took me up there, and they
treated me as if I was their own blood brother. Red Jacket said the mark
of my bare feet in the dust was just like an Indian's and my style of
walking was similar. I know I took to their ways all over.'

'Maybe the gipsy drop in your blood helped you?' said Puck.

'Sometimes I think it did,' Pharaoh went on. 'Anyhow, Red Jacket and
Cornplanter, the other Seneca chief, they let me be adopted into the
tribe. It's only a compliment, of course, but Toby was angry when I
showed up with my face painted. They gave me a side-name which means
"Two Tongues," because, d'ye see, I talked French and English.

'They had their own opinions (I've heard 'em) about the French and the
English, and the Americans. They'd suffered from all of 'em during the
wars, and they only wished to be left alone. But they thought a heap of
the President of the United States. Cornplanter had had dealings with
him in some French wars out West when General Washington was only a lad.
His being President afterwards made no odds to 'em. They always called
him Big Hand, for he was a large-fisted man, and he was all of their
notion of a white chief. Cornplanter 'ud sweep his blanket round him,
and after I'd filled his pipe he'd begin--"In the old days, long ago,
when braves were many and blankets were few, Big Hand said-" If Red
Jacket agreed to the say-so he'd trickle a little smoke out of the
corners of his mouth. If he didn't, he'd blow through his nostrils.
Then Cornplanter 'ud stop and Red Jacket 'ud take on. Red Jacket was the
better talker of the two. I've laid and listened to 'em for hours.
Oh! they knew General Washington well. Cornplanter used to meet him at
Epply's--the great dancing-place in the city before District Marshal
William Nichols bought it. They told me he was always glad to see 'em,
and he'd hear 'em out to the end if they had anything on their minds.
They had a good deal in those days. I came at it by degrees, after I was
adopted into the tribe. The talk up in Lebanon and everywhere else that
summer was about the French war with England and whether the United
States 'ud join in with France or make a peace treaty with England. Toby
wanted peace so as he could go about the Reservation buying his oils.
But most of the white men wished for war, and they was angry because
the President wouldn't give the sign for it. The newspaper said men was
burning Guy Fawkes im