e it
into your heads to fish up the moon in the lake, you would more easily
succeed in scooping that planet up in your nets than in effecting what
you are ruminating now. In vain do you fatigue your brains. You
cannot live with the bear and share your food with the wolf. You must
choose. Be assured of this; the English and French cannot be in the
same place without killing one another."

There was more in the same vein. Only one nation could hold the
country for the fur trade. If the French were that nation the Indians
would be protected, their fighting men would be given arms, their
families would be cared for, the great father at Quebec would reward
them as brothers. He gave the Hurons and Ottawas each a war belt to
testify to his intention.

Here was the crisis. But each tribe took the belt and kept it. I
could scarcely forbear glancing at Cadillac. But I dared not be too
elated, for we had yet the Senecas to deal with. Cadillac turned to
them and asked their mission among us. He did it briefly, and I hoped
they would answer with equal bluntness, for I dreaded this part of the
council. All of the Iroquois nations were trained rhetoricians, and I
would need a long ear to catch their verbal quibbles and see where
their sophistry was hiding.

Cannehoot, their oldest chief, spoke for them all. He made proposal
after proposal with belts and tokens to seal them. His speech was
moderate, but his ideas crowded; it was hard to keep them in sequence.

They had come to learn wisdom of us. They gave a belt.

They had come to wipe the war paint from our soldiers' faces. They
gave another belt.

They wished the sun to shine on us. They gave a large marble as red as
the sun.

They wished the rain of heaven to wash away hatred. They gave a chain
of wampum.

And so on and on and on. They gave belts, beavers, trinkets. They had
peace in their mouths and kindness in their hearts. They desired to
tie up the hatchet, to sweep the road between the French and themselves
free from blood. But with that clause they gave no belt. They made no
mention of the English prisoners, and they desired to close their
friendly visit and to go home.

Cadillac looked at them with contempt. He was always too choleric to
hide his mind, and he answered with little pretense at civility. He
gave them permission to go home, and sent a knife by them to their
kindred. It was not for war, he told them, but that they might cut