ition on the bay was strategical. So I gave
them their choice of a third of the captives. To the remaining tribes
I gave the rest of the captives and the confiscated weapons. Then I
passed the calumet among them.

I had spoken coldly, as an onlooker. Perhaps my air of detachment gave
me authority. The chiefs smoked the calumet and ratified my words.
That part of the council was over.

And then to the future. Cadillac rose. His eloquence painted the
prospect till it shimmered like a dream landscape, rose-tinted,
iridescent, with sparkling vistas full of music and bugle calls and the
tramp of marching men with the sun in their faces. We, French and
Indians, were a united people. Our young men were brave and full of
vigor. We should sweep all before us. We should crush the Iroquois
and drive the English far away over seas. We should go now to
Michillimackinac and march from there to conquest and empire. All the
bubble dreams of sovereignty, from Nineveh on, glittered in his words.
I translated faithfully.

Outchipouac answered. I had somehow won his spirit, which was brave
and vigorous. Perhaps he repented his distrust of me. My silver chain
was on his neck, and he fingered it. He said that where I led the
Malhominis would follow. His wild imagery swept like the torrent of an
epic. The man was warrior, dreamer, fatalist. He called on the chiefs
of the tribes to witness what I was, what I had done. Water could not
drown me, arrows could not harm me. I wore the French garb and my face
was white, but I was something more universal than any race. I spoke
all tongues. I was like the air which belonged to French and Indian
alike. I was a manitou; I had been sent to lead the Indians back to
the supremacy that they had almost lost.

I could believe him as I listened. I did not remember that he spoke of
me. He was talking of some great principle, some crystallization of
the forces of the woods in man's shape. The woods that had nurtured
the Indian should protect him. At last, out from the woods had come
this spirit,--this spirit that was their voice. He did not talk to me,
he talked to the skies and the clouds and the forces that dwelt in
them. It was the call of a savage king to the soul of the wild earth
that had cradled him.

So swept away was I that I could not have translated. But it was not
necessary. He had spoken in Algonquin, which all but the French and
Hurons understood. The war ch