exaggeration of the polish of mere shell beads till the
recent discoveries have placed once more the yield of the _Unio
margaritiferus_ of the rivers of Tennessee on metropolitan markets.

A personal gift--of the rarest, it is true--but a mere trifle in the
estimation of Tscholens, in comparison with that national recognition
which he craved and which a tribe of warriors awaited.

The irate grandfather flung the glossy trinket from him down among the
ashes of the fire, which glowed in the centre of the floor of the great
council-house of the town of Citico, one of the dome-shaped buildings,
plastered as usual within and without with richly tinted red clay. The
flicker from the coals revealed the rows of posts that like a colonnade
upheld the roof; the cane-wrought divan encircling the apartment between
these columns and the windowless walls; the astonished faces and
feather-crested heads of the conclave of Cherokee chiefs from half a
dozen towns as they clustered around the fire and stared at Tscholens.

The grave emotion in his face dignified its expression despite its
savagery. Paradoxically the grandfather was young, slender, and, rated
by any other standard than that of the Cherokees, an unusually tall
people, would have been considered of fine height. His muscular arms
were bare except for his heavy silver bracelets; a tuft of feathers
quivered high on his head; his leggings were of deerskin, embroidered
with parti-colored quills of the porcupine, and his shirt was of fine
sable fur. His voice was sonorously insistent.

"_N'petalogalgun_!" (I am sent as a messenger) he declared urgently.
"Give me a belt."

He turned his flaming eyes directly upon Atta-Kulla-Kulla, himself in
the prime of life now, in 1745, who it seemed must act definitely under
this coercion. He must either refuse to testify to the truth, which he
knew, or involve his people, the Cherokees, in a quarrel which did not
concern them, of which a century was tired, between the Lenni Lenape and
the Mengwe.

So long ago it had begun! The Mengwe, hard pressed by other nations and
long at war with the Lenape, besought peace of this foe, and that they
would use their influence with the others. Usually women, prompted
always by the losing side, protested against the further effusion of
blood and went with intercessions from one faction to the other. This,
in view of the number and devious interests of the warring forces, was
then impracticable, and the