poken! I have spoken!"

At the familiar and detested sound the Lenape suddenly smote his breast
with his braceleted arms, and a strong cry involuntarily broke from
him--so poignant, so bitter, so shrill, that it sounded high above the
bleating flute, the guttural drone of the drum, the vibratory throb of
the dancing feet, and brought the pastime to a sudden close. In another
moment the "beloved square" was filled with crowds of the Cherokees and
their huddling shadows, all a medley in the last red suffusions of the
sinking sun. To the tumult of eager, anxious, polite questions,
Tscholens faltered to Savanukah, who had hastily returned:--

"_N'schauwihilla! N'dagotschi! Lowanneunk undchen_!" (I am fainting! I
am cold! The wind comes from the north!)

He looked ill enough, but Savanukah's sharp eyes scanned suspiciously
the aged countenance of Tsiskwa of Citico. Tsiskwa was, however, the
image of venerable and respected innocence. His aged lips mumbled one
upon the other silently. He hardly seemed to take note of the tumult.
When the afflicted "grandfather" was being led away from the scene,
Savanukah loitered to ask, with well-couched phrase and the show of deep
reverence, what had been the tenor of the discourse, and it was with a
galvanic jerk that the old man appeared to gather his faculties
together.

"Of what did he talk?" Tsiskwa fixed august eyes upon Savanukah as he
repeated the query. "Am _I_ to remember of what young men talk?--the mad
young men?--mad, mad--all quite mad!"

For not to Savanukah, surely, would he confess; and although because of
this reticence that discerning party believed that Tsiskwa had wittingly
wounded their emotional "grandfather" in his tenderest pride till he
roared like a bull, Savanukah afterward had cause to repudiate this
opinion in a conviction which was less to the credit of the acumen of
Tsiskwa than a full confession of his breach of etiquette in tormenting
his young "grandfather" might have been. At the time Savanukah felt a
certain, malicious pride in the old man's keenness and poise and
capacity, and he said apart to the inquisitive bystanders that, as might
have been expected, the big bird, Tsiskwa-yah, had pounced upon the
little bird, Tscholen-tit--for the name of each signifies a bird in
their respective languages, and the suffixes imply great and small. And
mightily pleased was Savanukah with his own wit.

That night came a sudden change. A keen frost was falling s