with a great
array of their brisk young braves, and because of this interruption, it
was said, the war of the Cherokees against the British was long delayed.

When at last the _casus belli_ of the Iroquois was disclosed it struck
the Cherokees of Citico Town like a thunderbolt. The Cherokee nation,
said the Mengwe, had presumed to recognize the independence of the Lenni
Lenape, whom they knew to have been conquered by the Mengwe more than a
century earlier.

This, of course, elicited from the Cherokees a denial of any such
recognition. Whereupon the Lenni Lenape themselves produced in
counter-asseveration the official belt of the Cherokees, given in
exchange for their own, and brought to the hand of their chief sachem by
their young _illau_ Tscholens, from Citico Town, the residence of the
Chief Tsiskwa.

A deep amazement fell upon the Cherokees of Citico--the sort of
superstitious consternation that a somnambulist might feel in
contemplating in broad daylight the deeds he had wrought in
sleep-walking. As to the rest of the nation, it was in vain that Tsiskwa
denied; for there were many confirmatory details in support of the
incontestable fact of the official belt openly shown in the possession
of the Lenni Lenape. The gossips recapitulated the long and solitary
audience with Tsiskwa to which Tscholens had been admitted--that strange
wild cry with which it had terminated seeming now a cry of joy, not
pain; and this interpretation was borne out by the obvious affectation
of illness by which he had sought to hide the true import of the
interview. More than all, the matter was put beyond reasonable doubt by
the discovery of the official belt of the Delawares in the _sanctum
sanctorum_ of the "holy cabin" in the "beloved square" among the
treasures of the blended religion and statecraft which pertained to the
government of the Cherokees. That Tscholens could have surreptitiously
exchanged the belts, as Tsiskwa of Citico, dismayed, overwhelmed, yet
blusteringly contended, was held to be preposterous; for there was not a
moment, sleeping or waking, when the Delawares were not in the company
and close charge of the Cherokees, who must needs have been cognizant of
any such demonstration.

Only one explanation was deemed plausible: the old man, doubtless in his
dotage despite his seeming mental poise, had lost sight of the political
significance of the bauble; he had bestowed it after the manner of the
presents that all we