ldren miserable. What of that? It was not his wife and children
who opposed you, therefore you have revenged yourself on the wrong
persons. He does not know that you have rendered his wife and children
miserable, and does not care; therefore, I ask, why are you pleased? If
your enemy was a good man, your revenge has only done him a kindness,
for it has sent him to the happy hunting grounds before his time, where
you will probably never meet him to have the pleasure of being revenged
on him there. If he was a bad man, you have sent him to the world of
Desolation, where he will be waiting to receive you when you get there,
and where revenge will be impossible, for men are not allowed to kill or
scalp there. At least if they are I never heard of it--and I am an old
man now.

"There is nothing, then, to fight for with the Palefaces of Red River,
and my counsel is, like that of Okematan, that we should decide on
peace--not war."

Whatever may have been the private opinion of the braves as to this new
and very unexpected style of address, the effect of it was pacific; for,
after a little more palaver, the peace-party carried the day--or, rather
the night--and, next morning, the Cree warriors went back to their tents
and hunting avocations, leaving Okematan to return to the camp of his
friends the buffalo runners.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

AN EVENING IN THE CAMP.

It was daybreak when Fergus McKay galloped into camp with the startling
news that an attack by hostile Indians might be expected that day or the
following night. He was, of course, unaware of the fact that the
peace-making Okematan had been unwittingly following his tracks at a
more leisurely pace.

Some readers may think that the Indian, with his traditional power of
following a trail, should have observed and suspected the fresh track of
the hunter, but it must be remembered that some hundreds of buffalo
runners had passed over the same track a day or two previously, and that
Hawkeye, or Pathfinder himself, would have become helpless in the midst
of such trampled confusion. Besides, Okematan had no reason to suspect
that he had been followed; still less that the camp of the war-party had
been accidentally discovered.

"Now, boys," said Fergus, after detailing his adventures during the
night, "we will hev to give up all notion o' buffalo runnin' this day
an' putt the camp in a state o' defence."

There was a good deal of grumbling at this, especially