Wyatt's band, but he might match his own against it. He was
thinking of making the attempt to steal from the place when, to their
great amazement, they heard the door of the Council House open and shut,
and then footsteps inside.

Henry looked under the edge of the hanging mat and saw two dusky figures
near the window.

CHAPTER XXIII. THE FINAL FIGHT

Shif'less Sol and Tom Ross were also looking under the mats, and the
three would have recognized those figures anywhere. The taller was
Timmendiquas, the other Thayendanegea. The thin light from the window
fell upon their faces, and Henry saw that both were sad. Haughty and
proud they were still, but each bore the look that comes only from
continued defeat and great disappointment. It is truth to say that
the concealed three watched them with a curiosity so intense that
all thought of their own risk was forgotten. To Henry, as well as his
comrades, these two were the greatest of all Indian chiefs.

The White Lightning of the Wyandots and the Joseph Brant of the Mohawks
stood for a space side by side, gazing out of the window, taking a last
look at the great Seneca Castle. It was Thayendanegea who spoke first,
using Wyandot, which Henry understood.

"Farewell, my brother, great chief of the Wyandots," he said. "You have
come far with your warriors, and you have been by our side in battle.
The Six Nations owe you much. You have helped us in victory, and you
have not deserted us in defeat. You are the greatest of warriors, the
boldest in battle, and the most skillful."

Timmendiquas made a deprecatory gesture, but Thayendanegea went on:

"I speak but the truth, great chief of the Wyandots. We owe you much,
and some day we may repay. Here the Bostonians crowd us hard, and the
Mohawks may yet fight by your side to save your own hunting grounds."

"It is true," said Timmendiquas. "There, too, we' must fight the
Americans."

"Victory was long with us here," said Thayendanegea, "but the rebels
have at last brought an army against us, and the king who persuaded
us to make war upon the Americans adds nothing to the help that he has
given us already. Our white allies were the first to run at the Chemung,
and now the Iroquois country, so large and so beautiful, is at the mercy
of the invader. We perish. In all the valleys our towns lie in ashes.
The American army will come to-morrow, and this, the great Seneca
Castle, the last of our strongholds, will also sink under