h wind over the forest. Then for
three days the chiefs spoke, and a man listened, unmoved. The sound of
these orations, wild and fearful to my boyish ear, comes back to me now.
Yet there was a cadence in it, a music of notes now falling, now rising
to a passion and intensity that thrilled us.

Bad birds flying through the land (the British agents) had besought them
to take up the bloody hatchet. They had sinned. They had listened to
the lies which the bad birds had told of the Big Knives, they had taken
their presents. But now the Great Spirit in His wisdom had brought
themselves and the Chief of the Big Knives together. Therefore (suiting
the action to the word) they stamped on the bloody belt, and rent in
pieces the emblems of the White King across the water. So said the
interpreters, as the chiefs one after another tore the miniature British
flags which had been given them into bits. On the evening of the third
day the White Chief rose in his chair, gazing haughtily about him. There
was a deep silence.

"Tell your chiefs," he said, "tell your chiefs that to-morrow I will give
them an answer. And upon the manner in which they receive that answer
depends the fate of your nations. Good night."

They rose and, thronging around him, sought to take his hand. But Clark
turned from them.

"Peace is not yet come," he said sternly. "It is time to take the hand
when the heart is given with it."

A feathered headsman of one of the tribes gave back with dignity and
spoke.

"It is well said by the Great Chief of the Pale Faces," he answered;
"these in truth are not the words of a man with a double tongue."

So they sought their quarters for the night, and suspense hung breathless
over the village.

There were many callers at the stone house that evening,--Spanish
officers, Creole gentlemen, an English Canadian trader or two. With my
elbow on the sill of the open window I watched them awhile, listening
with a boy's eagerness to what they had to say of the day's doings. They
disputed amongst themselves in various degrees of English as to the
manner of treating the red man,--now gesticulating, now threatening, now
seizing a rolled parchment treaty from the table. Clark sat alone, a
little apart, silent save a word now and then in a low tone to Monsieur
Gratiot or Captain Bowman. Here was an odd assortment of the races which
had overrun the new world. At intervals some disputant would pause in
his talk to kill a mosquito or