he crosses the hollow hills. He has killed many of his enemies; he has glutted his vengeance fully; he has drunk blood in plenteous draughts. Long he fought with the men of his own race, and many fell before him; but he fled from the men who came to the battle armed with the red lightning, and hurling unseen death. Even now I see him coming. The shallow streams he has forded, the deep rivers he has swum. He is tired and hungry; and his quiver has no arrows, but he brings a prisoner in his arms. Lay the deer's flesh on the coals, and bring hither the pounded corn. Taunt him not, for he is valiant, and has fought like a hungry lion."
As the wise Chenos spoke these words to the grey-headed counsellors and warriors, the Mad Buffalo walked, calm and cool, into the midst of them. There he stood, tall and straight as a young pine; but he spoke no word, looking with a full eye on the head chief and the counsellors. There was blood upon his body, dried on by the sun, and the arm next his heart was bound up with the skin of the deer. His eye looked hollow, and his body gaunt, as though he had fasted long. His quiver had no arrows; but he had seven scalps hanging to the pole on his back, six of which had long black hair, but that which grew upon the seventh was yellow as the fallen leaf, and curled like the tendrils of the wild ivy.
"Where are our sons?" enquired the head chief of the warrior.
"Ask the wolf and the panther," he answered.
"Brother, tell us where are our sons!" exclaimed the head chief, louder than before. "Our women ask us for their sons—they want their sons. Where are they?"
"Where are the snows of the last year?" asked the head warrior. "Have they not gone down the swelling river into the Great Lake? They have, and even so have your sons descended the stream of Time into the lake of Death. The great star sees them as they lie by the water of the Walkulla, but they see him not. The panther and the wolf howl unheeded at their feet, and the eagle screams, but they hear him not. The vulture whets his beak on their bones; the wild cat rends their flesh: both are unfelt—because they are dead."
When the head warrior had told these things to our people, they set up their loud death-howl. The women cried; but the men sprung up, and took down their war-spears, and their bows and arrows(2), and filled their skins with parched corn, and prepared to dry meat for their journey, intending to go to war with the Walkullas and their allies, the slayers of their sons. But the chief warrior rose again, and said—
"Fathers and warriors, hear me, and believe my words, for I will tell you the truth. Who ever heard the Mad Buffalo lie, and who ever saw him afraid of his enemies? Never, since the time that he chewed the bitter root, and put on the new mocassins(3), has he lied, or fled from his foes. He has neither a forked tongue nor a faint heart. Fathers, the Walkullas are weaker than we; their arms are not so strong, their hearts are not so big, as ours. As well might the timid deer make war upon a hungry wolf, as the Walkullas upon the Shawanos. We could slay them as easily as a hawk pounces into a dove's nest and steals away her unfeathered little ones; the Mad Buffalo alone could have taken the scalps of half the nation. But a strange tribe has come among them—men whose skin is as white as the folds of the cloud, and whose hair shines like the great star of day. They do not fight, as we fight, with bows and arrows and with war-axes, but with spears4, which thunder and lighten and send unseen death. The Shawanos fall before it, as the grapes and acorns fall when the forest is shaken by the wind in the Beaver-Moon(4). Look at the arm nearest ray heart; it was stricken by a bolt from the stranger's thunder. But he fell by the hand of the Mad Buffalo, who fears nothing but shame, and his scalp lies at the feet of the head chief.
"Fathers, this was our battle. We came upon the Walkullas, I and my brothers, when they were unprepared. They were just going to hold the dance of the green corn. The whole nation had come to the dance; there were none left behind, save the sick and the very old. None were painted; they were all for peace, and were as women. We crept close to them, and hid in the thick hazles which grew upon the edge of their camp; for the Shawanos are the cunning adder, and not the foolish rattlesnake. We saw them preparing to offer a sacrifice to the Great Spirit. We saw them clean the deer, and hang his head, and his horns, and his entrails, upon the great white pole with a forked top, which stood over the roof of the council-wigwam. They did not know that the Master of Life(5) had sent the Shawanos to mix blood with the sacrifices. We saw them take the new corn, and rub it upon their hands, and breasts, and faces. Then the head chief, having first thanked the Master of Life for his great goodness to the Walkullas, got up, and gave his brethren a talk. He told them that the Great Spirit loved them, and had made them victorious over all their enemies; that he had sent a great many fat bears, and deer, and mooses, to their hunting-grounds; and had given them fish, whose heads were very small and bodies very big; that he had made their corn grow tall and sweet; and had ordered his suns to ripen it in the beginning of the harvest-moon, that they might make a great feast for the strangers, who had come from a far country on the wings of a great bird to warm themselves at the Walkullas' fire. He told them they must love the Great Spirit, take care of the old men(6), tell no lies, and never break the faith of the pipe of peace; that they must not harm the strangers, for they were their brothers, but must live in peace with them, and give them lands, and wives from among their women. If they should do these things, the Great Spirit, he said, would make their corn grow taller than ever, and direct them to hunting-grounds where the mooses should be as thick as the stars.
"Fathers and warriors, we heard these words, but we knew not what to do. We feared not the Walkullas; the God of War(7), we saw, had given them into our hands. But who were the strange tribe? Were they armed as we were, and was their Great Medicine5 like ours? Warriors, you all knew the Young Eagle, the son of the Old Eagle, who is here with us; but his wings are feeble, and he flies no more to the feast of blood. Now, the Young Eagle feared nothing but shame. He said, 'I see many men sit around a fire, I will go and see who they are.' He went. The Old Eagle looks at me as if he would say, Why went not the head warrior himself? I will tell you. The Mad Buffalo is a head taller than the tallest man of his tribe. Can the moose crawl into the fox's hole?—can the swan hide himself under a hazle-leaf? The Young Eagle was little, save in his soul. He was not full grown, save in his heart. He could go, and not be seen or heard. He was the cunning black snake, which creeps silently in the grass, and none think him near till he strikes; not the foolish rattlesnake, which makes a great noise to let you know he is coming.
"He came back, and told us that which made us weep. He told us, there were many strange men a little way from us, whose faces were white, and who wore no skins, whose cabins were white as the snow upon the Backbone of the Great Spirit6, flat at the top, and moving with the wind like the reeds on the bank of a river; that they did not talk like the Walkullas, but spoke a strange tongue, the like of which he had never heard before. Many of our warriors would have turned back to their own lands; the Flying Squirrel said it was not cowardice to do so. But the Mad Buffalo never turns on his heel till he has tasted of the blood of his foes. And the Young Eagle said he had eaten the bitter root, and put on the new mocassins, and had been made a man, and his father and the old warriors would cry shame on him if he took no scalp. Both he and the Mad Buffalo said they would go and attack the Walkullas and their allies alone. But the young warriors said they would also go to the battle, and with a great heart, as their fathers had done. And then the Shawanos rushed upon their foes.
"The Walkullas fell before us like rain in the summer months; it was as a fire among the dry rushes. We went upon them when they were unprepared—when they were as children; and for a while the Great Spirit gave them into our hands. But a power rose against us, which we could not withstand. The strange men came upon us armed with thunder and lightning. Why delays my tongue to tell its story? Fathers, your sons have fallen, like the leaves of the forest-tree in a high wind; like the flowers of spring after a frost; like drops of rain in the Sturgeon-Moon. Warriors, the sprouts which shot up from the roots of the withered oaks have perished. The young Braves of our nation lie, food for the eagle and the wild cat, by the arm of the Great Lake.
"Fathers, the bolt from the strangers' thunder entered my flesh, yet I did not fly: these six scalps I tore from the Walkullas; but this has yellow hair. Have I done well?"
The head chief and counsellors answered he had done well; but Chenos answered "No. You went into the Walkullas camp," said he, "when the tribe were feasting to the Great Spirit, and you disturbed the sacrifice, and wickedly