The Border Rifles Part 13

"Be seated, gentlemen," he said. "You must feel the need of warmth. Have you come to me as friends or foes?"

"It is more easy to ask that question than answer it," the hunter said, honestly; "up to the present our intentions are kindly; you will decide yourself, Captain, as to the terms on which we shall leave you."

"In any case, you will not refuse some slight refreshment?"

"For the present, I must ask you to excuse us," Tranquil replied, who appeared to be spokesman for himself and friend; "it is better, I think, to settle at once the point that brings us here."

"Hum!" the Captain muttered, annoyed in his heart at this refusal, which foreboded nothing good; "in that case speak, and an amicable interview will not depend on me."

"I, wish it with all my heart, Captain; the more so, because if I am here it is with the object of avoiding the consequences either of a mistake or a moment of pa.s.sion."

The Captain bowed his thanks, and the Canadian went on.

"You are an old soldier, sir," he said, "and the shorter the speech the better you will like it; in two words, then, this is what brings us: the Snake p.a.w.nees accuse you of having seized their village by treachery, and ma.s.sacred the greater part of their relations and friends. Is that true?"

"It is true that I seized their village, but I had the right to do so, since the Redskins refused to surrender it to me; but I deny that I acted treacherously: on the contrary, the p.a.w.nees behaved in that way to me."

"Oh!" Black-deer exclaimed, as he rose quickly, "the Paleface has a lying tongue in his mouth."

"Peace!" Tranquil cried, as he forced him to take his seat again, "leave me to disentangle this skein, which seems to me very troublesome.

Forgive me for insisting," he went on, addressing the Captain, "but the question is a grave one, and the truth must out. Were you not received, on your arrival, by the Chiefs of the tribe, in the light of a friend?"

"Yes; our first relations were amicable."

"Why, then, did they become hostile?"

"I have told you; because, contrary to sworn faith and pledged word, they refused to give up the land."

"What do you say?"

"Certainly, because they had sold me the territory they occupied."

"Oh, oh, Captain! This requires an explanation."

"It is very easy to give, and to prove my good faith in the matter, I will show you the deed of sale."

The hunter and the Chief exchanged a glance of surprise.

"I am quite out of my reckoning," said Tranquil.

"Wait a moment," the Captain went on, "I will fetch the deed and show it to you."

And he went out.

"Oh, sir!" the young lady exclaimed, as she clasped her hands entreatingly, "try to prevent a quarrel."

"Alas, madam!" the hunter said sadly, "that will be very difficult, after the turn matters have taken."

"Here, look," the Captain said, as he came in and showed them the deed.

The two men required but a glance to detect the trick.

"That deed is false," said Tranquil.

"False! That is impossible!" the Captain went on in stupor; "If it be, I am odiously deceived."

"Unfortunately that has happened."

"What is to be done?" the Captain muttered, mechanically.

Black-deer rose.

"Let the Palefaces listen," he said, majestically; "a Sachem is about to speak."

The Canadian tried to interpose, but the Chief sternly imposed silence on him.

"My father has been deceived; he is a just warrior, his head is grey; the Wacondah has given him wisdom; the Snake p.a.w.nees are also just; they wish to live in peace with my father, because he is innocent of the fault with which he is reproached, and for which another must be rendered responsible."

The commencement of this speech greatly surprised the Chief's hearers; the young mother especially, on hearing the words, felt her anxiety disappear, and joy well up in her heart again.

"The Snake p.a.w.nees," the Sachem continued, "will restore to my father all the merchandize he extorted from him; he, for his part, will pledge himself to abandon the hunting-grounds of the p.a.w.nees, and retire with the Palefaces who came with him; the p.a.w.nees will give up the vengeance they wished to take for the murder of their brothers, and the war hatchet will be buried between the Redskins and the Palefaces of the West. I have spoken."

After these words there was a silence.

His hearers were struck with stupor: if the conditions were unacceptable, war became inevitable.

"What does my father answer?" the Chief asked presently.

"Unhappily, Chief," the Captain answered sadly, "I cannot consent to such conditions, that is impossible; all I can do is to double the price I paid previously."

The Chief shrugged his shoulders in contempt.

"Black-deer was mistaken," he said, with a crushing smile of sarcasm; "the Palefaces have really a forked tongue."

It was impossible to make the Sachem understand the real state of the case; with that blind obstinacy characteristic of his race, he would listen to nothing; the more they tried to prove to him that he was wrong, the more convinced he felt he was right.

At a late hour of the night the Canadian and Black-deer withdrew, accompanied, as far as the entrenchments, by the Captain.

So soon as they had gone, James Watt returned thoughtfully to the tower; on the threshold he stumbled against a rather large object, and stooped down to see what it was.

"Oh!" he exclaimed as he rose again, "then they really mean fighting! By Heaven! They shall have it to their heart's content!"

The object against which the Captain had stumbled was a bundle of arrows fastened by a serpent skin; the two ends of this skin and the points of the arrows were blood stained.

Black-deer, on retiring, had let the declaration of war fall behind him.

All hope of peace had vanished, and preparation for fighting must be made.

After the first moment of stupor the Captain regained his coolness; and although day had not yet broken, he aroused the colonists and a.s.sembled them in front of the town, to hold a council and consult as to the means for neutralizing the peril that menaced them.