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There is no one to blame but ourselves. You warned us, but we thought we knew more than you did, and the dreadful fate that overtook the most of the company shows how little we knew what we were doing in putting our judgment in opposition to men whose lives have been spent in learning the crafty nature of the Red-men."
In a minute or two, however, some three or four of the red-men were seen consulting together apart, after which they approached the bearers of the flag, and some communications passed between the two sides. The nature of these communications could not be known, of course, though the conference appeared to be amicable.
"As the red-men obtained all the booty they could carry off, many times more than the amount of the reward they expected to receive, they are not likely to attack your farm, indeed they are already on their road back to their own hunting-grounds, so you may now rest in peace for some time to come. Should I again hear that they are out on the war-path, I will give you timely notice.
Thus precarious is the supply of food among the Red-men, who on one day are starving, and the next are revelling in superabundance. But to return to our story. At one end of this village the creek sprang over a ledge of rock in a low cascade and opened out into a beautiful lake, the bosom of which was studded with small islands.
We wish to see the hatchet buried, and to see all the Red-men and the white men smoking the pipe of peace, and hunting like brothers." The "Ho-ho-ing" at this was very emphatic.
Lumley said no more, as, in solemn surprise and silence, the Indians lifted up their comrade and bore him out of the hall; but he took good care to make no reference whatever to the looking-glass, and I verily believe that to this day it is believed by the red-men of that region that Lumley has eyes in the back of his head.
All this occurred to me at the moment, and I mentioned it to my companion as an argument against his own supposition. "No true," answered Susquesus, shaking his head. "That trail he Huron trail, too. Don't know red-man to say so." "But red-men are human as well as pale-faces.
A roar of laughter from those without showed the light in which they viewed the incident, and the amused looks of some of those in the store told that at least they did not disapprove of the act. Without paying any regard to these things, however, Lumley returned to his place, and with his usual air of good humour continued to barter with the red-men.
Where else but from Nantucket did those aboriginal whalemen, the Red-Men, first sally out in canoes to give chase to the Leviathan? And where but from Nantucket, too, did that first adventurous little sloop put forth, partly laden with imported cobblestones so goes the story to throw at the whales, in order to discover when they were nigh enough to risk a harpoon from the bowsprit?
Numerous parties of Indians, Creeks and Choctaws, roamed about from place to place, mostly drunk, or seeking to become so as quickly as possible: with each party of the natives I observed a negro-man, the slave of some one present, but commonly well dressed in the European manner, having an air of superior intelligence to his masters, and evidently exercising over them the power and influence derived from superior knowledge: the negroes, in fact, appeared the masters, and the red-men the slaves.
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