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A general hubbub now ensued; among others I could distinguish the word "black-snake whip," but I had heard enough. I was planning as I listened. Leaning forward I kissed the little child beside me, and said softly, "Eat all your supper, dear, and then go to Polly. 'Sully' is going to grandma's."
"The Black-Snake saw them," said the Wyandotte, so frankly and calmly that my growing but indefinite suspicions of his loyalty were arrested for the moment. "Why did not the Black-Snake report them?" I asked. "They were St. Regis, and a week old, as my brother says." And he smiled at us all so confidingly that I could no longer believe ill of him.
The Black-Snake had the river watch until you changed our stations." "You think it might have been a sign for him from possible confederates." "Maybe. Maybe clumsy white men." "What white men? No forest runners dare range these woods at such a time as this. Do you mean a scalping party of Butler's men?" "Maybe."
Dog-teams were hauling freight and baggage, with their swearing and perspiring drivers at their heels, and while the big black-snake whips flourished in air above the dogs or upon their straining backs, the tongues of the faithful brutes hung from their mouths, and their wide open eyes looked appealingly at bystanders. My heart ached for the animals, but there were no humane societies in Alaska.
The next morning Black-snake came, followed by two chiefs, and having entered the hut, first put out the squaw, he then returned and stood before his brother, his eyes bent on the ground. Red-hand said calmly, "Has my brother come that I may die?" "It is so," was the reply.
This region is bordered by a little jungle of poke-berry and elder-bushes, sumachs and brambles, so dense and thrifty that they overtop and hide the fence; and there is a tradition among the school-boys, that somewhere in the copse there is a black-snake hole, the abode of an enormous monster, upon whom no one, however, has ever happened to set eyes.
Kirkland and that the squatting Wyandotte wore the Hawk in brilliant yellow. "What is yonder fellow's name?" I asked Mayaro, dropping my voice. "Black-Snake," replied the Mohican quietly. "Oh! He seems to wear the Hawk." The Sagamore's face grew smooth and blank, and he made no comment. "It's a Western clan, is it not, Mayaro?" "It is Western, Loskiel."
She was not in sight when he brought up with a loud whoa, and getting down, the lines in one hand and a black-snake in the other, he advanced to the sill and looked in. "Any passengers goin' south?" he cried cheerily, cracking the whip.
"The Black-Snake!" said the Sagamore at my side, breathing heavily from his bloody combat, and dashing the red drops from the scalp he swung. "Look yonder, Loskiel! Our little Rosy Pigeon has returned at last!" I had seen it already, but I turned to look.
"You, Sagamore of the Loups," he said, carrying out the metaphor, "are closer to the four-footed people than are we Wyandottes." "That is true," said the Grey-Feather. "My elder brother, the Black-Snake, wears the two-legged hawk." Which, again, if it was meant that way, hinted that the Hawk was an alien clan, and neither recognized nor understood by the Oneida.
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