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The time for the next few hours indeed for the night is confused. My shoulder was dressed and bound with herbs, and I was laid on a bed of rushes. Outchipouac, the Malhominis war chief, knew from former acquaintance with me that I had prejudices and would not lie where it was not clean, and so he humored me and gave orders that the rushes be freshly cut.
"Then tell the chief," I capitulated. "And see that I have something to wear." Water was brought by one squaw, and another fetched more broth and bound my shoulder with fresh dressings. Then leggings, robe, and girdle of wolfskin were left for me. I put them on with difficulty, and went to find Outchipouac. I stepped out into a glare of sunshine and stood blinking.
It would sound to him like a parrot's laughter. This was no court of love. It was war. A troubadour's lute would tinkle emptily in these woods that had seen massacre and knew the shriek of the death cry. Again I set my teeth and rose. "Outchipouac, war is secret. I cannot tell you why I go to Michillimackinac. But trust me.
I said to Outchipouac, and he gave me his calumet in answer. And then I had ado to compel a hearing. The Malhominis repented their injustice, and would have overpowered me with rejoicings and flattery, but I made them understand at last that I had but two hours to spend with them, and they quieted like children before a tutor.
Instead there was a hush, the hush of suspended breathing. In two days these savages had come to draw aside from me for what was in my look. "His face is the face of one dead," Outchipouac had said. I knew that I had grown to seem abnormal, alien. I tried to form my expression to better lines, but it was out of my power. I took my place as interpreter, and the long conclave opened.
We should crush the Iroquois and drive the English far away over seas. We should go now to Michillimackinac and march from there to conquest and empire. All the bubble dreams of sovereignty, from Nineveh on, glittered in his words. I translated faithfully. Outchipouac answered. I had somehow won his spirit, which was brave and vigorous. Perhaps he repented his distrust of me.
I lay with tight-clenched hands. The storm swelled high. I asked that the mat be dropped from before the door that I might see the lightning, and while I watched it Outchipouac slipped in. He felt me over, and patted my moist skin approvingly. Then he sat by my side and began to talk. His talk at first was a chant, a saga, a recitation of the glories of his ancestors.
The chiefs came forward and laid their bows and quivers full of arrows at my feet. For a moment Outchipouac's speech had warmed me as I thought I might not be warm again. But when I saw the chiefs advancing I became stone. "I cannot lead you," I said in Algonquin, and I knew my voice was blank. "Outchipouac is wrong. I am no manitou, but a man so weak he does not know the truth even for himself.
It was this that I meant when I had called Pierre, dull of wit as he seemed, the most useful of my men. I lay all day on my pallet, and Outchipouac served me with his own hands. "It is thus that we treat those whom we delight to honor," he said, and he held the gourd to my lips and wiped my face with a square of linen that some trader had left in camp.
Within the week a giant force could be gathered and an attack made. The Iroquois camp would be exterminated, and then I, at the head of the force, could march where I willed. Never had the western tribes followed a white man, but I had called their hearts from their bodies, and they would go. But one thing I was to remember. He, Outchipouac, the chief, was my brother in arms.
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