with some ostentation. The Hurons were but the remnant of a race, for
Iroquois butchery had reduced them in numbers and in spirit, but even
in their exile they preserved a splendor of carriage that made the
Ottawas, who camped beside them here, seem but a poor and shuffling
people. This man was a comely specimen, and he was decked to do honor
to the moment. His blanket was clean, and his head freshly shaved
except for a bristling ridge that ran, like a cock's comb, across his
crown, and that dripped sunflower oil over his shoulders.

He handed me his calumet, and we smoked for the time required by
ceremony, then he rose, and drew two beaver skins from the folds of his
blanket.

"The sun has smiled upon us," he said, with a certain sedate pomposity
which, like the black crest on his head, might be ludicrous in itself,
but seemed fitting enough in him. "I speak for my people who are in
camp upon the island. We have been upon strange rivers, and over
mountains where the very name of Frenchman is unknown. Yet we have
returned, and we come to you at once, as the partridge to her young.
We are glad to see a Frenchman's face again. We confirm what we have
said by giving these beavers."

I smoked for a moment, then leaned over and kicked the skins into the
corner. "Why these words?" I asked, with a slow shrug. "Does the leg
thank the arm for its service? Does the mouth give flatteries and
presents to the tongue? We of Michillimackinac are all of one body.
My brother must be drunk with the bad rum of the English traders, that
he should come to me in this way. No, if my brother has anything to
say, let him think it aloud without ceremony, as if speaking to his own
heart. Let him save his beavers till he goes to treat with strangers."