It was not a girl, laughing in
the woods."
"And thou hast said to thy people, 'we are friends'?"
"The words of my father were spoken."
"And heard--Were they loud enough to enter the ears of the young men?"
The boy was silent.
"Speak," continued the stranger, elevating his form, proudly, like one
ready to breast a more severe shock. "Thou hast men for thy listeners. Is
the pipe of the savage filled? Will he smoke in peace, or holdeth he the
tomahawk in a clenched hand?"
The countenance the boy worked with a feeling that it was not usual for an
Indian to betray. He bent his look, with concern, on the mild eyes of the
anxious Ruth; then drawing a hand slowly from beneath the light robe that
partly covered his body, he cast at the feet of the stranger a bundle of
arrows, wrapped in the glossy and striped skin of the rattlesnake.
"This is warning we may not misconceive!" said Content, raising the
well-known emblem of ruthless hostility to the light, and exhibiting it
before the eyes of his less-instructed companion. "Boy, what have the
people of my race done, that thy warriors should seek their blood, to this
extremity?"
When the boy had discharged his duty, he moved aside, and appeared
unwilling to observe the effect which his message might produce on his
companions.
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