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 You know what they mean. Choose." Dropping the beaded emblems upon the table the savage turned to his seat by the wall.

Pale, calm as a statue, but with flashing eye, Clark tangled his slender cane into the belts and—flung them at the chiefs.

"Ugh!"

Every Indian was up with knife unsheathed, every white stood with hand on his sword. Into their very teeth the Long Knife had flung back the challenge, "Peace, or War."

Like hounds in leash they strained, ready to leap, when the lordly Long Knife raised his arm and grinding the wampum beneath his heel thundered,—

"Dogs, you may go!"

One moment they wavered, then broke and fled tumultuously from the council house.

All night they debated in the woods near the fort. In the morning, "Let me sign," said Buckongahelas.

Smiling, Clark guided the hand of the boastful Delaware, and all the rest signed with him.

XXIII

MISSISSIPPI TROUBLES

OR the first time in their stormy history, the front and rear gates of the Kentucky forts lay back on their enormous wooden hinges, and all day long men and teams passed in and out with waggon loads of grain from the harvest fields. So hushed and still was the air, it seemed the old Indian days were gone for ever. At night the animals came wandering in from the woods, making their customary way to the night pens. Fields of corn waved undisturbed around the forts.

But the truce was brief. Already the Cherokees were slaughtering on the Wilderness Road, and beyond the