Now my ears are open.

Let the Sagamore of the Mohicans answer my belt delivered! I have spoken, O Roya-neh!" For a full five minutes of intense silence I knew that my bold appeal was being balanced in the scales by one of a people to whom tradition is a religion.

One scale was weighted with the immemorial customs and usages of a great and proud people; the other with a white man's subtle and flattering recognition of these customs, conveyed in metaphor, which all Indians adore, and appealing to imagination--an appeal to which no Huron, no Iroquois, no Algonquin, is ever deaf.
In the breathless silence of suspense the irritable, high-pitched voice of Colonel Sheldon came to my ears.

It seemed that after all he had sent out a few troopers and that one had just returned to report a large body of horsemen which had passed the Bedford road at a gallop, apparently headed for Ridgefield.

But I scarcely noted what was being discussed in the further end of the hall, so intent was I on the Sagamore's reply--if, indeed, he meant to answer me at all.