This time I knew that the tongue was Cherokee, a speech I could recognize but could not follow.
Again I shook my head, and a third took up the parable.

This one spoke the Powhatan language, which I knew, and I replied in the same tongue.
There was a tall man wearing in his hair a single great feather, whom I took to be the chief.

He spoke to me through the interpreter, and asked me whence I came.
I told him I was a hunter who had strayed in the hills.

He asked where the other was.
"He is dead," I said, "dead of your knives.

But five of your braves atoned for him." "You speak truth," he said gravely.