Throughout the contest he had shown at a disadvantage against the diplomacy of Big Fox.

Now the belt bearers courteously invited him to return home with them, but he declined, replying that he would not depart for some days.

He did not say it aloud, but nothing could have induced him to go with the belt bearers.
Big Fox noticed that neither Yellow Panther nor Braxton Wyatt made any opposition to their going, and it was a fact that he did not forget, drawing from it his own inference.

His power to read the faces of men was scarcely inferior to his wonderful skill in reading every sign of the forest.
Gray Beaver, and behind him a rabble, accompanied the Shawnee belt bearers to the edge of the woods, and there the aged chief said graciously to Big Fox: "My son, my heart is warm toward you, and I am glad to have seen you in the lodges of the Miamis." "Farewell, Gray Beaver," said Big Fox.
Then he and his two comrades turned, and disappeared like phantoms in the forest, so swiftly they went.
Autumn had made further advance.

The dying leaves were falling fast, and the wilderness was more open.