With slow deliberation, the symbol moved around the impassive and emotionless circle, passing from one red hand to another, until it finally came back to him who had first lighted it.

Without so much as a word being uttered, he gravely offered it to Captain Heald.

I heard, and understood, the quick sigh of relief with which my companion grasped it; he drew a breath of the tobacco, and I followed his example, handing back the smoking pipe to the white-haired chief without rising, amid the same impressive silence.
The Indian leader spoke for the first time, his voice deep and guttural.
"The Pottawattomies have met in council with the White Chief and the Long Knife," he said soberly, "and have smoked together the peace-pipe.
For what have the white men come to disturb Gomo and his warriors ?" I gazed at him with new interest.

No name of savage chief was wider known along the border in those days, none more justly feared by the settlers.

He was a tall, spare, austere man, his long coarse hair whitened by years, but with no stoop in his figure.