As we stood thus, glaring at each other, a sudden remembrance made me pause.
"Sau-ga-nash" ?--surely it was neither more nor less than a Wyandot expression signifying "Englishman." That broad face was not wholly Indian; could this be the half-breed chief of whom I had so often heard?
'Twas worth the chance to learn.
"You are Sau-ga-nash ?" I asked, slowly, Toinette still clinging to me, her face over her shoulder to front the silent savage.

"A chief of the Wyandots ?" He moved his head slightly, with a mutter of acquiescence, his eyes expressing wonder at the question.
"The same whom the Americans name Billy Caldwell ?" "'T is the word used by the whites." I drew a quick breath of relief, which caused Mademoiselle to release her grasp a little, as her anxious eyes sought my face for explanation.
"Recall you a day twelve years ago on the River Raisin ?" I asked clearly, feeling confident now that my words were no longer idle.

"An Indian was captured in his canoe by a party of frontiersmen who were out to revenge a bloody raid along the valley of the Maumee.

That Indian was a Wyandot and a chief.

He was bound to a tree beside the river bank and condemned to torture; when the leader of the rangers, a man with a gray beard, stood before him rifle in hand, and swore to kill the first white man who put flint and steel to the wood.