"I say there ain't going to be any war," he cried as I took a position behind him. "The Indians don't want war. They want trade. Take a pack of goods on your horse and walk into a Shawnee village and see how quick they'll quit the war-post to buy red paint and cloth. "Open a keg of New England rum among the Mingos and see how quick they'll drop their axes and hunt for tin dippers. Take blankets and beads to the Wyandots and watch them hang up white wampum. Take----" "Oh, that's all fool talk!" thundered Hughes crowding forward and staring angrily into the trader's deep-set eyes. "You can't lead a pack-hoss fifty miles from this creek without losing your hair, neighbor." "I can! I will!" wrathfully replied Dale. "I've traded for years with the Indians. I never yet went to them with a gun in my hand. If ever I need protection, they'll protect me. They are my friends. This war is all wrong. You can have it if you insist. But if you'd rather have trade, then you needn't build any more forts west of the Alleghanies." Hughes laughed hoarsely and called out to the silent settlers: "What do you fellers say to all this twaddle? Any of you believe it?" Uncle Dick, whom I had left whetting his knife on the stones of the Davis fireplace, gave a cackling laugh and answered: "Believe it? No! But it's fun to hear him splutter." The men smiled grimly. They had held back from affronting their neighbor's cousin. They looked upon Dale much as they looked on Baby Kirst when he came to the settlement and whimpered because he could not find ripe berries to pick. They were deciding that Dale was mentally irresponsible; only his malady took a different twist than did Baby's. He was an Indian-lover instead of hater. Dale's dark face flushed purple with anger. By an effort he controlled himself and said: "All right. You men want a fight. I'm afraid you'll have it. But I tell you that if Dunmore would call off that dog of a Connolly at Fort Pitt I could go among the Ohio Indians and make a peace which would last." "How about the Injuns being willing for us to go down into the Kentucky country?" spoke up Moulton. "If you want peace with the Indian, you must let him keep a place to hunt and live in. He can't live if you take away his hunting-grounds." "Then let's take 'em away so they'll die out tarnation fast," cried Elijah Runner. Drawing himself up and speaking with much dignity, Dale said: "I am sorry for any of you men who came out here to make homes if you will let a few Indian-killers, who never make homes, spoil your chances for getting ahead." "We don't go for to kill every Injun we see," said Davis, heretofore silent. "I'm a fambly-man. I don't want Injuns butchered here in the settlement like as Ike Crabtree done for Cherokee Billy. No sense in that."