“Brothers, you have been told that this weasel does not know the tribe of which I am born. Why should you know it? Injins once were foolish. While the pale-faces were getting one hunting-ground after another from them, they dug up the hatchet against their own friends. They took each other's scalps. Injin hated Injin--tribe hated tribe. I am of no tribe, and no one can hate me for my people. You see my skin. It is red. That is enough. I scalp, and smoke, and talk, and go on weary paths for all Injins, and not for any tribe. I am without a tribe. Some call me the Tribeless. It is better to bear that name, than to be called a weasel. I have done.” Peter had so much success by this argumentum ad hominem, that most present fancied that the weasel would creep through some hole, and disappear. Not so, however, with Ungque. He was a demagogue, after an Indian fashion; and this is a class of men that ever “make capital” of abuses, as we Americans say, in our money-getting habits. Instead of being frightened off the ground, he arose to answer as promptly as if a practised debater, though with an air of humility so profound, that no one could take offence at his presumption. “The unknown chief has answered,” he said, “I am glad. I love to hear his words. My ears are always open when he speaks, and my mind is stronger. I now see that it is good he should not have a tribe. He may be a Cherokee, and then our warriors would wish him ill.” This was a home-thrust, most artfully concealed; a Cherokee being the Indian of all others the most hated by the chiefs present;--the Carthaginians of those western Romans. “It is better he should not have a tribe, than be a Cherokee. He might better be a weasel. “Brothers, we have been told to kill ALL the pale-faces. I like that advice. The land cannot have two owners. If a pale-face owns it, an Injin cannot. If an Injin owns it, a pale-face cannot. But the chief without a tribe tells us not to kill all. He tells us to kill all but the bee-hunter and his squaw. He thinks this bee-hunter is a medicine bee-hunter, and may do us Injins great harm. He wishes to let him go. “Brothers, this is not my way of thinking. It is better to kill the bee-hunter and his squaw while we can, that there may be no more such medicine bee-hunters to frighten us Injins. If one bee-hunter can do so much harm, what would a tribe of bee-hunters do? I do not want to see any more. It is a dangerous thing to know how to talk with bees. It is best that no one should have that power. I would rather never taste honey again, than live among pale-faces that can talk with bees. “Brothers, it is not enough that the pale-faces know so much more than the red men, but they must get the bees to tell them where to find honey, to find bears, to find warriors. No; let us take the scalp of the bee-talker, and of his squaw, that there may never be such a medicine again. I have spoken.”