On the third day the Crows, finding that all their endeavours to draw their cautious enemy from the covert were vain, held a council of war, after which three or four of their principal chiefs approached the encampment, making, as they advanced, signs of amity and truce. Reginald went out to meet them, accompanied by Baptiste and Attō, leaving orders with the remainder of his party to hold themselves in readiness against any attempt at treachery: halting at a spot not more than eighty yards from the wood, he awaited the Crow leaders, who came forward to meet him without any apparent suspicion or treacherous design. They had taken the precaution to bring with them the youth to whom Reginald had already shown kindness, and whose presence they rightly conjectured would facilitate the amicable nature of their mission. Reginald acknowledged with a smile the friendly greeting of his young protégé, and then drawing himself up to his full height, awaited in silence the opening of the parley. The Crow _partisan_[56] first glanced his keen eye over the persons of those whom he was about to address, as if scanning them for the purpose of ascertaining their qualities and character, and whether he should best succeed by endeavouring to circumvent or to overawe them. Keen as he was, his penetration was here at fault; for although no three persons could be more dissimilar than those before him, yet, whether taken collectively or severally, they looked like men who would not be easily over–reached: his eye first rested on the spare sinewy frame and impenetrable countenance of Attō; thence it glanced to the muscular frame and shrewd hard features of the guide; and turning from them, it found but little encouragement in the bright bold eye and commanding form of Reginald Brandon. Perceiving with the intuitive sagacity of an Indian that the latter was the leader of his party, the partisan opened the parley by pointing his forefinger at Reginald, and then pressing the closed fingers against his own breast: he then pointed to himself with the same finger, and afterwards stretching both arms horizontally, moved them up and down with a vibrating motion, concluding his pantomime by again raising the forefinger of his right hand vertically to the height of his forehead. Reginald, who could not understand these gestures, turned to Attō, saying, “Does my brother know what the stranger speaks?—if so, let him explain.” “He says,” replied the Delaware, “that he wishes to be friends with you, and he tells you by the last signs that he is an Upsaroka, and a chief.”[57] “Tell him,” said Reginald, “that if his heart is true, and his tongue not forked, we also wish to be friends with him and his people.” The Crow replied by making the conventional sign for “good,” adding to it that for “truth.”