"The Great Mountain has lied to his children,"--Menard's keen ears caught the bitter, if covered, sarcasm in the last two words; they had been Governor Frontenac's favourite term in addressing the Iroquois--"and his children know his voice no longer. There is corn in the fields? Let it grow or rot. There are squaws and children in our lodges? Let them live or die. It is not the Senecas who ask our aid; it is the voice of a hundred sons and brothers and youths and squaws calling from far beyond the great water,--calling from chains, calling from fever, calling from the Happy Hunting Ground, where they have gone without guns or corn or blankets, where they lie with nothing to comfort them." The Long Arrow stood erect, with head thrown back and eyes fixed on the opposite wall. "Our sons and brothers went like children to the Stone House of the white man. Their hands were stretched before them, their muskets hung empty from their shoulders, their bowstrings were loosened; the calumet was in their hands. But the sons of Onontio lied as their fathers had taught them. They took the calumet; they called the Onondagas into their great lodge; and in the sleep of the white man's fire-water they chained them. Five score Onondagas have gone to be slaves to the Great-Chief-Across-the-Water, who loves his children and is kind to them, and would take them all under his arm where no storm can harm them. My brothers of the Long House have heard the promises of Onontio, and they have seen the fork in his tongue. And so they choose this time to speak of corn and squaws and children." The keen, closely set eyes slowly lowered and swept around the circle. "Is this the time to speak of corn? Our Manitou has sent this Great Mountain into our country. He has placed him in our hands so that we may strike, so that we may tell the white man with our muskets that our Manitou is stern and just, and that no Iroquois will listen to the idle words of a double tongue." He paused, readjusted his blanket, and then stood motionless, that all might digest his words. Then, after a long wait, he went on:-- "There are children to-day in our lodges who can remember the Big Buffalo, who can remember our adopted son who shared our fires and food, who shared our hunts, who lived with us as freely as an Onondaga. We saw him every day, and we forgot that his heart was as white as his skin, for his tongue was the tongue of an Onondaga. We forgot that the white man has two tongues. It has not been long, my brothers,--not long enough for an Onondaga to forget. But the Big Buffalo is a mangy dog. He forgot the brothers of his lodge. He it was who took the Onondaga hunters and carried them away to be slaves. But the Manitou did not forget. He has put this Big Buffalo into our hands, that we may give him what should be given to the dog who forgets his master." Again the Long Arrow paused.