We made an attempt to open the interrupted parley. In vain. Whatever amicable design the Red-Hand might have conceived was now changed to a feeling of the most deadly hostility. There was no more "talk" to be drawn from him--not a word. In the midst of his warriors, he stood scowling and silent. Neither did any of the chiefs deign to reply. The common braves made answers to our overtures; but only by the insult of a peculiar gesture. Any hopes we might have conceived of a pacific termination to the encounter, died within us as we noted the behaviour of the band. Whether the Indian was in earnest in the proposal he had made, or whether it was a mere scheme to get our scalps without fighting for them, we could not tell at the time. There was an air of probability that he was honest about the matter; but, on the other hand, his notorious character for hostility to the white race contradicted this probability. I had heard, moreover, that this same chief was in the habit of adopting such stratagems to get white men into his power. We had no time to speculate upon the point; nor yet upon that which puzzled us far more--how he had arrived at the knowledge of who we were! What could he have known of the "White Eagle of the forest," or the "young soldier-chief?" So far as I was myself concerned, the title might have been explained. My uniform--I still wore it--might have been espied upon the prairies? The Indians are quick at catching an appellation, and communicating it to one another. But the figurative soubriquet of the young hunter? That was more specific. The Red-Hand could not have used it accidentally? Impossible. It bespoke a knowledge of us, and our affairs, that appeared mysterious and inexplicable. It did not fail to recall to our memory the apparition that had astonished Wingrove in the morning. There was no opportunity to discuss the question. We had only time for the most vague conjectures--before the savages began to fire at us--discharging in rapid succession the guns which they had loaded.