There was a series of councils in the long house, or town-hall.  Croghan made the Indians a present from the Governor of Pennsylvania; and he and Gist delivered speeches of friendship and good advice, which the auditors received with the usual monosyllabic plaudits, ejected from the depths of their throats.  A treaty of peace was solemnly made between the English and the confederate tribes, and all was serenity and joy; till four Ottawas, probably from Detroit, arrived with a French flag, a gift of brandy and tobacco, and a message from the French commandant inviting the Miamis to visit him.  Whereupon the great war-chief rose, and, with “a fierce tone and very warlike air,” said to the envoys:  “Brothers the Ottawas, we let you know, by these four strings of wampum, that we will not hear anything the French say, nor do anything they bid us.”  Then addressing the French as if actually present:  “Fathers, we have made a road to the sun-rising, and have been taken by the hand by our brothers the English, the Six Nations, the Delawares, Shawanoes, and Wyandots.[17] We assure you, in that road we will go; and as you threaten us with war in the spring, we tell you that we are ready to receive you.”  Then, turning again to the four envoys:  “Brothers the Ottawas, you hear what I say.  Tell that to your fathers the French, for we speak it from our hearts.”  The chiefs then took down the French flag which the Ottawas had planted in the town, and dismissed the envoys with their answer of defiance.

[Footnote 17:  Compare Message of Miamis and Hurons to the Governor of Pennsylvania in N.Y.  Col.  Docs., VI. 594; and Report of Croghan in Colonial Records of Pa., V. 522, 523.]

On the next day the town-crier came with a message from the Demoiselle, inviting his English guests to a “feather dance,” which Gist thus describes:  “It was performed by three dancing-masters, who were painted all over of various colors, with long sticks in their hands, upon the ends of which were fastened long feathers of swans and other birds, neatly woven in the shape of a fowl’s wing; in this disguise they performed many antic tricks, waving their sticks and feathers about with great skill, to imitate the flying and fluttering of birds, keeping exact time with their music.”  This music was the measured thumping of an Indian drum.  From time to time, a warrior would leap up, and the drum and the dancers would cease as he struck a post with his tomahawk, and in a loud voice recounted his exploits.  Then the music and the dance began anew, till another warrior caught the martial fire, and bounded into the circle to brandish his tomahawk and vaunt his prowess.

On the first of March Gist took leave of Pickawillany, and returned towards the Ohio.  He would have gone to the Falls, where Louisville now stands, but for a band of French Indians reported to be there, who would probably have killed him.  After visiting a deposit of mammoth bones on the south shore, long the wonder of the traders, he turned eastward, crossed with toil and difficulty the mountains about the sources of the Kenawha, and after an absence of seven months reached his frontier home on the Yadkin, whence he proceeded to Roanoke with the report of his journey.[18]