There was a deep murmur of assent.

“The Shawnees are wise as well as brave,” resumed Big Fox.  “Their old chiefs have talked over it long.  It is a great war trail upon which we would go, and he who would travel far and long should prepare well.  The white men are brave.  From their wooden walls last year they beat us off, and many Shawnees fell afterwards in the battle with them in the forest.”

Big Fox paused, and swept the circle again with his glittering eyes.  As before, every man among them drew a deep breath when that hypnotic gaze fell upon him.  But they were hearing words that they had not expected to hear, and after the tremendous gaze had passed there came a faint murmur of surprise.  But Big Fox did not seem to notice it.  Instead he continued: 

“The winter is at hand.  Already the dead leaves fall, and soon the bitter winds will sweep the forests and the prairies.  The warrior would go forth to battle, chilled and stiff.  The gun would fall from his frozen hands.”

Again he paused and looked straight at Gray Beaver.  The old chief stirred in his furred robe beneath that piercing gaze.

“We would not go forth to war until we are ready for war, until the season is ripe for war,” resumed Big Fox.  “When we would strike, we would strike with all the strength of all the allied tribes, that nothing of the white man might be left.  We would send to Canada for more rifles, more powder, and more bullets, and to do all these things it must be long before we go on the great war trail.  So I bring you, for the present, peace.”

He took from beneath his robe the peace belts, message of the Shawnee nation, and handed them to the old, old chief, Gray Beaver.  The murmur from the Miamis became deep and long, but Big Fox gazed once more at the fire, painted, silent, and immovable.

“It was war when I was in the Shawnee village, a moon ago,” said a chief, Yellow Panther, “and it was war belts that we expected.  Why have the Shawnees changed their minds?”

Murmurs of approval greeted his words, but Big Fox never stirred.

“The old men, the wise men of the Shawnees have so decided,” he replied.  “It is not for the bearer of the belts to question their wisdom.”

“If the Shawnees wish to wait long to prepare, the Miamis must wait, too,” said the chief, Gray Beaver, in whose veins flowed the cold and languid blood of old age.

The younger chiefs murmured again.  Big Fox was conscious that a powerful faction of the Miamis wished to go on a winter war path, and strike the settlements at once.  But Big Fox was still unafraid.  He was a forest diplomatist as well as a forest warrior, and he played for the most precious of all stakes, the lives of his people.

“The great chiefs of the Shawnees have lived long,” he said.  “Their heads are heavy with age and with wisdom.  It is not well to waste our strength with a blow which will not reach the mark, but it is good to wait until we can strike true.”