Tscholens, muffled in bed draperies of otter furs and feathered mantles, his cane-wrought couch softened with panther and wolf skins, heard the wind going its rounds, and he realized that the direction of the currents of the air had veered and it came straight from the north. With the mere suggestion his heart sank. How should he return whence it came?--baffled, denied, empty-handed!--from these specious Cherokees, who yet called the Lenape "grandfather."
The young war-captain had divined since he had been among them that the Cherokees were making ready for war against the British government; they would attack the South Carolina colonists, and for this reason, if for no other, they would do nothing to anger the Mengwe, the Iroquois, whom, however, they had often fought: for they loved war--they loved war!
Gradually the room grew less warm. A sudden stir sounded under the divan, and a dog presently crept out to the fire, stretching lengthily and yawning widely as he went. He bestowed himself in an upright posture by the coals and looked down with drowsy gravity at the glow. His pendant ears, his long, pointed muzzle, his upright, rotund body, and his pose of solemn pondering made a queer shadow on the wall. He was no Cherokee, so to speak, but was the property of a French officer, and, following his master here from Fort Toulouse, _aux Alibamons_, had been left in the care of a Cherokee friend to await his owner's return from a mission to Fort Chartres and other French settlements "in the Illinois." The dog spoke any language, it might seem; for when one of the braves, half-awakened by his loud, unmannerly yawn, called out a reproof to him in Cherokee, he wagged his tail among the cold ashes till he stirred up a cloud of gritty particles; then he made his way across the room to the speaker, wheezing and sniffing, and bantering for a romp, till he was caught by the muzzle and, squeaking and shrilling, thrust under the divan anew.
Once more silence, save for the patrol of the wind again on its rounds. Once more the flare of the fire, dying gradually down to a smouldering red glow, akin to the smothered red tone of the terra-cotta wall. Once more the hot, angry eyes of the young war-captain, staring hopelessly, sleeplessly into the red gloom and the dull mischance of the future, sequel of the past.