"Your tongue is split," Cornstalk warned. "Be careful, or we will say that young medicine-woman does not need a liar to care for her. Be careful, or your tongue will be pulled out. The Shawnees will be glad to warm themselves at your fire. That man was sent to the Falls of the Ohio. He has returned to the settlements. He commands three forts in the lower valleys. Will he head riflemen to battle, or stay at the forts?"
I truthfully answered that I believed he would be given an important command. And I explained how Colonel Lewis would be over him as he would be over many other brave leaders. They knew Lewis and feared him. Their faces were very glum until I repeated Connolly's message to Charles Lewis that peace with the tribes was very possible. Then they smiled grimly and Cornstalk informed me.
"Your Dunmore ordered his Long Knives to march against Shawnee towns ten sleeps after you were captured."[5]
I was startled at the information and glanced through the opening of the wigwam as if expecting to see the lean militia men breaking from the woods. The chief added:
"But they seem to have trouble in starting. Perhaps they are very old men and can not walk fast. I shall send my young men across the Ohio to dig them out of the mud."
"The Cherokees will not join the Shawnees," I ventured.
"They will not because they have old women among them. They put their powder in bags, and put the bags in caves. Their powder is spoiled. After I whip your army the Cherokees will carry their axes into the Carolinas."
I believed the Cherokees would do this, if our army were whipped. Turning to Black Hoof, Cornstalk asked:
"How long before you roast this white man?"
"After we have whipped the army of Dunmore and Lewis and Boone. Now he waits on the medicine-woman. After the battle there will be many white women to wait on her."
I was dismissed and on reaching the open air I discovered I had left all my apathy behind me. The importance of time and the imperative need of immediate action was burned into my brain by Black Hoof's words. I sought Patricia and found her seated on the bank, staring into the sluggish waters.
"I was thinking of you, Basdel," she greeted, and she reached her hand to me. "I was remembering what I said in Salem about your rifle. I'm sorry. I did wrong."