Chapter XIII. Braxton Wyatt's Ordeal

The blood of Big Fox leaped for a moment in his veins, but it did not show under the paint of his face. His figure never quivered. He still knew all the danger, and he knew, moreover, how it had increased since the entrance of Braxton Wyatt, but he said, in slow, cold tones, full of deadly meaning:

"It is the white youth who left his own people to come to our village and join our people. We have received him, but the eyes of the warriors are still upon him."

The insinuation was evident. The renegade could not be trusted. Already, with the first words spoken, Big Fox was impeaching his character.

Braxton Wyatt stood with his back to the buffalo robe, which had fallen again over the entrance, and looked around at the circle of chiefs who had resumed their seats on the skin mats. Then his eyes met the stern, accusing gaze of Big Fox, the Shawnee belt bearer, and were held there as if fascinated. But Braxton Wyatt was not without courage. He wrenched his eyes away, turned them upon the ancient chief, Gray Beaver, and said:

"I have been long in the Shawnee lodges, great chief of the Miamis, but I do not know these belt bearers."

There was a murmur, and a stir on the skin mats.

Big Fox scorned to look again at Braxton Wyatt. He gazed steadily at the council fire, and said in tones of indifference:

"The white youth who left his own people has been in the lodges, where the old men and women stay; we have been on the war trail with the warriors. The day we returned to the village we were chosen to bring the peace belts to our good friends, the Miamis."

"The belt bearers are Big Fox, Brown Bear, and The Bat," said Yellow Panther, looking at Braxton Wyatt. "You have heard of them? The Shawnee villages are full of their fame."

"I never saw them, and I never heard of them before," replied Braxton Wyatt, in a tone of mingled anger and bewilderment, "but I do know that all the Shawnees wish the Miamis to go south with them at once, on the great war trail against the white settlements."

The old chief, Gray Beaver, looked from the belt bearers to Braxton Wyatt and from Braxton Wyatt to the belt bearers. His aged brain was bewildered by the conflicting tales, but he put little trust in the white youth. Already Big Fox had sowed in his mind the seeds of unbelief in the words of Braxton Wyatt.

"Scarcely a moon ago the Shawnees, as we all know, wished to go on the great war trail at once," said Yellow Panther, "but now three come, who say they are from them, bearing peace belts. Moreover, here is another who says that the Shawnees would send war belts. What shall the Miamis think?"

There was another murmur, and then silence. The surcharged air was heavy in the great lodge. But Big Fox merely shrugged his shoulders slightly, and answered in tones of