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careful, he told himself, and narrowing his eyes told the men why they were here. Powerful white man’s magic had sent them here, he said, to live alone and in peace in the valley of the Housatunnick.
    The Indians began to murmur among themselves at this. He wished he could understand all of their words, but their language was only a cousin of the dialect he knew so well and there were many gaps in his understanding. He gathered there were other families living down river at a place called Skatehook and that these people would have to be brought into council as well. A powwow would mean a wait of several days, he realized, and he did not like it. For himself he did not mind but how Becky would endure it he could not imagine.
    He watched and waited as the men talked among themselves. Their faces were bright with red ochre, with designs of birds and leaves covering their cheeks and foreheads. To Becky, he supposed, they were hideous but he could read the faces under the paint and knew them to be not unfriendly. Nor could he blame them for not wanting white men in their valley. Wherever white men came there was trouble.
    Eseck sighed, because he was a white man. No matter how many years he had been the adopted son of a Wabenaki chief he was still a white man. He could think, sitting here, of how Indians had killed his mother and father and burned the village he’d lived in, but to this he could add other memories, of an Indian village in the north where his brothers, the white men, had left not a single woman or baby unscalped, and the sight of an Indian horribly mutilated and tossed away to die. He could remember, too, how his Indian family had accompanied him on the long walk home from Canada, hunting deer for him and repairing his muk-sens until they reached the first white settlement. He was their son and they would have died for him if the need arose. But it was bad to think of Indians as human when his fellow white men said they had no souls and were demons of the devil. It was bad and it was dangerous.
    He was conscious of Becky’s questioning glance upon him. He said, “They do not want white men here in the valley. They are going to send messages to the rest of the tribe down river and have a powwow about us. We may have to stay here several days.”
    “I don’t want to stay here several days,” Becky told him. Her lip quivered and he wondered if she were going to break.
    “It will be all right,” he assured her quickly, and hoped he spoke the truth.
     
    The powwow began near sunset. Twenty or thirty more families had arrived by midafternoon and soon the village was seething with activity. A fire was built in front of the council house and a feast prepared in its ashes: baked dried pumpkins, corn bread, venison, wild turkey and blackberries. Before they began to eat the old chief with the coup-stick stood up and delivered a long speech.
    “Who is he?” whispered Becky.
    “His name is Black Eagle,” Eseck said. “He is very old but because of his skill and bravery in war he is considered their head chief. He is a man of peace now or they would not listen to him. Actually each tribe has a number of chiefs and they decide together what’s to be done about us.”
    “Like—like Thursday Lecture at home?” Becky whispered.
    Eseck smiled. “A little.”
    When Black Eagle had finished Eseck stood up. In sign language he thanked his hosts for receiving them so courteously. He assured them that they came in peace and that no other white men would follow. He told them that he and his paleface companion wanted only to be friends. When he had finished he brought out his gifts: a few ounces of tobacco, a piece of vermilion and a cloth of red calico. These were modest gifts, he told them, but he and his companion were poor in wampum. Their hearts, however, were rich in friendliness.
    Although she could not understand it, Becky saw that his speech was well received. The men nodded and the women watched with