The great White Lightning regarded him with an icy stare.
"You say that the boy, Cotter, escaped through carelessness ?" he asked.
"I do," exclaimed Wyatt.
"Then why did you not prevent it ?" Wyatt trembled a little before the stern gaze of the chief.
"Since when," continued Timmendiquas, "have you, a deserter front your own people, had the right to hold to account the head chief of the Wyandots ?" Braxton Wyatt, brave though he undoubtedly was, trembled yet more.

He knew that Timmendiquas did not like him, and that the Wyandot chieftain could make his position among the Indians precarious.
"I did not mean to say that it was the fault of anybody in particular," he exclaimed hastily, "but I've been hearing so much talk about the Spirit of Evil having a hand in this that I couldn't keep front saying something.

Of course, it was Henry Ware and Hyde who did it!" "It may be," said Timmendiquas icily, "but neither the Manitou of the Wyandots, nor the Aieroski of the Iroquois has given to me the eyes to see everything that happens in the dark." Wyatt withdrew still in a rage, but afraid to say more.

He and Blackstaffe held many conferences through the day, and they longed for the presence of Simon Girty, who was farther west.
That night an Onondaga runner arrived from one of the farthest villages of the Mohawks, far east toward Albany.

He had been sent from a farther village, and was not known personally to the warriors in the great camp, but he bore a wampum belt of purple shells, the sign of war, and he reported directly to Thayendanegea, to whom he brought stirring and satisfactory words.