The gun would fall from his frozen hands." Again he paused and looked straight at Gray Beaver.

The old chief stirred in his furred robe beneath that piercing gaze.
"We would not go forth to war until we are ready for war, until the season is ripe for war," resumed Big Fox.

"When we would strike, we would strike with all the strength of all the allied tribes, that nothing of the white man might be left.

We would send to Canada for more rifles, more powder, and more bullets, and to do all these things it must be long before we go on the great war trail.

So I bring you, for the present, peace." He took from beneath his robe the peace belts, message of the Shawnee nation, and handed them to the old, old chief, Gray Beaver.