"
"He means the Ohio," explained the Iroquois to the children. "At flood
the whole surface of the river would run to white riffles like the flash
of a water-bird's wings. But the French called it La Belle Riviere. I'm
an Onondaga myself," he added, "and in my time the Five Nations held all
the territory, after we had driven out the Talle-gewi, between the Lakes
and the O-hey-yo." He stretched the word out, giving it a little
different turn. "Indians' names talk little," he laughed, "but they
say much."
"Like the trails," agreed the Mound-Builder, who was one of the
Tallegewi himself, "every word is the expression of a need. We had a
trade route over this one for copper which we fetched from the Land of
the Sky-Blue Water and exchanged for sea-shells out of the south. At the
mouth of the Scioto it connected with the Kaskaskia Trace to the
Missi-Sippu, where we went once a year to shoot buffaloes on
the plains."
"When the Five Nations possessed the country, the buffaloes came to us,"
said the Onondaga.
"Then the Long Knives came on the sea in the East and there was neither
buffaloes nor Mengwe," answered the Mound-Builder, who did not like
these interruptions.
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