While the young warriors and the maidens sang and danced without
ceasing, the sachems and the chiefs sat far into the night, and as
gravely as the Roman Senate, considered the times and their needs.
Runners, long of limb, powerful of chest, and bare to the waist, came
from all points of the compass and reported secretly. One from Albany
said that Corlear and the people there and at New York were talking of
war, but were not preparing for it. Another, a Mohawk who came out of
the far east, said that Shirley, the Governor of Massachusetts, was
thinking of war and preparing for it too. A third, a Tuscarora, who had
traveled many days from the south, said that Dinwiddie, the Governor of
Virginia, was already acting. He was sending men, led by a tall youth
named Washington, into the Ohio country, where the French had already
gone to build forts. An Onondaga out of the north said that Quebec and
Montreal were alive with military preparations. Onontio was giving to
the French Indians muskets, powder, bullets and blankets in a profusion
never known before.
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