Just before we reached Agawam, as I was riding a little before my
companions, I was startled greatly by the sight of an Indian. He was
standing close to the bridle-path, his half-naked body partly hidden by
a clump of white birches, through which he looked out on me with eyes
like two live coals. I cried for my brother and turned my horse, when
Robert Pike came up and bid me be of cheer, for he knew the savage, and
that he was friendly. Whereupon, he bade him come out of the bushes,
which he did, after a little parley. He was a tall man, of very fair
and comely make, and wore a red woollen blanket with beads and small
clam-shells jingling about it. His skin was swarthy, not black like a
Moor or Guinea-man, but of a color not unlike that of tarnished copper
coin. He spake but little, and that in his own tongue, very harsh and
strange-sounding to my ear. Robert Pike tells me that he is Chief of
the Agawams, once a great nation in these parts, but now quite small and
broken.
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