In the very centre of a ring, formed by these chosen counsellors, was
to be seen the person of the disquieted, but seemingly calm, Mahtoree.
There was a conjunction of all the several qualities of the others in
his person and character. Mind as well as matter had contributed to
establish his authority. His scars were as numerous and deep as those
of the whitest head in his nation; his limbs were in their greatest
vigour; his courage at its fullest height. Endowed with this rare
combination of moral and physical influence, the keenest eye in all
that assembly was wont to lower before his threatening glance. Courage
and cunning had established his ascendency, and it had been rendered,
in some degree, sacred by time. He knew so well how to unite the
powers of reason and force, that in a state of society, which admitted
of a greater display of his energies, the Teton would in all
probability have been both a conqueror and a despot.
A little apart from the gathering of the band, was to be seen a set of
beings of an entirely different origin.
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