"Morning," he said. "You're Virgil Hathaway, ain'tcha?"
"That's who I be, mister."
The man smiled so that his eyes disappeared in fat. "Pleased to know you, Mr. Hathaway. I'm Charlie Catfish, of the Senecas."
"That so? Glad to know you, Mr. Catfish. How about stopping over for some grub?"
"Thanks, but the folks want to make Blue Mountain Lake for lunch. Tell you what you can do. I got eight stone throwers with me. They was let come up here providing they behaved. I got enough to do without dragging them all over, so if you don't mind I'll leave 'em in your charge."
"Stone throwers?" repeated Hathaway blankly.
"You know, Gahunga. You can handle 'em even though you're Algonquin, being as you're a descendant of Dekanawida."
"I be what?"
"A descendant of Hiawatha's partner. We keep track--" A horn blast interrupted him. "Sorry, Mr. Hathaway, gotta go. You won't have no trouble." And the fat Indian was gone.
Hathaway was left puzzled and uneasy. It was nice to be descended from Dekanawida, the great Huron chief and co-founder of the Iroquois League. But what were Gahunga? His smattering of the Iroquoian dialects included no such term.
Then there was another customer, and after her Harvey Pringle lounged in, wearing a sport shirt that showed off his strength and beauty.
"Hi, Virgil," he drawled. "How's every little thing?"
"Pretty good, considering." Hathaway felt a sudden urge to bring his accounts up to date. Young Pringle could waste more time in one hour than most men could in three.
"I finished my ragweed pulling for today."
"Huh?" said Hathaway.
"Yeah. The old man got shirty again about my not doing anything. I said, why take a job away from some poor guy that needs it? So I appointed myself the county's one-man ragweed committee. I pull the stuff up for one hour a day, heh-heh! Babs been in?"
"No," replied Hathaway.
"Oh, well, she knows where to find me." Harvey Pringle yawned and sauntered out. Hathaway wondered what Barbara Scott could see in that useless hulk. Then he listened to the noise.
It was like a quick, faint drumming, queerly muffled, as though the drum were half full of water. Hathaway looked out the screen door; no parade. Timothy weeds nodded peacefully in the breeze, and from the Moose River came the faint scream of old man Pringle's sawmill.
The noise seemed to be behind Hathaway, in the shop, like the sound of a small Delco plant in the cellar. The noise increased. It waxed, and eight figures materialized on the rug. They looked like Iroquois warriors two feet tall, complete with moccasins, buckskin leggings, and scalps shaven except for stiff crests on the crown. One squatted and tapped a three-inch drum. The other seven circled around him, occasionally giving the loon cry by slapping the hand against the mouth while uttering a long, shrill yell.
)
In a small upstate New York tourist town, Penobscot Indian Virgil Hathaway's curio shop is invaded by the legendary spirits of eight two-foot-tall Iroquois warriors. The pesky bunch are left in his care by a group of Iroquois traveling into Canada, and although the little Chief and his seven warriors have promised to behave themselves, they can't help taunting the locals and having some spirited fun.
