voice was hoarse and croaking and guttural and who was called Kanoona
(the Bull-frog).

"Strangers to us, yet they requite us, for we treated them as our own,"
said Oo-koo-koo.

"They treat us as _their own!_" the croaking, satiric, half-smothered
laughter of this response intimated an aside. Then Kanoona in full voice
went on, "Open and frank as the day, they keep no secrets from us!"

"They are honest! They rob us not of the yellow stone which the Carolina
people think so precious!" rejoined Oo-koo-koo, while O'Kimmon and
L'Épine looked from one to the other as the cheera-taghe sustained this
fugue of satiric accusation.

"Not they," croaked the responsive voice, "for behold, we have long time
fed and lodged them and given them of our best. We have believed them
and trusted them. We have befriended them and loved them."

"And they have befriended and loved us!" said Oo-koo-koo.

Then silence. The river sang, but only a murmurous rune; the mute
moonlight lay still on the mountains; the wind had sunk, and the
motionless leaves glistened as the dew fell; a nighthawk swept past the
portal of the grotto with the noiseless wing of its kind.

"Had they desired to explore our land they would have asked our
consent," the croaking voice of Kanoona resumed the antiphonal reproach.
"They would not have brought upon us the hordes of British colonists,
who would fain drive us from our habitations for their greed of the