Leaning back against the rugged rock, in which a slight warmth was perceptible from the contact farther away with the blaze, Deerfoot's thoughts drifted to other places, scenes and persons. He recalled his rambles with Ned Preston, Jo Springer, Jim Turner and the quaint negro youth known as "Blossom," when all passed through many stirring experiences, as you learned long since in the "Boy Pioneer Series;" and of Jack Carleton and Otto Relstaub in the "Log Cabin" stories. Fred Linden and Terry Clark were to come later.
Deerfoot had known many men who later gained a place in history. You will recall the high esteem in which he was held by General W. H. Harrison, Governor of Indiana Territory, and afterward President of the United States. It was he who declared, when a Senator in Washington, that he looked upon the young Shawanoe as the greatest Indian in many respects that ever lived, with natural abilities superior to those of the renowned Tecumseh, who, nevertheless, holds the most exalted position in the estimate of those that came after him.
Daniel Boone, the renowned pioneer, regarded the youth highly, while Simon Kenton, himself one of the best judges of men, was as unstinted in his praise as Governor Harrison. The acceptance of Christianity by this remarkable youth shut out forever the political fame and power that he would have assuredly won had he refused the true faith and been an Indian in his traits, tastes and ambitions. But the sweet, soul-satisfying happiness that was always his he would not have exchanged for the highest honors the world can give.
The musings of Deerfoot took a daintier, softer, tenderer tint. His thoughts flew across the thousands of miles of forest, river, mountain and prairie to one whose image was never absent from his heart, and whom he hoped to see again and all in good time call wife. He talked to none of her, for the theme was too sacred to be shared with another, but next to his religion it was the sweetest, dearest consolation of his life.
"In the rainbow-tinted forest,
Where the sleepy waters flow,—
Roamed I with a dark-haired maiden,
In an autumn long ago;
And her dimpled hand was resting