"Well, by gracious! if that don't beat every thing! Do you mean to say that you can read writing? Impossible!"
"For a full minute neither of the hunters spoke."
Then, as if still in doubt, he reached out and took the paper. Drawing a stump of a lead pencil from his pocket he completed the word properly, opened the paper, and handing it back to the Indian, said:
"Let's hear you read that."
"My brother writes so that any one can read his words," observed the young Shawanoe by way of introduction, and then in a low, soft voice he read the brief note from beginning to end.
Bowlby, who had not yet spoken, seemed unable to express his emotions. Unable himself to read, the attainment of the Indian was almost past belief. As the best thing, therefore, that he could do, he solemnly reached out his hand to Linden and shook it with great earnestness. Settling painfully back on the log, he nodded his head several times as if he was almost overcome, as indeed was the case.
I should state at this point that although Linden had not seen fit to make it known, he had heard of Deerfoot the Shawanoe long before. He knew of some of his exploits in Kentucky, as well as those of later years on the western bank of the Mississippi (which are told in the "Young Pioneer" and the "Log Cabin Series"), but he had never met the youth, nor had he ever heard or suspected that he knew how to read and write. Taking hold of his arm, he asked:
"Where in the name of all that is wonderful did you learn that? When I wrote to Fred that I would tell him some things about you I did not know of the most extraordinary of all—that which I have just seen. Sit right down here, between me and Jim, and let us know all about it."