“This is cold weather for traveling. Do you not find it so?” he inquired.
“Not when I find myself going in the right direction,” I replied.
I asked him if he lived in that vicinity, supposing, of course, from the presence of a white man in our camp, that we must be near some fort, trading-post, or white settlement.
He smiled and said, “I am a dweller in the hills, and confess that civilized life has no charms for me. I find in freedom and nature all the elements requisite for happiness.”
Having been separated from the knowledge and interests of national affairs just when the struggle agitating our country was at its height, I asked the question:
“Has Richmond been taken?”
“No, nor never will be,” was the reply.
Further conversation on national affairs convinced me that he was a rank rebel.
We held a long conversation, on various topics. He informed me he had lived with the Indians fourteen years; was born in St. Louis, had an Indian wife, and several children, of whom he was very proud; and he seemed to be perfectly satisfied with his mode of living.
I was very cautious in my words with him, lest he might prove a traitor; but in our conversation some Indian words escaped my lips, which, being overheard, rumor construed into mischief. What I had said was carried from lodge to lodge, increasing rather than diminishing, until it returned to the lodge where I was. The Indians, losing confidence in me, sent the young men, at midnight, to the camp of the white man, to ascertain what had been said by me, and my feelings toward them.