"Is the place far away?"

"Yes, very far away by water, and a hard journey by land. Pigeon Creek is far away, near the Ohio River; south, Waubeno—far away to the south."

"Will you ever go there again?"

"Yes—I hope to go there again, and to take you along with me," said Jasper. "I have planned to go down the Illinois in the spring, in a canoe, to the Mississippi, and down the Mississippi to the Ohio, and visit Kaskaskia, and thence along the Ohio to the Wabash, and to the home where the boy lives who defended the turtles. It will be a long journey, and I expect to stop at many places, and preach and teach and form schools. I want you to go with me and guide my canoe. All these rivers are beautiful in summer. They are shaded by trees, and run through prairies of flowers. The waters are calm, and the skies are bright, and the birds sing continually. O Waubeno, this is a beautiful world to those who use it rightly—a beautiful, beautiful world!"

"Me will go," said Waubeno. "Me would see that boy. I want to see a story boy, as you say."

The attempt to establish an Indian school on the Chicago was not wholly successful. The pupils did not remain long enough to receive the intended influence. They came from encampments that were never stable. The Indian village was there one season, and gone the next. The Indians who came in canoes to the agency soon went away again. Jasper, in the spring of 1825, resolved to carry out the journey that he had described to Waubeno, and with the first warm winds he and the Indian boy set out for Kaskaskia by the way of the Illinois to the Mississippi, and by the Mississippi to the Kaskaskia.

It was a long journey. Jasper stopped often at the Indian encampments and the new settlements. Waubeno was a faithful friend, and he came to love him for true-heartedness, sympathy, and native worth of soul. He often tried to teach him by stories, but as often as he said, "Now, Waubeno, we will talk," he would say, "Tell me the one with broken shell"—meaning the story. There was some meaning behind this story of the turtle with the broken shell that had completely won the heart of Waubeno. The boy Abraham Lincoln was his hero. Again and again, after he had listened to the simple narrative, he asked:

"Is the story boy alive?"

"Yes, Waubeno."

"And we will meet him?"