Page:War Drums (1928).pdf/47

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fell in with him and a great friendship grew between us. We followed the wilderness trails together as hunters and as scouts against the Yamasees and the Spaniards at St. Augustine. When your father became a trader and the owner of a pack train, I was his partner; and I went with him when he established his post at Tallasee, in the country of the Muskogee.

"I was with him when he met Sehoy Tourville, the daughter of the French Captain, Louis Tourville, and a Muskogee princess of the Family of the Wind. I was present when he married Sehoy, and I know that he married her for her loveliness and goodness, and not, as some say, in order to gain the power that afterwards came to him. I was with him when the Muskogee chiefs made him High Chief of all the tribes. I know what he has done since then for the people whom he has ruled. And I know that he has always looked to you to carry on that work when he is gone."

The hunter was silent for a moment, as though his thoughts ranged far. Presently he continued:

"On only one point we differed. Your father thought that in order to fit you for that work you must be sent here to school in Charles Town. I held the opposite opinion. I said that you must remain in Tallasee; that you must grow up there; that if you were to rule the Muskogee nation as its High Chief or King, you must grow up a Muskogee brave and not a young English gentleman.

"In the end we compromised. Until you were eigh-