Page:Don Coronado through Kansas.djvu/366

A GKEAT CHIEF. 849 ^ ^en;they had frequently come across larger mejip but for grace of beiaring, intelligence beaming froni his txniai^Baabe, and more than anytbing there was <i|Oine(thmg aiboiit.his manner which seemed -wlthoiit> "Wwds to convey the conviction of his nobility; and so- it wis, for from birth it seemed as though there was a spiritof innate inborn knowledge of what Tvas by tihe TOiiarml. laws proper and just, so as the bat»y grew in- to boyhood and a,dvanced to youth, the best men of the ivibe could not help but notice him, and this no- tice was compelled by reason of other children going tWRne^and reciting what young Wasbashas had done. Iliese little incidents of childhood play were invaria- bly of such a character as to stamp the boy with ex- alted conception of right from wrong. life would take the part of the weak boy against the bully. (They had them then as now.) Several times in his young boyhood days, he had demonstrated the activity of his brain, and how resourceful he was, by saving the llYfis of other boys who had ventured on the Osage river before the ic»5 was sufficiently thick to bear their veight, and had it not been for Ms extraordi- nary quickness of thought, several would have been drowned, but just as quickly as he saw what had oc- curred, like a fiash he ran to a cUmbing grape vine, tradiiiig up a tree in the timber, and jerking it loose, quickly had an appliance equal to a rope, by which means he was able to rescue the lads, for which he received their lasting gratitude, as weU as their par- ents'. At one time, when about fifteen years old, he and other boys were out hunting with their bows and arrows; it was in the fall of the yea,r, and they were