No wonder they die so bravely, and care so little
for this life, when they are so certain of the next.
After a time we moved camp to a less dangerous quarter, and out into the open wood. I now took rides daily or hunted bear or deer with the Indians. Yet all this time I had a sort of regretful idea that I must return to the white people and give some account of what had happened. Then I reflected how inglorious a part I had borne, how long I had remained with the Indians, though for no fault of my own, and instinctively knew the virtue of silence on the subject.
In this new camp I seemed to come fully to my strength. I took in the situation and the scenery and began to observe, to think, and reflect.
Here, for the first time, I found myself alone in an Indian camp without any obligation or anything whatever binding me or calling me back to the Saxon. I began to look on the romantic side of my life, and was not displeased. I put aside the little trouble of the old camp and became as careless as a child.
The wood seemed very very beautiful. The air was so rich, so soft and pure in the Indian summer, that it almost seemed that you could feed upon it. The antlered deer, fat, and tame almost as if fed in parks, stalked by, and game of all kinds filled the woods in herds. We hunted, rode, fished and rested beside the rivers.
What a fragrance from the long and bent fir
