“How little, even now, we know of each other, Rene.  You never told me what it was that made you leave France in 1725, and come to Louisiana, and ask to be admitted to our tribe.  I have never told you why I have not married and got children to succeed me, and help me in my old age to govern my people.

“It is now seventy-three years since my mother brought me into the world on the banks of the Mississippi.  In 1652 there were a few Spaniards settled in the bay of Pensacola, but no white man was then seen in Louisiana.  I was scarcely seventeen years old when I fought with my father, the famous warrior Outalissi, against the Creeks of Florida.  We were then allied with the Spaniards, but, in spite of the help they gave us, we were defeated.  My father was killed, and I was grievously wounded.  Oh, why did I then not descend into the land of the dead?  Happy indeed should I have been had I thus escaped from the fate which was waiting for me on earth!

“But one of our allies, an old Castilian, named Lopez, moved by my youth and simplicity, rescued me in the battle and led me to the town of St. Augustin, which his countrymen had recently built.  My benefactor took me to his home, and he and his sister adopted me as their son, and tried to teach me their knowledge and religion.  But after passing thirteen months at St. Augustin I was seized with a disgust for town life.  The city seemed to me a prison, and I longed to get back to the wild life of my fathers.  At last I resolved to return to my tribe, and one morning I came to Lopez, clad in the dress of the Natchez, with bow and arrows in one hand, and a tomahawk in the other.

“‘Oh, my father,’ I said to him, my face streaming with tears, ’I shall die if I stay in this city.  I am an Indian, and I must live like an Indian.’

“Lopez tried to detain me by pointing out the peril I was running.  But I already knew that in order to join the Natchez I should have to pass through the country of the Creeks, and might fall into the hands of our old enemies; and this did not deter me.  At last, Lopez, seeing how resolute I was, said, ’Go, my boy, and God be with you!  Were I only younger, I, too, would return with you to the wilderness, where the happiest part of my life was spent.  But when you get back to the forest, think sometimes of the old Spaniard of St. Augustin, and if ever a white man falls into your hands, treat him, my son, as I have treated you.’

“It was not long, Rene, before I was punished for my ingratitude in running away from my protector.  I had forgotten in the city my knowledge of wood-craft, and I lost my way in the great forest, and was captured by a band of Creeks.  My costume and the feathers in my hair proclaimed me one of the Natchez, and when Simaghan, the chief of the band, bound me, and demanded who I was, I proudly answered.  ’I am Chactas, the son of the Outalissi who took more than a hundred scalps from the warriors of the Creeks.’