somebody!

Collapsed and dejected, I crept down the tree and back to the life that
was now forced upon me whether I wished to continue it or not. Belonging
nowhere, I remembered my refuge in the new world of books.

Lying stretched in the boat with oars shipped, drifting and turning on
the crooked lake, I took exact stock of my position in the world, and
marked out my future.

These things were known:

I was not an Indian.

I had been adopted into the family of Chief Williams.

Money was sent through an agent in New York for my support and
education.

There were scars on my wrists, ankles, arm and eyebrow.

These scars identified me in Madame de Ferrier's mind and Madame Tank's
mind as a person from the other side of the world.

I had formerly been deadened in mind.

I was now keenly alive.

These things were not known:

Who I was.

Who sent money for my support and education.

How I became scarred.

What man had placed me among the Indians.

For the future I bound myself with three laws:

To leave alone the puzzle of my past.

To study with all my might and strength.

When I was grown and educated, to come back to my adopted people, the
Iroquois, draw them to some place where they could thrive, and by
training and education make them an empire, and myself their leader.

The pale-skin's loathing of the red race had not then entered my
imagination. I said in conclusion:

"Indians have taken care of me; they shall be my brothers."

VI

The zigzag track of the boat represented a rift widening between me and
my past. I sat up and took the oars, feeling older and stronger.

It was primitive man, riding between the highlands, uncumbered, free to
grasp what was before him.

De Chaumont did not believe in and was indifferent to the waif whom his
position of great seigneur obliged him to protect. What did I care? I
had been hidden among the Indians by kindred or guardians humane enough
not to leave me destitute. They should not trouble my thoughts, and
neither--I told myself like an Indian--should the imaginings of women.

A boy minds no labor in following his caprices. The long starlit pull I
reckoned as nothing; and slipped to my room when daylight was beginning
to surprise the dancers.

It was so easy to avoid people in the spaciousness of De Chaumont's
manor that I did not again see the young Bonaparte nor any of the guests
except Croghan. They slept all the following day, and the