mploy as agents and under-traders, or, indeed, those whose
interest and profits amounted to an ownership in a share of the stock.
The earlier traders in neighboring towns one by one had gone, affecting
a base several hundred miles nearer the white settlements. Some had
shifted altogether from the tribe, and secured a post among the
Chickasaws, who were indubitably loyal to the British. While their
withdrawal added to Varney's profits,--for each trader was allowed to
hold at this time a license only for two Indian towns, it being before
the date of the issuance of general licenses, and the custom which they
had relinquished, the barter with the Cherokees for deerskins, now came
from long distances, drawn as by a magnet to his trading-house at
Tennessee Town,--it had resulted in his isolation, and for years he had
been almost the only British subject west of the Great Smoky Mountains.
He had no fear of the Cherokees, however--not even should the political
sky, always somewhat overcast, become yet more lowering. He had long
been accustomed to these Indians, and he felt that he had fast friends
among them. His sane mercantile judgment appraised and appreciated the
added opportunities of his peculiar position, which he would not lightly
throw away, and the development of Otasite's incongruous commercial
values not only removed the possibility of loss during his absence, but
added to his facilities in enabling him to secure the fidelity of
Indians as packmen, hitherto impracticable, but now rendered to Otasite
as one of the tribe. He had recognized with satisfaction, mingled with
amusement, national traits in the boy, who, despite his Indian training,
would not, like them, barter strings of wampum measuring "from elbow to
wrist" without regard to the relative length of arm. Yet he had none of
the Indian deceit and treachery. He was blunt, sincere, and bold. His
alertness in computation gave Varney genuine pleasure, although they
wrangled much as to his method, for he used the Cherokee numeration, and
it set the trader's mercantile teeth on edge to hear twenty called
"_tahre skoeh_"--two tens.

"And why not?" Otasite would demand, full of faith in his own education.
"The Chickasaw will say '_pokoole toogalo_'--ten twos"--and he would
smile superior. This was his world, and these his standards--the
Cherokees and the Chickasaws!

He was not to be easily influenced or turned save by some spontaneous
acquiescence of his own mind,