eprecatory lowered
voice, "Did you hear anything in Charlestown of any people named
'Queetlee'?"

This was the distorted version of his father's name that Colannah had
preserved. As to the child himself, his memory had perhaps been shaken
by the events of that terrible night of massacre, which he only realized
as a frightful awakening from sleep to smoke, flames, screams, the
ear-splitting crack of rifle-shots at close quarters, the shock of a
sudden hurt--and then, after an interval of unconsciousness, a
transition to a new world of strange habitudes that grew speedily
familiar, and of unexpected kindness that became dear to a frank,
affectionate heart. Perhaps in the isolations of the frontier life he
had never heard his father addressed by his surname by a stranger; he
was called "Jan" by his wife, and her name was "Eelin," and this Otasite
knew, and this was all he knew, save that he himself also had been
called "Jan."

"They don't want you, my buck, or they would have been after you," the
trader used to reply, being harder, perhaps when he was younger.
Besides, he honestly thought the cadaverous brat, all legs, like a
growing colt, and skinny arms, was better off here in the free woodland
life which he himself considered no hardship, and affected long after
necessity or interest had dictated his environment. The little lad was
safe in the care of the powerful chief Colannah Gigagei of Tennessee
Town, who had adopted him, and who was a man of great force and
influence. Why should the child seek a home among his own people,
unwelcome doubtless, to eat the meagre crust of charity, or serve as an
overworked drudge somewhere on the precarious frontier? The trader did
not greatly deplore the lack of religious training, for in the remote
settlements this was often still an unaccustomed luxury, albeit some
thirty years had now gone by since Sir Francis Nicholson, then the
Governor, declared that no colony could flourish without a wider
diffusion of the gospel and education, and forthwith ordered spiritual
drill, so to speak, in the way of preaching and schooling. Although
himself described as "a profane, passionate, headstrong man, bred a
soldier," as if the last fact were an excuse for the former, he
contributed largely to the furtherance of these pious objects, "spending
liberally all his salary and perquisites of office," for which generous
trait of character an early and strait-laced historian is obviously of
the op