ligion into
which he was born of Christian parents, his name and nation, his tongue
and station, his opportunity--doubtless some fair, valid, valuable
future--all lay there to the eastward but scant five hundred miles away
on the Carolina coast. He said as much, and the retort came succinctly,
"You live here!"

Otasite's English speech was as simple as a child's, but he thought as
diplomatically as Colannah himself, whom he esteemed the greatest man in
all the world, and he could argue in the strategic Cherokee method.
Nevertheless, to give him full sway, that everything possible might be
said in contravention of the proposition, the old trader lapsed into the
Indian speech, that was indeed from long usage like a mother tongue to
them both. He stayed here, he said, from choice, it was true, but for
the sake of the trade that gave him wealth, and with wealth he could
return to the colonies at any time, and go whither he would in all the
world. But Otasite was restricted; he had no goods for trade, no
adequate capital to invest; he could only return to the colonies while
young, to work, to make a way, to secure betimes a place appropriate to
his riper years. Even this could not be done without great
difficulty,--witness how many settlers came empty-handed to barely exist
on the frontier and wrest a reluctant living from the wilderness,--and
it could not be done at all without friends. Now he, Abram Varney, was
prepared to stand his friend; Otasite could take a place in the service
of the company, in the main depot of the trade at Charlestown. His
knowledge of the details of the business of which Abram Varney's long
absences had given him experience; of the needs of the Cherokee nation;
of the ever-continued efforts of the French traders, by means of the
access to the Overhill towns afforded by the Cherokee and Tennessee
rivers, despite the great distance from their settlements on the
Mississippi, to insinuate their supplies at lower prices, in the teeth
of the Cherokee treaty with the British monopolizing such traffic, and
bring down profits--all would have a special and recognized value and be
appreciated by his mercantile associates, who would further the young
man's advancement. Thence he could at his leisure make inquiries
concerning his father's family, and doubtless in the course of time be
restored to his kindred.

Otasite listened throughout with the courteous air of deliberation which
his Indian training requir