he adventurer himself felt that it would be hopeless to seek to gain
the friendship of the embittered Chief. Trader and trapper, he led his
solitary existence in the south, with no companionship but Becky's,
until her death left him entirely alone.

He had regained his former vigor by this time and sometimes dreamed of
returning to his boyhood home. But from the pioneer towns springing up
wherever he passed, he knew that a new civilization was rising in
America; that he was of the generation that must pass away as surely
as the Indian and he realized that he would feel sadly out of place in
the surroundings that he had known as a boy. Yet, dreamer that he was,
he never ceased to picture himself, a sober stay-at-home citizen,
living out the last years of his life in communion with his fellow
Jews, who had never left their quiet firesides. Nor in all his
wanderings did he ever part with the three _Sidurim_ and the faded red
napkin. For as he grew older, the fantastic notion grew ever stronger
that before he died he would again say grace with the builders of his
cotton gin.

Almost a century old, he wandered back at last to Montgomery county,
seeking the very spot where his hut had stood before Chief Towerculla
had driven him away. Now the settlement of Dudlyville, so close at
hand, made him feel cramped and uncomfortable. Colonel Hawkins had
long since left Pole Cat Springs; Chief Towerculla, driven away by
the white men he had always feared, was dead; "Old Milly" no longer
lived in her savage kingdom with her husband and her slaves.

But he felt too tired to travel further; perhaps he realized that no
matter where he went he would feel lonely as the survivor of another
day and generation. So he built a tiny cabin for himself, even putting
together some crude furniture. Here he lived, never seeing a human
face unless he walked to the village to secure supplies, which the
settlers, vaguely touched by his loneliness, never failed to press
upon him. He talked to them sometimes of the days before the
wilderness had been conquered, speaking too, of the first cotton gin,
which the Indians had destroyed. "I love the spot," he used to say,
"but it is growing too crowded; yes," with a shake of his white head,
"too crowded for one who needs plenty of fresh air to breathe. Next
spring I must journey on." But when spring came, he would wait until
fall, and again through the long winter. For his old ambition had left
him and though