able, although it would be a good deal to say that
there was any virtue in yielding to these petty exactions. It was a
mere question of confiscation, or robbery, without redress, by the
Indians. He risked it. With traders, at that time, it was customary to
take an Indian wife. She was expected to furnish the eatables, as well
as cook them. By the law of many Indian tribes property and the control
of the family go with the mother. The husband never belongs to the same
family connection, rarely to the same community or town even, and often
not even to the tribe. He is a sort of barnacle, taken in on his wife's
account. To the adventurer, like a trader, this adoption gave a sort of
legal status or protection. Gist either understood this before he
started on his enterprise, or learned it very speedily after. Of the
Cherokee tongue he knew positively nothing. He had a smattering of very
broken English. Somehow or other he managed to induce a Cherokee girl
to become his wife.

This woman belonged to a family long respectable in the Cherokee
Nation. It is customary for those ignorant of the Indian social polity
to speak of all prominent Indians as "chiefs." Her family had no
pretension to chieftaincy, but was prominent and influential; some of
her brothers were afterward members of the Council. She could not speak
English; but, in common with many Cherokees of even that early date,
had a small proportion of English blood in her veins. The Cherokee
woman, married or single, owns her property, consisting chiefly of
cattle, in her own right. A wealthy Cherokee or Creek, when a son or
daughter is born to him, marks so many young cattle in a new brand, and
these become, with their increase, the child's property. Whether her
cattle constituted any portion of the temptation, I can not say. At any
rate, the girl, who had much of the beauty of her race, became the wife
of the German peddler.

Of George Gist's married life we have little recorded. It was of very
short duration. He converted his merchandise into furs, and did not
make more than one or two trips. With him it had merely been cheap
protection and board. We might denounce him as a low adventurer if we
did not remember that he was the father of one of the most remarkable
men who ever appeared on the continent. Long before that son was born
he gathered together his effects, went the way of all peddlers, and
never was heard of more.

He left behind him in the Cherokee Nation