grace of an unstinted
hospitality. The stranger was pressed to make the lodge of his host his
home, and he was given the best of his store. One day when his Indian
brother came in from the hunt, Smith told him that a passing Wyandot had
visited their camp, and he had given him roast venison. "And I suppose
you gave him also sugar and bear's oil to eat with his venison?" Smith
confessed that as the sugar and bear's oil were in the canoe, he did not
go for them. His brother told him he had behaved just like a Dutchman,
and he asked, "Do you not know that when strangers come to our camp we
are to give them the best we have?" Smith owned that he had been wrong,
and then his brother excused him because he was so young; but he bade
him learn to behave like a warrior, and do great things, and never be
caught in any such mean actions again.

The Indians were as prompt to praise and reward what they thought fine
in him, as to rebuke what they deemed unworthy; and the second winter
that they spent in Northern Ohio, they gave him a gun again for the
courage and endurance he twice showed when he had lost his way from
camp. Once when he was caught in a heavy storm of snow; he passed the
night in the hollow of a tree, which he made snug by blocking it up with
brush and pieces of wood, and by chopping the rotten inside of the trunk
with his hatchet until he had a soft, warm bed. Another time, when he
was looking at his beaver traps he was overtaken by the dark, and kept
himself from freezing by dancing and shouting till daylight. His Indian
friends honored him for his wise behavior, and as they had now beaver
skins enough, they carried them to the French post at Detroit, where
they bought a gun for him. They bought for themselves a keg of brandy,
and they paid Smith the compliment, when he refused to drink, of making
him one of the guards set over the drinkers to keep them from killing
one another. He helped bring them safely through their debauch, but
nothing could prevent their spending all they had got for their beaver
skins in more and more brandy. Then they went back sick and sorry to the
woods again.

The family Smith was taken into was honored for its uncommon virtue and
wisdom. His two brothers, Tontileaugo and Tecaughretanego were men of
great sense, with good heads and good hearts. They treated Smith with
the greatest love and patience, and took him to task with affectionate
mildness when he transgressed the laws of taste