ke a boy's book of it. You are not likely to get it to buy, but
Mr. Steevens, the American bookseller, has found me a copy. If I lend
you it, will you be kind enough to illustrate it on separate sheets of
paper, and not make drawings on the pages of the book? This will, in the
long run, be more satisfactory to yourself, as you will be able to keep
your pictures; for I want "John Tanner" back again: and don't lend him to
your fag-master.

Tanner was born about 1780; he lived in Kentucky. Don't you wish you had
lived in Kentucky in Colonel Boone's time? The Shawnees were roaming
about the neighbourhood when Tanner was a little boy. His uncle scalped
one of them. This made bad feeling between the Tanners and the Shawnees;
but John, like any boy of spirit, wished never to learn lessons, and
wanted to be an Indian brave. He soon had more of being a brave than he
liked; but he never learned any more lessons, and could not even read or
write.

One day John's father told him not to leave the house, because from the
movements of the horses, he knew that Indians were in the woods. So John
seized the first chance and nipped out, and ran to a walnut tree in one
of the fields, where he began filling his straw hat with walnuts. At
that very moment he was caught by two Indians, who spilled the nuts, put
his hat on his head, and bolted with him. One of the old women of the
tribe had lost her son, and wanted to adopt a boy, and so they adopted
Johnny Tanner. They ran with him till he was out of breath, till they
reached the Ohio, where they threw him into a canoe, paddled across, and
set off running again.

In ten days' hard marching they reached the camp, and it was worse than
going to a new school, for all the Indians kicked John Tanner about, and
"their dance," he says, "was brisk and cheerful, _after the manner of the
scalp dance_!" Cheerful for John! He had to lie between the fire and
the door of the lodge, and every one who passed gave him a kick. One old
man was particularly cruel. When Tanner was grown up, he came back to
that neighbourhood, and the first thing he asked was, "Where is Manito-o-
geezhik?"

"Dead, two months since."

"It is well that he is dead," said John Tanner. But an old female chief,
Net-ko-kua, adopted him, and now it began to be fun. For he was sent to
shoot game for the family. Could anything be more delightful? His first
shot was at pigeons, with a pistol. The pistol knocked down