" "They came, you know, for food, or shelter,
or something that they wanted from us; but it may be different when they
find us alone and unprotected, encroaching upon their hunting grounds."
"The place is wide enough for us and them; we will try and make them our
friends."
"The wolf and the lamb do not lie down in the fold together," observed
Hector. "The Indian is treacherous. The wild man and the civilized man do
not live well together, their habits and dispositions are so contrary the
one to the other. We are open, and they are cunning, and they suspect our
openness to be only a greater degree of cunning than their own--they do
not understand us. They are taught to be revengeful, and we are taught to
forgive our enemies. So you see that what is a virtue with the savage, is a
crime with the Christian. If the Indian could be taught the word of God, he
might be kind and true, and gentle as well as brave."
It was with conversations like this that our poor wanderers wiled away
their weariness. The love of life, and the exertions necessary for
self-preservation, occupied so large a portion of their thoughts and time,
that they had hardly leisure for repining.
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