That passion is the mightiest which overcomes the most powerful restraints and prostrates the strongest barriers; and there was a dramatic propriety, at least, in associating with such a character as Nathan's, obstacles of faith and habit, which gave the greater force to his deeds and a deeper mystery to his story.

No one conversant with the history of border affairs can fail to recollect some one or more instances of solitary men, bereaved fathers or orphaned sons, the sole survivors, sometimes, of exterminated households, who remained only to devote themselves to lives of vengeance; and "Indian-hating" (which implied the fullest indulgence of a rancorous animosity no blood could appease) was so far from being an uncommon passion in some particular districts, that it was thought to have infected, occasionally, persons, otherwise of good repute, who ranged the woods, intent on private adventures, which they were careful to conceal from the public eye.

The author remembers, in the published journal of an old traveller--an Englishman, and, as he thinks, a Friend; but he cannot be certain of this fact, the name having escaped him, and the loose memorandum he made at the time, having been mislaid--who visited the region of the upper Ohio towards the close of the last century, an observation on this subject, which made too deep an impression to be easily forgotten.

It was stated, as the consequence of the Indian atrocities, that such were the extent and depth of the vindictive feeling throughout the community, that it was suspected in some cases to have reached men whose faith was opposed to warfare and bloodshed.

The legend of Wandering Nathan is, no doubt, an idle and unfounded one, although some vague notions touching the existence of just such a personage, whose habitat was referred to Western Pennsylvania, used to prevail among the cotemporaries, or immediate successors, of Boone and Kenton, M'Colloch and Wetzel.