The Indian's love of freedom and honor, his hatred of subjection and deceit, as explained by the good old man, recalled to Jim Colonel Zane's estimate of the savage character.

Surely, as the colonel had said, the Indians had reason for their hatred of the pioneers.
Truly, they were a blighted race.
Seldom had the rights of the redmen been thought of.

The settler pushed onward, plodding, as it were, behind his plow with a rifle.
He regarded the Indian as little better than a beast; he was easier to kill than to tame.

How little the settler knew the proud independence, the wisdom, the stainless chastity of honor, which belonged so truly to many Indian chiefs! The redmen were driven like hounded deer into the untrodden wilds.
From freemen of the forests, from owners of the great boundless plains, they passed to stern, enduring fugitives on their own lands.
Small wonder that they became cruel where once they had been gentle! Stratagem and cunning, the night assault, the daylight ambush took the place of their one-time open warfare.

Their chivalrous courage, that sublime inheritance from ancestors who had never known the paleface foe, degenerated into a savage ferocity.
Interesting as was this history to Jim, he cared more for Glickhican's rich portrayal of the redmen's domestic life, for the beautiful poetry of his tradition and legends.