Natural boundaries with him weighed more than with the white man;
and had the white man's possessions been confined strictly to the east
side of the river, he would have felt better satisfied though it had cost
him a larger area of ground. The white man's mode of running lines and of
measuring land, he did not comprehend or appreciate. But when the line was
made by a creek, river, or mountain, he understood it, and it harmonized
better with his views of fitness, in dividing up the surface of this great
earth. He was utterly unschooled in the art of computing by acres and
roods. But the water's edge he had traversed with his light canoe, and
with every point and islet on the lakes he was familiar. He had followed
the rivers to where they came bubbling up from their rocky bed amid
mountain elevations, and there was not a tributary stream or run, by whose
side he had not rested, or by whose music he had not been charmed, keeping
pace with it, as it went innocently busying and babbling along on its
downward way. With any or all of these landmarks he was familiar, and when
fixed upon as boundaries, he could readily recur to, and religiously keep
them; for they had been made by the Great Spirit, and it was his life-
study to know them.
Not satisfied with the large purchase already made, the white man
contemplated still greater acquisitions of Indian land. Little did the red
man suspect, while roaming unmolested over his native hills, that in
civilized circles, the advantages and disadvantages of his cherished home
were canvassed, and made the subject of negotiation and purchase.
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