saw that he was entirely safe and left him to wander among the red
men. Later he came forth and resumed the pursuits of civilization.
He took up his studies; he learned the rudiments of law and
entered upon its active practice. When barely thirty-six he had
won every office that was open to him, ending with his election to
the Governorship of Tennessee in 1827.

Then came a strange episode which changed the whole course of his
life. Until then the love of woman had never stirred his veins.
His physical activities in the forests, his unique intimacy with
Indian life, had kept him away from the social intercourse of
towns and cities. In Nashville Houston came to know for the first
time the fascination of feminine society. As a lawyer, a
politician, and the holder of important offices he could not keep
aloof from that gentler and more winning influence which had
hitherto been unknown to him.

In 1828 Governor Houston was obliged to visit different portions
of the state, stopping, as was the custom, to visit at the homes
of "the quality," and to be introduced to wives and daughters as
well as to their sportsman sons. On one of his official journeys
he met Miss Eliza Allen, a daughter of one of the "influential
families" of Sumner County, on the northern border of Tennessee.
He found her responsive, charming, and greatly to be admired. She
was a slender type of Southern beauty, well calculated to gain the
affection of a lover, and especially of one whose associations had
been chiefly with the women of frontier communities.

To meet a girl who had refined tastes and wide reading, and who
was at the same time graceful and full of humor, must have come as