that fighting; that's jest killing, and there aint no more sense in
it than in two herd of buffalo charging each other on the prairie.
But there 'll be plenty of real fighting--expeditions in the woods
and Injun skirmishes, for you'll be sure that the Injuns'll join in,
some on one side and some on the other; it aint in their nature to
sit still in their villages while powder's being burned. A few months
of this work will make a man of him, and he might have a worse
teacher than Peter Lambton. You jest hand him over to my care, cap,
and I'll teach him all I know of the ways of the woods, and I tell
yer there aint no better kind of edication for a young fellow. He
larns to use the senses God has given him, to keep his head when
another man would lose his presence of mind, to have the eye of a
hawk and the ear of a hound, to get so that he scarcely knows what it
is to be tired or hungry, to be able to live while other men would
starve, to read the signs of the woods like a printed book, and to be
in every way a man and not a tailor's figure."

"There is a great deal in what you say, old friend," Captain Wilson
answered, "and such a training cannot but do a man good. I wish with
all my heart that it had been entirely with red foes that the
fighting was to be done. However, that cannot be helped, and as he is
to fight he could not be in better hands than yours. So long as we
remain here I shall teach him what drill I can with the rest of the
company, but when we leave this town and the work really begins, I
shall put him in your charge to learn the duties of a scout."

The young negro Jake had also enlisted, for throughout the war the
negroes fought on both sides, according to the politics of their
masters. There were only two other negroes in the company, and
Captain Wilson had some hesitation in enlisting them, but they made