The reader will perceive that such a man, with such a mind, having the exalted views of Cahoonshee, would not feel at home with either white man or Indian. He was ahead of the age, and saw in the dim future the extinction of his race. His tribe was already extinct except himself. He believed that the merciless white would continue to drive the powerless Indian west, until the bones of his race would bleach on the western slope, and be washed by the Pacific. It was for these reasons that he wished to return to the scenes of his childhood, and spend the rest of his days in comparative solitude. Yet he had one idea, and that idea was to acquire and impart knowledge. But the world was not prepared to listen to such depth of thought. He resolved at death to leave one pupil behind. That pupil should be a white man. That man should be Charles Drake. That he had succeeded, in a measure, is evident from the conversation Drake and Tom had at the Lifting Rocks, as narrated in Chapter III. His mode of instruction was in the true Indian style. A few evenings after Cahoonshee had taken up his quarters in his cabin on the Steynekill, he and Drake were sitting together, when the moon began to light up the eastern sky. Drake watched it intently until the full moon arose above the horizon. Cahoonshee, he said, you say that the sun is a burning mass, a liquid flame, and that it is the heat from this mass that warms the earth. Is that beautiful moon also a mass of fire? It is supposed not, replied Cahoonshee. We derive but little heat from the moon. It has cooled off, and it is only the reflection of the sun on that planet that makes it appear so bright to us. You say that it has cooled off. What do you mean by that? Was it once like the sun, a blaze of fire? Of course, Drake, no one has ever been to the moon to make a personal inspection. Yet the wise men of the east think they have good reasons for believing that the moon, and this earth, and all the planets and stars we see in the heavens, were once a burning mass of fire, that the moon has cooled off, and is now a cold, uninhabited world. You do not mean to say that this earth on which we live was, at one time a seething mass of fire? I do not mean to assert that, I simply say, that by investigation, I am led to believe that such was the case. Cahoonshee, where do you say that man came from? and what was the reason for the great difference between the white man and the Indian? Ah, Drake, you have opened a subject that is but little understood, and one that I am not capable of satisfactorily answering. Yet, I will give you my views. Betsy’s bible gives an account of the creation of man. That God made him from the dust of the earth, and in His own image. But you should understand that this is the white man’s bible, and in it the Indians are called heathens. But the Indian’s bible is much older, and plainer to be read. _It is Nature’s book._