I believed then, and I am yet more sure, now, that other influences than the crude story told by one whose experience of life was that of a child by comparison with his, wrought upon the lonely exile during the still hours of that perfect autumnal day. It suited his whim to think that the book turned his thoughts from his design of self-destruction. Before he slept that night he registered a vow—thus he phrased it in his explanatory letter—to write and publish one thousand notices of the book that had saved his life. When the vow was fulfilled—and not until then—did I get the key to conduct that had puzzled me, and baffled the conjectures of the few friends to whom I had told the tale. I met James Redpath, face to face, but once, and that was—if my memory serves me aright—in 1874. He was in Newark, New Jersey, in the capacity of adviser-in-chief, or backer, of a friend who brought a party of Indians from the West on a peaceful mission to Washington and some of the principal cities, in the hope of exciting philanthropic interest in their advancement in civilization. “He is as enthusiastic in faith in the future of the redman as I was once in the belief that the negro would arise to higher levels,” remarked Salathiel, with a smile that ended in a sigh. “Heigho! youth is prone to ideals as the sparks to fly upward.” Learning that I was in the opera-house where the “show” was held, he had invited me into his private stage-box, and there, out of sight of the audience, and indifferent to the speech-making and singing going on, on the stage, we talked for an hour with the cordial ease of old friends. My erst knight-errant was a well-mannered gentleman, still in the prime of manhood, with never a sign of the eccentric “stray” in feature, deportment, or the agreeable modulations of his voice. He told me of his wife. He had written to me of his marriage some years before. She was his balance-wheel, he said. I recollect that he likened her to Madam Guyon. At the close of the entertainment, we shook hands cordially and exchanged expressions of mutual regard. We never met again. How much or how little I was indebted to him for the success of my first book, I am unable to determine. I shall ever cherish the recollection of his generous spirit and steadfast adherence to his vow of service, as one of the most interesting and gratifying episodes of my authorly career. XXVII MY NORTHERN KINSPEOPLE—“QUELQU’UN” AND A LIFELONG FRIENDSHIP I REWROTE the new book that winter, reading it, chapter by chapter, aloud to my father, in the evening. He was a judicious critic, and I need not repeat here how earnest and rapt a listener. I had received proposals for the publication of my “next book” from six Northern publishers. In the spring my father went to New York and arranged for the preliminaries with the, then, flourishing firm of Derby & Jackson.