Securing a few articles of Indian trade and loading these on an ox cart driven by a Cherokee boy, Sequoyah set out upon his last quest in 1843. Such a linguistic crusade the world will doubtless never again witness. Everywhere he was received by his red-skinned brothers of the plain and of the mountain with the utmost respect. Eagerly they furnished him with the means of prosecuting his inquiries. That reticence which they so notoriously displayed to Caucasian scientists was absent. Nor is this to be wondered at, for here was a scientist of their own race who had come to renown and they rested assured that he came not among them to discover their inferiorities or to prepare the way for exploitation. With his boy companion he crossed the boundless plains, and, like Kipling’s _Explorer_, “hurried on in hope of water or turned back in search of grass.” Puzzling his way through the Rockies, he camped in meadows of softest velvet sweet with flowers, or above the tree line amid the grandeur of frost shattered peaks and perpetual snows. Then turning toward that scorched and waterless expanse unrelieved by the shade of a solitary tree, he crossed the Colorado Desert and entered the Mexican Sierras. Here, it is said, his boy companion died of exposure and hardship, and somewhere in the silent places of these desolate mountains this grand old man buried the lone partner of his wanderings. An ancient myth current in the lodges of his forefathers told of a lost band of Cherokees who had wandered ages ago into northern Mexico. Vexed by chilling frosts and scorching heat, Sequoyah began a search for his lost kinsmen. Enfeebled of limb and yet strong of heart, he pursued his solitary way, ever straining toward the distant horizon to find what might be beyond. But he had over-estimated his strength, and not far from the Rio Grande, in the State of Tamaulipas, this “splendid wayfarer” reached the end of his trail and watched with fast-dimming eyes the pearl-gray smoke of his last camp-fire curl toward the heavens as he drew nearer to eternity. The greatest of his race, Sequoyah sleeps beyond the Rio Grande. No monument marks the last resting place of this American Cadmus. His bones, denied the privilege of sepulchre, were picked by slinking wolves and wheeling buzzards, and left to bleach in the sun until the winds had buried them in the sands. His alphabet, too, is destined to pass away with his race, but his name will never pass into oblivion, for it is borne by the largest, the oldest, the most magnificent of trees, the noble Sequoia. This alone is sufficient to preserve his memory forever. BIBLIOGRAPHY[8] GENERAL +Bigelow, John+—1856. “Descriptions of Remarkable and Valuable California Trees.” U. S. War Dept. _Pacific Railroad Report_, 1855–1861; Vol. 4, Pt. 2, pp. 22–23. +Clark, Galen+—1907. _Big Trees of California._ (Reflex Pub. Co., Redondo, Cal.), 104 pp.