"What has happened?" he asked, trying to rise, but falling back moaning in his pain. "Old Milly," a tall, sharp-faced woman, who sat weaving a basket as skillfully as any squaw, answered him. "Towerculla would have slain you, had not Becky brought me in time. He is not a good enemy to have, Abram Mordecai. When you are stronger, you must take his advice and go away. The Indians did not burn the barn, so your horses are safe, but the house was in flames before I could reach it and persuade Towerculla to leave you in peace." Becky rose and walked to the table. Returning to where her husband lay, she placed in his hand three books with worn black covers and a faded red napkin. "I ran and got these when I saw they were destroying our cabin," she told him. "I knew you had kept them long; that they were dear to you as the gods of our people are to us--like a charm, maybe, to keep death away. And perhaps, when the white men come again, you will want to have them on the table and sing." For the moment, Mordecai forgot that Becky was only a squaw, undeserving, according to the custom of her people, either thanks or praise. "You are a very good wife," he said, gently, "and I will buy you real gold earrings with the first money I earn from the cotton gin." And since he was so weak, neither woman dared to tell him for several days that the vengeance of the Indians had extended to the gin house, which now lay a heap of black ruins hear the river. Broken in body and ruined in fortune, Mordecai accompanied by the faithful Becky, bade farewell to Colonel Hawkins and journeyed further into the wilderness. For the Indian agent prudently refused to erect a second gin while the Indians still planned to injure Mordecai, and the adventurer himself felt that it would be hopeless to seek to gain the friendship of the embittered Chief. Trader and trapper, he led his solitary existence in the south, with no companionship but Becky's, until her death left him entirely alone. He had regained his former vigor by this time and sometimes dreamed of returning to his boyhood home. But from the pioneer towns springing up wherever he passed, he knew that a new civilization was rising in America; that he was of the generation that must pass away as surely as the Indian and he realized that he would feel sadly out of place in the surroundings that he had known as a boy. Yet, dreamer that he was, he never ceased to picture himself, a sober stay-at-home citizen, living out the last years of his life in communion with his fellow Jews, who had never left their quiet firesides. Nor in all his wanderings did he ever part with the three _Sidurim_ and the faded red napkin. For as he grew older, the fantastic notion grew ever stronger that before he died he would again say grace with the builders of his cotton gin.