John Mason, the former bond servant, still remained with him; and made a most efficient and trustworthy foreman. While he was yet an indentured servant, he had been made a deacon of the Jackson River Meeting House; receiving more votes at the congregational meeting than a rich and respected planter. He and Richard Cameron in the winter of 1773 had built for themselves a comfortable cabin of heavy hewn logs, near the plantation house; and on winter nights long after the Campbells were asleep; their windows glowed from a bright light-wood fire. Mr. Campbell, curious to know why they kept such late hours, several times stealthily peeped in and found that they were either reading from an old sheep-bound Bible, which Mason had brought with him from England, or some book borrowed from Mr. McDonald or the schoolmaster. Little John Calvin Campbell, after his supper, habitually went to the cabin and Mason read aloud to him or told stories of some patriarch or martyr; and by this influence helped to mold the boy’s character yet more into that sweet, serious nature, which was its hereditary trend. While Logan had been a visitor at the plantation, he and Mason became great friends. Mason made a list of three hundred common words and Logan gave him the Mingo word corresponding to each; he also gave him a number of lessons in idiomatic construction. These words he quickly committed to memory; and at every opportunity increased his vocabulary; until now he and John Calvin were the best interpreters in the county. Passing Indians continued to make the Campbell plantation their stopping place and thus he made the acquaintance of many; treating all of them with such uniform kindness, that they upon their return spoke of him as their white brother. In the early summer of 1775 it was rumored throughout the colonies that Lord Dunmore’s agent, Connelley, and Sir John Stewart had been sent to the Ohio tribes and Col. Guy Johnson had been sent to western New York to organize and perfect alliances between the British and the Indians. It obviously being advisable to offset this influence, the colonial government organized three departments, in charge of commissioners, to win the Indians; or failing in that, to induce them to remain neutral. The Virginia Committee of Safety, acting in conjunction with the commissioners sent agents into the Indian country; and Col. John Morgan was named as chief of the colonial agents. Colonel Campbell was ordered to send a fit man into the Ohio River country for that purpose. At a loss, just whom to send, he asked the schoolmaster and Donald McDonald for suggestions and when both without hesitancy named Mason; he was surprised that he had not thought of him. Mason was called before the county executive committee, a local subdivision of the Colonial Committee of Safety, composed of Colonel Campbell, Captain Fairfax, Jeremiah Tyler, Samuel Preston and James Speed, and asked to undertake the mission.