human
Nowadays, said Striker,
gpt
I did, said his guest.
human
We found it fairly comfortable travelling through Wayne County. The roads are decent enough and the settlers are numerous. It was after we left Madison County that we encountered hardships. We travelled for a while with a party of emigrants who were heading for the settlement at Strawtown. There were three families of them, including a dozen children. Our progress was slow, as they travelled by wagon. Rumours that the Indians were threatening to go on the warpath caused me to stay close by this slow-moving caravan for many miles, not only for my own safety but for the help I might be able to render them in case of an attack. At Strawtown we learned that the Indians were peaceable and that there was no truth in the stories. So Zachariah and I crossed the White River at that point and struck off alone. We followed the wilderness road,--the old Indian trace, you know,--and we travelled nearly thirty miles without seeing a house. At Brown's Wonder we met a party of men who had been out in this country looking things over. They were so full of enthusiasm about the prairies around here,--the Wea, the Wild Cat and Shawnee prairies,--that I was quite thrilled over the prospect ahead, and no longer regretted the journey which had been so full of privations and hardships and which I had been so loath to undertake in the beginning. Have you been at Thorntown recently?
gpt
Nope. Not sence I came through there some years ago. It was purty well deserted in those days. Nothin' there but Injin wigwams an' they was mostly run to seed. At that time, Crawfordsville was the only town to speak of between Terry Hut an' Fort Wayne, 'way up above here.
human
Well, there are signs of a white settlement there now. Some of the old French settlers are still there and other whites are coming in. I had heard a great deal about the big Indian village at Thorntown, and was vastly disappointed in what I found. I am quite romantic, Miss--ahem!--quite romantic by nature, having read and listened to tales of thrilling adventures among the redskins, as we call them down my way, until I could scarce contain myself. I have always longed for the chance to rescue a beautiful white captive from the clutches of the cruel redskins. My valour--
gpt
And I suppose you always dreamed of marrying her as they always do in stories?
human
Invariably, said he.
gpt
Alas, if I had rescued all the fair maidens my dreams have placed in jeopardy, I should by this time have as many wives as Solomon. Only, I must say in defence of my ambitions, I should not have had as great a variety. Strange as it may seem, I remained through all my adventures singularly constant to a certain idealistic captive. She looked, I may say, precisely alike in each and every case. Poor old Solomon could not say as much for his thousand wives. Mine, if I had them, would be so much alike in face and form that I could not tell one from the other,--and, now that I am older and wiser,--though not as wise as Solomon,--I am thankful that not one of these daring rescues was ever consummated, for I should be very much distressed now if I found myself married to even the most beautiful of the ladies my feeble imagination conceived.