met in civilization, denying and attempting to dispute the story that I am the man who lived with the Indians and led them in war. Ah, my friends, you do not know me at all.
There is much, no doubt, in my life to regret, but there is nothing at all to conceal.
And let it be understood once for all that the things I have to regret are not of my life with the Indians or my attempt to ameliorate their condition. I only regret that I failed.
Nay, I snap my fingers at the world and say, I am proud of that period of my life. It is the only white spot in my character, the only effort of my life to look back to with exultation, the only thing I have ever done or endeavoured to do that entitles me to rank among the men of a great country.
And what has been my reward? No
matter, I appeal to time. It may be that a Phillips will rise up yet to speak for these people, or a John Brown to fire a gun, and then I will be remembered.
Ah, thus I wrote, felt and believed in the few days that I sat again in the shadows of Shasta, where I wrote all but the opening and concluding lines of this narrative. But I had mixed too much with the restless and bustling life below me. I had bound myself in ties not to be broken at pleasure.
Besides, it was now so lonely. The grass grew tall and entangled in the trails. It was rank and green from the dust and ashes of the dead. It flourished with all that rich and intense verdure that
