Prisoners of Chance

I am Geoffrey Benteen, Gentleman Adventurer, with much experience upon the border, where I have passed my life. My father was that Robert Benteen, merchant in furs, the first of the English race to make permanent settlement in New Orleans. Here he established a highly profitable trade with the Indians, his bateaux voyaging as far northward as the falls of the Ohio, while his influence among the tribesmen extended to the eastern mountains. My mother was of Spanish blood, a native of Saint Augustine, so I grew up fairly proficient in three languages, and to them I later added an odd medley of tribal tongues which often stood me in excellent stead amid the vicissitudes of the frontier. The early death of my mother compelled me to become companion to my father in his wanderings, so that before I was seventeen the dim forest trails, the sombre rivers, and the dark lodges of savages had grown as familiar to me as were the streets and houses of my native town. Hence it happened, that when my father fell the victim of a treacherous blow, although he left to my care considerable property and a widely scattered trade, I could not easily content myself with the sameness of New Orleans; there I felt almost a stranger, ever hungering for the woods and the free life of the mountains.

Yet I held myself to the work in hand until successful in straightening out the tangled threads, and might have remained engaged in peaceful traffic until the end of life, had it not been for a misunderstanding with her who held my heart in captivity to her slightest whim. It matters little now the cause of the quarrel, or where rested the greater blame; enough that its occurrence drove me forth reckless of everything, desirous only to leave all of my own race, and seek amid savage environment and excitement forgetfulness of the past.

It was in September of the year 1769--just forty-eight years ago as I write--that I found myself once again in New Orleans, feeling almost a stranger to the town, except for the few rough flatboat-men in company with whom I had floated down the great river. Five years previously, heartsick and utterly careless of life, I had plunged into the trackless wilderness stretching in almost unbroken virginity to north and east, desiring merely to be left alone, that I might in solitude fight out my first grim battle with despair, saying to myself in all bitterness of soul that never again would I turn face to southward or enter the boundaries of Louisiana Province. During those years, beyond reach of news and the tongue of gossip, I wandered aimlessly from village to village, ever certain of welcome within the lodges of Creeks and Shawnees, or farther away amid those little French border towns dotting the Ohio and the Illinois, constantly feeling how little the world held of value since both my parents were gone, and this last blow had fallen. I loved the free, wild life of the warriors with whom I hunted, and the voyageurs beside whom I camped, and had learned to distrust my own race; yet no sooner did I chance to stand again beside the sweeping current of the broad Mississippi, than I was gripped by the old irresistible yearning, and, although uninspired by either hope or purpose, drifted downward to the hated Creole town.