Throughout the action, though he had gallantly headed his company in every charge, Captain Reynolds had not fired a single shot, lest, by some unhappy chance, Kumshakah, the preserver of his life, might fall by his hand. When the battle was over and he had assisted in bearing his wounded colonel to camp, he hunted up Burl and, bidding him follow, returned in the course of an hour to the battle-ground, to look once more on his face who at sunset had said, "Let him sleep; Wahcoudah's will be done." He had repeated to his old servant what their deliverer had told them of himself. But having taken in the evidence of his own senses and already drawn therefrom his own unalterable conclusions, Big Black Burl could not be made to understand how a man who looked like Kumshakah, talked like Kumshakah, acted like Kumshakah, called himself Kumshakah, could be any other than the Kumshakah whom he had met as a foe, entertained as a guest, parted with as a friend, and ever afterward loved as a brother. Such was his conviction then, and such it remained through life.
On reaching the spot where he had seen the hero fall, Reynolds found a number of his brother soldiers already gathered there, and still others coming up, all eager either for the first time to behold or to get a nearer view of the renowned Indian chieftain. With the dead of both friend and foe strewn thick around him, there he lay, his handsome face still lighted up with a glorious and triumphant smile, as if the magnanimous soul that so long had animated those noble features had, in rising, stamped it there to tell his enemies that, though fallen, he had fallen and conquered. Beside him, and in striking contrast with his symmetrical and stately figure, his pleasing and majestic aspect, lay extended the huge bulk and scowled the terrible visage of Black Thunder.
"Pore, pore Kumshy!" exclaimed Burl, in a pitying voice.
"Yes, poor Kumshakah, and poor Tecumseh, too!" rejoined his master, with solemn and profound emotion.
"What's dat you say, Mars'er Bushie?" inquired Burl quickly and with a puzzled look.
Slowly young Reynolds repeated what he had said, and then added: "What we now see before us, Burl, is all that is left of the great Tecumseh!"