During all this time, though his labors were of a nature to keep the wrongs and woes of his people and the power and pride of their white oppressors continually fresh in his mind, never did the savage hero lift the hand of violence against the aged, the helpless, or the unarmed. To his magnanimous spirit, Indian heathen though he was, the captive was a sacred trust, and many a man of the hated race, thrown by the chances of war within their direful grasp, did he rescue from horrible death at the hands of his injured and exasperated countrymen. The booty taken by his hands from the whites in their raids across the border was immense; but the spoils of war, though he might well have claimed the lion's share, he left, with magnificent generosity, to his followers--the glory of war being all that a true hero could covet.
In his habits of life the sachem was abstemious even to austerity, yet frank end popular in his manners, entering heartily into the rude amusements and athletic sports of his people. In the latter, such was his strength and activity of body, he rarely met his equal; and in hunting and wood-craft he was, even in the eyes of his hunter-race, a marvel of skill and address. He was the very soul of integrity and truth; and though born of a race proverbial for cunning and craft, he was of a nature singularly frank and straightforward, as he showed by the boldness and openness with which he was accustomed, even in the presence of his enemies, to acknowledge and discuss his great project.
As a warrior-chieftain, he stands unrivaled in the barbarous traditions of his race, and as an orator, with scarcely a superior. His oratory was of the highest order, inasmuch as it was the outgrowth of a great intellect, active, powerful, and wide-grasping in its operations, and the outpouring of a mighty spirit, deep and earnest, pure and generous, and often sublime in its emotions. Whenever he made the great mission of his life the theme of his declamations--and he took every suitable occasion for doing so--let his listeners be friends or foes, his appearance, at all times striking and prepossessing in the extreme, became as that of one inspired. His ample chest expanded with noble feeling; every gesture of hip hand, every movement and posture of his commanding form, grew eloquent with meaning. Unmasked of its habitual cast of reserve, his handsome face, clear, strong, and firm in its lines, yet flexible in its play of muscle and feature, reflected with mirror-like distinctness the passing emotions of his heart. His eye, eagle-like in its unflinching brightness, flashed forth the lightnings of the fiery and haughty spirit within. Language, direct in its unstudied simplicity, graphic and vigorous, and glowing with the thoughts and images of a luminous though unpolished mind, flowed from his lips majestic and resistless. Added to all was that awakening voice whose echoes had so long resounded through thy great North-west. Now it rang out, stern, abrupt, imperious, like the call of a trumpet to battle; now softened down to tones broken, tender, and pitying as those of a bereaved father sorrowing over his hapless children; then, as visions of the utter extinction of his race would break upon his prophetic soul, it would come wailing out like the despairing cry of a Hebrew prophet lamenting the impending desolation of Zion.