The Story of Old Fort Loudon Read online

  CHAPTER VIII

  Peace was welcome--so welcome. Hence the turning of the soil by thepioneers commenced betimes in the chill spring with heartfeltthankfulness to be anew between the stilts of a plow. The sap wasrising; the winter had gone like a quiet sleep ensuing on the heavytumults of troubled dreams.

  One day a wren came and perched in a loop-hole of the block-house of thenorthwestern bastion and sang very loud and sweet and clear, till allthe men sitting about the fire turned to look at it, amazed at itstemerity, and enjoying in a lazy, sensuous way the jubilance andthrilling crystalline purity of its tone. Two of the youngsters,Lieutenant Gilmore and Ensign Whitson, ready to wager anything onanything, disputed as to the size of the creature,--if it had on nofeathers,--one maintaining that it was two inches long, the other, aninch and a half. The bird brought a straw and arranged it carefully inplace in the loop-hole, and then singing, flew away, and came back witha feather. His intention was evident.

  "My young friend," said Stuart, carelessly eyeing him, "you are a finefigure of a settler, but that loop-hole is ours!"

  "Let him have it," said Demere. "We shall never need it."

  The door opened suddenly, and the orderly, saluting, announced theexpress from over the mountains. At once there ensued a great stir ofthe tobacco smoke, and a laying aside of pipes in any coign of vantageto better handle the mail from home, as soon as the official dispatchesshould be read. And then, "Here's something from Fort Prince George,"said Demere, from where he sat at the rude table with the papersscattered before him. "A goodly packet," he continued, as he broke theseal, in the expectant, pleased silence of the others. "Ensign Milne iswriting--both the official communication and a long personal letter,"noting the signature.

  At the first glance along the lines his face fell.

  "Captain Coytmore is dead," he said in a low voice.

  Murdered by the Indians he had been, in front of the fort, in thepresence of the officers of his own command! As the news was unfolded,startled, amazed glances were exchanged; no word was spoken; the silencewas only broken by the low, tense voice as Demere read, and now andagain the wren's clear, sweet, reedy note, full of joyance, of life, asthe bird fluttered in and out and builded his nest in the loop-hole.

  Without warning the blow had fallen. One morning it happened, the 16thof February, when naught of moment seemed to impend. On the bank of theKeowee River opposite to Fort Prince George, two Indian women appeared,and as they loitered, seeming to have something in hand, the sentinelcalled the attention of an officer of the fort,--Doharty it was,--who atonce went out to speak to them, thinking they might have some news. Hecalled out to them, having a trifle of Cherokee at command, but beforethey could answer they were joined by Oconostota, the king of the Indiantribe, arrayed in his buckskin shirt and leggings, and mounted upon avery excellent chestnut horse. He told Doharty that he desired to speakto the commandant of the fort. Doharty, thinking it a matter ofimportance, and possibly having reference to the surrender of some ofthe murderers of the settlers in exchange for the hostages, went ingreat haste and summoned Captain Coytmore, who instantly came,accompanied by Lieutenant Bell with Foster, the interpreter, following.The writer detailed that he himself was within, engaged in inspectionduty as officer of the day, or his interest and curiosity would havecarried him in their company. In expectation of developments they allwent down to the water's edge, and Coytmore asked the chief if he wouldnot ford the stream and come over. But Oconostota stated that he was inhaste touching matters of great moment which he wished to impart to theroyal governor of South Carolina. It was imperative that he should treatof the subject in person, and thus he would go to Charlestown to seeGovernor Lyttleton if Captain Coytmore would send a white man toaccompany him as a safeguard in the white settlements. Captain Coytmoreseemed to consider for a moment whom he could send; and then, evidentlydesirous of furthering any pacific negotiation, said that he coulddetail a man for that duty. Oconostota replied that that courtesy wasall he would ask of the commandant--a white man as a safeguard. Hehimself would furnish a horse for the man to ride. He had come preparedfor the purpose, and he lifted a bridle, which he had brought over onearm, to show it. He then remarked that he would get the horse, which hehad left a little distance back, while Captain Coytmore gave the man hisinstructions. So saying, he lifted up the bridle in his hand, whirlingit three times around his head, and wheeling his horse, galloped off,while from an ambush amongst the trees and underbrush a fire of twentyor thirty muskets was poured upon the little group at the river bank.Captain Coytmore was shot through the left breast and died that day.Bell and Foster were each wounded in the leg. Doharty and the sentinelhad much ado to get them into the fort with Coytmore's help, for thecommandant was able to run to shelter with the rest through thesally-port, and until Parker, who the writer said had had considerableexperience as a chirurgeon, examined Coytmore's wound, neither he northe others knew that it was mortal. Milne, being now the officer incommand, thought it fit to order the hostages into irons, fearing someoutbreak within the fort as well as an attack from without. One andtwenty stalwart savages were dangerous inmates at large, with thefreedom of the parade as they had had much of the time. They resisted;one of the soldiers was killed in the effort to shackle them, for armsappeared among them, evidently brought and secreted by their friends whohad been permitted to visit them, much leniency having been accordedthem, being hostages and not themselves criminals. Another soldier waswounded in the head with a tomahawk. Upon the death of their comrade,and the announcement that the commandant was dying, the garrison wasseized with an uncontrollable frenzy, fell upon the hostages, and withinfive minutes had slaughtered the last man of them.

  "I know you will feel for me," Milne wrote. "I dared scarce reprimandthe men, for they were full of fury. I see here and there signs ofsullenness. They watch me--their way of showing regret. I can scarcelyblame--yet the Cherokees were hostages and I am sorry; I was much alone,with the temper of the soldiers to consider. Coytmore dead, and Bellgone into a delirium with the fever--his wound bled very little--theball is near the bone. Doharty had been ill of a pleurisy and seems torelapse. On the night after, I sat for a time in the block-house wherewe had laid the commandant, feeling very low in my mind. There is one ofthe men a bit of a joiner, and a great billet of the red cedar, used inbuilding the fort, being left over, he made a decent coffin, the woodworking easily and with a fine grain and gloss. I could hear as I satthere the tapping of his mallet and chisel as he worked on the coffin,while Coytmore lay with the flag over him, his sword and hat by hisside--there was no fire, because of him, and only a candle at his head,or I think the savages would have seen the light. But the work beingfinished and everything still, they supposed all asleep. I cannot thinkwhy they did not smell the blood--for the ground of the room where thehostages lay reeked of it. Twenty-one!--I could not think how I couldbury them inside the fort and I dared not send out a detail, nor do Ithink the men would obey--the barracks seemed steeped in the smell,though none there. Of a sudden, the night being fine and chill as I satthere with Coytmore, a sentry outside the door, I heard a great voicelike a wind rushing. I thought I had been sleeping. And again I heardit--words in Cherokee. _O-se-skinnea co-tan-co-nee!_ I slipped outsidethe block-house where was the sentinel, much startled, and bade himfetch the interpreter, alive or dead. He came limping--not greatly hurt.The words he said meant, "Good tidings for the unhappy." Then as westood there other words sounded signifying 'Fight manfully and you willbe assisted!' They were spoken to the hostages and close to the ramparthard by their hut, unknowing their--I cannot think how they should notsmell the blood! Then from a greater distance came the "Whoo-whoop!" anda thick hail of musketry. The men got under arms very quick andtractable, and I think wished to atone. The fire of the savages had noeffect, the balls being buried in the earth of the escarp, or fallingspent within the fort. But we were kept at it all night, the mentireless and dutiful. The savages now and then paused at first,expecting some token from the ho
stages. Then they fought with greatpersistence--realizing. With what loss we do not know, since theycarried off their dead. Sure, how strange 'tis to be fighting all night,firing through the loop-holes of the block-house around Coytmore, withnever a word from him, an order, or a sign. I miss him more since he isout of sight. I am afraid to speak of burying the savages inside thefort, along with the commandant and Private Mahone--and yet I _must_ getrid of them. Twenty-one!--in so narrow an enclosure----

  "Much gratified by a deputation of Indians, realizing at last, andasking for bodies. Would not open gates for fear of surprise. Had eachhoisted up and slipped out of embrasure; could hardly force men to touchthem. I said, 'You were too quick once!'--drew my pistol. The Indiansseemed mighty glad to get them, yet women went off howling. Soldiersseemed relieved to find in the hut tomahawks buried in ground, and aphial of liquid, which they think was poison for well. I poured this outon the earth, and broke bottle. Men's spirits improve--quite cheerful.Hope you have better luck at Ft. Loudon. Pray some one of you write tome! Bell and the others too ill to send remembrances--doubtless would."

  The circle listened in appalled silence, and when the reading wasconcluded, except here and there a murmur of commiseration, or a deepimprecation, hardly a stir was in the room until the joyous notes of thebuilding wren arose, so clear that they had a suggestion of glitter, ifthe quality of light can ever be an attribute of sound. Then CaptainStuart asked for the letter and silently read it from end to end, whilea fragmentary conversation concerning the personality of the slainhostages, all men of great note in their respective towns, began to beprosecuted by the others.

  That evil days were upon the land hardly admitted of a doubt, and theyfell to discussing the improbability of measures of relief and reprisalbeing undertaken so early after the bootless return of GovernorLyttleton's troops without striking a blow. The Cherokees, too, weresurely cognizant of the fact that it was scarcely possible in view ofthe great expense of mustering and sending forth this force that such anexpedition would again be soon set on foot. Acting upon this theory, andalways instigated by the subtle French, their demonstration probablyheralded a systematic and vigorous outbreak all along the frontier, toexterminate the settlers and free their land forever from theencroachments of the hated English. This view was confirmed by an attackwhich presently ensued on Fort Ninety-six, and being without effect, therepulsed Indian forces drew off and fell upon the more defenselesssettlements, ravaging the frontier throughout the borders of the twoCarolinas and Virginia and practicing all the horrible atrocities ofsavage warfare. The settlers about Fort Loudon quaked in their littlelog-cabins and looked upon their limited clearings in the wilderness andtheir meager beginnings of a home, and wondered if it were worth comingso far and risking so much to attain so little. As yet, save for glancesof a flashing ire and sullen silence, the Indians had made nodemonstration, but it was a period of poignant doubt, like waiting forthe falling of a sword suspended by a hair.

  One day Odalie was startled by seeing Fifine, seated on the threshold,persistently wreathing her countenance into a grimace, which, despitethe infantile softness of her face and the harsh savagery of the one sheimitated, was so singularly recognizable that the mother took her handsfrom the bread-trough where she was mixing the pounded corn meal andwent near to hear what the child was saying:--

  "Fonny! Fonny!" with the terrible look of malevolent ridicule with whichWillinawaugh had rebuked Hamish's poor pleasantries on thatheart-breaking journey hither.

  Odalie's pulses seemed to cease to beat. The child could hardly haveremembered an incident of so long ago without some recent reminder.

  "Where, Josephine? Where did you see Willinawaugh?"

  But Fifine had no mind to answer, apprehending the agitation in thesharp tones, and translating it as displeasure. She drew hercountenance straight in short order, and put a meditative forefinger inher mouth as she looked up doubtfully at her mother.

  Odalie changed her tone; she laughed out gayly.

  "Fonny! Fonny!" and she too imitated the Indian. Then exclaimed--"_Oh_,isn't it droll, Fifine?"

  And Fifine, deceived, banged her heels hilariously against thedoor-step, laughing widely and damply, and crying, "Fonny! Fonny!" ininfantile derision.

  "You didn't see 'Fonny' yesterday. No, Fifine! No!" Odalie had the airof detracting from some merit on Fifine's part, and as she played herlittle _role_ she trembled so with a realization of terror that shecould scarcely stand.

  Yes, Fifine protested with pouts and anger. She _had_ seen him; she hadseen him, only yesterday.

  "Where, Fifine, where?" cried Odalie bewildered, for the child sat uponthe threshold all the day long, while the mother spun and wove andcooked within the sound of the babble of her voice, the gates of thestockade being closed in these troublous times, and always one or moreof the men at work hard by in the fields without.

  The mystery was too fraught with menace to be disregarded, but Odaliehesitated, doubting the policy of this direct question. Fifine'sinterest, however, was suddenly renewed and her importance expanded.

  "Him wasn't all in," she explained. "Him top-feathers--him head--an' himugly mouf!" She looked expectantly and half doubtfully at her mother,remembering her seeming anger.

  "Oh, how droll! One might perish with laughter!" screamed Odalie, with apiercing affectation of merriment, and once more Fifine banged her heelshilariously against the door-step, as she sat on the threshold, andcried in derision, "Fonny! Fonny!"

  "Where, Fifine? At the stockade? Some hole?"

  Fifine became angry at this suggestion, for had not "Dill" built thestockade, and would he build a stockade so Indians might get through andcut off her curls--she bounced them about her head--that Dill said were"'andsomer than any queen's."

  But Odalie _knew_ she had seen "Fonny" at the stockade, and Fifinecontradicted, and after a spirited passage of "Did!" "Didn't!" "Did!""Didn't!" Fifine arose to go and prove her proposition.

  There at the little spring, so sylvan sweet, so full, yet with themerest trickle of a branch that hardly wet the mint, so shyly hiddenamongst its rocks, was a fissure. Odalie had often noted it; dark itwas, for the shadows fell on it, and it might be deep; limited--it wouldbut hold her piggin, should she thrust it there, or admit a man's head,yet not his shoulders--and this was what it had done yesterday, forprotruding thence Fifine maintained she had seen Willinawaugh's facewith "him top-feathers, him head, an' him ugly mouf!"

  Odalie laid her ear to the ground to listen; smooth, quiet, full, sheheard the flow of water, doubtless the branch from the little springalways brimming, yet seeming to send so tiny a rill over the slopes ofthe mint. There was evidently a cave beneath, and they had never dreamedof it! She began to search about for fissures, finding here and there inthe deep herbage and the cleft rocks one that might admit the passage ofa man's body. She remembered the first sudden strange appearance of theCherokee women at her fireside, and afterward, and that Sandy and Hamishand Dill often declared that watch the gate as they might they never sawthe squaws enter the stockade nor issue therefrom. Doubtless they hadcome through the cave, that had a hidden exit.

  Her heart throbbed, her eyes filled; "I ought to be so thankful todiscover it in time--to think how safe we felt here when the gates werelocked! But, oh, my home! my sweet, sweet home!"

  The way the men's faces fell when they were summoned, and stood andlooked at the slope, might make one pity them. It represented the hardlabor of nearly two years--and it was all to begin anew.

  When Sandy, with the vigorous Scotch thrift, began to show how easilythe stockade might be moved to exclude the spring, Gilfillan shook hishead warningly. A station should never be without water. Sooner or laterits days were numbered. As to the stockade, it was futile. Twenty--nay,fifty men might be surprised and massacred here. For the ordinarypurposes of life the place was useless.

  Hamish, after the first sharp pang, was resolved into curiosity; he mustneeds slip through the fissure and into the cave below. When Odali
eceased her tears to remonstrate, he declared that he could get out ofany cave that Willinawaugh or Choo-qualee-qualoo could, and thendemanded to be tied to her apron-string to be drawn up again in case heshould prove unable to take care of himself. He went down with a whoop,somewhat like Willinawaugh's own war-cry, then called out that the coastwas clear, and asked for his rifle to be handed to him.

  Following the wall with his hand and the sound of the water he took hisway through a narrow subterranean passage, so densely black that itseemed he had never before known what darkness was. He could hear naughtbut the wide, hollow echo of the flow of the stream, but never did ittouch his feet; and after he had progressed, as he judged, includingthe windings of his way, some five or six miles, he began to recollect alittle, meager stream, yet flowing with a good force for its compass,that made a play in the current not a quarter of a mile, not more thanone thousand feet, from the fort. So well founded was his judgment oflocality that when the light first appeared, a pale glimmer at the endof a long tunnel, growing broader and clearer on approach, and hereached an archway with a sudden turn, seeming from without a mere"rock-house"--as a grotto formed by the beetling ledges of a cliff iscalled in that region--and with no further cavernous suggestion, thefirst thing that caught his eye was the English flag flying above theprimitive block-houses and bastions and out-works of Fort Loudon, whilethe little stream gathered all its strength and hied down through thethick underbrush to join the Tennessee River.

  The officers heard with evident concern of the disaster that hadbefallen MacLeod Station, and immediately sent a runner to bid thestationers come to the fort, pending their selection of a new site andthe raising of new houses. So Odalie, with such few belongings as couldbe hastily collected once more loaded on a packhorse, again entered thegates of Fort Loudon with a heavy heart.

  But it was a cheery group she encountered. The soldiers were swaggeringabout the parade in fine form, the picture of military jollity, and thegreat hall was full of the officers and settlers. An express had come inwith news of a different complexion. Long delayed the bearer had been;tempted to turn back here, waiting an opportunity there, now assisted onhis backward journey by a friendly Indian, and again seeing a dodgingchance of making through to Loudon, he had traveled his two hundredmiles so slowly that the expedition he heralded came hard on theannouncement of its approach. While the tidings raised the spirits ofthe officers and the garrison, it was evident that the movement addedelements of danger and developed the crisis. Still they consisted withhope, and with that sentiment of good cheer and jovial courage whichsucceeded the reading of the brief dispatch from Fort Prince George.

  Advices just received from Charles Town. General Amherst detaches Colonel Montgomery with adequate force to chastise Indians.

  Discussions of the situation were rife everywhere. There was much talkof the officer in command of the expedition, a man of distinguishedability and tried courage, and the contradictory Gilmore and Whitsonfound themselves in case to argue with great vivacity, offering largewagers of untransferable commodities,--such as one's head, one's eyes,one's life,--on the minor point, impossible to be settled at the moment,as to whether or not he spelled his name with a final "y," onemaintaining this to be a fact, the other denying it, since he was ayounger brother (afterward succeeding to the title) of the Earl ofEglinton, who always spelled his name Montgomerie. It might haveafforded them further subject for discussion, and enlarged theirappreciation of the caricature of incongruity, could they have knownthat some two years later three of these savage Cherokee chiefs would bepresented to His Majesty King George in London by the Earl of Eglinton,where they were said to have conducted themselves with great dignity andpropriety. Horace Walpole in one of his letters chronicles them as thelions of the hour, dining with peers, and having a vocal celebrity, Mrs.Clive, to sing on one of these occasions in her best style for theirpleasure. In fact, such was the grace of their deportment, that severalof the newspapers seemed to deduce therefrom the failure ofcivilization, since the aboriginal state of man could show forth theseflowers of decorum, a point of view that offends to the quick a learnedhistorian, who argues astutely throughout a precious half-page of acompendious work that the refinements of spiritual culture are stillworth consideration, seeming to imply that although we cannot all beCherokee chieftains, and take London by storm,--in a manner different,let us say in passing, from their previous reduction of smallercities,--it is quite advisable for us to mind our curriculum and ourcatechism, and be as wise and good as we may, if not distinguished.

  Perhaps the Cherokees acted upon the intuitive perception of the valueof doing in Rome as the Romans do. And that rule of conduct seemsearlier to have been applied by Colonel Montgomery. However he spelledhis name, he was sufficiently identifiable. He came northward like anavenging fury. Advancing swiftly with a battalion of Highlanders andfour companies of the Royal Scots,[11] some militia and volunteers,through that wild and tangled country, he fell on Little Keowee Town,where with a small detachment he put every man to the sword, and, bymaking a night march with the main body of his force, almostsimultaneously destroyed Estatoe, taking the inhabitants so by surprisethat the beds were warm, the food was cooking, loaded guns exploded inthe flames, for the town was promptly fired, and many perished thus, thesoldiers having become almost uncontrollable on discovering the body ofan Englishman who had only that morning suffered death by torture at thehands of the savages. Sugaw Town next met this fate--in fact, almostevery one of the Ayrate towns of the Cherokee nation, before ColonelMontgomery wiped his bloody sword, and sheathed it at the gates of FortPrince George, having personally made several narrow escapes.

  These details, however, were to Fort Loudon like the flashes oflightning of a storm still below the horizon, and of which one is onlymade aware by the portentous conditions of the atmosphere. The seniorofficers of the post began to look grave. The idea occurred to them withsuch force that they scarcely dared to mention it one to the other, lestit be developed by some obscure electrical transmission in the brain ofOconostota, that Fort Loudon would offer great strategic value in thepossession of the Indians. The artillery, managed by French officers,who, doubtless, would appear at their appeal, might well suffice tocheck the English advance. The fort itself would afford impregnableshelter to the braves, their French allies and non-combatants. Alwaysthey had coveted it, always they claimed that it had been built forthem, here in the heart of their nation. Stuart was not surprised by theevent. He only wondered that it had not chanced earlier.

  That night the enmity of the Indians was prefigured by a great glaresuddenly springing into the sky. It rose above the forests, and from theopen spaces about Fort Loudon, whence the woods had been cleared away,one could see it fluctuate and flush more deeply, and expand along thehorizon like some flickering mystery of the aurora borealis. But thisbaleful glare admitted of no doubt. One needed not to speculate onunexplained possibilities of electrical currents, and resultant thrillsof light. It only epitomized and materialized the kindling of the firesof hate.

  It was Odalie's little home; much that she valued still remainedthere--left to be quietly fetched to the fort next day. Their flittinghad taken place at dusk, with but a load of wearing apparel, and it wassupposed that the rest was quite safe, as the Cherokees were notpresumed to be apprised of their absence. The spinning-wheel and theloom; her laborious treasures of home-woven linen for bed and table; thefine curtains on which the birds flickered for the last time; the bedsand pillows, adding pounds on pounds of dry balsam needles to the fire;the flaunting, disguised tabourets, showing themselves now at their truevalue, and burning stolidly like the chunks of wood they were; theunsteady tables and puncheon benches; all the uncouth, forlorn littlemakeshifts of her humble housekeeping, that her embellishing touch hadrendered so pretty, added their fuel to the flames which castlong-glancing lines of light up and down the silvery reaches of theriver she had loved.

  Captain Stuart and Captain Demere, who had gone instantly to the
towerin the block-house by the gate, on the report of a strange, distantlight, saw her as they came down, and both paused, Demere wincing atrifle, preferring not to meet her. She was standing beside one of thegreat guns and had been looking out through the embrasure. The moon wasdirectly overhead above the parade, and the shadows of the palisadesfell outward. The officers could not avoid her; their way led them downnear at hand and they needs must pass her. She turned, and as she stoodwith one hand on the big cannon, her white dress richly a-gleam in themoonlight, she looked at them with a smile, something of the saddest, inher eyes.

  "If I wanted to scream, Mrs. MacLeod, I should scream," exclaimedDemere, impulsively.

  She laughed a little, realizing how he would have upbraided the futilityof tears had she shed them--he was always so ready with his staid, kind,undeniably reasonable rebukes.

  "No," she said, "I am trying to remember that home is not in a house,but in the heart."

  "I think you are trying to show us the mettle of a soldier," saidDemere, admiringly.

  "Mrs. MacLeod would like the king's commission!" cried Stuart, breakingthe tension with his bluff raillery, striking the cannon a smart tapwith the butt of the pistol he carried in his hand, while the metalgave out a deep, hollow resonance. "Her unbridled ambition was always tobe the commanding officer!"

  Both Stuart and Demere thought more seriously of the demonstration asaffecting the public weal than did the pioneers of the settlement. Stillhoping for the best, it seemed to them not unnatural that an abandonedstation should be fired as merely wanton mischief, and not necessarilywith the knowledge or connivance of the head-men of the Cherokees.

  The next day, the hunters of the fort went out betimes as usual, andHamish found it agreeable to make one of the party. Corporal O'Flynn wasamong the number, and several horses were taken to bring in the game; abright, clear day it was, of that sweet season when the spring bloomsgradually into the richness of summer. The wind was fresh; the riversang; the clouds of a glittering whiteness, a flocculent lightness,floated high in the blue sky. Suddenly the sentry at the gate called outsharply for the corporal of the guard. The men, lounging about theparade, turned to look and listen.

  "Plunging through the gate and half across the paradeground."]

  The hoof-beats of a horse coming at frantic speed smote first upon theear; then across the open space to which the glacis sloped, withsnorting head and flying mane and tail, the frightened creaturegalloped, plunging through the gate and half across the paradeground; a soldier was on his back, leaning forward upon the animal'sneck, his arms clasped about it, the stirrups and his position aloneretaining him in the saddle; for he was dead--quite dead. Too dead toanswer any of the dozen questions hurled at him as the soldiers caughtthe bridle; when the horse whirled he reeled out of the saddle, sohopelessly dead that they asked him no more. The good sorrel would havetold much, if he might, as he stood, snorting and tossing his head, andtrembling in every fiber, his eyes starting out of their sockets, yet,conscious he was among his friends, looking from one to another of thesoldiers as they handled him, with an earnest appeal for sympathy andconsolation which implied some terrible ordeal. Before an order could begiven the crack of rifles came from the woods, and a few of the hunterswere seen bursting from the forest, one by one, and coming at adouble-quick up the slope of the glacis.

  Hamish and O'Flynn were the last. They had been together a littledistant from the others. Now and again they had heard the report offirearms, multiplied into something like a volley.

  "Listen at them spalpeens wastin' powdher," the corporal exclaimed once,wroth at this unsoldierly practice. "Must they have twenty thrys to hita big black buffalo? Just lemme git 'em into the gyard house wunstagin--time they git out they'll be fit to worship the outside o' thedure; it'll look so strange an' good to 'm."

  It was a wolf-trap which he was exploiting at the moment, made of logscumbrously adjusted and baited with buffalo meat, and within it now weretwo large, handsome specimens whose skins were of value, and who hadevidently resolved to part with those ornamental integuments asreluctantly as might be; they were growling and plunging at the timberswith a most ferocious show of fangs and the foam flying from theirsnarling jaws.

  The sun sifted down through the great trees and the soft green shadowson the man and boy, both clad in the hunter's buckskin shirt andleggings. Corporal O'Flynn had knelt down outside the pen the better tosee in the shadow the two plunging wild beasts.

  "I'm afeared to shoot so close lest I might singe yer hair, but I can'tstand on ceremony, me dears," he said, addressing the wolves, as he drewhis pistol. "Bedad, I _must_ go and stop that wastin' o' powdher!"

  The next moment something suddenly sang aloud in the wilderness--a wild,strange, sibilant strain. It seemed materialized as it whizzed pastHamish's ear, and so long had it been since he had heard the flight ofthe almost discarded arrow that he did not recognize the sound till heheard a sharp exclamation of pain and saw the shaft sticking inO'Flynn's right arm, pinning it to the logs of the wolf-trap. The clawsof the wild beasts, reaching through, tore now the buckskin and now theflesh from his chest, as he pluckily struggled to free himself; thepistol went off in his grasp and one of the wolves fell in convulsiveagonies; the other, dismayed, shrank back. Hamish caught up O'Flynn'sloaded gun, looking about warily for Indians, and prudently reservinghis fire. He saw naught, and the next moment he realized that O'Flynnwas fainting from the pain. He knew that the straggler who had shot thearrow had sped swiftly away to summon other Cherokees, or to secure agun or more arrows. He risked his life in waiting only a moment, butwith the fellow-feeling which was so strong among the pioneers of theTennessee Valley that it would induce two men at parting, having but oneknife between them, to break and share the blade, to divide the powderthat meant life in that wild country equally to the last grain. Hamishdid not for one instant contemplate any other course. He rushed toO'Flynn and sought to release him, but the flint of the arrow that hadgone through the heavy muscular tissues of the arm still stuck fast inthe strong fiber of the logs of the trap, and the blood was streaming,and once more the wolf was angrily plunging against the side of thepen. Suddenly the boy remembered the juvenile account of the scalping of"Dill." Calling piteously to O'Flynn not to mind, if he could help it,Hamish placed one firm foot against the straight back of the soldier,and bracing himself with his left arm around a stanch young tree, hepulled at the arrow with all his might. There was a ripping sound offlesh, a human scream, a creak of riving wood, and Corporal O'Flynn layface downward on the ground, freed, but with the shaft still in his arm,the blood spurting from it, and the wolf plunging and snarling unheededat the very hair of his head.