could have held out valiantly against the savage except for the menace
of death by thirst. The officers had urged this point upon the
pioneers.

"Of course in any emergency," Demere argued, "the forces at the fort
would relieve you at once. But the true military principle ought to
govern even in such a minor stronghold. An unfailing water-supply ought
to be a definitely recognized necessity in every military post subject
to beleaguerment. Otherwise the station can be held only very
temporarily; one can lay in provisions and stand a siege, but drouth
means death, for surrender is massacre."

Nevertheless, eastward at the time, and later in westward settlements,
this obvious precaution was often neglected and the obvious disaster as
often ensued.

The woodland spring within the stockade was a charming and rocky spot
with no suggestion of flowing water till one might notice that the moss
and mint beneath a gigantic tree were moist; then looking under a broad,
flat, slab-like ledge might be descried a deep basin four feet in
diameter filled with water, crystal, clear, and brown in the deep
shadow--brown and liquid as the eyes of some water-nymph hidden among
the rocks and the evergreen laurel.

And, oh joy! the day when Odalie kindled her own fire once more on her
own hearth-stone--good, substantial flagging; when traversing the
passage from one room to another she could look down through the open
gate of the stockade at the silvery rushing of the Tennessee in its
broad expanse under the blue sky, giving, as it swirled around, a long
perspective, down the straight and gleaming reach before it curved anew.
And oh, the moment of housewifely pride when the slender stock of goods
was unpacked and once more the familiar articles adjusted in their
places, her flax wheel in the chimney corner, her china ranged to its
best advantage on the shelf; and often did she think about the little
blue jug that came from France and marvel what had been its fate! All
her linen that was saved, the pride of her heart, made, too, its brave
show. She had a white cloth on her table, albeit the table seemed to
have much ado to stand alone since its legs were of unequal length, and
white counterpanes on her beds, and gay curtains at the windows opening
within the stockade--the other side had but loop-holes--on which birds
of splendid plumage, cut from East Indian chintz, had been overcast on
the white dimity, and which looked when the wind stirr