as your young fighting men, who
sometimes grow rash, however, and make the wisdom of the plans of your
'beloved men,' your sage councils, mere folly. The Earl of Loudon sent
the garrison here. Perhaps if you send a 'talk' to the new head-man,
General Amherst, he will take the soldiers away. I go or stay according
to orders--I march at a word. But to-night the children of the settlers
make merry. I told you this morning of our religion. This day is the
festival of the Child. So the children make merry--you can hear them now
at their play." And indeed there was a sharp, wild squealing upon the
air, and Stuart hoped that the beat of the dancing feet might be
supposed to be of their making and the sound of the music for their
behoof--for the dance of the Indians often heralds war and is not for
sheer joy. "The parents bring them here and share their mirth. For this
is the festival of the Child. Now your warriors are brave and splendid
and terrible to look upon. If they go through the gates, the little
children would be smitten with fear; the heart of a little child is like
a leaf in the wind--so moved by fear. Do not the Cherokee children flee
from me--who am not a great warrior and have not even paint for my
face--when I come to visit you at Nachey Creek. Say the word--and I open
the gates."

There was something in this Cherokee which Stuart saw both then and
afterward, and which also attracted the attention of others, that
indicated not only an acute and subtle intelligence and a natural
benignity, but a wide and varied scope of emotion, truly remarkable in a
savage without education, of course, and without even the opportunity of
observing those of a higher culture and exercising sentiments esteemed
of value and grace in a civilized appraisement. Yet he was experiencing
as poignant a humiliation to be convicted of an ungenerous attitude of
mind and upbraided with a protest belied as if he had been a Knight of
the Round Table, bred to noble thoughts as well as to chivalrous deeds
of arms, and had never taken the scalp of a child or treacherously slain
a sleeping enemy.

Stuart could feel the Cherokee's heart beat fast under his hand.
Atta-Kulla-Kulla grasped it suddenly in his own, gripping it hard for a
moment, while with his other hand he waved a command for his men to
retire, which they did, slowly, with lowering, surprised eyes and
clouded brows.

"Go back!" he said to Stuart. "Hold the gate fast. You make your fe