towns and
peaceful residence there as buyer and shipper--one of the earliest
expressions of middleman in the West--of the spoils of the chase, the
trophies of the Indian's skill in woodcraft. Although the British
government, through treaties with the Cherokees, sought a monopoly of
this traffic as a means of controlling them by furnishing or withholding
their necessities as their conduct toward the English colonists on the
frontier might render judicious, many of the earlier of these traders
were French--indeed one of the name of Charleville was engaged in such
commerce on the present site of the city of Nashville as early as the
year 1714, his base of supplies being in Louisiana, altogether
independent of the English, as he was then one of the traders of Antoine
Crozat, under the extensive charter of that enterprising speculator.

The French had exerted all their suavest arts of ingratiation with the
Cherokees, and as the Indians were now on the point of breaking out into
open enmity against the English, the idea of a French trader in furs,
which Odalie had suggested, was so acceptable to the Cherokee scheme of
things, that for the time all doubt and suspicion vanished from the
savage's mind. Vanished so completely, in fact, that within the
half-hour the chief was seated with the family-party beside their
camp-fire and sharing their supper, and the great Willinawaugh, with
every restraint of pride broken down, with characteristic reserve cast
to the winds, speaking to the supposed Frenchman, Alexander MacLeod, as
to a brother, was detailing with the utmost frankness and ferocity the
story of the treatment of the Indians by the Virginians, their allies,
in the late expedition against Fort Duquesne. The Cherokees had marched
thither to join General Forbes's army, agreeably to their treaty with
the English, by which, in consideration of the building of a fort within
the domain of their nation to afford them protection against their
Indian enemies and the French, now the enemies of their English allies,
and to shelter their old men and women and children during such absences
of the warriors of the tribe, they had agreed to take up arms under the
British flag whenever they were so required. And this the Cherokees had
done.

Then his painted, high-cheek-boned face grew rigid with excitement, and
the eagle feathers bound to his scalp-lock quivered in the light of the
fire as he told of the result. His braves hovered near to