d for the letter and silently read it from end to end, while
a fragmentary conversation concerning the personality of the slain
hostages, all men of great note in their respective towns, began to be
prosecuted by the others.

That evil days were upon the land hardly admitted of a doubt, and they
fell to discussing the improbability of measures of relief and reprisal
being undertaken so early after the bootless return of Governor
Lyttleton's troops without striking a blow. The Cherokees, too, were
surely cognizant of the fact that it was scarcely possible in view of
the great expense of mustering and sending forth this force that such an
expedition would again be soon set on foot. Acting upon this theory, and
always instigated by the subtle French, their demonstration probably
heralded a systematic and vigorous outbreak all along the frontier, to
exterminate the settlers and free their land forever from the
encroachments of the hated English. This view was confirmed by an attack
which presently ensued on Fort Ninety-six, and being without effect, the
repulsed Indian forces drew off and fell upon the more defenseless
settlements, ravaging the frontier throughout the borders of the two
Carolinas and Virginia and practicing all the horrible atrocities of
savage warfare. The settlers about Fort Loudon quaked in their little
log-cabins and looked upon their limited clearings in the wilderness and
their meager beginnings of a home, and wondered if it were worth coming
so far and risking so much to attain so little. As yet, save for glances
of a flashing ire and sullen silence, the Indians had made no
demonstration, but it was a period of poignant doubt, like waiting for
the 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, despite
the infantile softness of her face and the harsh savagery of the one she
imitated, was so singularly recognizable that the mother took her hands
from the bread-trough where she was mixing the pounded corn meal and
went near to hear what the child was saying:--

"Fonny! Fonny!" with the terrible look of malevolent ridicule with which
Willinawaugh had rebuked Hamish's poor pleasantries on that
heart-breaking journey hither.

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

"Where, Josephi