address Odalie could not sustain her _role_. She uttered a
low moan and put her hand before her eyes. For he had not entered upon
the sequel,--a sequel that she knew well;--the sudden summary
retaliation of the Cherokees upon the defenseless settlers in the region
contiguous to the line of march of the returning warriors,--blood for
blood is the invariable Cherokee rule!

Never, never could she forget the little cabin on the west side of New
River where she and her adventurous husband had settled on the Virginia
frontier not far from other adventurous and scattered pioneers. They had
thought themselves safe enough; many people in these days of the western
advance relied on the community strength of a small station, well
stockaded, with the few settlers in the cabins surrounded by the
palisades; others, and this family of the number, felt it sufficient
protection to be within the sound of a signal gun from a neighboring
house. But the infuriated homeward-bound Cherokees fell on the first of
these cabins that lay in their way, massacred the inmates, and marched
on in straggling blood-thirsty bands, burning and slaying as they went.
So few were the settlers in that region that there was no hope in
uniting for defense. They fled wildly in scattered groups, and this
little household found itself in the untried, unfrequented region west
of the great Indian trail, meditating here a temporary encampment, until
the aggrieved Cherokees on their homeward march should all have passed
down the "Warrior's Path" to their far-away settlements south of the
Tennessee River. Then, the way being clear, the fugitives hoped to
retrace their journey, cross New River and regain the more eastern
section of Virginia. Meantime they were slipping like shadows through
the dark night into the great unknown realms of this uninhabited
southwestern wilderness, itself a land of shadow, of dreams, of the
vague unreality of mere rumor. Some intimation of their flight must have
been given, for following their trail had skulked the Indian whom Hamish
had killed,--a spy doubtless, the forerunner of these Cherokees, who,
but for thinking them French, would have let out their spirits into the
truly unknown, by way of that great mountain pass opening on an unknown
world. If the savages but dreamed of the fate that had befallen their
scout!--she hardly dared look at Hamish when she thought of the dead
Indian, lest her thought be read.

She wondered what had be