nces of the wind, now high, now low, and in varying strength. The
stars still glittered down into the parade; the moon cast a gentle
shadow along the palisades; the sentries in the block-house towers, the
gunners lying flat beneath their great cannon, feeling the dew on their
faces, looking toward the moon, the guard ready to turn out at the
word,--all listened languorously, and drank in the sweets of the summer
night with the music. A scene almost peaceful, despite the guarded
walls, and the savage hordes outside, balked, and furious, and thirsting
for blood.

"Let us see the express, Paul," said Stuart at last.

The express had repeatedly served as a means of communication between
Fort Loudon and Fort Prince George, and as he came in he cautiously
closed the door. He was a man of war, himself, in some sort, and was
aware that a garrison is hardly to be included in the conference between
commanders of a frontier force and their chosen emissary. With the
inside of his packet his brain was presumed to have no concern, but in
such a time and such a country his eyes and ears, on his missions to and
fro, did such stalwart service in the interests of his own safety that
he was often able to give the officers at the end of his route far more
important news, the fruits of his observation, than his dispatches were
likely to unfold. He was of stalwart build, and clad in the fringed
buckskin shirt and leggings of the hunter, and holding his coonskin cap
in his hand. He had saluted after the military fashion, and had
evidently been enough the inmate of frontier posts to have some regard
for military rank. He waited, despite his look of having much of moment
to communicate, until the question had been casually propounded by
Stuart: "Well, what can you tell us of the state of the country?" then
in disconnected sentences the details came in torrents.

Montgomery's campaign had been something unheard of. His "feet were
winged with fire and destruction,"--that was what Oconostota said. Oh,
yes, the express had seen Oconostota. But for Oconostota he could not
have made Fort Loudon. He had let him come with the two warriors, set
free by Montgomery to suggest terms of peace and spread the news of the
devastation, as a safe-guard against any straggling white people they
might chance to meet, and in return they afforded him safe-conduct from
the Cherokees. The devastation was beyond belief,--dead and dying
Indians lying all around the low