igned to foster, by reason of the ever-ready
machinations of the French influence among the Cherokees. The fort was
evidently intended to afford protection to the Cherokees, but only so
long as they were the allies of the English.

Much of the night passed in this discourse, but at length Willinawaugh
slept, his feet toward the fire, around which the other Indians, all
rolled in their blankets, like the spokes of a wheel about a hub, were
already disposed. Alexander MacLeod had been nearly the last man to drop
out of the conversation. He glanced up to note that Odalie sat still
wide awake with her back against the trunk of a great chestnut-oak, her
eyes on the fire, the child in her arms. They exchanged a glance which
said as plain as speech that he and Hamish and she would divide the
watch. Each would rest for two or three hours and watch while the others
slept. It behooved them to be cautious and guard against surprise. The
recollection of that dead Indian, lying on his face in the woods miles
to the north of them, and the doubt whether or not he belonged to this
party, and the sense of vengeance suspended like a sword by a hair,--all
impinged very heavily on Hamish's consciousness, and in his own phrase
he had to harry himself to sleep. Alexander, realizing that, as the
ablest of the family, he was their chief means of defense, betook
himself to much-needed repose, and Odalie was the only waking human
being in many and many a mile. Now and again she heard far away the
hooting of an owl, or the scream of a panther, and once, close at hand,
the leaves stirred with a stealthy tread and the horses snorted aloud.
She rose and threw more lightwood on the flaring fire, and as the flames
leaped up anew two bright green eyes in the dusk on the shadowy side of
the circle vanished; she saw the snarl of fierce fangs and no more, for
the fire burned brilliantly that night as she fed the flames, and far
down the aisles of the primeval forest the protective light was
dispensed. Above were the dense boughs of the trees, all red and yellow,
but through that great gate, the gap in the mountain wall, she could
look out on the stars that she had always known, keeping their steadfast
watch above this strange, new land. So accustomed was she to nature that
she was not awed by the presence of the somber, wooded, benighted
mountain range, rising in infinite gloom, and austere silence, and
indefinable extent against the pallid, instarred sky.