er folly might have cost him his life. He might have
been sentenced to be shot by his own comrades, discovered to be holding
communication with the enemy, and that enemy the Cherokees,--good sooth!

Suddenly rampant in his mind was a wild strange suspicion of treachery.
His abrupt cry, "Halt, or I fire!" rang sharply on the air, and his
musket was thrust through the window, aiming in intimidation down
alongside the parapet, where upon the exterior slope of the rampart the
beautiful Carolina girl, the French wife of the Scotch settler, had
contrived to creep through the embrasure below the muzzle of the cannon,
for the ground had sunk a trifle there with the weight of the piece or
through some defect of the gabions that helped build up the "cheek," and
she now stood at full height on the berm, above the red clay slope of
the scarp, signing to Choo-qualee-qualoo with one hand, and with the
other motioning toward the muzzle of his firelock, mutely imploring him
to desist.

How did she dare! The light tint of her gray gown rendered her distinct
against the deep rich color of the red clay slope; her calash, of a
different, denser red, was a mark for a rifle that clear day a long way
off. He was acutely conscious of those skulking braves in the woods,
all mute and motionless now, watching with keen eyes the altercation
with the sentry, and he shuddered at her possible fate, even while, with
an unrealized mental process, doubts arose of her loyalty to the
interests of the garrison, which her French extraction aided her
strange, suspicious demonstration to foster. He flushed with a violent
rush of resentment when he became aware that Choo-qualee-qualoo was
signing to him also, with entreating gestures, and so keen-eyed had the
Indian warfare rendered him that he perceived that she was prompted to
this action by a brave,--he half fancied him Willinawaugh,--who knelt in
the pawpaw bushes a short distance from the Cherokee girl and spoke to
her ever and anon.

"One step further and I fire!" he called out to Odalie, flinching
nevertheless, as he looked down into her clear, hazel, upturned eyes.
Then overwhelmed by a sense of responsibility he raised the weapon to
fire into the air and lifted the first note of a wild hoarse cry for
"Corporal of the guard,"--and suddenly heard O'Flynn's voice behind
him:--

"Shet up, ye blethering bull-calf! The leddy's actin' under orders."

And not only was O'Flynn behind him but Stuart.

"S