rgument, for he knew the Indian character by intuition, it would seem.
He was relying now, too, upon a certain personal popularity. He had
somehow engaged the admiration of the Indians, yet without disarming
their prejudice--a sort of inimical friendship. They all realized that
any other man would have now been lying dead on the glacis with a bullet
through his brain, if but for the sheer temptation to pick him off
neatly as a target of uncommon interest, whatever his mission might have
betokened.

How to accomplish this mission became a problem of an essential
solution, and on the instant. Not a figure stirred of the distant
Cherokee braves; not one man would openly advance within range of the
great guns that carried such terror to the Indian heart. Stuart stood in
momentary indecision, his head thrown back, his chin up, his keen,
far-seeing gray-blue eyes fixed on the motionless Indian line. Through
the heated August air the leaves of the trees seemed to quiver; the
ripples of the river scintillated in the sun; not a breath of wind
stirred; on the horizon the solidities of the Great Smoky Mountains
shimmered ethereal as a mirage.

Suddenly Stuart was running, lightly, yet at no great speed; he reached
the river-bank, thrust a boat out from the gravel, and with the flag of
truce waving from the prow he pushed off from the shore, and began to
row with long, steady strokes straight up the river. He was going to
Chote!

The observers at Fort Loudon, petrified, stared at one another in blank
amazement. The observers at the Cherokee camp were freed from their
spell. The whole line seemed in motion. All along the river-bank the
braves were speeding, keeping abreast of the swift little craft in the
middle of the stream. The clamors of the guttural voices with their
unintelligible exclamations came across the water.

It was like the passing of a flight of swallows. In less than five
minutes the boat, distinctly visible, with those salient points of
color, the red coat and the white flag against the silver-gray water,
had rounded the bend; every Indian runner was out of sight; and the line
of warriors had relapsed into their silent staring at the fort, where
the garrison dragged out three hours of such poignant suspense as seldom
falls to the lot of even unhappy men.

The sun's rays deepened their intensity; the exhausted, half-famished
sentries dripped with perspiration, the effects of extreme weakness as
well as of the