re they not all the children of the same
Great Father! But Captain Stuart must have heard of the hideous
iniquities perpetrated by the British Colonel in burning the Cherokee
towns in the southern region, where many of the inhabitants perished in
the flames, and slaying their warriors who did naught but defend their
own land from the invaders--the land which the Great Spirit had given to
the Cherokees, and which was theirs. And, now that the terrible Colonel
Montgomery had been driven out with his hordes, still reeking with
Cherokee blood, it was but fit that the Cherokees should take possession
of Fort Loudon, which was always theirs, built for them at their
request, and paid for with their blood, shed in the English service,
against the enemies of the English colonists, the French, who had always
dealt fairly with the Cherokees.

Captain Stuart bluntly replied that it did not become him to listen to
reflections upon the methods in which British commanders had seen fit to
carry out the instructions of the British government. They had,
doubtless, acted according to their orders, as was their duty. For his
own mission, although Fort Loudon could be held some space longer, in
which time reenforcements, which he had reason to think were on the
march, might come to its relief, the officers had agreed that the
sufferings of the garrison were such that they were not justified in
prolonging their distress, provided such terms of capitulation could be
had as would warrant the surrender of the fort.

As the interpreter, with the wooden voice, standing behind the chief,
gabbled out this rebuke of the Cherokee king's aspersions on
Montgomery, Stuart's ever quick eye noted an expression on the man's
face, habitually so blank and wooden,--he remembered it afterward,--an
expression almost applausive. Then his attention was concentrated on the
circumlocutions of Oconostota, who, in winding phrase almost
affectionate, intimated the tender truth that, without waiting for these
reenforcements, the enfeebled garrison could be overpowered now and
destroyed to the last man by a brisk onslaught, the Cherokees taking the
place by storm.

Stuart shook his head, and his crafty candor strengthened the negation.

"Not so long as the great guns bark," he declared. "They are the dogs of
war that make the havoc."

Then Oconostota, with that greed of the warlike Cherokee for the details
concerning this great arm of the British service, the artil