way out of the
land that is now Tennessee, to return no more; wending down among the
sun-flooded cane-brakes, and anon following the trail through the
dense, dark, grateful shades of the primeval woods. So they went to
return no more,--not even in the flickering guise of spectral visitants
to the scenes that knew them once,--scarcely as a vague and vagrant
memory in the country where they first planted the home that cost them
so dearly and that gave them but little.

Nevertheless, a hearty farewell it bestowed this morning,--for they sang
presently as they went, so light and blithe of heart they were, and the
crags and the hills, and the rocky banks of that lovely river, all cried
out to them in varying tones of sweet echoes, and ever and again the
boom of the drums beat the time.

CHAPTER XII

The definite ranks were soon broken; the soldiers marched at ease in and
out amongst the Indians and the settlers, all in high good humor; jest
and raillery were on every side. They ate their dinner, still on the
march, the provisions for the purpose having been cooked with the
morning meal. Thus they were enabled, despite the retarding presence of
the women and children, and the enfeebling effects of the long siege, to
make the progress of between fifteen and twenty miles that day. They
encamped on a little plain near the Indian town of Taliquo. There, the
supper having been cooked and eaten--a substantial meal of game shot
during the day's march--and the shades of night descending thick in the
surrounding woods, Captain Stuart observed the inexplicable phenomenon
that every one of their Indian guards had suddenly deserted them.

The fact, however contemplated, boded no good. The officers, doubtless
keenly sensitive to the renewal of anxiety after so slight a surcease of
the sufferings of suspense, braced themselves to meet the emergency. A
picket line was thrown out; sentinels were posted in the expectation of
some imminent and startling development; the soldiers were ordered to
sleep on their arms, to be in readiness for defense as well as to gain
strength for the morrow's march and rest from the fatigues of the day.
The little gypsy-looking groups of women and children, too, were soon
hushed, and naught was left the anxious senior officers but to sleep if
they might, or in default, as they lay upon the ground, to watch the
great constellations come over the verge of the gigantic trees at the
east of the open spac