, and Captain
Stuart was known by the Indians to be specially fond of venison. In the
old days at Fort Loudon they had often taken note of this preference,
and stopped there to leave as a gift a choice haunch, or saddle, or to
crave the privilege of nailing a gigantic pair of antlers to vie with
the others on the walls of the great hall. Stuart himself was a famous
shot, and was often called by them in compliment _A-wah-ta-how-we_, the
"great deer-killer." The project created no surprise, and Stuart saw
with amazement the door of his prison ajar. One might have thought in
such a crisis of deliverance no other consideration could appeal to him.
But his attachment to the British interest seems to have been like the
marrow in his bones. He demanded of Atta-Kulla-Kulla the privilege of
being accompanied by two men of the garrison of his own choice.

The chief cast upon him a look of deep reproach. Did he fear treachery?
Had his friend, his brother, deserved this?

"I ask much of a friend--nothing of an enemy," declared Stuart, bluffly.
"You know my heart--trust me."

Atta-Kulla-Kulla yielded. If he experienced curiosity, the names of the
two men which Stuart gave him afforded no clue as to the reason for
their selection; one was a gun-smith, an armorer of uncommon skill, and
Stuart knew that he was capable of dismounting and removing the cannon,
without injury, through the tangled wilderness to Fort Prince George,
should coercion overcome his resistance to the demands of the savages;
the other, an artillery-man of long experience and much intelligence,
himself adequately fitted to take command of the guns of the expedition,
with a good chance of a successful issue. The massacre had swept away
most of the cannoneers, and Stuart was aware that the infantrymen left
of the garrison would be hardly more capable of dealing with the
problems of gun service than was Oconostota, their careless and casual
observation being worth little more than his earnest, but dense
ignorance. Nevertheless, with his exacting insistence on the extreme
limit of demand, he begged Atta-Kulla-Kulla, whose patience was wearing
dangerously thin, to let him see them, speak to them for one moment.

"You can hear all I say--you who understand the English so well."

As he stepped into the old exhausted store-room, where the soldiers were
herded together, squalid, heart-broken, ill, forlorn, Atta-Kulla-Kulla
outside closing the door fast, a quavering cheer