d rendered in venturing forth from
the walls under the officer's orders, when he dared not seek to induce a
man to volunteer nor constrain one to the duty, and to urge upon his
consideration the fact that she might be justly esteemed to have earned
her ransom and that of her husband and child. Hamish had an immediate
reply by a sure hand.

If it could avail aught to Mrs. MacLeod or any of her household, Stuart
wrote with an uncharacteristic vehemence of protest, every influence he
could exert, every half-penny he possessed, every drop of his blood
would be cheerfully devoted to the service, so highly did he rate the
lofty courage which had given to Fort Loudon its only chance of relief,
and which under happier auspices would undoubtedly have resulted in
raising the siege. Whatever might be forgotten, assuredly it would not
be the intrepid devotion of the "forlorn hope" of Fort Loudon.

Hamish, left to his own not overwise devices, decided to return to the
country where he had quitted all that was dear to him, dangerous though
that return might be. And, indeed, those wild western woods included the
boundaries of all the world to him--elsewhere he felt alone and an
alien. It seemed strange to realize that there were other people, other
interests, other happenings of moment. He long remembered the sensation,
and was wont to tell of it afterward, with which he discovered, camping
one night at the foot of a tree--for he journeyed now by easy stages,
keeping sedulously from the main trail through the forest--the traces of
a previous presence, a bit of writing cut on the bark of the tree.
"Daniel Boon," it ran, "cilled a bar on tree in the year 1760."

That momentous year--that crucial time of endeavor and fluctuating hope
and despair and death--a hunter here, all unaware of the maelstrom of
mental and physical agony away there to the south in the shadow of the
same mountain range, was pursuing his quiet sylvan craft, and
slaughtering his "bar" and the alphabet with equal calm and aplomb.

Perhaps it was well for the future career of the adventurous young
fellow that he fell in with some French traders, who were traveling with
many packhorses well laden, and who designed to establish themselves
with their goods at one of the Lower Towns of the Cherokees; they urged
that he should attach himself to their march, whether from a humane
sense of diminishing his danger, or because of the industry and
usefulness and ever ready pro