ffer of aid in the frank, bright, amiable
boy, who showed a quality of good breeding quite beyond their custom,
yet not unappreciated. They warned him that it would be certain death to
him, and perhaps to his captive relatives, should he in a flimsy
disguise, which he had fancied adequate, of dyeing his hair a singular
yellow and walking with a limp, which he often alertly forgot, venture
into the villages of those Cherokees by whom he had been so well known,
and against whose interest he had been employed in such vigorous and
bold aggression. The traders showed some genuine feeling of sympathy and
a deep indignation, because of the treachery that had resulted in the
massacre of the garrison of Fort Loudon,--although the English were
always the sworn foe of the French. The leader of the party, elderly, of
commercial instincts rather than sylvan, albeit a dead shot, and
decorated with ear-rings, had a great proclivity toward snuff and tears,
and often indulged in both as a luxury when Hamish with his simple art
sought to portray the characters of the tragedy of the siege; and as the
Frenchman heard of Fifine and Odalie, and Stuart and Demere, and all
their sufferings and courage and devices of despair--"_Quelle
barbarie!_" he would burst forth, and Hamish would greet the phrase with
a boyish delight of remembrance. Two or three of the party made an
incursion into Chote when they reached its neighborhood, and returned
with the news that the ransom of such of the garrison as were there had
taken place, and they had been delivered to the commandant of Fort
Prince George, but certain others had been removed to Huwhasee Town and
among them were the French squaw, the pappoose, and the Scotchman. In
his simplicity Hamish believed them, although Monsieur Galette sat late,
with his delicate sentiments, over the camp-fire that night, and stared
at it with red eyes, often suffused with tears, and took snuff after his
slovenly fashion until he acquired the aspect of a blackened pointed
muzzle, and looked in his elevated susceptibility like some queer
unclassified baboon.

But at Huwhasee Town Hamish heard naught of those his memory cherished.
He was greatly amazed at the courage with which Monsieur Galette urged
upon the head-men that some measures should be taken to induce
Oconostota to remove that fence, of which they had heard at Chote, which
had been built of the bones of the massacred garrison, and give them
burial from out the