ndians in the pettiaugre alongside--so like the glare of a savage
catamount, ready to leap upon its prey and yet with a joyance in its
ferocity, as if this rage were not the pain of anger but the pleasure of
it.

What subtle influence roused Odalie at last she could hardly have said;
perhaps the irresistible torpor of exhaustion had in some sort recruited
her faculties. The storm was gone, unseasonable and transient, and only
a broken remnant of its clouds hung about the western mountains. Toward
the east the sky was clear and a dull fluctuation of sunset, alternating
with shadow, was on the landscape. As a sudden suffusion of this broad,
low, dusky glare lay upon the scene for a moment, she saw against the
dark blue Chilhowee Mountain in the middle distance something glimmering
and waving, and as she strained her eyes it suddenly floated broadly
forth to the breeze,--the blended cross of St. George and St. Andrew
blazoned on the British flag.

In one moment she was strong again; alert, watchful, brave, despite that
boat close alongside and the alternate questions and remonstrances of
the fierce and cruel Indians. One of them, the light of a close and fine
discernment in his savage features, was contending that Willinawaugh was
deceived; that these were no French people; that the cast of the face of
the "young dog" was English; he looked like the Virginia settlers and
hunters; even like the men at the fort.

Willinawaugh had the air of deigning much to consider the plea that the
other Indians preferred. He only argued astutely that they all spoke
French among themselves,--man, boy, squaw, and pappoose. They showed
gratitude when he had promised them that they should not be obliged to
pass the English fort and risk the chance of detection. He intended to
slip them up the Tellico River where it flows into the Tennessee a mile
on the hither side of the fort and thence make their way to a remoter
Indian town than Chote.

The skeptical Cherokee, Savanukah, immediately asserted boastfully that
he spoke "Flinch" himself and would test the nationality of the boy.

Hamish had never had great scholastic advantages and had sturdily
resisted those that Odalie would have given him. He remembered with
despair the long lines of French verbs in the little dog's-eared green
book that all her prettiest sisterly arts could never induce him to
learn to conjugate. Why should he ever need more talking appliance than
he already possessed