tion were wont to repair anew to this
fountain to quaff again of the ancient delirium and to revive its potent
spell. Abram Varney had no such necessity in his own case; he only
doubted the values of his choice as fitted for another.

Apart from this reflection, it was natural that his eyes should follow
the contestant whom he had backed for a winner to the tune of more
silver bangles, and "ear-bobs," and strings of "roanoke," and gunpowder,
and red and white paint, than he was minded to lightly lose. He had laid
his wagers with a keen calculation of the relative endowments of the
players, their dexterity, their experience, their endurance. He was not
influenced by any pride of race in the fact that his champion was also a
white man, who, indeed, carried a good share of the favor of the
spectators.

A strange object was this champion, at once pathetic and splendid. No
muscular development could have been finer, no athletic grace more
pronounced than his physique displayed. The wild life and training of
the woods and the savage wars had brought out all the constitutional
endurance and strength inherited from his stanch English father and his
hardy Scotch mother. Both had been murdered by the Cherokees in a
frontier massacre, and as a boy of ten years of age, his life spared in
some freak of the moment, he had been conveyed hither, exhorted to
forget, adopted into the tribe, brought up with their peculiar kindness
in the rearing of children, taught all the sylvan arts, and trained to
the stern duties of war by the noted chief Colannah Gigagei, himself,
the Great Red Raven of Tennessee Town (sometimes called Quorinnah, the
name being a favorite war-title specially coveted). The youth had had
his baptism of fire in the ceaseless wars which the Cherokees waged
against the other Indian tribes. He had already won the "warrior's
crown" and his "war-name," a title conferred only upon the bravest of
the brave. He was now Otasite, the "Man-killer" of Tennessee Town. He
was just twenty years of age, and Abram Varney, gazing at him, wondered
what the people in Charlestown would think of him could they see him.
For a few days, a week, perhaps, the trader would refer all his thoughts
to this civilized standard.

Tall, alert as an Indian, supple too, but heavier and more muscular,
Otasite was instantly to be distinguished by his build from among the
other young men, although, like the Indians, he wore a garb of dressed
deerskin. His