the Cherokees, such vestiges became more numerous. This
"waste town," however, neither fire nor sword had desolated, and the
grim deeds of British powder and lead were still of the future. The
enemy came in more subtle sort.

Only one of the white pack-men employed to drive a score of well-laden
horses semi-annually from Charlestown to a trading-station farther along
on the Great Tennessee--then called the Cherokee River--and back again
used to glower fearfully at the "waste town" as he passed. He had ample
leisure for speculation, for the experienced animals of the pack-train
required scant heed, so regularly they swung along in single file, and
the wild whoops of their drivers were for the sake of personal
encouragement and the simple joy which very young men find in their own
clamor. It grew specially boisterous always when they neared the site of
Nilaque Great, the deserted place, as if to give warning to any vague
spiritual essences, unmeet for mortal vision, that might be lurking
about the "waste town," and bid them avaunt, for the place was reputed
haunted.

The rest of the Carolina pack-men, trooping noisily past, averted their
eyes from the darkened doors of the empty houses; the weed-grown spaces
of the "beloved square," where once the ceremonies of state, the
religious rites, the public games and dances were held; the
council-house on its high mound, whence had been wont to issue the bland
vapors of the pipe of peace or the far more significant smoke emitted
from the cheera, the "sacred fire," which only the cheera-taghe, the
fire-prophets,[10] were permitted to kindle, and which was done with
pomp and ceremony in the new year, when every spark of the last year's
fire had been suffered to die out.

Cuthbert Barnett, however, always looked to see what he might,--perhaps
because he was a trifle bolder than the other stalwart pack-men, all
riding armed to the teeth to guard the goods of the train from robbery
as well as their own lives from treachery, for although the Cherokees
professed friendship it was but half-hearted, as they loved the French
always better than the English; perhaps because he had a touch of
imagination that coerced his furtive glance; perhaps because he doubted
more, or believed less, of the traditions of the day. And he
saw--silence! the sunset in vacant spaces, with long, slanting,
melancholy rays among the scattered houses of the hamlet; an empty
doorway, here and there; a falling rot