og houses, all connected by the palisades from one to
the other, presenting a blank wall without, broken only by loopholes for
musketry, had been scaled by the crafty Cherokees, swarming over the
roofs, and attacking the English settlers through the easy access of the
unglazed windows and flimsy batten doors that opened upon the
quadrangle. Although finally beaten off, the Indians had inflicted great
loss. Her father had been one of the slain settlers who thus paid
penalty for the false sense of security, fostered by long immunity. Even
more troublous times came later,--the tumult of open war was rife in all
the land; the station was repeatedly attacked, and although it held out
stanchly, fear and suspense and grief filled the stockade,--yet still
there was space for Cupid to go swaggering hither and thither within the
guarded gates, and aim his arrows with his old-time dainty skill, albeit
his bow and quiver might seem somewhat archaic in these days of powder
and lead. For Peninnah Penelope Anne Mivane spent much of her time in
the moulding of bullets. Perhaps it was appropriate, since both she and
her young pioneer lover dealt so largely in missiles, that it was thus
the sentimental dart was sped. Lead was precious in those days, but
sundry bullets, that she had moulded, Ralph Emsden never rammed down
into the long barrel of his flintlock rifle. Some question as to whether
the balls had cooled, or perhaps some mere meditative pause, had carried
the bits of lead in her fingers to her lips, as they sat together on the
hearth and talked and worked in the fire-lit dusk for their common
defense. He was wont to watch, lynx-eyed, the spot where these
consecrated bullets were placed, and afterward carried them in a
separate buckskin bag over his heart, and mentally called them his
"kisses;" for the youths of those days were even such fools as now,
although in the lapse of time they have come to pose successfully in the
dignified guise of the "wise patriots of the pioneer period." More than
once when the station was attacked and the women loaded the guns of the
men to expedite the shooting, she kept stanchly at his elbow throughout
the thunderous conflict, and charged and primed the alternate rifles
which he fired.[1] Over the trigger, in fact, the fateful word was
spoken.

"Oh, Nan," he exclaimed, looking down at her while taking the weapon
from her hand in the vague dusk where she knelt beside him,--he stood on
the shelf tha