wer of the blockhouse,
above which the rainbow glowed in the radiant splendors of a misty amber
sky.

"The king's troops? Would the commandant respond?" anxiously speculated
one of the settlers.

The little handful of pioneers, with their main possessions in the fate
of the pack-train, looked at one another in dismay.

"And tell me, friend Feather-pate, why did it seem good to you to shoot
a wolf in the midst of a herd of cattle?" demanded Richard Mivane.

Ralph Emsden, bewildered by the results of this untoward chance, and the
further catastrophe shadowed forth in the threatened seizure of the
train, rallied with all his faculties at the note of scorn from this
quarter.

"Sir, I did not shoot the wolf among the cattle. There was not a horn
nor a hoof to be seen when I fired."

Mivane turned to "X" with both hands outstretched as much as to say,
"Take _that_ for your quietus!" and shouldering his stick, which had an
ivory head and a sword within, strode off after his jaunty fashion as if
there were no more to be said.

It was now Alexander Anxley's turn to sustain the questioning clamor. "I
will not deny"--"That is, I said"--"I meant to say,"--but these
qualifications were lost in the stress of Emsden's voice, once more
rising stridently.

"Not a horn nor a hoof to be seen till after I had fired. I didn't know
there were any cow-pens about--didn't use to be till after you had
crossed the Keowee. But if there _had_ been, is a man to see a wolf pull
down a yearling, say, and not fire a rifle because Madam Cow will take
the high-strikes or Cap'n Bull will go on the rampage? Must I wait till
I can make a leg,"--he paused to execute an exaggerated obeisance,
graceful enough despite its mockery,--"'Under your favor, Cap'n Bull,'
and 'With your ladyship's permission,' before I kill the ravening brute,
big enough to pull down a yearling? Don't talk to me! Don't talk to me!"
He held out the palms of his hands toward them in interdiction, and made
as if to go--yet went not!

For a reactionary sentiment toward him had set in, and there were those
fair-minded enough, although with their little all at stake, to admit
that he had acted with reasonable prudence, and that it was only an
unlucky chance which had sent the panic through the herds with such
disastrous effect.

"The herders should not stop the pack-train, if I had my will," declared
one of the settlers with a belligerent note.

"No, no," proclaimed another; "