e Cherokees, who, like all uncivilized people, set the
highest value upon personal courage and physical prowess. It is related
that shortly before the massacre at Fort Loudon he interfered in a
desperate feud between two Cherokee braves who had drawn their tomahawks
to hew each other in pieces. Stepping between them, he wrenched the
weapons from their hands, and then, both setting upon him at once, he
cooled their heated valor by lifting one after the other into the air
and gently tossing him into the Tellico. Subsequently, one of these
braves saved his life at the Loudon massacre, at the imminent risk of
his own. If I were writing fiction, I might make of this man an
interesting character: as it is, it will be seen that facts hereinafter
related will fully justify the length of this description.

A wigwam, larger and more pretentious than most of the others in Echota,
stood a little apart from the rest, and not far from the council-house.
Like the others, it had a frame of poles covered with tanned skins; but
it was distinguished from them by a singular "totem,"--an otter in the
coils of a water-snake. Its interior was furnished with a sort of rude
splendor. The floor was carpeted with buffalo-hides and panther-skins,
and round the walls were hung eagles' tails, and the peltries of the
fox, the wolf, the badger, the otter, and other wild animals. From a
pole in the centre was suspended a small bag,--the mysterious
medicine-bag of the occupant. She was a woman who to this day is held in
grateful remembrance by many of the descendants of the early settlers
beyond the Alleghanies. Her personal appearance is lost to tradition,
but it is said to have been queenly and commanding. She was more than
the queen, she was the prophetess and Beloved Woman, of the Cherokees.

At this time she is supposed to have been about thirty-five years of
age. Her father was an English officer named Ward, but her mother was of
the "blood royal," a sister of the reigning half-king Atta-Culla-Culla.
The records we have of her are scanty, as they are of all her people,
but enough has come down to us to show that she had a kind heart and a
sense of justice keen enough to recognize the rights of even her
enemies. She must have possessed very strong traits of character to
exercise as she did almost autocratic control over the fierce and
wellnigh untamable Cherokees when she was known to sympathize with and
befriend their enemies the white settlers. N