more, and I followed it hopefully, avoiding the stumps and the
deep wagon ruts where the ground was spongy.

The morning light revealed a milky mist through which the trees showed
like phantoms. Then there came stains upon the mist of royal purple,
of scarlet, of yellow like a mandarin's robe, peeps of deep blue fading
into azure as the mist lifted. The fiery eye of the sun was cocked over
the crest, and beyond me I saw a house with its logs all golden brown
in the level rays, the withered cornstalks orange among the blackened
stumps. My horse stopped of his own will at the edge of the clearing. A
cock crew, a lean hound prostrate on the porch of the house rose to his
haunches, sniffed, growled, leaped down, and ran to the road and sniffed
again. I listened, startled, and made sure of the distant ring of many
hoofs. And yet I stayed there, irresolute. Could it be Tipton and his
men riding from Jonesboro to capture Sevier? The hoof-beats grew louder,
and then the hound in the road gave tongue to the short, sharp bark that
is the call to arms. Other dogs, hitherto unseen, took up the cry, and
turning in my saddle I saw a body of men riding hard at me through the
alley in the forest. At their head, on a heavy, strong-legged horse,
was one who might have stood for the figure of turbulence, and I made
no doubt that this was Colonel Tipton himself,--Colonel Tipton, once
secessionist, now champion of the Old North State and arch-enemy of John
Sevier. At sight of me he reined up so violently that his horse went
back on his haunches, and the men behind were near overriding him.

"Look out, boys," he shouted, with a fierce oath, "they've got guards
out!" He flung back one hand to his holster for a pistol, while the
other reached for the powder flask at his belt. He primed the pan, and,
seeing me immovable, set his horse forward at an amble, his pistol at
the cock.

"Who in hell are you?" he cried.

"A traveller from Virginia," I answered.

"And what are you doing here?" he demanded, with another oath.

"I have just this moment come here," said I, as calmly as I might. "I
lost the trail in the darkness."

He glared at me, purpling, perplexed.

"Is Sevier there?" said he, pointing at the house.

"I don't know," said I.

Tipton turned to his men, who were listening.

"Surround the house," he cried, "and watch this fellow."

I rode on perforce towards the house with Tipton and three others, while
his men scattered over