amber-tinted lucidity of the sky. The fragrance of the autumn woods was more marked on the dank night air. One could smell the rich mould along a watercourse near at hand, the branch from a spring bubbling up in the solid rock hard by. Odalie had seated herself on the horizontal ledge at the base of one of the crags and had thrown back her hood, against which her head rested. Her large eyes were soft and lustrous, but pensive and weary.

"Rest, Odalie, while Hamish and I make the fire, and then you can fix the things for supper," her husband admonished her.

It was the first time that they had halted that day, and dinner had been but the fragments of breakfast eaten while on the march. There had been a sudden outbreak of the Cherokee Indians which had driven them from the more frequented way where they feared pursuit,—this, and the fate of the brave[13] who had sought to lure Hamish to his death last night with the mimicry of the gobbler, and was killed in consequence himself. They could not judge whether he had been alone or one of a party; whether his body might be discovered and his death avenged by the death or capture of them all; whether he had been a scout, thrown out to discover the direction they took, and his natural blood-thirstiness had overmastered his instructions, and he must needs seek to kill the boy before his return with his news.

[13]

With this more recent fear that they were followed they had not to-day dared to build a fire lest its smoke betray to the crafty observation of the Indians, although at a great distance, their presence in this remote quarter of the wilderness, far even from the Indian war-path, that, striking down the valley between the Cumberland range and the eastern mountains, was then not only the road that the Indians followed to battle, but the highway of traffic and travel, the only recognized and known path leading from the Cherokee settlements south of the Tennessee River through this great uninhabited park or hunting-ground to the regions of other Indian tribes on the Scioto and to Western Virginia. Now, however, rest and refreshment were necessary; even more imperative was the need of a fire as a protection to the camp against the en[14]croachments of wild beasts; for wolves were plentiful and roamed the night-bound earth, and the active panther, the great American cougar, was wont to look down from the branches of overhanging trees. The horses were not safe beyond the flare of the flames, to say nothing of wife and child. Therefore the risk of attracting observation from Indians must be run, especially since it was 

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