point for your consideration. And you find
his looks not convenable."

"Fifine, herself, will be less likely to have a head like his, perhaps,
if he will come and strengthen our station," suggested Alexander
MacLeod, astutely.

"Oh,--yes, yes!" assented Odalie, with a sudden expression of fright.

"Besides," said Captain Stuart, with his bluff nonchalance, "the
river-bend will be so easily famous for the good looks of the stationers
that a trifle of discount upon Gilfillan will not mar the sum total."

"And then," said Captain Demere, "he is a very exceptional kind of
man--you are fortunate to find such a man--for a single man, in the
settlements. You would not like it if he were one of the rattling,
roaring blades that such irresponsible single fellows are here,
usually."

"Mighty sprightly company, some of these rufflers," remarked Captain
Stuart, with a twinkling eye. "Rarely good company," he averred.

"And besides," added Captain Demere, whose extreme sensitiveness enabled
him better to appreciate her sentiment than the others, despite his
rebuke, "you need not have him in the same house with you; you can have
two cabins within the stockade and connected by the palisades from one
house to the other. Otherwise, in the present state of feeling among the
Cherokees it would hardly be safe so far from the fort."

It had been explained that Alexander was especially solicitous
concerning the choice of his location, since the quality of the land had
not been well selected in his former home on New River. Here he had
found in a comparatively small compass the ideal conjuncture for those
growths so essential to the pioneer who must needs subsist on the
produce of his own land. In that day and with the extremely limited and
difficult means of transportation, no deficit could be filled from the
base of a larger supply. The projected station, he thought, would be as
safe as any other place outside the range of the guns of the fort, but
he welcomed the idea of numbering among its denizens the hardy hunter,
Gilfillan, and cared no more for his bald head than he did for the
broad, smooth, handsome plait of Captain Stuart's fair hair. MacLeod had
all the desperate energy of one who seeks to retrieve good fortune,
although no great deal of money was involved in his earlier disasters.
His father had had shipping interests, and the loss of a barque and her
cargo at sea had sufficed to swamp the young man's financial craft on