own war-cry, then called out that the coast
was clear, and asked for his rifle to be handed to him.

Following the wall with his hand and the sound of the water he took his
way through a narrow subterranean passage, so densely black that it
seemed he had never before known what darkness was. He could hear naught
but the wide, hollow echo of the flow of the stream, but never did it
touch his feet; and after he had progressed, as he judged, including
the windings of his way, some five or six miles, he began to recollect a
little, meager stream, yet flowing with a good force for its compass,
that made a play in the current not a quarter of a mile, not more than
one thousand feet, from the fort. So well founded was his judgment of
locality that when the light first appeared, a pale glimmer at the end
of a long tunnel, growing broader and clearer on approach, and he
reached an archway with a sudden turn, seeming from without a mere
"rock-house"--as a grotto formed by the beetling ledges of a cliff is
called in that region--and with no further cavernous suggestion, the
first thing that caught his eye was the English flag flying above the
primitive block-houses and bastions and out-works of Fort Loudon, while
the little stream gathered all its strength and hied down through the
thick underbrush to join the Tennessee River.

The officers heard with evident concern of the disaster that had
befallen MacLeod Station, and immediately sent a runner to bid the
stationers come to the fort, pending their selection of a new site and
the raising of new houses. So Odalie, with such few belongings as could
be hastily collected once more loaded on a packhorse, again entered the
gates of Fort Loudon with a heavy heart.

But it was a cheery group she encountered. The soldiers were swaggering
about the parade in fine form, the picture of military jollity, and the
great hall was full of the officers and settlers. An express had come in
with news of a different complexion. Long delayed the bearer had been;
tempted to turn back here, waiting an opportunity there, now assisted on
his backward journey by a friendly Indian, and again seeing a dodging
chance of making through to Loudon, he had traveled his two hundred
miles so slowly that the expedition he heralded came hard on the
announcement of its approach. While the tidings raised the spirits of
the officers and the garrison, it was evident that the movement added
elements of danger and devel