rough again what I have had to risk to
get here for--any money! It has been full three weeks since I left
Oconostota's camp. He is with the Lower towns--him and Atta-Kulla-Kulla,
but Willinawaugh is the head-man of the force out here. They seemed to
think I was spying,--but they have got so many men that I just doubts
but what they want you should know their strength."

"You will go back to Colonel Montgomery at Fort Prince George with
dispatches?" said Demere.

The man's expression hardened. "Captain Demere," he said, "and Captain
Stuart, sir, I have served you long and faithful. You know I bean't no
coward. But it is certain death for me to go out of that sally-port. I
couldn't have got in except for that message from Oconostota. He wanted
you to hear that. I believe 'Old Hop' thinks Willinawaugh can terrify
you out of this place if they can't carry it by storm. I misdoubts but
they expects Frenchmen to join them. They talk so sweet on the French!
Every other word is Louis Latinac! That French officer has made them
believe that the English intend to exterminate the Cherokees from off
the face of the earth."

He paused a moment in rising discontent,--to have done so much, yet
refuse aught! "I wouldn't have undertook to bring that message from
Oconostota except I thought it was important for you to have your
dispatches; it ain't my fault if they ain't satisfactory." He cast a
glance of the keenest curiosity at the papers, and Captain Stuart,
lazily filling his pipe, took one of the candles in his hand and kindled
the tobacco at the blaze.

"Nothing is satisfactory that is one-sided," he said easily. "We don't
want Colonel Montgomery to do all the talking, and to have to receive
his letters as orders. We propose to say a word ourselves."

A gleam of intelligence was in the scout's eyes. It was a time when
there was much professional jealousy rife in the various branches of the
service, and he had been cleverly induced to fancy that here was a case
in point. These men had a command altogether independent of Colonel
Montgomery, it was true, but he was of so much higher rank that
doubtless this galled them, and rendered them prone to assert their own
position. He bent his energies now, however, to a question touching his
pay, and answering a seemingly casual inquiry relative to the fact that
he had heard naught of Gilfillan and the other express, was dismissed
without being subjected to greater urgency.

The two main