s aforehand--"

We had reached the cliff and were once more peering down at the enemy's
camp. Though for the cliff-shadowed valley it was long past sunset and
all the depths were blue and purple in the changing half-lights of the
hour, the shadow veil was but a gauze of color, softening the details
without obscuring them. So we could mark well the metes and bounds of
the camp and prick in all the items.

The camp field was the largest of the savannas or natural clearings. On
the margin of the stream the Indian lodges were pitched in a semicircle
to face the water. Farther back, Falconnet's troop was hutted in
rough-and-ready shelters made of pine boughs--these disposed to stand
between the camp of the Cherokees and the tepee-lodge of the captive
women which stood among the trees in that edge of the forest hemming the
slope which buttressed our cliff of observation.

At first we sought in vain for the storing-place of the powder. It was
the sharp eyes of the Catawba that finally descried it. A rude housing
of pine boughs, like the huts of the troopers, had been built at the
base of a great boulder on the opposite bank of the stream; and here was
the lading of the powder train.

From what could be seen 'twas clear that the camp was no mere bivouac
for the day; indeed, the Englishmen were still working upon their
pine-bough shelters, building themselves in as if for a stay indefinite.

"'Tis a rest camp," quoth Dick; "though why they should break the march
here is more than I can guess."

"No," said Ephraim Yeates. "'Tain't jest rightly a rest camp, ez I take
it. Ez I was a-saying last night, this here is Tuckasege country, and we
ain't no furder than a day's running from the Cowee Towns. Now the
Tuckaseges and the over-mounting Cherokees ain't always on the best o'
tarms, and I was a wondering if the hoss-captain hadn't sot down here to
wait whilst he could send a peace-offer' o' powder and lead on to the
Cowee chiefs to sort o' smooth the way."

"No send him yet; going to send," was Uncanoola's amendment. "Look-see,
Chelakee braves make haste for load horses down yonder now!"

Again the sharp eyes of the Catawba had come in play. At the foot of the
great boulder some half dozen of the Cherokees were busy with the powder
cargo, lashing pack-loads of it upon two horses. One of the group, who
appeared to be directing the labor of the others, stood apart, holding
the bridle reins of three other horses caparisoned as