for a journey.
When the loading was accomplished to the satisfaction of the
horse-holding chieftain, he and two others mounted, took the burdened
animals in tow, and the small cavalcade filed off down the stream toward
the apparent _cul de sac_ at the lower end of the valley.

Ephraim Yeates was up in a twinkling, dragging us back from the cliff
edge.

"Up with ye!" he cried. "Now's our chance to kill two pa'tridges with
one stone! If we can make out to get down into t'other valley in time to
see how them varmints come out, we'll know the way in. More'n that, we
can ambush 'em and so make sartain sure o' five o' the six hosses we're
a-going to need, come night. But we've got to leg for it like Ahimaaz
the son of Zadok!"

Thus the old borderer; and being only too eager to come to handgrips
with the enemy, we were up and running faster than ever Joab's
messenger ran, long before the old man finished with his Scriptural
simile.

Not to take the risk of delay on any unexplored short cut, we made
straight for the ravine of our ascent, found it as by unerring instinct,
and were presently racing down to the Indian trace in the little upland
valley above the gorge.

For all the helter-skelter haste I found time to remember that the gorge
as we had last seen it had been well besprinkled with armed Cherokees
lying in wait for us. If they were still there we should be like to have
a hot welcome; and some reminder of this I gasped out to Yeates in mid
flight.

"Ne'm mind that; if we run up ag'inst 'em anywhere, 'twon't be
there-away. They've took the hint and quit; scattered out to hunt us
long ago," was his answer, jerked out between bounds. And after that I
loosed the Ferara in its sheath and saved my breath as I might for the
killing business of the moment.

'Twas a sharp disappointment that, for all the haste of our mad scramble
down the mountain, we were too late to surprise the secret of the
enemy's stronghold. The Catawba was leading when we dashed down into the
valley, and one glance sent him flying back to stop us short with a dumb
show purporting that the quarry was already out of the defile and coming
up the Indian path.

Richard swore grievously, but the old backwoodsman took the checkmate
placidly and began to set the pieces for the second game in which the
horses were the stake, hiding his useless rifle in a hollow tree,--his
powder had been soaked and spoiled in the early morning plunge for
life,--and dra