reordained and predestinated to go up
in a fiery chariot, like the good old Elijah." The weapons disposed of,
he made answer to my query. "Ez for making tracks immejitly, _if_ not
sooner, I allow there ain't no two notions about that. But I'm
dad-daddled if I know which-a-way to put out, Cap'n John, and that's the
gospil fact."

"Why not strike for the Great Trace, and so go back the way the powder
convoy came?" I asked.

It could be done, he said, but the hazard was great. 'Twas out of all
reason to hope that there were no survivors left in the sunken valley to
carry the news of the earthquake massacre. That news once cried abroad
in the near-by Cowee Towns, the entire Tuckasege nation would turn out
to run us down. Moreover, the avengers would look to find us in the only
practicable horse-path leading eastward.

"Ez I'm telling you right now, Cap'n John, we made one more blunder in
this here onfall of our'n, owin' to our having ne'er a seventh son of a
seventh son amongst us to look a little ways ahead. Where we flashed in
the pan was in not making our rendyvoo down yonder where you and Cap'n
Dick got in. Ever' last one of 'em able to crawl is a-making straight
for that crivvis dodge-hole right now, and if we was there we could do
'em like the Gileadites did the men o' Ephraim at the passages o' the
Jordan."

Fresh as I was from the torture fire, I could not forbear a shudder at
this old man's savagery.

"Kill them in cold blood?" I would say.

"Anan?" he queried, as not understanding my point of view; and I let the
matter rest. He was of those who slay and spare not where an enemy is
concerned.

But when we came to consider of it there seemed to be no alternative to
the eastward flitting by way of the Great Trace. To the west and south
there was only the trackless wilderness; and to the north no white
settlement nearer than that of the over-mountain folk on the Watauga. I
asked if we might hope to reach this.

"'Tis a long fifty mile ez the crow flies, over e'enabout the
mountainousest patch o' land that ever laid out o' doors," was the
hunter's reply. "And there ain't ne'er a deer-track, ez I knows on, to
p'int the way."

"Then we must ride eastward and run the risk of pursuit by the
Tuckaseges," said I.

"Ez I reckon, that's about the long and short of it. And I do
everlastedly despise to make that poor little gal jump her hoss and ride
skimper-scamper again, when she's been fair living a-horseback fo