ers, fresh sorrows, and quickened fears.

A flush was presently in the east, albeit dusk lingered westward. The
wonderful crystalline white lustre of the morning star palpitated in the
amber sky, seeming the very essence of light, then gradually vanished in
a roseate haze. The black mountains grew purple, changing to a dark rich
green. The deep, cool valleys were dewy in the midst of a shadowy gray
vapor. The farthest ranges showed blue under a silver film, and suddenly
here were the rays of the sun shooting over all the world, aiming high
and far for the western hills.

And abruptly said the ada-wehi, as he still lay at length on the floor
of the niche,--

"_Skee_!" (Listen!)

Naught but the breeze of morning, delicately freighted with the breath
of balsams, the dew, the fragrance of the awakening of the wild flowers,
the indescribable matutinal freshness, the incense of a new day in June.

"_Skee_!"

Only the sound of the rippling Tennessee, so silver clear, beating and
beating against the vibrant rocks as its currents swirl round the bend
at the base of the cliff.

"_Skee_!"

The sudden fall of a fragment of rock from the face of the crag to the
ground far below!--the interval of time between the scraping dislodgment
and the impact with the clay beneath implies a proportional interval of
distance.

The conviction is the same in the mind of each. A living creature is
climbing the ascent! A bear, it may be. A great bird, an eagle, or one
of the hideous mountain vultures, very busy of late, alighting in quest
of food--which it might find in plenty elsewhere, in the track of the
invaders.

Attusah does not rely, however, on a facile hypothesis with a triumphant
enemy at hand, and a dozen towns charring to ashes in sight.

As noiseless as a shadow, as swift, Attusah is on his feet. At the back
of the great niche, so high that none could conceive that it might
afford an exit, a fissure lets in a vague dreary blur of light from
spaces beyond. Leaping high into the air, the lithe young warrior fixes
his fingers on the ledge, crumbling at first, but holding firm under a
closer grasp. The elder man, understanding the ruse as if by instinct,
lays hold of the knees of the other, held out stiff and straight below.
Then by a mighty effort Attusah lifts the double weight into the
fissure, the elder Indian aiding the manoeuvre by walking up the wall,
as it were, with his feet successively braced against it.

Outside,