he echoes, no wreaths of
smoke floating among the hills, no flare of flames flinging crude red
and yellow streaks across the luminous velvet azure of distant mountains
with their silver haze, viewed through vistas of craggy chasms near at
hand,--he observed a lessening of cordiality in the manner of the other
two Indians toward the Northward Warrior, and a frequency on his part to
protest that he was a great ada-wehi, and was dead although he appeared
alive. The truth soon dawned upon the shrewd Scotchman, albeit he
understood only so much Cherokee as he had chanced to catch up in his
previous campaign in this region with Montgomerie and the present
expedition. Attusah was for some reason obnoxious to his own people as
well as to the British, and was in effect a fugitive from both factions.
Indeed, the other two Indians presently manifested a disposition to
avoid him. After much wrangling and obvious discontent and smouldering
suspicion, one lagged systematically, and, the pace being speedy,
contrived to fairly quit the party. Digatiski accompanied them two more
days, then, openly avowing his intent, fell away from the line of march.
It was instantly diverted toward the Little Tennessee River, on the
western side of the Great Smoky Mountains; and as Attusah realized that
without his connivance his captive's escape had become impossible,
MacVintie found himself unbound, ungagged, and the society of the
ada-wehi as pleasant as that of a savage ghost can well be.

There was now no effort to escape. MacVintie's obvious policy was to
await with what patience he might the appearance of the British
vanguard, who in the sheer vaunt of victory would march from one end of
the unresisting territory to the other, that all might witness and bow
before the triumph of the royal authority. As yet remote from the
advance of the troops, he dared not quit his captor in these sequestered
regions lest he fall into the power of more inimical Cherokees, maddened
by disaster, overwhelmed in ruin, furious, and thirsting for revenge for
the slaughter of their nearest and dearest, and the ashes of their
homes.

Attusah made known his reason for his own uncharacteristic leniency to a
soldier of this ruthless army, as they sat together by the shady
river-side. He went through the dumb show of repeatedly offering to his
captive guest the fish they had caught, pressing additional portions
upon him, laughing significantly and joyously throughout his