sort, for the
hospitality of the Indians was proverbial. Credentials surely were not
necessary in the social circles of the Cherokees, and two men to six
thousand offered no foundation for fear. O'Kimmon had such confidence in
his own propitiating wiles and crafty policy that he did not realize how
his genial deceit was emblazoned upon his face, how blatant it was in
his voice. But for its challenging duplicity there would hardly have
arisen a suggestion of suspicion. Many men on various errands easily
found their way into the Indian tribes when at peace with the British,
and suffered no injury. Nevertheless as the wise Oo-koo-koo looked at
O'Kimmon thus steadily, with so discerning a gaze, the Irishman felt
each red hair of his scalp rise obtrusively into notice, as if to
suggest the instant taking of it. He instinctively put on his coonskin
cap again to hold his scalp down, as he said afterward.

"Why come?" Oo-koo-koo demanded sternly.

"Tell the truth, for God's sake!" L'Epine adjured O'Kimmon in a low
voice.

"I'm not used to it! 'T would give me me death o' cold!" quavered the
Irishman, in sad sincerity, at a grievous loss.

"_Asgaya uneka_ (White man), but no Ingliss," said the astute Indian,
touching the breast of each with the bowl of his pipe, still in his hand
and still alight as it was when the interruption of their advent had
occurred.

"No, by the powers,--not English!" exclaimed the Irishman impulsively,
seeing he was already discovered. "I'm me own glorious nation!--the
pride o' the worruld,--I was born in the Emerald Isle, the gem o' the
say! I'm an Oirishman from the tip o' me scalp--in the name o' pity
_why_ should I mintion the contrivance" (dropping his voice to an
appalled muffled tone)--"may the saints purtect ut! But surely, Mister
Injun, I've no part nor lot with the bloody bastes o' Englishers either
over the say or in the provinces. If I were the brother-in-law o' the
Governor o' South Carolina I'd hev a divorce from the murtherin'
Englisher before he could cry, 'Quarter!'"

Oo-koo-koo, the wise Owl, made no direct answer.

"_Asgaya uneka_ (White man), but no Ingliss," he only said, now
indicating L'Epine.

"Frinch in the mornin', plaze yer worship, an' only a bit o' English
late in the afternoon o' the day," cried O'Kimmon, officiously, himself
once more.

"French father, English mother," explained L'Epine, feeling that the
Indian was hardly a safe subject for the pleasantries of