white men of any other nationality than the English, these
professed aliens were promised protection and concealment from the
British government, and the pretext of their mission served to
countenance their lingering stay.

Soon their presence seemed a matter of course. The Indians had recurred
to their methods of suave hospitality. The two strangers encountered
only friendly looks and words, while affecting to gratify curiosity by
peering into all the unaccustomed habitudes,--the preparation of food,
the manufacture of deerskin garments, the care of the sick, the modeling
of bowls and jars of clay, in which the Cherokees were notably expert as
well as in the weaving of feather-wrought fabrics and baskets, the
athletic games, the horse-races, the continual dances and pantomimic
plays,--and were presently domiciled as it were in the tribe. Of so
little note did they soon become that when they gradually ceased these
manifestations of interest, as if familiarity had sated their curiosity,
it seemed to occasion no comment. They were obviously free to rove, to
stay, to live their lives as they would without interference or
surveillance.

Nevertheless, they still maintained the utmost caution. Sometimes,
idleness being no phenomenon, they would lie half the day in the shade
on the river-bank. The Tennessee was shrunken now in the heated season,
and great gravelly slopes were exposed. The two loiterers were
apparently motionless at first, but as their confidence increased and
the chances of being observed lessened, L'Epine, always dreading
discovery, began to casually pass the gravel and sand through his
fingers as he lay; sometimes he idly trifled with the blade of a hoe in
a shallow pool left by the receding waters, while the jolly Irishman,
now grave and solicitous, watched him breathlessly. Then L'Epine would
shake his head, and the mercurial O'Kimmon groaned his deep despondency.

Once the Frenchman's head was not shaken. A flush sprang up among the
pragmatic lines of L'Epine's face; his dark eyes glittered; his hand
shook; for as he held out the hoe, on its blade were vaguely glimmering
particles among the sand.

Later the two adventurers cherished a small nugget of red, red gold!

This find chanced below a bluff in a sort of grotto of rock, which the
water filled when the river was high, and left quite dry and exposed as
it receded in the droughts of summer.

Whether the two strangers were too much and too long o