lorid cheek went pale, for these
lay just under the sharp edge of a huge fragment of rock that had
evidently fallen from the cliff above, breaking the blade and holding
the belt fast.

How long he stood and stared he did not know. For a time he heard
without realizing the significance of the sounds the whoops and shouts
of his comrades, wildly racing back through the old "waste town" in
search of him; but although in the strenuous duty of his rescue they
would venture to pass it in broad daylight, no ardor of persuasion could
induce them to linger there to investigate the locality of his find, or
to aid in moving the rock and exploring the grotto that had evidently
proved a sepulchre.

On the contrary, they deemed the discovery might be resented by the
Indians as intrusive, and, keeping the secret, they made haste to get
out of the country with even more speed than their wont. Cuthbert
Barnett, however, carried his information to the authorities in
Charlestown, who, promptly acting upon it, solved the mystery of the
fate of the cheera-taghe.

Since peace with the Cherokees was becoming more and more precarious,
some satisfaction was experienced by the Royal Governor of South
Carolina, James Glen, at that time, in being able to urge upon the
attention of the head-men of the tribe the fact that, although the two
white strangers had obviously been captured in the act of robbing
Cherokee soil of its gold, they had as evidently been unarmed, and the
Irishman, a British subject, had been shot down by one of the
cheera-taghe, for there was the bullet still imbedded firmly in the
sternum of his broad chest. Thus a political crisis, which the event had
threatened, was averted.

Despite the evil chance that had befallen the gold-seekers, now widely
bruited abroad, stealthy efforts were ever and anon made by the hardy
frontier prospectors of those days, already busy in the richer deposits
of the Ayrate division of the Cherokee country, to pan also the sands of
the banks of the Tennessee; but the yield here was never again worth the
work, and the interest in the possibility of securing "pay gravel" in
this region died out, until the later excitements of the discovery of
the precious metal in a neighboring locality, Coca Creek, during the
last century.

The old "waste town" long remained a ruin, and at last fell away to a
mere memory.

THE BEWITCHED BALL-STICKS

At no time in the history of mankind, except during t