s whirled around and around, their dull gray shadows whisked to
and fro on the golden brown sand, all in the red sunset glow.

Tscholens, quitting the council-house, glanced but indifferently at them
and then away at the lengthening perspective of the azure mountains of
the Great Smoky range. The harbingers of the twilight were advancing in
a soft blue haze over the purple and garnet tinted slopes near at hand,
their forests all leafless now, although the autumn had lingered long,
and the burnished golden days of the Indian summer were loath to go.
Lights were springing up here and there in the town as the glow of the
hearths of the dwellings, where supper was cooking, flickered out to
meet on the threshold the rays of the departing sun, which seemed to
pause there for a farewell glance in at the open door. In the centre of
the "beloved square" the fire which always burned here was slowly
smouldering. It flung a red reflection on the front of the building
devoted to the conferences of the aged councilors, painted a peaceful
white and facing the setting sun. At this moment was emerging from it a
figure which Tscholens had not before seen.

A man so old he was that even the Indian's back was bent. His face was
of weird effect, for amid its many wrinkles were streaks of
parti-colored paint such as he had worn more than three quarters of a
century earlier, when his fleet foot and the old war-trace were
familiar. In common with all the Cherokees, his head was polled and bare
save for a tuft, always spared to afford a grasp for any hand bold
enough and strong enough to take the scalp; but this lock, although
still dense and full, was of a snowy whiteness, contrasting sharply with
the red paint and belying the warlike aspect of the red-feathered crest
that trembled and shivered with the infirmities of his step. A heavy
robe of fur reached almost to his feet, and a mantle, curiously wrought
of the iridescent feathers of the neck and breast of the wild turkey,
bespoke his consequence and added to the singularity of his aspect; for
Indians seldom attained such age in those wild days, the warriors being
usually cut off in their prime. It is to be doubted if Tscholens had
ever seen so old a man, for this was Tsiskwa of Citico, reputed then to
be one hundred and ten years of age.

The step of the young grandfather, sauntering along, came to an abrupt
halt. He stood staring, exclaiming to the Cherokee warrior Savanukah,
"_Pennau wu