s, and he realized that the direction of the
currents of the air had veered and it came straight from the north. With
the mere suggestion his heart sank. How should he return whence it
came?--baffled, denied, empty-handed!--from these specious Cherokees,
who yet called the Lenape "grandfather."

The young war-captain had divined since he had been among them that the
Cherokees were making ready for war against the British government; they
would attack the South Carolina colonists, and for this reason, if for
no other, they would do nothing to anger the Mengwe, the Iroquois, whom,
however, they had often fought: for they loved war--they loved war!

Gradually the room grew less warm. A sudden stir sounded under the
divan, and a dog presently crept out to the fire, stretching lengthily
and yawning widely as he went. He bestowed himself in an upright posture
by the coals and looked down with drowsy gravity at the glow. His
pendant ears, his long, pointed muzzle, his upright, rotund body, and
his pose of solemn pondering made a queer shadow on the wall. He was no
Cherokee, so to speak, but was the property of a French officer, and,
following his master here from Fort Toulouse, _aux Alibamons_, had been
left in the care of a Cherokee friend to await his owner's return from a
mission to Fort Chartres and other French settlements "in the Illinois."
The dog spoke any language, it might seem; for when one of the braves,
half-awakened by his loud, unmannerly yawn, called out a reproof to him
in Cherokee, he wagged his tail among the cold ashes till he stirred up
a cloud of gritty particles; then he made his way across the room to the
speaker, wheezing and sniffing, and bantering for a romp, till he was
caught by the muzzle and, squeaking and shrilling, thrust under the
divan anew.

Once more silence, save for the patrol of the wind again on its rounds.
Once more the flare of the fire, dying gradually down to a smouldering
red glow, akin to the smothered red tone of the terra-cotta wall. Once
more the hot, angry eyes of the young war-captain, staring hopelessly,
sleeplessly into the red gloom and the dull mischance of the future,
sequel of the past.

Suddenly a thought struck him. It seemed at first to take his breath
away. He gasped at the mere suggestion of its temerity. Then it set his
blood beating furiously in his veins. After a space, in which he sought
to calm himself, to still his nerves, to tame his quivering muscles, he