n Ralph Emsden, and
she turned rather pale and wistful when the news was communicated to
her. Then realizing how opportune was the accident, how slight was its
ultimate danger in comparison with the jeopardy of the mission from
which he was rescued, she fairly gloated upon the chance which had
conferred it upon her grandfather, and made her an instrument in its
execution.

It was a queerly assorted embassy that rode out of the gates of the
stockade, the ambassador and his linguister. Richard Mivane was mounted
upon a strong, sprightly horse, with Peninnah Penelope Anne behind him
upon a pillion. Following them at a little distance came his
body-servant, Caesar, more fitted by temperament than either to enjoy
the change, the spirit of adventure, and reveling in a sense of
importance which was scarcely diminished by the fact that it was
vicarious. He rode a sturdy nag and had charge of a led horse, that bore
a pack-saddle with a store of changes of raiment, of edible provisions,
and tents to fend off the chances of inclement weather. They were to
travel under the protection of a trader's pack-train, from a
reestablished trading-house in the Overhill Towns of the Cherokees on
the Tennessee River; and so accurately did they time their departure and
the stages of their journey that they met this caravan just at the hour
and place designated, and risked naught from the unsettled state of the
country or an encounter with some ignorant or inimical savage, prone to
wreak upon inoffensive units vengeance for wrongs, real or fancied,
wrought by a nation.

The trader, being a man habituated by frequent sojourns in Charlestown
to metropolitan customs and a worldly trend of thought, instantly
recognized the quality of Mivane and his granddaughter, despite the old
red hood and blue serge riding-coat and their residence here so far from
all the graces that appertain to civilization; though, to be sure,
Richard Mivane, in his trim "Joseph," his head cowled in an appropriate
"trotcozy," and his jaunty self-possession quite restored by the cutting
of the Gordian knot of his dilemma, demonstrating his capacity to duly
perform all his undertakings, bore himself in a manner calculated to
enhance even the high estimation of his fellow-traveler. After the
custom of a gentleman, however, he was most augustly free from
unwarrantable self-assertion, but he could not have failed to be
flattered by the phrase of the trader, could he have heard it