remember the men,--scarcely what they said: Evan Shelby's words, like
heavy blows on an anvil; Isaac Shelby's, none the less forceful; James
Robertson compelling his listeners by some strange power. He was
perchance the strongest man there, though none of us guessed, after
ruling that region, that he was to repeat untold hardships to found and
rear another settlement farther west. But best I loved to hear Captain
Sevier, whose talk lacked not force, but had a daring, a humor, a
lightness of touch, that seemed more in keeping with that world I had
left behind me in Charlestown. Him I loved, and at length I solved the
puzzle. To me he was Nick Temple grown to manhood.

I slept in the room with Captain Sevier's boys, and one window of it was
of paper smeared with bear's grease, through which the sunlight came all
bleared and yellow in the morning. I had a boy's interest in affairs,
and I remember being told that the gentlemen were met here to discuss the
treaty between themselves and the great Oconostota, chief of the
Cherokees, and also to consider the policy of punishing once for all
Dragging Canoe and his bandits at Chickamauga.

As we sat at breakfast under the trees, these gentlemen generously
dropped their own business to counsel Tom, and I observed with pride that
he had gained their regard during the last year's war. Shelby's threats
and Robertson's warnings and Sevier's exhortations having no effect upon
his determination to proceed to Kentucky, they began to advise him how to
go, and he sat silent while they talked. And finally, when they asked
him, he spoke of making through Carter's Valley for Cumberland Gap and
the Wilderness Trail.

"Egad," cried Captain Sevier, "I have so many times found the boldest
plan the safest that I have become a coward that way. What do you say to
it, Mr. Robertson?"

Mr. Robertson leaned his square shoulders over the table.

"He may fall in with a party going over," he answered, without looking
up.

Polly Ann looked at Tom as if to say that the whole Continental Army
could not give her as much protection.

We left that hospitable place about nine o'clock, Mr. Robertson having
written a letter to Colonel Daniel Boone,--shut up in the fort at
Boonesboro,--should we be so fortunate as to reach Kaintuckee: and
another to a young gentleman by the name of George Rogers Clark,
apparently a leader there. Captain Sevier bowed over Polly Ann's hand as
if she were a great lady, and wi