With a low word for his daughter to follow him Tonpit backed his horse clear from the crowd and spurred away. For sixty seconds the astounded gathering remained motionless. Sevier stared incredulously at the message, while his neighbours gazed stupidly at the dusty messenger. All felt as if they had been abandoned in the wilderness without shelter or means of self-defence. True, the over-mountain men had always fought their own way and financed their own campaigns, yet in the back of their minds was ever the thought that, should a crisis come, the mother State must aid them.

That a crisis was imminent was evidenced by Chucky Jack’s open mention of his petition for soldiers. Chucky Jack was worth many riflemen and had whipped the Indians many times. All the more proof that the settlements must be in desperate straits when he was impelled to beseech help. And of a sudden they were disowned; there was no mother State, no slumbering asset they could call to life.

Sevier had not talked much about the possibility of Creeks and Cherokees uniting, but the petition, coupled with whispered rumours seeping through the cabins, now brought morbid speculations. How many Indians would come and when, were the questions more than one man and woman asked themselves. Who would go to hold the line on the French Broad so that the red raiders might not penetrate to the Watauga?

Jackson watched Tonpit ride hastily away, followed by Elsie, and he fancied he beheld elation in the man’s hard visage and sorrow in the girl’s gentle face. It was quite a coincidence, too, that Major Tonpit should ride forth just in time to learn the momentous news—unless he had been expecting it and came purposely to hear it. His prompt return home gave colour to the suspicion.

The young Virginian shifted his attention to Chucky Jack. Sevier perused the message for the second time, crumpled it into a ball as if to hurl it from him, thought better of it and tucked it inside his buckskin shirt and called to the assemblage:

“Women and men of the Watauga, North Carolina will have none of us. We’re shoved through the door and told to shift for ourselves. To be exact, we’re told to look to the central Government for protection. And, as you know, the ink is scarcely dry on the petition I was about to send to the Legislature, asking for courts and militia.

“Without consulting one of the twenty-five thousand settlers on this side of the mountains, North Carolina chooses to pay her share of the national debt by the simple process of ceding us to Congress. She proposes to pay her debts with lands we won by rifle and ax. The act was passed by the Legislature a month ago, and for thirty days, while the messenger was bringing the news, we have been set off from North Carolina.

“During those thirty days our plight has been as serious as it is now, only, not knowing the truth, we worried but little. This fact should teach us that we can care for ourselves during the next thirty days, and so on, until there is no danger from the Indians along our border. So I ask you to be of brave heart and to remember the Watauga people always have had to hoe their own row. Please God we can keep on.

“A year or two ago this message would have worried me none. I could send out the call, and my old friends would respond overnight, as fast as horseflesh could fetch them. If an Indian war comes now, it will be more serious than what we’ve experienced in the past but nothing that our rifles can not blast away. I still can count on my friends and old companions-in-arms. Of the newcomers who have come to us in such numbers I am not so sure.”

And he paused to dart a lightning glance at Polcher and his cronies pressed about the tavern door.

“The national Congress oughter help us,” piped up an old man.

“It would be glad to. But the national Government, while empowered to levy armies, can not compel a single State to furnish a soldier,” Sevier reminded. “The national Government can do only what the States will permit it to do. Last year several hundred soldiers stormed the very doors of Congress and demanded their over-due pay, and Congress was unable to escape the mob’s demands. There will come a time when our Congress will have the power to protect its citizens in this, or in any other, land. But not now.”

“If not now, then by the Eternal, men of Watauga, there is one power that can defend us!” cried Polcher from the tavern doorway. “And we have only to ask to be freed from either Creek or Cherokee.”

“Aye! Aye! Spain looks after its own!” cried another of the tavern coterie.

“So does the devil!” thundered Sevier, enraged at Polcher’s making the Creek menace common property. “We’ll get nothing from Spain only as we pay dearly for it. And remember, there can be no danger from the Creeks except as Spain sets the mischief afoot. All who would be free and live in security follow me to the court-house. Messengers must be sent out; delegates must be elected and called here.”

“What’s yer plan?” hooted a tavern fellow.

“My plan is to form a Government of our own and to be admitted into the Union as a separate State!” retorted Sevier in a ringing voice.

The decent element raised a hoarse cheer, and faces heretofore gloomy became inspired. Polcher quickly warned:

“Vermont’s been trying to be admitted ever since 1776. We can’t stand on air, neither one thing nor another. Spain will protect us and give us justice. If she should fail, we could turn to and drive her into the gulf!”

“The time to drive her into the gulf is before you slip on her yoke!” shouted Sevier. “And, if we’re able to do that same thing, why seek her protection? To the court-house!”

The women gathered in knots to discuss the startling news. The men followed their old leader. Jackson remained outside the court-house, watching the scene. His experience with Kentuckians on the Ohio had taught him the feeble central Government was powerless to function in a crisis like this—and this because the thirteen States retained the mental attitude of the thirteen colonies.

Polcher’s advocacy of accepting the protection of Spain was not painfully repugnant to Jackson, no more than it was to some others west of the mountains, who believed themselves forsaken and left to shape their own destiny. When it hurt, it hurt pride, not a national spirit. He repudiated the idea because of an instinctive dislike to domination by any foreign power. His sense of Americanism was not shocked as Sevier’s was, for the union Polcher openly urged, and which John Tonpit was suspected of secretly promoting, simply meant a political affiliation and not the death of national ideals, the seeds of which were scarcely sown.

Jackson, however, firmly opposed the project, for his forebears had come to America to escape overlords. Then again common sense told him the law of compensation would decree that Spain’s protÉgÉs must pay Spain’s price.

Being in this frame of mind, he saw no reason why he should not play his luck by accepting Tonpit’s courteous demeanour at full face-value and profit by it to the extent of wooing his daughter. His last meeting with Tonpit before going to the Ohio country convinced him his suit was frowned upon. Now, with the father’s smile still soothing him, with a vivid picture of Elsie’s shy, backward glance, he had small liking for the court-house and its jumble of loud-voiced phillipics against Spain and North Carolina. The situation was localized in his estimation. And yet he hesitated, his loyalty to Sevier, whom he had known for only a few hours, holding him back.

Polcher came from the tavern with Lon Hester, and Jackson thrust his thumbs into his belt and strode toward them, thinking it timely to conclude the morning’s one-sided argument. But Polcher said some hurried words to the bully, who turned and hastened down the trail, while the tavern-keeper himself affected to ignore the truculent ranger and strolled toward the court-house. Jackson turned to follow him, only to behold the people pouring from the building. There came staccato commands, and a score of men flew to their horses and rode away.

The Virginian breathed in relief. It was not necessary for him to choose between love and duty. Chucky Jack had rushed matters through with his characteristic energy, and the messengers were off to arrange for the election of delegates. The tavern-keeper, too, was no longer visible, and with nothing to detain him Jackson took the trail to the south, his heart as light as his moccasined feet.

What recked youth in love-time even if the fate of the Anglo-Saxon race in America were at stake! Ever thus does youth help shape the course of political evolution, help win a world without realizing the achievement, and only ask in the midst of astounding events that the heart of a simple maid be won.

The dalliance of the young man’s thoughts blinded him, and his feet followed the rough path unguided by his eyes. Some premonition that she was near was what finally awakened him from his smiling reverie. He halted and threw back his head with a jerk. Tonpit’s commodious cabin stood in from the trail, surrounded by clumps of cedar and bass-wood. Within ten feet of the ranger stood Elsie.

Jackson reddened with confusion. He knew he had been smiling as he came down the trail, and the restrained merriment tugging the corners of her mouth proclaimed her a witness to his deportment. He felt as sheepish as if she had detected him making faces at himself in a mirror.

“Elsie, I’ve come all the way from the Ohio to win the privilege of calling you sweetheart,” he hurriedly greeted.

She cast an apprehensive glance toward the house.

“I like you, Kirk. You know how much,” she wistfully began. “My father—”

“He seemed glad to see me,” he completed as she hesitated.

And he gained her side and took her hands in his.

“He is glad to see few men,” she warned. “He loves me, but to others he’s cold.”

“Politics,” assured Jackson. “Big men always have political bees swarming through their heads. I wouldn’t give a beaver’s pelt for all the political power they can develop in this whole country. I’m a free man, and you’re a free maid, and your politician is a slave. And you must love me, dear.”

“And I’m a free maid, and I must,” she quoted, drawing him out of range of the cabin.

“Elsie, not another step till I know,” he whispered. “I asked myself every step from the falls of the Ohio, but now, you must—please!”

“Then I must if I must,” she murmured, dancing ahead toward a natural arbour.

“Wait!” he cried. “I bring a belt from the Ohio to the dearest little girl in the world. It shows a white road leading to a little cabin, which shall be the happiest home in all the col—I mean the States.”

She seated herself on a log and he kneeled by her side. She remained silent, her eyes averted to hide her glorious confusion.

“I’ve brought my talk,” he whispered. “What does the wonderful little woman say to it? Does she pick up the belt, the white wampum, the one road leading to the cabin?”

“I like your talk,” she confessed. “Oh, I like it more than you can ever know, Kirk. But my father—he won’t let me pick your belt up.”

“I’m not asking your father to marry me,” he reminded.

“Don’t speak in that voice,” she whimpered, wilting against him. “Kirk, dear! I’m miserable. Ever since coming over the mountains I’ve sensed poison in the air.”

He patted her hair and waited for her to continue.

“It’s something I can’t understand. It’s something that keeps my father up all night, walking his room. And yet, when I go to him, it’s to always find him strangely exalted.”

“Politics,” he belittled. “What has that to do with our love?”

She lifted her head and revealed eyes round with fear and warned:

“But it does! It concerns our happiness deeply. Not that he has said anything. Not that his love for me ever changes—”

“Good Lord! Love for you—change?” he gasped.

“I say it hasn’t, you silly. But after the messenger came and we were riding home, he asked me if I would make a sacrifice for him. He didn’t say what but gave me to understand it would be only for a short time. Now I’ll make any sacrifice for my father, only—”

She persisted in her silence, and he gravely prompted—

“Go on, sweetheart.”

“Only I must know it will help him.”

“Tell me what he asked you to do and let me be the judge.”

“He’s asked nothing as yet. I think he plans to tell me tonight. He said something about my understanding everything tonight. Since then he’s been in his room, whistling and singing. Never in my life have I heard him whistle or sing before. And, do you know, he has a beautiful voice—and I never knew it before.”

“When a man can sing and whistle, he can’t be planning to ask much of a sacrifice of his daughter.”

“Oh, I’m not fearing what he may ask. He’s been a good father to me. I must be perfectly loyal to him in my heart. I only wish he didn’t have men come to see him—that is, certain kind of men.”

She gave him an odd look, then, forgetting the house was hidden by the trees, she gazed over his shoulder. He was quick to detect the glint of alarm in her eyes and asked—

“Who’s with him now?”

“Nay, you must not ask me. That would mean I was spying on him. Doubtless I’m very silly. I shall know all tonight. Tomorrow, if we should meet alone, I’ll perhaps be able to tell you.”

“We certainly shall meet alone,” he promised. “But why wait till tomorrow? Why not this afternoon or tonight? I sha’n’t sleep a wink if I have to wait till tomorrow. Why not here?”

“Oh, I couldn’t, Kirk,” she protested. In the next breath she filled him with ecstasy by declaring, “And yet I will if possible. Tonight—come when the moon is clearing the forest, two hours before midnight. He always goes to his room at that hour. I shall be here on the hour and will wait for you, but you mustn’t wait for me. I shall come promptly or not at all.”

“But if I come and you’re not here—” he began complaining.

“Hush, silly. I’ll leave a note on this very log. Don’t wait if I’m not here. Don’t wait if the note is not here. It will simply mean I couldn’t leave the house without disturbing him.”

“Why couldn’t I call at the house?”

“Oh, no! Not at the house,” she hurriedly cried. “Promise?”

“Very well. I’ll come as far as this arbour.”

“Now, don’t be ugly. Some time you can come to a house and know you’ll always find me—”

“You darling!” he softly exulted.

She lifted her head from his shoulder and touched a finger to his lips. A voice was calling her name.

“It’s father,” she warned, unwarrantably alarmed her lover thought.

He made to walk a bit with her, but she gently pushed him back into the arbour. Then, giving him her lips, she ran to the house.

He should have walked the skies as he returned to the settlement, but somehow complete happiness was held in abeyance until he could learn what it was that Tonpit was to ask of his daughter. His peace of mind could not return until he had seen her again and learned the truth. He had worried none while with her, for joy had destroyed perspective and dulled imagination. He had actually lived in the present, taking toll of each delicious minute. Now he was recalling her father’s reputation as a man of mystery.

Back east, before his last trip to the Shawnee country, he had heard strange remarks concerning John Tonpit. Here in Jonesboro the talk was resumed. He could remember when Tonpit was counted a poor man, but now he seemed to be above want. The sordid fact angered him by persisting in invading his speculations. John Sevier had the right of it in saying Tonpit was engaged in a conspiracy—no doubt about that. But it was left for the girl herself to hint that she might be involved in his wretched schemes.

“—— his beastly ambitions!” growled Jackson, turning from the trail and throwing himself under a clump of willows.

He lighted his pipe and smoked it empty before recovering any of his natural optimism. After all, he told himself, a father could not be unnatural with his only child. Tonpit’s mode of address, even when talking to Elsie, was harsh. That characteristic induced one to attach undue significance to his simplest statements. The girl had permitted his solemn assertions to carry too much weight. She had confused the austere vehicle of his spoken thoughts with the simple meaning of his words.

“He’s a queer one,” Jackson admitted as he stowed his pipe preparatory to resuming his walk back to the settlement. “I can imagine the poor child being thrown into a panic by his cold voice announcing it’s going to rain tomorrow.”

He chuckled a bit at this caricature of the maid’s awe, then fell back under the willows as the long shadow of a man fell across the sunlight within a few feet of him. Walking noiselessly, the stealthy figure of Lon Hester swung by.

For a moment Jackson was tempted to accost him and conclude the little argument started in the tavern. But his impulse vanished because of wonderment at the bully’s presence at this end of the settlement. The tavern was his proper habitat. Again he saw Polcher whispering in the bully’s ear and saw the latter set out afoot with the purposeful step of one going on an important errand. Linked up to this recollection was the girl’s statement that her father had a visitor whom she was unwilling to name.

“But it couldn’t have been the tavern brawler,” muttered Jackson, rising and softly following Hester. “Still, Polcher was giving the lout some orders and sent him somewhere. And Sevier says Polcher is a deep one. Polcher showed he was for the Spanish alliance after the messenger came. He and Tonpit have the same fancy, it seems. But Tonpit was there and heard as much as Polcher did. What could happen that needed a message and a messenger? Sevier says all messages are brought to the tavern.

“Almost appears as if the affair was ripe for a sudden blow somewhere, for something decisive to happen—and Tonpit was singing and whistling. Good Lord! What with being thrown off by North Carolina and not yet accepted by the Union, it certainly isn’t any time for the settlers to take on fresh troubles. Reckon I’ve been selfish. I’ll see Chucky Jack and tell him what little I know.”

Making a detour so as to escape the notice of the tavern loungers, Jackson approached the court-house from the east side of the settlement. The town was ominously calm. Small groups of men were quietly talking, and all carried their rifles. As they talked, they looked much at the court-house, where through the windows Sevier could be seen pacing back and forth, his hands clasped behind him, his head bowed. He was one man who carried the entire load of the settlement’s troubles. He was idolized by the men, and there was none who would think of intruding in this his great hour of anxiety.

“Reckon, if Chucky Jack can’t fix things up for us, there ain’t no fixing to be done,” one man spoke up and said to Jackson.

“He’s a great man,” heartily retorted Jackson. “I talked with him this morning for the first time. My name is Kirk Jackson, just returned from the Ohio.”

“My name’s Stetson. My cabin is on t’other side of the court-house. Seen you with him this morning. You’ll eat with us today. Where’s your horse?”

“Broke a leg a few miles out. Had to shoot him,” the ranger sadly informed.

“Shoo! That’s tough. I’ve got several. Help yourself any time. I’ll tell the woman.”

“It’s a —— of a Government that leaves us folks to shift for ourselves,” spoke up another settler, catching Jackson’s eye.

“Seeing how you’ve always shifted for yourselves, I reckon you ain’t worse off than you’ve always been,” smiled Jackson. “And I reckon Jack Sevier’s enough help for one settlement to have. The Indians are awfully scared of him.”

“That’s ’cause they know he won’t wait to fight behind logs,” Stetson broke in eagerly and with great pride. “They know that every time they make a raid he’ll lead us straight into their country for a hundred miles or so and rip —— out of their villages. Nothing takes the fighting guts out of a Injun so much as to hear—while burning a few cabins—that Chucky Jack is back in their towns burning up all their corn. He’s thinking up things now.”

Jackson had halted his advance on the court-house because of the respectful aloofness of the settlers. But now came one who ignored the black frowns, an Indian. He was a Cherokee, and his path was to the court-house.

Suddenly a woman’s shrill voice called from a cabin:

“The murderin’ spy! He’s come to see how we took the bad news!”

“There’s more of his kidney back in the woods!” shouted a man.

The Indian continued his advance. The various groups of men thinned out and formed a half-circle behind him so as to block his threat. The Indian halted and, still gazing at the court-house, threw back his head and sounded the wolf-howl, wa-ya. With muttered imprecations a score of rifles were brought to bear on him, while several men ran back to the forest to scout for a hidden foe. But the signal was intended only for Sevier, who now appeared at the window. A glance took in the situation, the erect form of the red man and the half-circle of menacing rifles. Leaning from the window, Sevier shouted:

“Put down those guns! I’ll answer for the Cherokee!” Then to the savage, “The Tall Runner is welcome.”

Without a glance behind him, the Indian made for the door. Sevier sighted Jackson and beckoned for him to enter.

Sevier was alone in the long room. He motioned for Jackson to remain in the background and, addressing the Indian, said:

“Tall Runner, of the Aniwaya people, is welcome. What talk does the warrior of the Wolf clan bring to me?”

The man of the Wolf, the most powerful clan of the Cherokee Nation, permitted his gaze to kindle with admiration as he looked on Sevier. After a brief silence he began:

“I bring a talk from Old Tassel. He tells me to say to Tsan-usdi (Little John) that he is an old man. He says he is standing on slippery ground. He says his elder brother’s people are building houses in sight of Cherokee towns and that his young warriors grow nervous. He says the white people living south of the French Broad have no right there, and he asks his elder brother to take them away.”

Sevier waited for a minute, then replied:

“This is the talk I send back to Old Tassel. I will meet the Cherokee chiefs in a grand council and fix a place beyond which no settler shall go south of the French Broad and the Holston. Tell Old Tassel that, if he stands on slippery ground, it is because the Indians have wet the ground with the blood of white people, killed while travelling the Kentucky road and while hoeing their fields along the Watauga.

“As for the settlers who have made homes south of the French Broad, they can not now be removed, but, if the chiefs of the Nation will come to a council, we will agree they shall go no farther. The Cherokees know Tsan-usdi wants peace. But there can be no lasting peace so long as the Cherokee Nation listens to the evil whisperings of the Creeks and loads its guns with Spanish powder. Tell Old Tassel it was North Carolina that sent the settlers south of the French Broad, not Little John.”

The Indian remained silent for several minutes, then with a cunning gleam in his eyes continued:

“I will carry your talk to Old Tassel. Who sends the talk? Tsan-usdi or North Carolina? Or does Tsan-usdi speak for North Carolina?”

Sevier’s gaze hardened. He knew Old Tassel had learned of North Carolina’s act of cession. This would imply advance knowledge on the part of the chief. The messenger was sent with a colourless talk, his real errand being to learn how the settlers were reacting to the Cessions Act.

In a voice of thunder he warned:

“Brother of the Wolf, I am going to speak to you. Be wise and remember my words. Tell Old Tassel the talk comes from Little John and his three thousand riflemen. Tell him to forget that the settlements are no longer a part of North Carolina. Tell him he is to remember that the settlers never have had help from North Carolina and have always depended upon their own guns. Tell him our rifles shoot as straight and that our horses run as swiftly as they did a few moons ago. I will send for Old Tassel when I have my council talk ready.”

Tall Runner was somewhat abashed but did not offer to depart. He remained silent and motionless, staring furtively at the one white man the Cherokee Nation feared above all other men. For three centuries the Cherokees had made wars and treaties with the English, the Spanish, the French, the Americans, with Creeks, Catawbas, Shawnees and Iroquois, but in all their campaigns they had never shown so much respect, or fear, for any one individual as they had for John Sevier.

Sevier knew Tall Runner had something on his mind, something he had not intended to speak but was now tempted to divulge. Sternly, yet not unkindly, Sevier prompted:

“My brother of the Wolf has seen something on his way here, or has heard something. He thought at first to bury it deep in his head. Now his medicine commands him to tell it. The ears of Tsan-usdi are open; his heart is open. Does the Tall Runner speak?”

The Indian stood with eyes cast down as if irresolute; finally he lifted his head, succumbing to the personal magnetism of Sevier, a subtle influence that never failed to work on both friend and foe, and said:

“It is not in the talk I brought from our peace town of Echota. It is something I saw on the Great War-Path very near here. A dead man of the Ani-Kusa.”

Sevier’s hands gripped the edge of the table.

“A warrior from the upper Creek towns,” he repeated.

“He was a messenger,” was the laconic correction.

The borderer fully appreciated the grave results sure to follow the slaying of a messenger from McGillivray, Emperor of the Creek Nation. One faint hope remained, that the Creek had fallen by the hand of a Cherokee.

As if reading his thoughts, Tall Runner significantly added:

“The dead warrior was not scalped. He was shot by a white man hiding in ambush. I found where the white man kneeled and waited. I followed his trail back to the settlement. I found where his trail left the settlement and made for the woods.”

There was no doubt in the minds of either Sevier or Jackson as to the identity of the assassin. Major Hubbard, his heart rankling with fanatical hatred for all red men, had left the village for the forest, taking the direction the Cherokee would cover on returning home.

“When was the Creek killed?” quietly asked Sevier.

“The blood had dried.”

“Five hours ago,” muttered Sevier. Then aloud, “How do you know the Creek brought a message for me?”

“Who else would he bring a talk to?” shrewdly countered Tall Runner. “He carried no arms. He was a messenger. His moccasins were worn through because of haste. He had not stopped at any of our villages to get new moccasins. His talk was for the white men. Little John is their chief.”

“And by this time the news of his death is spreading,” Sevier gloomily mused.

“I threw boughs on the body. It may not be seen if Tsan-usdi goes and covers it with earth. If others find it, the word will travel as far as a red ax or a war-belt can travel.” Which was equivalent to saying that McGillivray would surely learn of the killing and seize upon it as pretext for declaring war upon the settlements.

Sevier walked to the window and back. When he halted before the Cherokee, his countenance was placid, and his voice was gentle as he directed:

“Go to Old Tassel and tell him my talk. That I will meet him and his head men and give them a talk; that I wish only for peace and will hold back the whites from going farther on Cherokee lands unless an Indian war makes me use all my riflemen in defending our cabins.”