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 Mr. O'Sullivan leaned forward on his mule. His right hand moved with amazing swiftness, and the hickory switch that he held in it thrashed across Falcon's cheek.

"You lie, Lance Falcon!" he said distinctly in his high thin voice of a bird.

It was a stinging blow. It left a white welt on the dark tan of Falcon's face. Yet the man did not move an inch, did not even lift his hand.

"Eh, well!" he cried. He turned to his men behind him, and to the pack drivers standing near by.

"You are all witnesses?" he asked. "You saw the blow?"

A dozen heads nodded. Falcon turned again to the little man on the mule.

"Of course, Mr. O'Sullivan," he said, "your design has been entirely plain from the beginning. You wished to make a quarrel. I have understood that you have some reputation with the sword—in fact, that you make a pittance by teaching not only Greek and Latin but rapier-play also. Well, I am not unwilling to have a lesson from so eminent a teacher, and perhaps in my clumsy way I may be able to instruct the pedagogue. 'Twill help pass the time until the Governor's men arrive."

With a tiger's litheness which belied his bulk, he leaped from his horse. In an instant O'Sullivan, too, was on his feet.

"The ground is firm here," Falcon continued coolly, "and the trees do not hedge us in too closely.

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 There is room for some pretty play, do you not think?"

"And the road is open behind you," chirped O'Sullivan in answer, "so that when the fear of God comes upon you, your long legs may beat a rub-a-dub-dub back to town."

Again Falcon's white teeth gleamed under his moustache.

"Tut, tut, my little pepper pot," he replied, "you are overdoing it now. I see that I can instruct the pedagogue in gentlemanly courtesy."

Deliberately he removed his coat, handed it to one of his men, rolled back the sleeve of his white shirt, exposing his powerful, dark brown with the suns of many seas.

He drew his sword with a flourish and, lowering the point, turned to Meg Pearson.

"Permit me, Madame," he said, bowing, "to reassure the timorous heart that must needs dwell with so fair a face. I shall not kill our little pedagogue. To do so might put me to some bother in Charles Town. I shall make a hole in his right arm above the elbow and I think that within the next quarter hour he will lose a part of his left ear."

"Ugly Meg," said Mr. O'Sullivan testily, "if you don't want to see this long-winded, most damned pirate sent to hell, you can just ride up the road a little piece and smoke your pipe."

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N THE white sleeve of Mr. O'Sullivan's shirt above the elbow there was a spot of red no bigger than the end of a man's thumb. Meg Pearson, sitting bolt upright on her horse, her pipe clenched between her teeth, watched that spot with wide, staring eyes. It grew no larger; and presently Meg knew that O'Sullivan's right arm had been pricked but that Falcon's sword point had not yet made the hole that he had promised to make in that arm.

Her gaze shifted to another spot of red. This spot, too, was small; the tip of her finger would have covered it. It was on the front of Falcon's shirt above the right lung. Another pin-prick, Meg knew; but O'Sullivan's promise, also, had come close to fulfilment.

There were times when Meg could not see the swords, so swiftly did they move. They were like the tongues of snakes, and sometimes, as they slid along each other, they gave forth a sound like the hissing of serpents.

There was no sound except the sound of the swords, which was sometimes a hissing as of angry snakes, and sometimes a deadly rasping that was like no

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 other sound in the world. Around the two swordsmen, Jock Pearson's pack-horse drivers and Lance Falcon's followers formed a wide circle under the far-spaced trees. Some still sat their horses; others had dismounted; one pock-marked, earringed seaman, his head swathed in a silken yellow scarf, sprawled at full length on the ground, his villainous face supported in cupped hands. It would be a long fight, he perceived, and he would enjoy it in comfort.

It had already lasted longer than most of Lance Falcon's fights. Its first fierce phase was over, the phase of impetuous attack and savage reprisal, the phase of experiment. Falcon knew now that his task was hard, that some strange chance had brought to the New World a fencing master who was equal, perhaps, to the best in Europe.

He had known some of these teachers of the sword; clever men, but inclined to be academic, to insist too much upon form and style. It had pleased his fancy sometimes in the cities of the Continent to match himself against these professional pedants of rapier-play, and there had been only one, a certain De Bon of Paris, whom he had failed to touch with his covered point. Five years had passed since he had fenced with that tall, lanky Frenchman, but there was something in the sword-work of this little Irish pedagogue that recalled the methods of De Bon.

Falcon had drawn first blood. Within the first few minutes of the fight, his point had touched O'Sullivan's arm. But it was a mere touch, not the clean,

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 penetrating thrust that he had promised himself and Meg Pearson; and sixty seconds later he had felt O'Sullivan's point prick his chest and had saved himself barely in time. Thus at the outset each had tested the other's mettle, each had learned caution, had perceived the hollowness of the boast that each had uttered.

None knew it, but Mr. Francis O'Sullivan was praying as he fought. With all his adoration of the pagan Greeks, he was a pious man and he was aware that he needed now that help from Heaven which, in time of stress, he had never been loath to ask. If Falcon, like most soldiers of fortune, had felt scorn for the fencing teachers, the schoolmen of the sword, here was one rapier schoolman who had scorned the sword-work of most soldiers. O'Sullivan had tried scores of them, and, while many were good artisans with the rapier, there were not many whom he would rank as artists. But in all the world there were very few men known to him whom he would admit to that exalted rank—Leuthen of Vienna, the Duke of Beaujeu, Vanzetti of Milan, Gotteschalke of Strasbourg, De Bon of Paris, his old fencing partner, Murtzulph the Mohammedan, and perhaps a half-dozen others. And now in raw America, where the rifle was honoured above the sword and where good swordsmen were rare, he had found another artist of the rapier, this Captain Lance Falcon.

So Mr. O'Sullivan prayed, though he was careful that none should be aware of his praying. His smooth

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 pink cheeks had lost none of their pink, and, as always, he smiled while he fought; but his heart was solemn within him, for he knew that in a dozen years he had faced no such swordsman as this.

He knew that his was the greater skill the more consummate artistry; but he knew also that the difference was very slight, so slight that Falcon's longer reach and superior strength atoned for it. And while Mr. O'Sullivan prayed, he schemed and studied and calculated, his thoughts reaching into the future even while his hand and eye dealt with the deadly, imminent present. Barring some accident, some unlikely mischance, the victory would come, he believed, to him whose endurance met the test. On this theory he based his battle.

For those who looked on, the world round about them had ceased to exist. To Jock Pearson, to Ugly Meg, to the pack-horse drivers, it had seemed at first an unequal battle. They knew nothing of the art of the sword. They saw a tall, powerful man, a seasoned soldier, bronzed and arrogant and thewed like Jock Pearson himself, great of shoulder, yet slim of waist and clean of limb, matched against a small, plump, white-haired, woman-voiced gentleman who might have been a lawyer's clerk or a minister of the Gospel. To them it appeared that only one ending was possible. And the first stage of the fight had served to confirm their judgment, for at the outset Falcon took the offensive, driving his antagonist before him.

But there were more practiced eyes than these in

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 that circle of spectators. Falcon's men knew a swordsman when they saw one, and the blades had scarcely crossed before those veterans gave O'Sullivan his due. It was then that he of the yellow scarf and the earrings stretched himself upon the ground to rest his limbs while he watched. He counted himself a connoisseur, this pock-marked cutthroat, and he saw this fight as no three-minute affair. He had no doubt of the outcome, for he had followed Falcon for years and had seen him in action many times; but he figured the little white-haired man a hard nut to crack.

A horror came upon Meg Pearson. It drove the colour from her furrowed cheeks and set her limbs shaking. It was a horror of the swords. Like serpents' tongues they were, the darting, flickering tongues of deadly serpents. She could not get the thought out of her head; it possessed her utterly and turned her blood to icy water.

She had seen men fight and die. She had seen knives flash and strike home in the frequent brawls of the hard-bitten pack-horse men. She had heard the whine of arrows and the hum of rifle bullets in Indian ambuscades along the Great Wilderness Path. She had seen the bodies of women, their heads still bloody where the scalps had been lifted. Yet now there was an unknown horror upon her, and the courage was gone from her, and her eyes were wide with terror of those darting, flickering serpent-tongues of steel.

To Meg there was something in the spectacle that

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 was like black magic. The deadly flickering serpent-tongues struck and struck and struck, yet could not find their mark. Death rode on those flashing points, but some incomprehensible wizardry defied the death that rode there. It was necromancy; it smacked of the supernatural, and her horror grew. But to the pock-faced pirate, stretched upon the ground, his puckered eyes appraising every thrust and parry, it was not necromancy, it was not horrible. On the contrary, it was divinely beautiful. His connoisseur's soul was in rapture; he revelled in the most perfect display of swordsmanship that he had ever seen.

In truth, there was much that was beautiful about that fight. There was its almost flawless artistry, the art of the rapier in its perfect consummation. There was Falcon's strength and grace, which was like the terrible, beautiful, smooth strength and grace of the royal tiger. There was O'Sullivan's deftness and quickness and lightness, which somehow brought to mind a swallow on the wing. And there was another beautiful thing about it—it was a gentleman's fight. Once Falcon backed against a pine trunk and his opponent could have killed him. Once O'Sullivan stumbled on a tussock of grass and was for an instant at Falcon's mercy. But neither blade struck home.

A time came when Meg Pearson knew somehow—though how she knew it she could not tell—that the crisis was near. It was, perhaps, that mysterious prevision which is granted to some when tragedy impends. She knew it, and that was all; but while she

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 knew mysteriously that the end was at hand, she did not know what that end would be.

There was no perceptible change. Both were tired, but one seemed no wearier than the other. They fought as they had been fighting for an eternity—warily, carefully, circling each other like panthers, advancing, retreating, retreating, advancing, feinting, thrusting, parrying, eye to eye and blade to blade.

Yet, while in this sense there was no change, there was something new that now made its presence felt, a subtle, invisible thing, but very real—an intenser deadliness.

Meg felt it first, perhaps because she was a woman, but soon there were others who felt it also. The pock-marked earringed pirate felt it, and his avid eyes glittered with a more savage light; and somehow that mysterious knowledge, which none could question, although there was no palpable thing upon which to base it, spread from man to man until all that eager circle of spectators possessed it, and eyes widened and lips tightened as they awaited the end that was coming soon.

It came; and there was forewarning of it; but none in the circle caught the warning. They lived for nothing in that moment except the spectacle before them. Their whole being was concentrated in their eyes; all their other senses were dulled. In the woods to the west an owl hooted; in the woods to the east another answered it. Jock Pearson and Ugly Meg, his wife, were old in the ways of the woods, and there were

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 good woodsmen among the pack drivers. All must have heard the two owls hoot, but none was aware of the sound. In that moment of tense, taut expectation, with the climax of the drama at hand, none wondered why it was that owls were hooting in the broad light of day.

A minute passed. They no longer circled each other like panthers. They fought now as though they were rooted to the ground. The darting swords were like living light. O'Sullivan's smile had become a ghastly grin and his pink cheeks had turned gray. Falcon's face was haggard and drawn; his eyes were like those of a madman; in his forehead a great vein bulged and pumped.

Close at hand an owl hooted again. And instantly at that signal the empty forest sprang to life.

Meg Pearson heard the whine of an arrow passing close above her shoulder. Before she could turn her head, a rifle shot shattered the silence, another and another, and all at once the air was thick with arrows raining in from every side. Then bedlam broke—a hell of yells and savage, ear-splitting whoops. It was as though the forest itself had gone suddenly mad, for though jets of flame and puffs of smoke were visible amid the trees, no foeman showed himself.

Meg knew in an instant that all was lost. She felt a stinging pain in her shoulder. She saw men pitch from their plunging horses. She saw Jock Pearson rise in his stirrups and wrench a long shaft out of his side: She heard him shout "Ride for it, Meg! They've

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 done me." She saw him sway in his saddle, then fall. In an instant she was on the ground beside him, her hand on his heart; and in another instant she was in the saddle again.

O'Sullivan heard her voice above the tumult, pitiful and shrill and frenzied, crying out, "Damn them, they've killed my Jock!" He saw her wheel her plunging horse and dash straight into the forest to the right where the war whoops were loudest and where now he could see naked brown forms flitting here and there amid the tree trunks. He saw her hurl her rifle from her as she galloped on and snatch her tomahawk from her belt. Then a strong hand grasped him from behind and pulled him down upon the ground.

Half-lying, half-kneeling, he twisted his body sideways and saw Falcon lying beside him close to a fallen horse. He heard Falcon's voice whisper hoarsely, "Lie still, old swordsman"; felt Falcon's heavy hand upon his back pressing and holding him down. Four dead men lay near him; five riderless horses milled about or stood staring, their nostrils wide. Down the Path he heard a thunder of hoof-beats and, raising his head a little, he saw horsemen galloping away in the direction of Charles Town, while behind them the Path was filled with plumed and painted warriors, yelling like mad, and in the woods on either side other warriors fired at the fugitives.

A mental numbness came over him as he lay watch-

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 ing the pursuit. He was aware of a strange indifference, as though he were a mere spectator at a show. In the midst of this he heard Falcon's voice speaking very calmly.

"Eh, pedagogue," the voice said. "The long-winded, most damned pirate can teach you a trick or two, after all. D'ye hear me, man?"

O'Sullivan nodded.

"They think we're dead," Falcon continued quickly, "but in a minute they'll be back for our scalps. My horse bolted, but the big roan yonder will carry my weight. You try for the gray. If you get him, ride up the Path and ride hard. Ready? Now, go!"

In the same instant they leaped to their feet and dashed for the horses; and behind them immediately a wild whoop rang out, followed by a fierce chorus of yells and a scattered volley of shots.

The big roan was Jock Pearson's horse, a veteran of the wilderness, trained to stand where his rider left him. Falcon reached him, grasped the bridle, swung to his back, raced away up the Path. The gray horse jerked his head aside as O'Sullivan sprang for the bridle rein, reared, and trotted out of reach.

Beyond the gray stood quietly a sorrel Chicasaw pony that had belonged to one of Pearson's pack drivers, while beyond him again the laden ponies of the pack train snorted and tossed their heads. O'Sullivan knew that the sorrel was his only hope. The

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 yells behind him were louder, nearer, but there were no more shots, and in an instant he understood why.

In front of him and to his right a naked warrior came leaping straight toward him, a long-shafted steel tomahawk in his lifted right hand, a rifle in his left. His high headdress of eagle feathers, the elaborate pattern of his black and vermilion paint proclaimed his exalted rank. At twenty paces he hurled the tomahawk. It whirled through the air, a streak of bluish light, so swiftly that the eye could not see the revolving handle.

Yet it was no swifter than Falcon's rapier thrusts had been; and O'Sullivan was ready for it. He felt the wind of it as the steel hatchet blade cleft the air where his head had been a fraction of a second before. He was down on his hands and knees when the tomahawk passed over him. He had scarcely regained his feet when the tall Indian, leaping onward at full speed, spitted himself upon O'Sullivan's sword.

The Chicasaw pony still stood where he had been standing, ears back, tail switching, fidgeting a little on his feet, but too well trained to bolt. O'Sullivan was an indifferent horseman but agile as a cat. With yells and whoops ringing in his ears, with bullets and arrows singing past him, his foot fumbled at the stirrup; yet somehow he got himself on the horse's back, and by some miracle no missile touched him as the pony raced away up the Path.

It had been quick work. Since their dash for the

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 horses scarcely two minutes had elapsed. The sorrel was faster than the roan and bore a lighter load. Not long after the whoops behind him had died away, O'Sullivan saw Falcon in the Path ahead, riding hard, his chin over his shoulder. At sight of O'Sullivan, he checked the roan's stride slightly until the other was close behind him; then for three miles or so they pushed on at a swinging gallop. At last Falcon reined in. As O'Sullivan ranged abreast of him, the Irishman spoke:

"Captain Falcon," he said, "if you had not pulled me down upon the ground, Francis O'Sullivan would be a'dead man now. Some day, God willing, I'll repay the debt."

Falcon's strong teeth gleamed under his moustache.

"You owe me nothing," he replied gruffly. "If I had not pulled you down, Lance Falcon would be a dead man, too. I saved you to save my own scalp, which was already wriggling on my head, and which still feels none too secure because I know not the ways of this damned heathen-infested wilderness."

"Nor I," said O'Sullivan, "but, by Paul, I can learn."

"It means, I take it," Falcon continued, "that the Cherokee rising has come. They are between us and the town. We cannot win back to the coast. We must . . . "

With an oath, he jerked his horse back upon its haunches.

"God's blood!" he cried. "We are cut off!

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 In the Path ahead stood a tall Indian, a rifle in one hand, the other held high, palm outward.

"The Lord hath His eyes upon us," said O'Sullivan quietly. "To us poor babes in the wilderness a guide has been granted. It is Lachlan's man, Striking Hawk."

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LMAYNE on Nunda the Moon-Face rode in the lead. Behind him strode the Muskogee warrior, Little Mink, who, soon after the flight began, had stepped suddenly from behind a tree trunk and joined the party. Jolie Stanwicke on Selu rode next, and Lachlan on Tuti the Snowbird brought up the rear. They followed no trail. For some miles, after leaving the pack train, they had raced along the Great Path, then they had turned to the right into the forest.

Of necessity their pace was now much slower. Sometimes the horses trotted, but more often their gait was a walk. They were heading, Lachlan had told Jolie, for the great swamp of the Santee, a vast fastness of cypress forest and interminable canebrakes where, Almayne felt confident, they could throw their pursuers off the track.

Riding in single file, they spoke seldom, but Jolie, her bridle rein loose on Selu's neck, hummed a song. She had no sense of peril, no consciousness of anxiety. In the charge of these three men she felt as safe in this trackless wilderness as she had ever felt amid the groves of Hampshire.

She studied them as she rode. In front of her the eagle feather, fastened in Little Mink's narrow crest

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 of straight black hair, swayed rhythmically; the long muscles of his naked back and broad, copper-coloured shoulders bulged and writhed with every stride. Save for the loin-cloth about his waist and the high moccasins on his feet and calves, his body was bare. Its symmetry, its feline slimness and litheness, its evident power fascinated her. Here in another form was that beauty of the wilderness which from the beginning had so delighted her.

He was as beautiful, she decided, this young warrior of the wilderness, as the wilderness itself of which he was a part. The thought engendered another, and a shadow came into her eyes. Yes, they must be beautiful, those tall, slim Indian maidens of whom Lachlan had spoken, since the Indian youths were so good to look upon. And that mysterious daughter of Chief Concha, the Appalache, who held Gilbert Barradell prisoner, was a princess among her own people, and the high-born Indian girls would be the fairest.

For a little while her happiness was clouded; but these thoughts passed. Almayne turned in his saddle to speak briefly with Little Mink in the latter's tongue. She studied the tall hunter's thin, tanned, hawklike face, his deep-set gray-blue eyes gleaming above his white moustache. He felt her eyes on him, looked at her and smiled, and she gave him a radiant smile in return. Suddenly it came to her that her first distaste for him had passed—that now she liked him profoundly, counted him her most trusted friend in this, her time of trial.

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 She turned to glance momentarily at Lachlan, riding ten paces behind her. He was gazing to the right, watching a small herd of wild black cattle grazing in a savannah, and she saw his face in profile. She saw the Indian in it, and she saw the Frenchman; the Scotch blood, she had already decided, was not apparent. Beneath its buckskins, she knew, that body was as lithe and strong as Little Mink's; and the face was far handsomer. It had not the stony impassiveness of an Indian's countenance. Even in moments of repose the vivid spirit behind it shone through it like a flame; always, in spite of the sharply chiselled Indian features, it was a face luminous and alive.

He was like a fairy-tale, she reflected, this young Indian Prince. Somehow she could not quite believe in him. And all that Almayne had told her about him was like a fairy-tale. Who in England would credit her if she told the story there: that in the wilderness of America there was a nation, or group of nations—an empire in miniature, the Confederacy of the Muskogee—over which an old Scotsman reigned as King, dwelling in barbaric affluence in his great house at Tallasee, waited upon by his scores of negro slaves, teaching his copper-skinned subjects the arts of peace and of war?

Who in England would believe her if she told what Almayne had told her about that wilderness empire of which this slim, dark youth behind her was Prince and heir, if she told of the Red Towns and the White

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 Towns, the towns of war and the towns of peace, of the strange dances and the stately ceremonials, the Green Corn Dance and the sacred Dance of the Serpent, of the "beloved bear grounds," where, instead of beef cattle, droves of bears were kept to furnish meat, of the great herds of horses and the smiling fields of grain?

Who would believe her if she told what Almayne had told her of the origin of this empire of the Muskogee; how, when the Spanish conquerors sacked Mexico and wrecked the magnificence of Montezuma, there were some among the great Emperor's subjectpeoples who would not submit to the foreign yoke; how they left their home in that distant country and marched northward and eastward, a whole nation of them, men, women, and children, seeking a new abode; how they met and fought many savage and warlike tribes in the land of the buffalo and the antelope; how at last, after long years of wandering in the western wilderness, they settled on the River Albamas, subdued all the nations that held the vast and smiling country, southward and westward of the Cherokee mountains and, teaching these nations something of the civilization of the Aztecs, bound them together into a powerful Indian empire known as the Confederacy of the Muskogee?

Who in England would believe her if she told of the ruling families of this barbaric empire, as proud ef their blood as any English earl—of the Family of the Wind, whose maidens were princesses; of the

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 Families of the Wolf and the Panther; of the Family of the Beaver, whose old men took precedence among the counsellors? And who in England would believe her if she told of the young man who was Prince of this empire, this young Lachlan McDonald, who had in his veins the Indian blood of the Family of the Wind (the blood of Montezuma himself), the staunch blood of Scotland and the fiery blood of France? This young Indian Prince whose speech and manners were those of a polished English gentleman, whose woodcraft was that of a red hunter and warrior, and whose swordcraft would do credit to any young gallant of the English court?

Yes, they would laugh at her if she told them about Lachlan McDonald, Prince of the Muskogee Confederacy, Chief of the Family of the Wind. They would set it all down as mad romance. Yet he was there, riding behind her, in the flesh.

She felt his eyes upon her. She knew how he watched her, how he studied her when he thought himself unobserved. Well, she must not be too hard with him. He had ventured his life for her and had all but lost it. He had done her good service and he was serving her still. He had named her the Lady Sanguilla, so Almayne had told her, after some sweetvoiced beautiful bird, and she liked the name and was somehow glad that he had so named her.

She half-regretted now the tone that she had adopted when he had come to ask her pardon. She had done it with a purpose. She must guard against

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 the danger that Almayne had seen fromthe beginning. She must not let that happen. But she must not be too hard with Lachlan McDonald; and she did not wish to be too hard with him. Yet, for some reason that she could not fix clearly, she could not trust him as she trusted Almayne.

It was not that she mistrusted him. It was not that she doubted the sincerity of his intention to do all that he could to rescue Gilbert Barradell. She knew not what it was that warned her. She knew only that there was something in Lachlan McDonald's eyes—something of which, perhaps, he himself was unaware.

But she could not now think long or deeply of these matters. Around her, as she rode, the panorama of the wilderness unfolded—an ever-changing picture, more beautiful, more marvellous than ever. Its sights and sounds held her, drove all else from her mind. She wondered vaguely where their pursuers were now, whether Lance Falcon was with them, whether Meg Pearson and Mr. O'Sullivan had been able to detain them for any appreciable length of time. But the problem of the pursuit held her thoughts only briefly. Almayne and Lachlan McDonald betrayed no anxiety, and she felt none.

The rich wilderness soothed and lulled her. Again her mind was full of languid, content, a sense of fulfilment ahead and of sorrow and evil eft forever behind. There had been beauty and wonder along the Great Path; here there were greater beauty, greater wonder.

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 The deer were everywhere. There was scarcely a moment when she could not look to right or left and see a grazing herd. Crossing the head of a long, narrow savannah walled in by dense growths of cane, she tried to count the wild animals feeding there. In the foreground were nineteen white-tails, beyond them a drove of fifteen wild black cattle, and beyond these again five elk, while farther away there were still other herds of deer, too closely bunched to be counted with certainty. But the number of these was as nothing compared with the birds; tall cranes, some white with black-tipped wings, some gray with crimson patches on their heads; egrets pure white from head to drooping tail, walking in hundreds along the edges of the shallow pools; a great army of white ibis whose curved orange-red bills glowed in the sun.

She was watching the tall, stately cranes when a sudden movement among the grazing deer nearer at hand fixed her attention. She saw their small heads suddenly lift, saw some of them go bounding away, their tails held high, while others still stood at gaze; and suddenly from the tall grass a long, tawny shape launched upward and forward, and a great panther fell upon one of the deer, bearing it to the ground.

Almayne turned in his saddle and spoke a word to Lachlan, then wheeled his horse and galloped down the savannah, the others close behind him.

The big tawny cat, like a lioness in shape and scarcely less in bulk, crouching on the body of the

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 deer, rose as they drew near and stood watching them, head hanging low, long tail waving slowly. Jolie's heart beat faster. She noticed that Almayne held his rifle ready. She noticed, too, that Nunda the Moon-Face went forward laggingly, and she felt Selu trembling under her.

The panther's body stiffened, his long tail ceased its waving, in his bloody jaws Jolie could see the long teeth gleam. Almayne's rifle went to his shoulder; but still he rode on slowly, Lachlan and Little Mink beside him, Jolie close behind. When they were no more than twenty paces' distant, the panther whirled like a flash and bounded away to the right, vanishing in the tall grass.

Almayne turned to Jolie with a smile.

"Sometimes, Mistress," he said, "Klandaghi the panther fights for his game, but this one figured the odds too heavy. I hate to rob him, for Klandaghi is a great hunter and a clean one. But we must have meat, and it is best not to fire our rifles; in this still air the sound would carry far."

Before he had finished speaking, Little Mink's knife was at work upon the deer's carcass. Within a few minutes the task was completed and they were again on their way.

It was an hour after this when Almayne reined in suddenly and held up his hand to halt the others. They were coming up out of a dense bed of low fern to slightly higher ground where the great pines were supplanted by oaks of even mightier girth; and under

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 these oaks the ground was almost bare of vegetation and the soil was light and sandy. Almayne, bending forward in his saddle, was gazing intently at the sand in front of his horse's fore-feet, while Little Mink, stooping low, was also examining the ground. Lachlan rode forward past Jolie, dismounted, and stooped beside Little Mink, and a moment later Almayne dismounted and walked a few paces to the right, his eyes studying the sand at his left hand.

Jolie waited curiously. The three men talked briefly together, and presently they came toward her. Lachlan was frowning; Almayne's thin face was grave.

"We think it well that you should know," Lachlan said to her. "In the sand yonder are the tracks of a great war party of Cherokees, perhaps three hundred braves. It can mean only one thing—that the Cherokees have begun their threatened war against the Province."

She nodded calmly, inviting him to go on.

"This war party," he continued, "was moving eastward. They left the Great Path to the northward and came through the forest to shorten the way. Probably they struck the Path again near the point where we left the pack train."

"Our friends—Meg Pearson, Mr. O'Sullivan—they are in danger, then?" asked Jolie quickly.

"We can't tell, Mistress," Almayne answered her. "The war party may have missed them. I pray God so."

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 "Little Mink will go back to warn them, if they are still alive," said Lachlan. "We must think of ourselves. Almayne believes that we had best lie for some days in the canebrakes of the Santee and decide later what to do."

"Let us do what you and Almayne think best," Jolie answered. Turning in her saddle, she saw Little Mink striding through the ferns behind her, following the back trail. As she watched, his tall, copper-brown form faded amid the straight trunks of the pines.

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ROM the forest of oak where they had found the tracks of the war party, the land sloped gradually until the oaks thinned and Jolie saw in front of her a solid rampart of tall, dense canes. That rampart seemed impenetrable. So closely set were the straight, smooth stems that no creature larger than a fox could have made its way through them. But Almayne turned to the right, and, before they had ridden fifty yards along the edge of the brake, a path opened before them leading straight into the canes.

Into this narrow opening the hunter led the way. Soon Jolie discovered that the whole canebrake was a labyrinth of winding game-trails, so narrow that there was barely room for a horseman to ride. Underfoot the damp black soil was carpeted with fallen cane leaves; on either side the slender green cane stems walled them in. The sun was still high when they entered the brake, yet here it was already dusk; for the foliage of the canes, meeting over their heads, made a roof many feet thick through which only an occasional shaft of light could penetrate.

The air was still and very hot. The cane leaves above her were motionless, yet on all sides she heard

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 mysterious rustlings, heard or seemed to hear mysterious, furtive footfalls. For a time she saw no creature of any kind, but somehow she knew that all around her was life. Suddenly, to the right and seemingly near at hand, sounded a loud snort, deep-throated, raucous, menacing. Startled, she turned to Lachlan, riding just behind her.

"Buffalo," he whispered. "There are some in these brakes, though the big herds are farther inland."

He listened a moment, his black eyes sparkling. The snorting became a mighty bellow, and Jolie heard hoof-beats and the noise of a heavy body galloping over dead cane leaves.

Lachlan smiled. "There must be another path in there," he said, "running close to this one. A buffalo bull met something in the path—a bear, perhaps, or a wolf—and ordered it out of his way."

The dimness, those eerie rustlings of unseen feet, worked on Jolie's nerves. She had not ridden fifty yards when a piercing scream, again on her right and close at hand, drove the blood from her cheeks. This time it was Almayne who enlightened her. Turning in his saddle, he smiled at her.

"Don't be frightened, Mistress," he said in a low voice, "though I don't wonder if you are. A fox can yell worse than a panther. I think something caught that fellow."

As they advanced, the canes grew larger. They were as tall as small trees now, Jolie thought, although she could not see their tops. At frequent intervals the

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 path that they were following was crossed by other paths or gave off branches to right or left. Before the light grew too dim to see, she had abundant evidence of the cause of those mysterious rustlings. Glancing down the side paths that they crossed, she caught many glimpses of the wild things that walked the shadowy tunnels of the canebrake. Once it was a troop of deer in a path opening to her right; once it was a wild black cow; twice she saw foxes; and once Almayne himself uttered a low exclamation of surprise as Nunda the Moon-Face stopped suddenly with a snort, and a huge dim shape reared itself suddenly upward in the trail ahead.

"Zooks, what a bear!" Almayne muttered, and held his rifle on the beast while Nunda capered under him.

For a moment Jolie was sick with fear. Reared on its hind legs, looming doubly gigantic in the dusk, the creature seemed to fill the opening ahead of them. For perhaps a quarter of a minute it stood thus, and Lachlan, urging his horse forward, crowded past Jolie, his rifle ready. Then the bear dropped on all fours, turned deliberately and ambled off, disappearing at once around a bend of the winding path.

Almayne laughed quietly. "By my soul," he said to Lachlan, "that one was as big as any I ever saw in the Blue Mountains."

As suddenly as they had entered it they emerged from the labyrinth of the canes. Above them now towered a mixed growth of cypress, pine, and gum,

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 gigantic trees, bearded and bannered with Spanish moss. Where the cypress and the gums grew the ground was wet or under water, and here and there they came upon small ponds or lagoons, sometimes open, sometimes densely grown up with trees.

It was late afternoon now, and the light was dimming, though brighter than in the canes. In the still water of the lagoons Jolie saw the huge shapeless heads of alligators, while on the banks and on fallen logs sprawled many saurians, some of them twelve or fifteen feet in length. There were snakes, too, some mottled brown, some coppery red, and terrapins innumerable, and large, wide-winged, ghostly birds that flew without a sound. If that flower-strewn forest through which they had ridden for so many miles had seemed to Jolie the Garden of God, this spectral, reptile-haunted swamp was the borderland of Hell.

Later, when they had made camp on a dry grassy knoll in the heart of this fastness, and the night had shut down, the place seemed more than ever the abode of fiends and of lost souls. Lachlan had told her of the wild music of the beasts in the great low-country swamps, but she had not imagined so fearful a chorus of howls and screams. Almayne and Lachlan made a lean-to of bark and pine boughs for her, and, being very tired, she lay down at once, while the men roasted venison over a small fire; and afterward, with Lachlan standing the first watch, she tried in vain to sleep.

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 She remembered now what Lachlan had told her: that this wilderness which she had found so beautiful had claws and fangs and worse things than these. She thought of Meg Pearson and Jock, and of Mr. O'Sullivan, and of the others with the pack train, unconscious of danger, unaware that suddenly the peaceful woods had swarmed with painted savage foes. She thought of the dangers through which she and her companions must pass before she could reach the place where Gilbert Barradell was held captive. Yes, it was a mad quest; yet even now she was not wholly sorry that she had come because in Charles Town her father awaited her, and the man Falcon, whom she dreaded as she had never dreaded any other man.

Outside near the fire she could see Lachlan sitting motionless, his rifle close beside him, his face lit by the flames. It was a handsome face, she reflected, in spite of its thinness—very handsome, very keen, very strong; but there was something in it of which she was vaguely afraid.

With the voices of the wilderness in her ears and the image of Lachlan's face in her mind, she fell asleep at last.

Jolie awoke to a different world. Already the sun was high above the tree-tops. Instead of the fierce voices of the hunting beasts, the songs of innumerable birds filled the air. In front of her little lean-to the grassy ground sloped gently to the edge of a small

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 lagoon ringed round on both sides and at the back by young cypresses, bright green with the fresh foliage of spring. The placid waters were of a most vivid and beautiful blue; and presently down to the young cypresses bordering them floated a host of milk-white birds, slender, plumed, and graceful. By scores and hundreds they came eddying down from the higher air, crowding the cypresses at the water's edge, covering them so densely that in places they seemed to be mantled with snow.

She lay motionless, listening to the music of the singing birds, watching the scene before her.

Still the wide-winged, immaculate egrets floated down, like giant snowflakes almost as light as air, until all the cypresses were white with them and hundreds stood in the shallow waters around the margins of the blue lagoon. Twice, as she watched, flocks of wild turkeys flew out of the woods on one side of the lagoon into the woods on the other side; and once she heard the shrill screeching of parrakeets and saw a regiment of brilliant green and yellow forms shoot at incredible speed across the open space before her. Above the water a company of fork-tailed kites, as swift and buoyant as swallows, swooped and swerved with marvellous grace in an intricate aerial maze; while along a grassy tongue of land thrusting out from the farther shore a troop of five deer walked slowly down to the water's edge and for some minutes stood there drinking, lifting their heads now and then to gaze curiously across the

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 lagoon at the little lean-to of boughs and bark where Jolie lay watching them.

She had no sense of fear now. The weariness and weakness of the night before had gone. Her long sleep had renewed her strength. That terror of the wilderness which had come upon her had vanished.

She rose presently and emerged from the lean-to. The three horses grazed near by, but of Lachlan and Almayne she saw nothing. She went and talked to the horses.

"Selu," she said, patting the claybank's forehead. "Good boy, Selu! We taught Almayne something yesterday." From him she passed to Nunda, the moon-faced piebald. "You're a good boy, too, old Nunda," she told him, "but you're getting on in years and I'm glad we outran you yesterday because it taught Almayne not to despise me for being a woman."

Tuti the Snowbird, jealous of her attentions, thrust a chestnut nose over the girl's shoulder, and she smiled.

"Poor little Tuti," she whispered, stroking the mare's neck, "you're a pretty lass, but nobody ever notices you because your master is so handsome."

Struck by a sudden thought, she walked down to the water's edge, startling the white birds in clouds. In a battered mirror of Meg Pearson's she had viewed herself in her buckskin costume and had found the image not unsatisfactory. Now she wished to see herself again as Lachlan McDonald saw her, and for

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Page:Joshua Tree National Park Visitor Study - Spring 2004.pdf/5

Joshua Tree NP VSP Visitor Study

This report describes the results of a study of visitors at Joshua Tree NP. This visitor study was conducted from April 3-9, 2004 by the National Park Service (NPS) Visitor Services Project (VSP), a part of the Park Studies Unit at the University of Idaho.

The report is organized into four sections. The Methods section discusses the procedures and limitations of the study. The Results section provides summary information for each question in the questionnaire and includes a summary of visitor comments. An Additional Analysis section is included to help managers request additional analyses. The final section includes a copy of the Questionnaire. The separate appendix includes comment summaries and visitors' unedited comments.

Most of this report’s graphs resemble the example below. The large numbers refer to explanations following the graph.

SAMPLE ONLY

 * 1) The figure title describes the graph's information.
 * 2) Listed above the graph, the “N” shows the number of visitors responding and a description of the chart's information. Interpret data with an “N” of less than 30 with CAUTION! as the results may be unreliable.
 * 3) Vertical information describes categories.
 * 4) Horizontal information shows the number or proportions in each category.
 * 5) In most graphs, percentages provide additional information.


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 some minutes she studied her reflection in the water, finding it, however, but an indifferent looking-glass. She turned away with a smile at her foolish whim, and saw Lachlan and Almayne walking towards her from the woods beyond the lean-to.

She went to meet them. Almayne carried a wild turkey dangling from his left hand, and she noticed with surprise that Lachlan carried not only his rifle but a bow also. She clapped her hands over the gobbler, though declaring it a shame to kill so handsome a bird, and appropriated one of its long tail feathers for her hat; then she exclaimed over Lachlan's bow—a rude weapon made out of a hickory sapling, with a length of thin buckskin as a string.

The swamp turkeys were so tame, Lachlan told her, that it was easy to approach them. Almayne and he had made this bow, with sharpened canes for arrows, because even here in the heart of the swamp the sound of a rifle might betray them to some enemy.

They breakfasted on cold venison, on certain roots which Almayne had prepared in the Indian fashion, and on corn-cakes made from meal, of which both Lachlan and Almayne carried a supply. In high spirits she pronounced it as good a breakfast as any she had ever had in London, and Almayne, obviously pleased, promised her a greater variety when dinner was served. He was telling her of the wild vegetables of the woods and of the fine bass that they could kill in the lagoon with Lachlan's cane arrows when suddenly, in the midst of a sentence, he stopped.

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 He was listening, she knew. She saw the sudden light in his eyes, caught his quick glance at Lachlan, who also was listening, his black eyes bright, his thin lips compressed. She waited, tense, expectant; and in a moment she saw Lachlan nod, and saw Almayne answer with a nod. Lachlan turned towards her.

"That was a logcock calling yonder," he said with a smile, "a logcock that was not really a logcock. It was Little Mink's signal. He is coming."

He made no move, and Almayne, too, sat quiet, munching a corn-cake. They were very sure of this signal, thought Jolie, perhaps too sure. What if they were mistaken? What if some enemy were using Little Mink's call to deceive them?

She saw an Indian emerge from the woods. At that distance she could not be sure of his identity. Close behind him appeared a horseman, and a half-smothered cry burst from her. The man on horseback was Lance Falcon.

Lachlan and Almayne were on their feet. She heard the hunter's oath of amazement, saw Lachlan leap for his rifle and halt midway. The Indian walking in front of Falcon had raised his hand above his head, palm outward. She saw now that the Indian was Little Mink; and now behind Falcon she saw another horseman whose great shock of white hair told her at once that he was Mr. O'Sullivan. Behind O'Sullivan walked the other Muskogee, Striking Hawk.

They came on slowly. Almayne's face was still

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 blank with amazement; Lachlan was frowning. Jolie stepped swiftly to his side.

"Mr. McDonald," she said quickly, "there is one thing that I wish you to remember. I fear Captain Falcon even more than I loathe him and I loathe him as I have never loathed any living man."

She was standing beside Lachlan when the four who had come out of the forest halted in front of them. It was O'Sullivan who spoke the first word.

"Thank God, you are safe," he said soberly. "They attacked the pack train. Meg and Jock and four more are dead; the others are fled towards Charles Town."

He paused and glanced at Falcon, sitting erect and self-contained on his big roan, his brown head bare, his white shirt open at the throat, his bold eyes fixed on Jolie Stanwicke's face.

Mr. O'Sullivan frowned.

"I owe my life to this man," he said shortly, nodding towards Falcon. "I ask you all to bear that fact in mind."

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R. O'SULLIVAN told them the story: how Falcon and himself had fought; how the Indians had attacked; how Jock Pearson had been killed by an arrow; how Meg had ridden madly into the midst of their foes; how Falcon had pulled him down upon the ground and thus had saved him; how Falcon and he had dashed for the horses and escaped. He told of their meeting with Striking Hawk, who, after sounding his panther signal to give warning of Falcon's approach, had circled through the woods and thus had avoided the Cherokee war party; and finally he told of how Little Mink had found them. Throughout the narrative, Falcon sat silent on his horse, his arrogant eyes seldom straying from Jolie's face; and when the tale was finished, there were tears on Jolie's cheeks, Almayne was cursing softly, and Lachlan's black eyes were smouldering above lips that were, tight and stern.

Almayne was the first to speak.

"Jock was my good friend," he said, "and Ugly Meg was worth a dozen ordinary women. But that's past. We can't help them now."

His gray-blue eyes rested a moment on Falcon's face.

"Mr. O'Sullivan," said he briskly, "you tell us

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 that this man, Falcon, saved your life. Maybe that's true, but he did it to save his own skin. If the Cherokees had seen you standing there, they'd have rushed you, and they'd have got his scalp as well as yours."

Falcon's cool, insolent smile broadened.

"I have already pointed that out to Mr. O'Sullivan," he said quietly. "Mr. O'Sullivan owes me nothing."

"That's settled, then," continued Almayne, with evident satisfaction. "In that case, I shall ask Captain Falcon to let me have his sword, after which he can go for a little walk in the woods with Striking Hawk and Little Mink."

Jolie failed for an instant to catch the meaning of the hunter's words. Suddenly their grim significance came to her, and her breath quickened. Sick with horror, she glanced at Almayne and saw the deadly purpose in his eyes. Hitherto she had not once looked at Falcon. Now her eyes, as though some irresistible fascination compelled them, sought his face.

His smile had faded. Perhaps from his tanned, florid cheeks a little of the blood had drained. The half-contemptuous, half-whimsical insolence was gone from his eyes. Yet while she watched, the smile came back and the dark eyes under their over-hanging brows gleamed with sudden fire.

"I thank you, friend Almayne," he said dryly in his deep voice, "but I am not in the humour for a woodland ramble from which I should never return.

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 You are five to one here. If you want my sword, come and take it."

Mr. O'Sullivan opened his lips to speak, but a gesture from Lachlan checked him. Lachlan drew Almayne aside, spoke earnestly in his ear. Jolie studied the hunter's frowning face, heard his grumbled remonstrance: "We've got the damned rattlesnake. Why not mash his head? If we don't we'll be sorry." She saw him spread his hands at last in reluctant acquiescence. Lachlan stepped back into the circle, and stood facing Falcon.

"Captain Falcon," he said, "we are six men and one woman in a country alive with enemies. I believe that I can rely on you to do your part in defending that woman from the dangers that surround her. I shall expect you to obey my orders and those of Almayne, and at the first sign of disobedience or treachery we shall shoot you instantly."

The old insolence flared in Falcon's eyes again. He bowed low to Lachlan.

"Mr. Lachlan McDonald," his deep voice boomed, "there was a time not long since when you served me faithfully and well aboard my brig. I engage, upon the honour of a soldier, and for the sake of this sweet lady, to obey you as faithfully now as you obeyed me then."

He swung down from his horse, turned his back towards Lachlan, as though the matter were ended, walked to where Jolie Stanwicke stood and bent low before her.

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 "Have you no greeting for me, lady?" he asked. "Is it not fitting that the latest recruit in your service should win some slight word of acknowledgment from your lips?"

Jolie stood silent, her eyes averted, her lips twitch ing. He waited, his head still bent, his mouth still curved in a smile. The silence lengthened. Slowly the blood mounted to his face; his hand resting on his sword-hilt tightened till the long fingers pressed deep into the flesh of his palm. A quiver ran through his frame as though uncontrollable passion shook it. But all at once he straightened and looked her in the eyes, his smile as arrogant as ever, no trace of embarrassment in his manner or his countenance.

"I shall not hold it against you, lady," he cried with a laugh. "I shall pray for a chance to prove that your newest recruit is worthy of reward."

They remained for three days in their green meadow in the heart of Great Santee. In front of Jolie's lean-to, on the evening of the third day, they held a council of war. Almayne was for staying where they were, and then, when the way was safe, returning to Charles Town. Falcon seconded this policy. Lachlan and Mr. Francis O'Sullivan were silent because both had been watching Jolie's face while Almayne had been speaking. When the hunter had outlined their position as he saw it, and Falcon had supported his proposal, Jolie spoke to Almayne:

"If there were no woman with you?" she asked

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 quietly, "would you fear to push on through the inner country of the Cherokees to the place where Gilbert Barradell is a prisoner?"

"It would be dangerous, Mistress," the hunter answered. "But I think we could get through."

"Have you complaint to make," she continued, "of the woman you have with you—of her strength, of her courage? Has she been faint in the face of danger? Has she lagged and delayed your flight when it was necessary to flee?"

"By Zooks!" Almayne exclaimed, "she has proved herself brave and strong and I will bear witness that she can ride."

"And if she prefers to face the dangers that lie ahead rather than those that await her in Charles Town, will you go on with her upon this quest—and you, Mr. McDonald, and you, Mr. O'Sullivan?"

The hunter pursed his lips. "You may not understand, Mistress," he said gently, "the fate that would befall you if we were taken by the Indians."

"I do understand it," her eyes looked straight into his, "and I am not afraid."

She rose and stood before them, her cheeks pale, her eyes wide and shining, her silken, golden-red hair a halo of glory in the slanting sunlight—a slim, boyish figure in her embroidered buckskin jacket belted in at the waist and her fringed leggins—a boyish figure, yet the loveliest woman that any of the four men before her had ever seen.

"Oh, I know I am selfish," she cried, "I should

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 not ask you to go on, to venture your lives for me. But I do ask it. I ask you to help me go to Gilbert Barradell. I ask it of you, James Almayne; of you, Lachlan McDonald; and of you, Mr. O'Sullivan."

There was nothing of tragedy in her tone, nothing that was theatrical; only a quiet dignity, a profound and solemn earnestness. It was this that moved them more than her words. She read their answers in their faces; but it was Falcon who spoke first.

"You do not ask it of me, lady," he said in his deep voice, his glowing eyes fixed upon her, "yet I will go."

Almayne eyed him, frowning.

"You will go," growled the hunter, "because the rest of us are going, and if we turned you loose in these woods, your life would not be worth tuppence."

"Lady," said Falcon calmly, "I have observed that our friend Almayne is somewhat lacking in the polish that marks the intercourse of gentlemen. Later, perhaps, I shall give him a lesson in manners."

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T GRAY dawn they started. Almayne on Nunda the Moon-Face held the lead, with Little Mink striding just behind him. Jolie rode next, then O'Sullivan, then Falcon, with Lachlan and Striking Hawk in the rear. By the same tortuous way which had brought them to the grassy knoll in the heart of the swamp, Almayne led them back to the inner edge of the great canebrake. Into the brake they plunged and for miles rode onward through the canes, following the dim, winding paths, seeing no sign of man but only the wild creatures that made and used those sinuous byways.

Night found them still in the canes; that night and the next night and the next. It was Almayne's plan to follow the canebrake inland as far as possible, because inits shelter they would be safer than in the open parklike forest. This lengthened their journey greatly, for the canebrake game-paths were never straight but wound in and out like serpents, crossing and recrossing one another, dividing, rejoining, and dividing again. The brake extended inland for perhaps two hundred miles, following the winding of the river. In an unbroken evergreen belt, from half a mile to a mile or more in width, it bordered the river swamp from

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Page:Joshua Tree National Park Visitor Study - Spring 2004.pdf/6

Joshua Tree NP VSP Visitor Study

All VSP questionnaires follow design principles outlined in Don A. Dillman's book Mail and Internet Surveys: The Tailored Design Method (2000). The Joshua Tree NP questionnaire was developed at a workshop held with park staff to design and prioritize the questions. Some of the questions were comparable with VSP studies conducted at other parks; others were customized for Joshua Tree NP.

Interviews were conducted, and 700 questionnaires were distributed to a sample of visitor groups who arrived at Joshua Tree NP during the period from April 39, 2004. Table 1 presents the questionnaire distribution locations. These locations were selected by park staff and the proportion of questionnaires distributed was based on park visitation statistics.

Visitor groups were greeted, briefly introduced to the purpose of the study, and asked to participate. If visitors agreed, an interview lasting approximately two minutes was used to determine group size, group type, and the age of the adult who would complete the questionnaire. These individuals were then asked for their names, addresses, and telephone numbers in order to mail them a reminder/thank you postcard.

Visitor groups were given a questionnaire and asked to complete it after their visit and then return it by mail. The questionnaires were pre-addressed and postage paid.

Two weeks following the survey, a reminder/thank you postcard was mailed to all participants. Replacement questionnaires were mailed to participants who had not returned their questionnaires four weeks after the survey. Seven weeks after the survey, a second round of replacement questionnaires were mailed to visitors who still had not returned their questionnaires.


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 the tidewater country near the sea to the Santee's sources high among the hills.

Day after day they threaded their shadowy labyrinth. Almayne, moody and preoccupied at first, grew more and more cheerful as mile after mile of their journey passed and still they saw no sign of an enemy. To Jolie this vast cane thicket with its teeming life was scarcely less wonderful than the forest had been; but she grew weary of its dimness, of its hushed, furtive noises, of its endless leagues of smooth straight stems hedging her in on either side, and of the green roof of cane foliage meeting overhead and shutting out the sun. She knew that the most dangerous stage of their journey would come when they left the canebrake amid the foothills; yet she was eager for that time to come.

It came at last. The brake was much narrower, the canes were of smaller girth, and the river had dwindled to a crystal-clear, swift-flowing creek. They turned aside from it at a point where a splendid beech wood came down to the edge of the stream; and for miles they rode through a noble forest where nothing save beeches grew, clothing every hill and valley—for they were now in the rolling lands of the upper country—casting so deep a shade that no undergrowth subsisted under them.

The stately beech forest merged into an even statelier one of oak, hickory, ash, walnut, and many other broad-leafed trees beneath which they saw herds of grazing deer and many flocks of turkeys, while in

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 the sunnier places the ground was spangled with wild flowers and everywhere the air was vocal with bird songs. Now and again the woods fell away and they skirted small forest-encircled prairies, green with grass and wild pea-vine; and in these prairies they saw not only deer in great numbers but bands of elk, small herds of shaggy buffalo, scattered troops of wild horses and lesser animals of many kinds.

Always, as they rode onward, the hills around them grew higher. From those hilltops, but for the forest that mantled them, the high rampart of the Blue Mountains, the easternmost ridge of the Appalachians, might have been seen looming against the northern sky. They were in the heart of the Cherokee country now—the country of the Erati or Lower Cherokees, who held the foothills, even as their kindred, the Otari or Upper Cherokees, held the mountains themselves.

There was danger everywhere, every moment. Erati and Otari, blood brothers of an ancient and powerful nation, were allies in this war against the Province. Almayne knew the country as well as he knew the palm of his hand, knew every Indian village in it, every hunting trail, every buffalo path. Thanks to this knowledge and to his woodcraft he kept them safe. But again and again the hunter saw signs of their enemies, signs that were plain enough to Lachlan also and to the two Muskogee warriors; and again and again he turned aside from routes that he had planned to follow, abandoning them because he saw

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 that the danger was too great. Slowly the conviction grew upon him that he was attempting the impossible and that they were likely to pay for their boldness with their lives.

Jolie knew nothing of this. There was no need to tell her. Not until mid-afternoon of their second day among the foothills did she know. Almayne raised his hand then as a signal to halt, beckoned Lachlan to come to him, and for some minutes the two talked earnestly together. Lachlan returned to Jolie presently, nodding to the others at the same time so that they might hear what was to be said.

"Almayne believes," he told them, "that we cannot reach Fort Prince George now. There are enemies on every side, and it would be equally dangerous to return. We must do what we did in Great Santee—find a safe place and wait there for a time."

"And where, lad, shall we find a safe refuge?" Mr. O'Sullivan asked him.

"Almayne knows of one," Lachlan answered, "the peak of Sani'gilagi. He thinks we may gain it, and he thinks it is our best hope."

He turned to Jolie. "Can you ride all night?" he asked.

She smiled at him bravely.

"I think that I was never so strong or so well," she replied. "I think that this wilderness of yours is transmuting me into a man."

"God forbid!" exclaimed Mr. O'Sullivan fervently; and "God forbid!" Lachlan echoed him, then flushed

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 to the roots of his hair upon realizing that he had spoken the words aloud.

She flashed him a smile that was like a miracle. In his mind all else was blotted out—the invisible enemies around them, the peril in which they stood. To the last of his days he was to remember her as she was at that moment—sitting at ease on Selu's back, her buckskin jacket open at the throat, her broad hat with its jaunty feather pushed back above her red-gold hair. Lachlan turned from her with a pounding in his ears and a mist swimming before his eyes.

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HEY will say, down yonder," Almayne remarked thoughtfully, "that the Thunder God is sleeping on his sacred mountain and that he has drawn his white buffalo robe over him so that the sun may not shine upon his face."

He sat, with Jolie Stanwicke and Lachlan McDonald, upon the brow of a great precipice of rock. How high that precipice was Jolie could only guess, for below them a white blanket of mist shut the world from her view. She knew only that they were on the summit of a lofty mountain whichf Almayne called Sani'gilagi, and that the dangers that had encompassed them were past.

They had ridden, without pause or rest, all of the previous day and all of that night. Before the darkness came upon them the hills had changed to mountains. At sunset, to Almayne's and Lachlan's great joy, a rain had set in, and for hours they had ridden on through a drenching downpour, while thunder rolled and crashed around them and vivid flashes of lightning lit the forest. A cape of some thin leatherlike material, which Lachlan had carried under his saddle, kept Jolie dry. Save when the lightning flashed, the blackness was impenetrable; yet Almayne had

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 led them on and on without a halt, along a winding ascending way through interminable woods.

She was too weary to ask questions, too weary even to wonder why they would be safe on that mountain with the fantastic name which they were seeking as a refuge. She did not know when, after hours of riding, they began the ascent of the mountain itself. By that time she was asleep on her horse's back; and she did not know that Little Mink and Striking Hawk, walking on either side of her, had held her in her saddle as Selu struggled up the steep slope. Nor was she aware of it when, late in the night, after the rain had ceased, they reached the summit.

It was noon of the next day when she awoke, to find herself lying under a shelter of bark and hemlock boughs built against a rock.

All this now seemed strangely remote. She had eaten and had swallowed some strong rum, of which Almayne had a little left, but she was still desperately tired; and for an hour or more she had Iain in the sun above the precipice's brow while the men busied themselves in various ways some few yards behind her.

Slowly her strength returned and her mind, drugged with fatigue, awoke from its lethargy. She moved as close to the edge of the precipice as she dared and looked down and out; but she could see below her only clouds and mist. She caught Lachlan's eye and beckoned him, and when he came to her, Almayne came with him, and the two sat beside her near the

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 edge of the cliff. She learned from them where they were and what had happened since she fell asleep; then, because by now she knew Almayne's moods, she waited for him to tell her more.

He sat silent for a while, puffing at his pipe. Then, as though talking to himself, he muttered:

"Old mountain, I know every inch of you. Lord, Lord, the times I've had in the valley down yonder—the hunts with Corane the Raven and Sinnawa the Hawk's-Head warrior, and old moon-faced Nunda who looks so much like my horse that I named the pony after him."

He turned to Jolie with a short laugh.

"You will wonder, Mistress, why we are here. I will tell you now about Sani'gilagi, the mountain of the Thunder God, and about Aganuntsi, the Great Conjurer of the Overhills."

For some moments he smoked silently. Presently he took the pipe from his mouth and with it made a sweeping gesture, taking in the whole horizon.

"When the mist clears," he said, "you will see below you and all around you the kingdom of the Cherokees. You will see a wilderness of mountains, the fairest wilderness this side of Paradise—range after range and peak after peak, and valleys sweeter than any in England, and all covered over with noble forest, the end of which no Englishman has ever seen. Oh, it is a grand kingdom, none grander upon earth, and it is alive with game. Lachlan, here, loves his sunny land of Tallasee, far to the southward and

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 westward of these mountains, and that is a sweet land, too, and there is good hunting in it and warriors equal to the Cherokees' best. But if, like Lachlan's father, I should become an Indian king some day, I should ask nothing better than to be king of these Overhills.

"That is what the Cherokees call these mountains, Mistress—the Overhills—though I think the name rightfully belongs only to the great range that the traders sometimes call the Smokies. I know the Cherokees well. I have lived with them and hunted with them and I have fought them, and they are good hunters and good warriors. From end to end of the Overhills James Almayne is known, and he has friends in many villages and enemies, too. I have sat at the right hand of their old chief, Moytoy of Tellico, and of their new chief, Atta-Kulla-Kulla. I have followed the war trail with Occonostota, their greatest war captain, and I have hunted with Corane the Raven and Yonah the Bear and Wayah the Wolf and many others. All these are my friends; yet, because there is now war with the English, any of these would kill me to-day if the chance came. But my closest friend among them is Aganuntsi, the Groundhog's Mother (though he is a man), the Great Conjurer of the Overhills.

"I will tell you about this Aganuntsi, Mistress, the sharpest rascal in the Overhills and my very good friend.

"Once, on a long hunt far over on Ocona Lufta, I saved the life of Aganuntsi's son when a big bear had

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 the boy down. That was the beginning. Aganuntsi made me his blood-brother then, and since then the bond has tightened. He was a hunter as well as a wizard until he grew too old to hunt, and I hunted with him often and a strong friendship grew between us."

Almayne rose, walked to the edge of the precipice and pointed downward with his pipe.

"Down there," he said, "right under us in a deep valley is a Cherokee town that they call Sequilla. You will see it when the clouds lift. That is where Aganuntsi lives. He is now the Chief Conjurer of all the mountain tribes, and we owe our lives to his rascality."

The hunter laughed and came and sat beside them again.

"I will tell you why," he said, as he refilled his pipe.

"Long ago Aganuntsi made up his mind that he needed a mountain of his own where he could concoct his deviltries in secret. In the Cherokee myths, the stories that the old men had handed down, Sani'gilagi was the home of the Thunder God, the Red Man of the Lightning. Aganuntsi said that Sani'gilagi was the home also of Tsulkalu, the Master of Game, a slant-eyed invisible giant who strides about over the mountains and of whom all the Cherokees are afraid. And he said that Tsulkalu had told him to warn all the Indian hunters not to kill game on Sani'gilagi because the game there was his. Two Cherokee hunters who did not believe him were

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 killed mysteriously not far from the summit, and after that all the others believed him, so that now no Cherokee dares hunt up here and very few ever come here except Aganuntsi himself. He comes sometimes, with a great panther that he has tamed, to gather roots for his magic medicines and to talk to Tsulkalu, so he says, but it is a rare thing for any of the others to come, because they are afraid to hunt on this mountain and they seldom go where they cannot hunt."

Almayne turned to Jolie with a grin.

"So you see now, Mistress, why we came to Sani'gilagi when it got too hot for us down yonder. So long as they do not see us from the valley, we are fairly safe on this mountain top."

She nodded, her eyes bright, for his tale had fascinated her strangely.

"And if Aganuntsi himself comes?" she asked, "will he betray us?"

"Once, years ago," Almayne answered, "when there was war, I was coming with two pack ponies loaded with fine beaver skins from the country of the Chicasaws. I did not know that there was war with the Cherokees, and they surprised me and took my pelts and killed my horse. I got away with an arrow through my arm, and I managed to throw them off the track and got up here, but the wound mortified and I was very sick. By luck, Aganuntsi found me. He healed my wound, and brought me food, and my scalp is still where I like to wear it."

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 He stretched his long arms lazily and yawned.

"Come," he said, "the mists are lifting. We can see something now."

A few paces from the brink of the precipice he halted them.

"They have sharp eyes," he explained. "If we stand on the edge against the sky line, they might see us from down yonder."

They stood where they could see everything, yet could not be seen. Almayne waved his hand in a wide gesture.

"The Kingdom of the Cherokees," he said.

Jolie stood silent, her eyes wide with wonder, her bosom heaving. Nothing in her past experience had prepared her for such a spectacle, for the little hills of Hampshire were pygmies beside this mountain. The grandeur of what she saw took her breath; the beauty of it benumbed her mind and paralyzed her tongue; the vastness of it filled her with something that was like terror.

The cloud blanket beneath them had disappeared except a few drifting fragments which melted as she gazed. Spread beneath her now she saw a blue hazy world of hills and valleys and mountains billowing to the horizon, while, directly in front, her gaze dropped down, down, down—down through space that seemed unfathomable to a deep wide valley which the long humped ridge of Sani'gilagi partly encircled like a wall. There was a clearing in this valley, she noticed; but except this one clearing, which resembled a tiny

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 lake of vivid green, all the valley floor was clothed in forest, while the great mountains looming beyond—mountains that seemed as huge as Sani'gilagi itself—were mantled with forest to their rounded summits, where wisps of white cloud still clung. Beyond these again rose other mountains, range upon range, as far as her eye could see, their dim outlines merging at last with the blue of the sky; and over all these also the forest lay, blue as the sea except where it darkened to purple beneath the shadow of some drifting cloud, unending, illimitable, continuous as the sea itself.

"The Kingdom of the Cherokees," Almayne repeated. "The Empire of the Overhills. What do you think of it, Mistress?"

She did not answer. A faint sound had come to her, a sound so faint that at first she was not sure it was a sound—a strange, low throbbing. Faint as it was, it caught and held her attention instantly; for there was something in it that was compelling and insistent, something cruel and menacing. She listened keenly, and so low was it that for a moment she believed it to be only the beating of her own heart or the pulsing of blood in her ears; but, glancing at Lachlan, she knew that he also heard it and that Almayne, too, was listening.

"The war drums," said the hunter slowly. "They are beating the war drums down in Aganuntsi's town."

He pointed to the green clearing in the valley far

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Joshua Tree NP VSP Visitor Study

Returned questionnaires were coded and the information was entered into a computer using a standard statistical software package—Statistical Analysis System (SAS). Frequency distribution and cross-tabulations were calculated for the coded data, and responses to open-ended questions were categorized and summarized.

This study collected information on both visitor groups and individual group members. Thus, the sample size ("N") varies from figure to figure. For example, while Figure 1 shows information for 516 visitor groups, Figure 3 presents data for 1,625 individuals. A note above each graph or table specifies the information illustrated.

Occasionally, a respondent may not have answered all of the questions, or may have answered some incorrectly. Unanswered questions result in missing data and cause the number in the sample to vary from figure to figure. For example, although Joshua Tree NP visitors returned 525 questionnaires, Figure 1 shows data for only 516 respondents.

Questions answered incorrectly due to carelessness, misunderstanding directions, and so forth turn up in the data as reporting errors. These create small data inconsistencies.

Like all surveys, this study has limitations that should be considered when interpreting the results.

 * 1) It is not possible to know whether visitor responses reflect actual behavior. This disadvantage applies to all such studies and is reduced by having visitors fill out the questionnaire soon after they visit the park.
 * 2) The data reflect visitor use patterns of visitors to the selected sites during the study period of April 3-9, 2004. The results do not necessarily apply to visitors during other times of the year.
 * 3) Caution is advised when interpreting any data with a sample size of less than 30, as the results may be unreliable. Whenever the sample size is less than 30, the word "CAUTION!" is included in the graph, figure, or table.


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 below. Watching it closely, Jolie saw that there were many dark spots in it, which were huts or houses, because from some of them thin columns of smoke curled upward.

"The war drums," Almayne muttered again, as though talking to himself. "I've heard them a hundred times, but I hate the sound of them still."

Jolie shivered. She stepped quickly back, moving farther from the precipice's edge. She had a strange feeling that eyes had been watching her from that distant clearing in the valley under them and that the war drums were beating because those eyes had seen her.

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FTEN, during the days that followed, Jolie sat above the brow of the great precipice at the summit of Sani'gilagi and gazed down at the Cherokee town in the vale of Sequilla far below; and often she heard faintly the throbbing of the war drums there. A feeling of wonder would come to her then, a vague sense of unreality. Around her as far as her eye could see spread the blue and purple panorama of the mountains. Day after day the serene loveliness of it sank into her soul. It was beauty inconceivable; it was peace beyond understanding. Surely it was past belief that this blue and purple paradise swarmed with savage and relentless foes.

Yet she knew that it was so. Morning and midday and evening she heard the war drums throb. On the second day Almayne was gone for hours, not on Nunda the Moon-Face this time, but on foot; and when he returned, he brought word that the forest all around Sani'gilagi was alive with enemies.

From the towns of the Smokies and beyond; from Tellico, from Choti, from Nikwasi and the towns of the Tlanuwa Rock and of War Woman Valley; from Cullowhee and Tanasi and Waginsi and Kanuga and Notteley; from the towns of Ocona Lufta and the

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Joshua Tree NP VSP Visitor Study

Weather conditions during the visitor study were typical April weather for the Joshua Tree NP area which was mostly cool or slightly breezy with sunny to partly cloudy days.


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 place of the Wounded Bears; from the towns of the high Nantahalas and of Ukwuni and Estatoee; from the towns of the Racing River and of Wolf Creek and of Vengeance Creek; from the ancient town of Toxawa, the Town of the Shedding of Tears; from the towns beyond Butting Buffalo Ridge and the Ridge of the Earless Warrior and the Defile of the Wolves; from the towns of the Chopped Oak and the Pretty Fawn and the Daring Horseman; from Nacoochee and Toccoa and Tallulah and Gusti and Tikwalitsi war parties had come and the forest was dotted with their camps, while their hunters roamed the woods in every direction in search of game. Almayne had never before seen so great a concentration of warriors, so ceaseless a movement of war parties along the mountain trails.

It was the same story day after day. Sometimes Almayne went scouting, sometimes Lachlan, but as a rule they relied for this service upon the two Muskogee braves, Striking Hawk and Little Mink. There was one day when Lachlan was gone from dawn to sunset. Toward mid-afternoon Mr. O'Sullivan sat himself down beside Jolie and found her strangely preoccupied, her eyes intent upon an opening between two rocks through which passed the trail leading down the mountain side. She grew more restless as the shadows lengthened, and twice she went to Almayne and questioned him concerning Lachlan's absence. Again and again that afternoon she was aware that Falcon was watching her; and when, just

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 at dusk, she saw Lachlan's buckskin-clad figure framed in the opening between the two rocks, the blood mounted to her face because she knew that Falcon's eyes were fixed upon her.

They had, made for Jolie a palace on their mountain top—a hut of boughs and bark built against a rock; and they had floored this palace with mosses and with hemlock branches over which were spread saddle blankets and the clean-scraped skins of deer, skins made sweet and soft by a process known to the two Muskogee braves. On either side of the hut were the rough shelters in which the others slept; and in front of these they cooked their food over a fire so made that almost no smoke rose from it. Fifty yards away was the brink of the precipice; and it was the rule of the camp that no one should show himself by daylight at the edge of the cliff.

There was another rule strictly observed—that no gun should be fired. Yet they never lacked meat. Within a day of their arrival on Sani'gilagi, the two Muskogees had made for themselves and for Lachlan and Almayne locust bows and hickory arrows that were not of the best but that served their purpose; and thanks to Aganuntsi the Conjurer, who had forbidden his tribesmen to hunt on Sani'gilagi, the mountain swarmed with game.

With their arrows and with traps of deer-sinew which Lachlan constructed, they could kill within a few hundred yards of their camp squirrels, rabbite, turkeys, ruffed grouse and an occasional deer. On

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 these, and on certain roots and vegetables of the woods, in the preparation of which Almayne was marvellously expert, they lived well; while a clear, cold spring bubbling from the mountain side a few hundred yards down the wooded northern slope provided an abundance of water. Near this spring, in a small natural meadow in the woods, the horses grazed.

The days lengthened, and still Almayne and Lachlan were agreed that it would be madness to leave their refuge. Around them buzzed a hornets' nest. In the region about Sani'gilagi the principal strength of the Cherokee nation was assembled. From this part of the mountain country Fort Prince George in the foothills was within easy reach. The Fort had undoubtedly been under siege since the outbreak of the war, Almayne asserted, and the Overhill Cherokees had concentrated here in the southeastern corner of the Blue Mountains to support the warriors of the Lower Towns who were investing the Fort.

There were times when Jolie gew impatient, but she was dimly aware that the edge of her impatience had been dulled. Somehow she did not find this fact a thing to ponder over. Her mood, her environment, the life they led on the mountain did not encourage introspection. It was not only when the war drums throbbed faintly in the valley below that life seemed tinged with unreality. Over her whole existence that tinge of unreality seemed to have spread. Often it deepened until all this that she was living through seemed a dream.

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 And it was not wholly, or even mainly, an evil dream. There were moments when she was afraid, moments when anxiety gnawed at her, moments when she was obsessed with sudden yearning to resume instantly in the face of all dangers the quest for Gilbert Barradell. But she was aware with a languid surprise that in general she was happy. Her faculty of self-analysis seemed to have vanished and she had neither the will nor the power to examine her mood and seek out causes. She knew only that in after years—if for her there were to be any after years—she would not look back upon those days on Sani'gilagi with horror.

Her contentment was not the contentment of ignorance; she knew all that there was to know. The men kept nothing from her. She knew that perhaps weeks would pass before they could resume their journey towards the place where they believed Barradell to be. She knew that while they might remain for weeks on Sani'gilagi without being discovered by the enemies swarming in the forest below, there was, on the other hand, always the danger of discovery.

Yet, though she was aware of all this, though day after day the distant throbbing of the war drums served as a grim reminder of the peril which surrounded her, her mind refused to dwell upon these things. There was something in her, something profound and elemental, that responded quickly to the spell of the wilderness. She had loved it from the beginning. Though she had learned its deadly ruth-

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 lessness, she loved it more than ever now; its beauty, its vastness, its wildness, its teeming, marvellous life. Its magic had conquered many men who, once having known it, could not be content anywhere else. Now that magic was at work upon Jolie Stanwicke; and more and more often, when her thoughts went back to the little fields and the quiet hedgerows of England, she wondered how she could find contentment there again.

And there was something even deeper than this magic of the wilderness. These men with whom her lot was cast in this strange adventure—three of them had become a part of herself, her mind, her soul. O'Sullivan, with his quick humour, his infectious smile, his bird's voice and his stout heart, his sprightly tales of the days when he was a fencing master in Paris, his light love songs, and his beautiful and noble stories of the ancients, of Great Olympus and the golden age of Greece and Rome; Almayne, in appearance a rude wilderness hunter, blunt, hard as flint, irritable at times, pitiless towards his enemies, scornful of all softness, yet a man of fine texture under his rough exterior and—now that she had conquered his antagonism—as tender to her as a kinsman; Lachlan McDonald. . ..

So it was no pale, drooping flower that bloomed on the rocky summit of Sani'gilagi above the miasma of war which was spread over all the wilderness below. The girl who had come so strangely to live for a time

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 on that grim mountain with danger all around her was no sick-hearted, trembling, pitiful creature wringing the hearts of her companions with the spectacle of her distress. Jolie was, or seemed to be, the lightest-hearted of them all. Once, in Marshall's tavern in Charles Town, Almayne had told Lachlan that she was proud and perverse and ill tempered. Perhaps he had found her so in those days when his own dislike of her had been very plain. Now, he was her slave.

Over them all she reigned as a queen. They served her because they loved her—each in his own way, they loved her. Between Falcon's dark burning passion for her and Almayne's deep joy in her lay a vast gulf. Perhaps as great a gulf separated the love that Mr. O'Sullivan bore her and the love that had been born in Lachlan McDonald for this Lady Sanguilla, as he still called her in his thoughts.

She was brave, so brave that her courage was a continuing marvel to them all. She was gay; and they wondered what this gayety must cost her who was like a caged bird unable to fly to the mate she loved. Even to Lance Falcon she was courteous, almost kind, and three of them knew that this cost her much, and they praised her in their thoughts for the spirit that enabled her thus to conquer her loathing.

And she was beautiful. She was more beautiful, they thought, during those days on Sani'gilagi, than she had ever been before. Her buckskin suit was stained and faded now, its bright embroideries

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 obliterated by dust. Her wide hat was spotted and shapeless. Her olive skin had burned almost as brown as the skin of an Indian girl. But these things took nothing from her beauty—indeed the darkening of her skin enhanced her loveliness, enriching the colour of her cheeks, causing her eyes to appear even more brilliant than they had been; and her red-gold hair seemed to them more brilliant, too, as though the bright sunshine of the wilderness had burnished and refined it.

Lachlan McDonald, watching Lance Falcon keenly, saw that the man was drunk with the beauty of this girl; knew that he himself was intoxicated with the same heady wine; knew that he loved Jolie Stanwicke and hated Gilbert Barradell.

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HERE was a spot on the ridge of Sani'gilagi, a little beyond the camp, where Jolie loved to sit in the late afternoons. It was shaded by trees of no great size but densely foliaged; and on one side, down the wooded slope to the west, opened a long glade hedged in by the woods, while to the east she could view the deep valley of Sequilla and the great mountains that rose beyond.

There was an hour when there was magic in this spot. It was the hour when the wild creatures of the mountain awakened from their midday rest and moved about again; the hour when the wood thrushes began the prelude to that celestial evening chorus with which each day they heralded the going-down of the sun; the hour when the slanting sun-rays, streaming down into the valley far below and bathing the wooded heights beyond it, seemed to magnify all objects within range of her vision so that she could see them more distinctly than at any other time.

Almayne had found this spot for her. It was so near the camp that he considered it safe for her to sit there alone; and he remembered it well because he had spent long hours there when, in the earlier

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 Cherokee war, he had remained for weeks wounded and sick on Sani'gilagi. He had pointed out to her a small opening in the forest clothing the valley under them and had told her that if she watched it, she would see sometimes a thin, dark line drawn across it. A buffalo road, the main highway of the herds travelling back and forth across the barrier of the Blue Mountains, crossed that opening," he said, and when she saw that thin, dark line, she would know that buffalo were passing.

She saw the dark line twice. She saw, too, great flocks of wild turkeys come flying in above the valley to their roost on the mountain side some distance farther down the ridge. In the shadowy glade sloping down to her left, aglow with flame azalea and pink kalmia, she often saw deer come silently out of the woods and graze quietly, unaware of her presence, while all around her and on the slopes below her the wood thrushes sang. And from this spot she saw also many other things: the changing light upon the valley and the heights beyond as the sun sank lower; the smaller creatures of the woods, foxes and rabbits and squirrels and striped brown chipmunks, which, as evening approached, came out of the surrounding forest into the open glade on her left hand.

She loved to sit here in this secret place and watch the life around her; yet often her eyes saw nothing of what was before her because her thoughts were elsewhere—in England, perhaps, or in Charles Town, or in the distant Indian town where Gilbert Barradell

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 was a captive. Strangely, it seemed, her mind would then revert to what Lachlan had told her about the Indian girls—that many of them were beautiful; and always, when her thoughts had taken this channel, they led her quickly to one Indian girl, an Indian girl whom she had never seen—that mysterious daughter of Chief Concha, the Appalache, who held Gilbert Barradell prisoner.

A dozen times she had been on the point of questioning Lachlan further—to get him to tell her exactly what Falcon had said about Concha's daughter during their interview in the Good Fortune's cabin. Yet she had never done so; and she knew now that she never would. When she had first questioned Lachlan about the matter, it had led to a quarrel. She was strangely unwilling to mention the subject to him again.

One afternoon, when Jolie sat alone in this retreat on the crest of the ridge just beyond and below the camp, she saw a sight that brought her instantly back to the living present. Out from the trees in front of her, not twenty feet away, walked a great panther, the largest that she had ever seen.

The beast did not pause. Slowly, noiselessly it came on, its pale eyes fixed upon her face, its long tail held high above its back. She could not move, she could not cry out. Utter terror held her rigid, dumb.

Ten paces from her the panther stopped and stood motionless; and suddenly she was aware that behind

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 the panther in the shadow of the trees stood a man.

For an eternity she waited. Then he stepped into full view and advanced towards her, placing his hand upon the panther's head as he passed the beast.

He was an Indian, very old, very tall, perfectly erect. Over his shoulders he wore a cape of feathers dyed yellow and blue. There were silver bracelets on his bony arms and white shell-like pendants hung from his long, deeply slit ears. His creased and wrinkled face was spotted with tattoo marks and ringed with vermilion paint; while from the middle of his head, where a narrow ridge of short stiff hair rose like a comb or crest, a long slender green snake dangled and writhed, its forked tongue flickering ceaselessly.

She knew that he was Aganuntsi the Conjurer. Her lips framed the word, though the sound was all but inaudible, and she rose to her feet as he advanced towards her. For a moment, when he was almost directly in front of her and within arm's length, he looked directly at her, and she shuddered and drew back before the glare of his eyes. But he did not speak or pause. As soundlessly as the great panther gliding at his heels, he strode past her up the slope towards the camp.

Jolie sat down again upon the rock where she had been sitting. She was shaken; her breath was coming fast. After a little, she rose and walked back to the camp on the summit just above. Near the brow of the precipice Almayne and Aganuntsi the Conjurer were

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