"He's a careless lad, and he'll lose half his belongings ere he wins to
the hills."
I was prepared for the wild Cherokees on our journey of yesterday, but
it amazed me that the savages should come scouting into the Tidewater
itself. He smiled grimly when I said this, and took from his pocket a
crumpled feather.
"That's a Cherokee badge," he said. "I found that a fortnight back on
the river-side an hour's ride out of James Town. And it wasna there
when I had passed the same place the day before. The Tidewater thinks
it has put the fear of God on the hill tribes, and here's a red
Cherokee snowking about its back doors."
The last day he took me north up a stream called the North Fork, which
joined with his own river. I had left my musket behind, for this heavy
travel made me crave to go light, and I had no use for it. But that day
it seemed we were to go hunting.
He carried an old gun, and slew with it a deer in a marshy hollow--a
pretty shot, for the animal was ill-placed. We broiled a steak for our
midday meal, and presently clambered up a high woody ridge which looked
down on a stream and a piece of green meadow.
Suddenly he stopped. "A buck," he whispered. "See what you can do, you
that were so ready with your pistol.
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