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
