the pack train drivers, and along this path behind the man in buckskin rode the three seamen, scowling and defiant, the other hunter bringing up the rear. Oaths were flung at them a-plenty, but no driver struck at them with his whip or hurled tomahawk or knife. In two minutes they were past the last of the pack ponies, and the two hunters, wheeling their horses without a word, set themselves to the task of getting the pack train in motion again.
The thing had been neatly done. In a twinkling, by quick, cool work, a riot which threatened bloodshed had been nipped in the bud. Lachlan's black eyes followed curiously the two quiet men who had dealt with the emergency. They interested him, however, as individuals, not as types. If there was romance in these fringed and beaded hunters with their long rifles, in the half-naked plumed and painted Indian warriors who rode with them, in the train of pack ponies that had come with their burden of skins perhaps a hundred leagues out of the heart of the wilderness, he was not aware of it. These were the common things of life, the things that he had known all his life long. It was not of them that he dreamed when the hours lagged in Charles Town, and he beguiled them with idle imaginings.
The pack train was moving off, with a mighty cracking of whips. Lachlan spoke to his mare and rode on slowly in the opposite direction. Ahead of him at a brisker pace jogged the three seamen, bare elbows flapping awkwardly, earrings flashing, the
