The crafty Colannah stolidly repressed his delight, save for the glitter in his eyes fixed on the azure and crimson and silver landscape glimmering beyond the dusky portals of the terra-cotta walls. “Nawohti! nawohti!” (Rum!) he said, with an affectation of severity.  “You drink too much of the trader’s strong physic!  You have no love now for the sweet, clear water.”  And he shook his head with the uncompromising reproof of a mentor of present times as he growled disjointedly, “Nawohti! nawohti!”

Otasite nothing questioned the genuineness of this demonstration, for the Cherokee rulers, in common with those of other tribes, had long waged a vigorous opposition to the importation of strong drink into their country; indeed, as far back as 1704, when holding a solemn conference with Governor Daniel of North Carolina to form a general treaty of friendship, the chiefs of several tribes petitioned the government of the Lords Proprietors for a law, which was afterward enacted (and disregarded), forbidding any white man to sell or give rum to an Indian, and prescribing penalties for its infringement.  It was not the first time that Otasite had heard unfavorably of the influences of “nawohti,” which, by the way, with the Cherokees signified physic, as well as spirituous liquor, a synonymous definition which more civilized people have sought to apply.  He was content that he and the old chief were once more in affectionate accord, and he did not seek to interpret the flash of triumph in Colannah’s face.

For seven years! for seven years! the white “Man-killer” could not, if he would, quit the Cherokee country.  Well might the old chief’s eyes glisten!  The youth was like a son to his lonely age, and Otasite’s prowess the pride of his life.  And like others elsewhere he had softened as age came on, and loved the domestic fireside and the companionship about the hearth, hearing without participating in the hilarious talk of the young, and looking out at the world through the eyes of the new generation, undaunted, expectant, aglow with a spirit that had long ago smouldered in his own; for the fierce Indian at the last was but an old man.

Abram Varney, too, experienced a recurrence of ease.  He had unwittingly imbibed much outlandish superstition in his residence among the Cherokees, and indeed other traders and settlers long believed in the enchaining fascination of Herbert’s Spring, and drank or refrained as they would stay or go.

Otasite, however, was all unaware of the spell cast upon him when he came into the chungke-yard the next day, arrayed in his finest garb, the white dressed doeskin glittering in the sun, his necklaces of beads, his belt of wolf fangs, his flying feet in their white moccasins—­all catching the light with a differing effect of brilliancy.

Varney watched him;—­with the two eagle feathers stiff and erect on his proud head, his two incongruous long auburn curls, that did duty as a “war-lock,” floating backward in the breeze, he ran so deftly, so swiftly, with so assured and so graceful a gait that the mere observation of such symmetrical motion was a pleasure.  The trader had scarcely a pulse of anxiety.  Indeed, disingenuously profiting by the tip afforded by Herbert’s Spring, he was heavily backing Wyejah as a winner!