It is true such a shelter could not long have availed them as such, were the adjacent country in the possession of a civilized people; but the near neighborhood of the Cherokees, by keeping back civilization, was, perhaps, quite as much as the position they had chosen, its protection from the scrutiny of many, who had already, prompted by their excesses, endeavored, on more than one occasion, to find them out.  The place was distant from the village of Chestatee about ten miles, or perhaps more.  No highway—­no thoroughfare or public road passed in its neighborhood, and it had been the policy of the outlaws to avoid the use of any vehicle, the traces of which might be followed.  There was, besides, but little necessity for its employment.  The place of counsel and assemblage was not necessarily their place of abode, and the several members of the band found it more profitable to reside, or keep stations, in the adjacent hamlets and stands (for by this latter name in those regions, the nightly stopping-places of wayfarers are commonly designated) where, in most cases, they put on the appearance, and in many respects bore the reputation, of staid and sober working men.

This arrangement was perhaps the very best for the predatory life they led, as it afforded opportunities for information which otherwise must have been lost to them.  In this way they heard of this or that traveler—­his destination—­the objects he had in view, and the wealth he carried about with him.  In one of these situations the knowledge of old Snell’s journey, and the amount of wealth in his possession, had been acquired; and in the person of the worthy stable-boy who brought corn to the old fellow’s horses the night before, and whom he rewarded with a thrip (the smallest silver coin known in the southern currency, the five-cent issue excepted) we might, without spectacles, recognise the active fugleman of the outlaws, who sawed half through his axle, cleaned his wheels of all their grease, and then attempted to rob him the very night after.

Though thus scattered about, it was not a matter of difficulty to call the outlaws together upon an emergency.  One or more of the most trustworthy among them had only to make a tour over the road, and through the hamlets in which they were harbored within the circuit of ten or twenty miles, and as they kept usually with rigid punctuality to their several stations, they were soon apprized, and off at the first signal.  A whisper in the ear of the hostler who brought out your horse, or the drover who put up the cattle, was enough; and the absence of a colt from pasture, or the missing of a stray young heifer from the flock, furnished a sufficient reason to the proprietor for the occasional absence of Tom, Dick, or Harry:  who, in the meanwhile, was, most probably, crying “stand” to a true man, or cutting a trunk from a sulkey, or, in mere wantonness, shooting down the traveller who had perhaps given him a long chase, yet yielded nothing by way of compensation for the labor.