“Why do you go to Kaintuckee, McChesney?” he asked.

“I give my word to Mr. Harrod and Mr. Clark to come back, Mr. Robertson,” said Tom.

“And the wife?  If you take her, you run a great risk of losing her.”

“And if he leaves me,” said Polly Ann, flinging her head, “he will lose me sure.”

The others laughed, but Mr. Robertson merely smiled.

“Faith,” cried Captain Sevier, “if those I met coming back helter-skelter over the Wilderness Trace had been of that stripe, they’d have more men in the forts now.”

With that the Captain called for supper to be served where we sat.  He was a widower, with lads somewhere near my own age, and I recall being shown about the place by them.  And later, when the fireflies glowed and the Nollichucky sang in the darkness, we listened to the talk of the war of the year gone by.  I needed not to be told that before me were the renowned leaders of the Watauga settlements.  My hero worship cried it aloud within me.  These captains dwelt on the border-land of mystery, conquered the wilderness, and drove before them its savage tribes by their might.  When they spoke of the Cherokees and told how that same Stuart—­the companion of Cameron—­was urging them to war against our people, a fierce anger blazed within me.  For the Cherokees had killed my father.

I remember the men,—­scarcely what they said:  Evan Shelby’s words, like heavy blows on an anvil; Isaac Shelby’s, none the less forceful; James Robertson compelling his listeners by some strange power.  He was perchance the strongest man there, though none of us guessed, after ruling that region, that he was to repeat untold hardships to found and rear another settlement farther west.  But best I loved to hear Captain Sevier, whose talk lacked not force, but had a daring, a humor, a lightness of touch, that seemed more in keeping with that world I had left behind me in Charlestown.  Him I loved, and at length I solved the puzzle.  To me he was Nick Temple grown to manhood.

I slept in the room with Captain Sevier’s boys, and one window of it was of paper smeared with bear’s grease, through which the sunlight came all bleared and yellow in the morning.  I had a boy’s interest in affairs, and I remember being told that the gentlemen were met here to discuss the treaty between themselves and the great Oconostota, chief of the Cherokees, and also to consider the policy of punishing once for all Dragging Canoe and his bandits at Chickamauga.

As we sat at breakfast under the trees, these gentlemen generously dropped their own business to counsel Tom, and I observed with pride that he had gained their regard during the last year’s war.  Shelby’s threats and Robertson’s warnings and Sevier’s exhortations having no effect upon his determination to proceed to Kentucky, they began to advise him how to go, and he sat silent while they talked.  And finally, when they asked him, he spoke of making through Carter’s Valley for Cumberland Gap and the Wilderness Trail.