And she would smile at him bravely and say, “I reckon I kin look out for Davy awhile yet.”

But when he was gone, and the crooning stillness set in broken only by the many sounds of the night, we would sit huddled together by the fire.  It was dread for him she felt, not for herself.  And in both our minds rose red images of hideous foes skulking behind his brave form as he trod the forest floor.  Polly Ann was not the woman to whimper.

And yet I have but dim recollections of this journey.  It was no hardship to a lad brought up in woodcraft.  Fear of the Indians, like a dog shivering with the cold, was a deadened pain on the border.

Strangely enough it was I who chanced upon the Nollichucky Trace, which follows the meanderings of that river northward through the great Smoky Mountains.  It was made long ago by the Southern Indians as they threaded their way to the Hunting Lands of Kaintuckee, and shared now by Indian traders.  The path was redolent with odors, and bright with mountain shrubs and flowers,—­the pink laurel bush, the shining rhododendron, and the grape and plum and wild crab.  The clear notes of the mountain birds were in our ears by day, and the music of the water falling over the ledges, mingled with that of the leaves rustling in the wind, lulled us to sleep at night.  High above us, as we descended, the gap, from naked crag to timber-covered ridge, was spanned by the eagle’s flight.  And virgin valleys, where future generations were to be born, spread out and narrowed again,—­valleys with a deep carpet of cane and grass, where the deer and elk and bear fed unmolested.

It was perchance the next evening that my eyes fell upon a sight which is one of the wonders of my boyish memories.  The trail slipped to the edge of a precipice, and at our feet the valley widened.  Planted amidst giant trees, on a shining green lawn that ran down to the racing Nollichucky was the strangest house it has ever been my lot to see—­of no shape, of huge size, and built of logs, one wing hitched to another by “dog alleys” (as we called them); and from its wide stone chimneys the pearly smoke rose upward in the still air through the poplar branches.  Beyond it a setting sun gilded the corn-fields, and horses and cattle dotted the pastures.  We stood for a while staring at this oasis in the wilderness, and to my boyish fancy it was a fitting introduction to a delectable land.

“Glory be to heaven!” exclaimed Polly Ann.

“It’s Nollichucky Jack’s house,” said Tom.

“And who may he be?” said she.

“Who may he be!” cried Tom; “Captain John Sevier, king of the border, and I reckon the best man to sweep out redskins in the Watauga settlements.”

“Do you know him?” said she.

“I was chose as one of his scouts when we fired the Cherokee hill towns last summer,” said Tom, with pride.  “Thar was blood and thunder for ye!  We went down the Great War-path which lies below us, and when we was through there wasn’t a corn-shuck or a wigwam or a war post left.  We didn’t harm the squaws nor the children, but there warn’t no prisoners took.  When Nollichucky Jack strikes I reckon it’s more like a thunderbolt nor anything else.”