“Let us have stout hearts for all that,” said I. “It behooveth us to be bold, since no victory, even over weakness, was ever constructed of timidity. Besides, the foe may offer us its defeat by its own errors. I recall, how once upon a time, certain Creeks whom the General was to attack entrenched themselves, and all about felled trees and sharpened the branches into points, the whole as defensive as any bristle of bayonets. You, as thought these red engineers, would have deemed the place impregnable, for no one might force his way through this _chevaux de-frise_. But the General's military eye unlocked the situation. The sun-dried leaves and twigs were lying where they fell. An arrow, with blazing tow tied to its shaft and shot from a safe two hundred yards away, solved the problem. In a moment that precious defence was on fire; and the enemy, driven forth by the heat and flame and smoke of it, were met in the open and destroyed to a man. We may yet smoke these society savages into a surrender by setting an honest torch to their surroundings. One thing we can promise ourselves.” I remarked this in conclusion. “Whatever else may fail, at the worst, you shall not go wanting a revenge.” “And that thought is sweet, too,” said she in return. Peg's leopard teeth were not without significance; that much I saw. After all, her speech was to have been expected; for who will go further afield for revenge than your flesh and blood true woman, still of earth's fires and not ready for the skies? Peg told me a portion of her story; partly because it was natural she should think that I, who had been a stranger to her, might justly want such knowledge; but mostly, I believe, for that she had an instinct to defend herself against what I might have preconceived to her disaster. Dear child, she had small cause to fret herself on that score! I remember she gave herself no little blame as the self-willed gardener of those thorny sorrows among which she had walked and was still sorrowfully to find her path. She would run on like this, as I recall: