“I’m Kirk Jackson, Virginian. I met the Tonpits in Charlotte a little over a year ago and fell in love with Miss Elsie. I must confess my suit didn’t progress as I had hoped. I think her father was opposed. I can’t blame him. Major Tonpit’s daughter can look higher than a forest-ranger. Anyway, I went back to the Ohio country, where I had served under George Rogers Clark. I’m just back from there. Absence had renewed my courage. “I hurried back to Charlotte and learned the major had moved over the mountains. My informant didn’t know whether he had made his new home in the Watauga district or on the Holston. I saw and recognized her just as that brute in the tavern was preparing to tear my eyes out. Now tell me what you meant by saying she is safe anywhere hereabouts, providing her identity is known.” Sevier drummed the table and frowned. Then he explained: “John Tonpit, according to all indications, holds the whip-hand over these scoundrels here. They serve him, I believe.” “Good heavens!” Jackson weakly exclaimed. “Major Tonpit, proud to arrogance—having truck with those scoundrels?” And he wondered if this were the girl’s reason for pronouncing his quest of her as hopeless. Then he rallied with the buoyancy of youth. If the only barrier between them was some sinister business of her father’s, he would overcome it, although great be her pride. “Can’t you tell me something more definite?” Sevier tapped a document on the table and replied: “This is a petition I’m about to send to Governor Martin. North Carolina is dumping criminals and trash upon us, and we’re asking for a superior court to handle their cases. The Creeks, under Alexander McGillivray, are working day and night to get the Cherokees to join them in a decisive war against all settlers on the Watauga, the Holston and the French Broad. The petition asks for power to raise militia and for officers to lead the men.” “But how does Major Tonpit come into this?” broke in Jackson. “Tavern brawlers and hostile red men!” “I’m coming to that, if there is any that. The Creeks have made a secret treaty with Spain. McGillivray pledges twenty thousand warriors towards exterminating the Western settlements.” “But you can’t know that for a fact.” “You’ve been away the last year. You’re out of touch with affairs. The treaty was signed at Pensacola, June first, by McGillivray on behalf of the Creek Nation and by Don Estephan Miro, Governor of West Florida and Louisiana, on behalf of Spain.” Jackson was nonplussed by this intelligence. He gazed in silence at the man across the table, whose words were building a mighty barrier between him and the girl. Sevier’s handsome face softened in sympathy. He was a tall, fair-skinned man with an erect carriage, and his slender figure well set off the hunting-shirt he invariably wore. Eager and impulsive by nature, he was now holding himself in restraint because he knew his revelations were so many blows at the young ranger’s happiness.