“Sharp devils, those Creeks!” he grumbled. “Outguessed me, or learned a lesson from trying to catch Jackson. They either divided the pack, half searching the creeks while the other kept straight ahead, or else they’ve paid no attention to the water and are holding all the brutes to the path.” This suspicion impelled him to ignore the next stream. The two detours already made had cost him time and distance. He could tell by the increased volume of the baying that the chase was closing in. Then followed a short period of silence so far as the chase was concerned, only to be snapped by a frantic, exulting chorus close behind him. “They’ve let them loose!” he gritted, driving his heels into the quivering flanks. To be overhauled and dragged from the saddle was not on Sevier’s program. He pushed ahead until the trail opened into a strip of meadow land bounded by the waters of the Coosa and a sharp slope of a rock-littered ridge. Here it was possible to distinguish form. Dismounting, he led the horse up the rocky slope and tied him to a tree. Stumbling on, he came to what he was searching for, several boulders so arranged as to afford protection on three sides. To get at him the dogs must enter the pocket by the one mouth. Placing his rifle and pistols before him, he slipped off his hunting-shirt and wrapped it about his left arm. Sticking his two knives into the ground, he settled on his heels to wait. Somewhere in the night a whippoorwill—_waguli_ the Cherokees call it because of its song—was monotonously reiterating its plaintive cluster of notes. From deeper in the forest came the screech-owl’s _wa-huhu_; but of human and four-footed enemies there was never a sound. When the crisis broke it was so close at hand as to seem to be in his very face; a triumphant chorus of the bloodthirsty trackers. Sevier’s wide gaze made out several vague forms racing up the slope to where reared the frightened horse. He counted five, one running behind the other, their undulating bodies suggesting the approach of a monster serpent. The horse shrilly voiced his terror; the pack swerved aside and came for the rocks. Raising his rifle, the borderer carefully covered the leader and fired. Down crashed the brute, its mates leaping over the dead form and dashing onward. Dropping the rifle, he snatched up the two pistols and held his fire for a brace of seconds. He caught one a dozen feet from the opening between the rocks and disabled a third when it was almost upon him. Seizing the knives, he rested on one knee and plunged a blade through the heart of the fourth as it leaped against him. The impact of the huge body bore him backward but he managed to regain something of his balance as the remaining animal closed in and grabbed for his throat and instead caught the bandaged arm.