“Old Tassel is cunning beyond the average. He wants peace, but he’ll fight to get back the French Broad lands. Tall Runner’s talk was merely to show me that the Cherokees know our condition, a strong hint for us to vacate the French Broad lands. If we’d withdraw from the Broad and the Holston, Old Tassel would strongly oppose any alliance with the Creeks. As it now stands, we’re facing the power of Spain, the enmity of the Creeks and a very probable alliance between the Creeks and the Cherokees, with the Seminoles thrown in for good measure. By heavens! It’s high time we all began to be good Americans!” “God knows I’m an American!” cried Jackson, catching the other’s fervour. “I was training to be one when I first risked my hair among the Shawnees and Wyandots. Yes, Sevier, I’ll give my all to block Spain.” “Good boy!” cried Sevier, and their hands met with a smack. “Now we’ll go and eat.” “Stetson asked me to come there. He’s offered to let me have a horse.” “Stetson is of the salt of the earth, and Mrs. Stetson has a knack of frying chicken that even makes my Kate jealous.” The Virginian had no set purpose as, after the midday meal, he wandered to the outskirts of the settlement. He wished to be alone with his jumble of new thoughts. He had meant every word of his earnest declaration to Sevier, but there still lingered in the back of his mind the question, how much of his solemn statements had smacked of the rhetorical, and how much was based on genuine, lofty sentiments? Sevier was sure to set a listener’s pulses to dancing. He developed the full strength of a man’s honesty. He had played Jackson up to himself as being a hundred per cent. patriot. Now, alone and with leisure to think it all over, Jackson feared he might be only ninety-eight per cent. patriot and two per cent. selfish lover. Yet he considered himself a good American. Hadn’t he fought for the colonies? Now that only white wampum hung between America and the mother-country, hadn’t he earned the right to order his life along the lines of love, to cater to the two per cent. of his make-up and create a home in the land he had helped to secure for Anglo-Saxons? Even Sevier had said love was legitimately selfish to a certain degree. But who was to determine the degree? Chucky Jack at the age of seventeen years had married his Bonnie Kate. He had had his love and could better afford to give more of his time and strength to building up the new republic than a man who had fought for years with no opportunity for wooing a maid. And were not there many others, as fortunate as Chucky Jack, who could carry on the work?