“This ain’t no fresh scalp. It was took from a Injun who’d been dead for hours. Huh! Looks like it was took off by a blind man. No border-man would scalp like that. Besides, the Injun was so long dead no blood come. What kind of a game is this, anyway?” And he turned and glared angrily at the tavern-keeper. “So much for Stetson. And he knows what he is talking about,” said Sevier. “Now we’ll take torches and go down the trail to where the Indian was killed. The three oaks make the spot easy to find.” “I can lead you there in the dark,” Stetson assured. “But we’ll carry lighted torches, and Polcher will go with us,” Sevier significantly ruled. And the mixed-blood knew the words contained a threat. “I’ll be glad to go,” stoutly declared the tavern-keeper. “I want this thing cleared up as much as any one does. All I know about it is what I’ve told. Thatch’s story prepared me to see Jackson when the old man was killed. Perhaps I made a mistake, but, if I did, it was an honest one. The knife part doesn’t prove Jackson innocent, for he could have picked up a knife anywhere.” “True,” agreed Sevier softly, “but I’m surprised he should pick up a butcher-knife. And Twill’s story—” “I’m not responsible for that,” hotly broke in Polcher, ignoring the reference to the mortal weapon. “He heard me tell the boys what I’d been told and had seen. He up and told me his story. I supposed it was the truth. It looks now as if he wanted to appear important.” Nor did Polcher believe his scheme had failed. If Jackson escaped his net, there still remained the big, vital objective—the precipitation of war between the reds and whites. The plot to implicate Jackson had been at the most a by-play to satisfy Polcher’s hate for Sevier. He would have struck him by striking his friend. But, so far as the real purpose was concerned, it mattered not whether Jackson or Thatch was believed guilty of the killing. All Polcher asked was for the news to spread that a Creek had been murdered. He had originally planned to assassinate a Cherokee, but the Creek fitted in just as pleasingly. Therefore it was with genuine alacrity that he caught up a torch and took a place beside Sevier at the end of the little procession. Stetson took the lead. Polcher walked in silence beside the borderer for a minute and then gravely asked— “What’s to become of us, John, now that the mother State has cast us off?” “We’re not entirely orphaned,” Sevier retorted. “We can rap on the door of the central Government, and, as a separate State, say, ‘Here is your child.’” “But will the Government take us in? Can it protect us?” “If it can’t protect us, it doesn’t make any difference whether it takes us in or doesn’t. We can keep on shifting for ourselves as we’ve always done.” “I sometimes think you misunderstand me and my motives,” Polcher regretted. “Never!” emphatically assured Sevier with a broad smile.