MacDonnell, lying prone on the ground in the laurel, his face barely lifted, saw the last segment of the moon slip down behind the great mountain, the following mists glister in the after-glow and fade, a soft, dull shadow drop upon the landscape then sink to darkness, and in the blaze of the fire a quivering feather-crested head protrude above the river-bank. There were other crafty approaches--here, there, the woods seemed alive! Suddenly an alien flare of light, a series of funnel-shaped evanescent darts, the simultaneous crack of a volley, and a dozen swift figures dashed to the scalping of their victims by the fire--to lay hold on the logs in the likeness of sleeping men, to break a knife in the hard fibers of one that seemed to stir, to cry aloud, inarticulate, wild, frenzied in rage, in amaze, in grief, to find themselves at the mercy of the Chickasaws darting out from the laurel! There was a tumultuous rush, then a frantic, futile attempt to reload; two or three of the prisoners wielding knives with undue effect were shot down, and Choolah, triumphant, majestic in victory, stately, erect, his crown of tall white swan’s feathers, his glittering fringes of roanoke, the red and blue of his glossy war-paint, all revealed by the flaring fire, waved his hand to his “_Angona_” to call upon him to admire his prowess in battle. The next moment his attention was caught by a sudden swift alarm in the face of one of the Cherokees, a faraway glance that the wily Choolah followed with his quick eye. Something had happened at the camp the Cherokees had abandoned--was there still movement there? It was some one who had been away, returning, startled to see the bivouac fire sunken to an ember,--for the Cherokees had let it die out to further the advantages of the attack,--then evidently reassured to note the flare a little further down the stream, as if the camp had been shifted for some reason. Choolah drew his primed and loaded pistol. No Cherokee, however, would have dared to venture a warning sign. And Ronald MacDonnell, with what feelings he could hardly analyze, could never describe, saw leaping along the jagged bank of the river toward them a white man, young, active, wearing a gayly-fringed hunting-shirt and leggings of buckskin, but a military hat and the gorget of a French officer. He was among them before he saw his mistake--his fatal mistake! The delighted shrieks of the Chickasaws overpowered every sense, filling the woods with their fierce shrill joy and seeming to strike against the very sky, “_French! hottuk ook-proo-se!_” (The accursed people!) All thought of caution, all fears of wandering Cherokees were lost in the supreme ecstasy of their triumph--the capture of one of the detested French, that the tribe had hated with an inconceivable and savage rancor for generations.