THE FRONTIERSMEN by CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK Author of _A Spectre of Power_, _The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains_, _In the Tennessee Mountains_, etc. 1904 CONTENTS THE LINGUISTER A VICTOR AT CHUNGKE THE CAPTIVE OF THE ADA-WEHI THE FATE OF THE CHEERA-TAGHE THE BEWITCHED BALL-STICKS THE VISIT OF THE TURBULENT GRANDFATHER NOTES THE LINGUISTER The mental image of the world is of individual and varying compass. It may be likened to one of those curious Chinese balls of quaintly carved ivory, containing other balls, one within another, the proportions ever dwindling with each successive inclosure, yet each a more minute duplicate of the external sphere. This might seem the least world of all,--the restricted limits of the quadrangle of this primitive stockade,--but Peninnah Penelope Anne Mivane had known no other than such as this. It was large enough for her, for a fairy-like face, very fair, with golden brown hair, that seemed to have entangled the sunshine, and lustrous brown eyes, looked out of an embrasure (locally called "port-hole") of the blockhouse, more formidable than the swivel gun once mounted there, commanding the entrance to the stockade gate. Her aspect might have suggested that Titania herself had resorted to military methods and was ensconced in primitive defenses. It was even large enough for her name, which must have been conferred upon her, as the wits of the Blue Lick Station jocularly averred, in the hope of adding some size to her. It was large enough also for the drama of battle and the tragedy of bloody death--both had befallen within its limits.