"Where are your masters now?" I asked. He spat upon the ground. "Catawba chief has no master," he said, proudly. "Redcoat pale-faces yonder," pointing back the way I had come. "Make fire, boil tea, sing song, heap smoke pipe." "We must take them," said I. He nodded. "Kill 'um all; take scalp. Wah!" The bloodthirstiness of my two allies was appalling. But I undertook to cool the Indian's ardor, explaining that the redcoat soldiers were the Long-knife's brothers, in a way, not to be slain save in honorable battle. I am not sure whether I earned the Catawba's contempt, or his pity for my weakness; but since he was loyal to the son of his old benefactor first, and a savage afterward, he yielded the point. So now I made him known to my patriarchal host, who all this time had been standing guard at the cabin door with the old Queen's-arm for a weapon. So we three sat on the door-stone and planned it out. When the night was far enough advanced, we would stalk the soldiers in their camp, sparing life as we could. When all was settled, the old man gave us a supper of his humble fare, after which we went into the open again to sit out the hours of waiting. The rain had ceased, but the night was cloudy and the darkness a soft black veil to shroud the nearest objects. High overhead the autumn wind was sighing in the tree-tops, and now and again a sharper gust would bring down a pattering volley of lodged rain-drops on the fallen leaves. Uncanoola sat apart in stoical silence, smoking his long-stemmed pipe. The old man and I talked in low tones, or rather he would tell me of his past whilst I sat and listened, holding the little maid in my arms. After a time the child fell asleep, and I craved permission to put her in the little crib bed in the chimney corner. The flickering light of the fire fell upon her innocent face when I loosed the clasp of the tiny hands about my neck and laid her down. Again the wave of softness submerged me and I bent to leave a kiss upon the sweet unconscious lips. Ah, my dears, you may smile again, if you will; but at that moment I had a far-off glimpse of the beatitude of fatherhood; I was no longer the hard old soldier I have drawn for you; I was but a man, hungering and thirsting for the love of a wife and trusting, clinging little children like this sweet maid. I rose, turning my back upon the chimney corner and its holdings with a sigh. For now the time was come for action, and I must needs be a man of blood and iron again. Lacking the Catawba to guide us, I doubt if either the old man or I could have found my rearguard's bivouac near the trail I had left. But Uncanoola led us straight through the pitchy darkness; and when we were come upon the three soldiers we found them all asleep around the handful of camp-fire.