Alexander knew that the Baron Des Johnnes had been taken to Charlestown and examined, and although nothing could be proved against him, it had been deemed expedient to ship him off to England. Perhaps the authorities were of opinion that a man with such conversational facilities as eight or ten languages had best be kept where "least said, soonest mended." But for the repeated harsh treatment that the Cherokees sustained from the English settlers, the ingratiating arts of the French might have failed to find so ready a response. Sedate of manner and of a grave cast of mind themselves, the Indians could ill tolerate the levity, the _gaieté de coeur_, of the French, whom they pronounced "light as a feather, fickle as the wind, and deceitful as serpents." With this intimation of Willinawaugh's reserves of irritability the pioneers journeyed on, a trifle more ill at ease in mind, which was an added hardship, since their physical sufferings were intensifying with every long mile of continued effort. They began to wonder how they, supposed to be French, would fare when they should meet other Cherokees, perhaps more disposed than Willinawaugh to adhere to the terms of their treaty to kill or make prisoner every Frenchman who should venture into the Cherokee Nation, yet on the other hand perhaps more competent by virtue of a familiarity with the language to detect and resent the fact that they were not of the French nationality. Already Willinawaugh had counseled that they should go further than Choté, to ply their trade in furs, for Choté was dangerously near the English fort for a Frenchman; one of the Tuckaleechee towns on the Canot River was a preferable location, and he promised to contrive to slip them past Fort Loudon without the commandant's knowledge. They restrained all expression of objection or discomfort and bore their growing distresses with a fortitude that might rival the stoicism of a savage. Only when an aside was possible, MacLeod besought his wife to loose the burden of one of the packhorses and mount the animal herself. She shook her head resolutely. She had already suffered grief enough for the household stores she had left behind. To these precious remaining possessions she clung desperately. "When I can no longer walk," she said, with a flash in her eye which admonished him to desist.