Alexander Key
Cherokee Boy

    For Zan

    Chapter 1:The Coming of the Soldiers
    Chapter 2: The Stockades
    Chapter 3: The Trail of Tears
    Chapter 4: The Cabin and the Cricket
    Chapter 5: Across the Great Ohio
    Chapter 6: The Blizzard
    Chapter 7: Flight Southward
    Chapter 8: Waya-waya
    Chapter 9: The Good Nothings
    Chapter 10: To Muscle Shoals
    Chapter 11:The Mountains
    Chapter 12: The Secret Place
    Supplement:

Chapter 1: The Coming of the Soldiers
    Tsi-ya, the Otter, son of the great Inali, the Black Fox, paused near the top of the ridge and leaned wearily on his pointed staff. His worn moccasins were ready to be thrown away, and his lean young face was thin and drawn. But he smiled almost happily and murmured a short prayer of thankfulness. Though his mission was far from finished, he would soon be home again. Home lay only a few miles ahead.
    Behind him, over the borderland of the Carolinas, were the mountains he had crossed – wave on green wave of them, higher and ever higher mountains that stretched on toward the rising sun. Far back in the smoky distance, hidden among the highest peaks of all, was the birthplace of the rivers – the whispered Secret Place. No white man even dreamed of its existence, and few were the living Cherokees who had ever been there. Ordinarily Tsi-ya, who had seen but fifteen summers, would have considered it a great deed to have journeyed there all alone. But this was not a time for foolish pride. There was trouble in the land, and he had done only what any young Cherokee in his position must do.
    Twelve days ago the tall and powerful Inali, the valley chief, had ridden furiously home from a meeting of the seven clans. There was a fire in his dark eyes, but when he spoke his voice was as grave as Tsi-ya had ever heard it.
    “I must go immediately to the white man’s capital at Washington,” he announced. “And Tsi-ya, my elder son, must make all speed to find Utsala, the Lichen.”
    Nequassee, the Star, Tsi-ya’s mother, put aside the fringed breeches she was making for Kiuga, his small brother. “What evil thing has happened?” she asked.
    “The thing few of us ever thought would happen,” Inali replied stonily. “The whites are sending soldiers to move us.”
    Nequassee clenched her slim hands. “Not soldiers! I cannot believe—”
    “Hardly any of us believed they would do it, but we’ve been blind.” Inali began pacing the puncheon floor of their large log house. His burning eyes showed the deep emotion within him. A red scarf held back his hair, which hung to his bare shoulders. He was a handsome man and well educated, for not only could he write in the language of the Cherokee, but he spoke and wrote English fluently.
    “The whites tricked us with a false treaty,” he said. “Now they claim all the country of the Cherokee for their own. They say they bought our land, but they lie. Their settlers surround us like the locusts, and there are greedy ones among them who would take all we have. They would drive us from our homes. They would send us far to the West, to starve in a barren land.”
    “And they would send soldiers to make us move?” Nequassee said incredulously. “To drive us away like cattle?”
    “The soldiers are on the march. A great army of many thousand.”
    For a moment Tsi-ya’s mother could not speak. She turned, a slender and very beautiful woman in a dress of bright calico, and stared silently out of the window. At her throat, between her shining braids, was a silver amulet that had been in her family many generations. Tsi-ya, troubled, watched her touch the amulet, and his eyes followed hers to the fields of green corn, the horses grazing in the high meadow, and the encircling mountains that had always been their home. It seemed impossible that the whites would really force them to go away.
    Suddenly his mother lifted her head proudly. “This is the land of our fathers, and I’ll never leave it willingly. But what good can be done in Washington?”
    “We have many friends in Washington,” said Inali. “Perhaps, if we offer to give up the lower valleys to the settlers, they can stop the soldiers.”
    “For a hundred winters our people have been giving up land to the whites, and always the whites have wanted more.”
    “True, but there is no other way to stop the soldiers.”
    “And if your plan fails?”
    “Then,” Inali told her,” we must be ready to go wherever Utsala, the Lichen, thinks best. He is a man of great wisdom, and he has long said that we should turn our backs to the whites and have no dealings with them. There are many who would like to follow him and live as our fathers lived – by the bow, and without the help of the white man’s goods. But first we must get word to Utsala and tell him what has happened. There is no time left for me to search for him. So it is fitting that my son should take my place.”
    Nequassee peered at him strangely, then said: “Utsala has been gone for many moons. Do you know where to find him?”
    “At the birthplace of the rivers,” Inali answered quietly.
    “The Secret Place!” Nequassee whispered.
    At the name, Tsi-ya’s heart gave a sudden leap. He had heard of the Secret Place, but seldom did one mention it openly. It lay hidden among the highest mountains of all, in the wildest part of the Cherokee domain. No trails led to it, and no one went there save the troubled in spirit, for it was a holy place. Only Utsala, the Gray Lichen, wisest of the chiefs, had the right to call it home.
    Nequassee said: “Our son is young for such a mission. He has seen but fifteen summers.”
    “He is tall and strong for his age,” said Inali.” And this is a time when every youth must prove his worth to his clan.”
    “It is a dangerous journey,” she faltered,” and there are wild rivers to cross.”
    “Our son, Tsi-ya, the Otter, can swim the wildest rivers. And though he limps, his foot is fast and sure upon the trail.”
    “But there are no trails to the Secret Place,” said Nequassee. “How will he find the way?”
    “Our son does not need a white man’s compass to remind him where the sun rises and sets. And you forget that I once journeyed to the Secret Place in my youth. I remember the landmarks. I will tell him the way.”
    Tsi-ya could feel his heart hammering furiously, and he was conscious of the envy in his small brother’s eyes. He wanted to cry out his eagerness to go, but he stood silent, respectfully waiting for his mother to speak. On matters of importance his mother’s word had great weight, and, as was the custom among his people, even this fine log home – which was the object of much envy among the white settlers to the south – belonged entirely to her.
    All at once his mother straightened. “Ase-hi – yes,” she said firmly.” Let our son go and find Utsala, the Lichen. And may Kanati guide his footsteps and bring him safely home.”
    * * *
    All that was twelve days ago. Now home was almost in sight again.
    With an effort Tsi-ya forced his tired feet onward, following a familiar game trail that led over the ridge. For a moment his thoughts turned back to old Utsala, and the wild and beautiful land where the Gray Lichen lived. Just getting to the boundary of the Secret Place had been difficult enough, but he had almost despaired before he found the gap that led through the towering cliffs.
    Once past that mighty wall of rock he’d easily found the prints of Utsala’s moccasins. He’d followed them to a great cave where Utsala greeted him like a son. He was not surprised that the Lichen seemed to be expecting him. The wise old chief, whose hair had been whitened by the snows of nearly ninety winters, could divine many things.
    When he had repeated his father’s message to Utsala, the old chief had gazed long into the ashes of his campfire, and then replied: “You have come fast and far, but now you must speed homeward like the deer. For you must spread the word that all who can must slip away and come here, and leave no sign of their coming.”
    “But what of the soldiers?” he had asked. “Cannot my father’s friends stop them?”
    “No,” said the Lichen. “Your father and the other chiefs ride in vain to Washington. A time of great trial is upon our people. Many will die. But the gods of our ancestors have not deserted us. They have given us this place of refuge. All who can reach these heights will find lasting sanctuary.”
    The Lichen’s words had given wings to his feet. Now they drove him steadily to the top of the final ridge.
    At last, in the distance, far down in the broad valley before him, he could see the roof of his mother’s house. An uneasiness suddenly gripped him when he noticed the large bird circling near it. The bird was Suli, the buzzard. His presence was seldom a good sign.
    “Go away, Suli!” he muttered, and plunged down through the forest of oaks toward the valley trail.
    Below, where the valley trail forked beside the deserted schoolhouse, he paused to drink hurriedly from the spring in the schoolyard. He longed to rest, for his left foot, which had been broken long ago in a fall, had been aching all day. Many families lived here in the upper valley, and he knew he must get the Lichen’s message to them before turning homeward.
    As he passed the ruined schoolhouse a lump came suddenly to his throat. He’d spent many happy days here in the class of old Doctor Reedy, the medical missionary. Two winters ago some of the white settlers to the south had come in the night and set fire to the school and driven Doctor Reedy away. Now all that remained was the charred log walls and a leaning chimney.
    What a strange and fearful people were the whites! Some, like Doctor Reedy, were so good; while others, like the vengeful settlers, seemed to have only evil in their hearts. Maybe, he thought, it was because of the gold that had been found in the Cherokee streams. The love of gold, Doctor Reedy had said, could turn brother against brother.
    At the sound of his name, Tsi-ya stopped abruptly. A small slender figure in a homespun dress appeared at the edge of the woods. It was Oca-lee, one of the daughters of the Pigeon Woman, a relative of his mother and a near neighbor. Being of his mother’s people, they were of the same clan and he looked upon her as his sister.
    Oca-lee had been gathering herbs, for she carried a basket filled with roots and the leaves of forest plants. Her large dark eyes were round with wonder.
    “Tsi-ya!” she cried. “You are back!” Almost in awe she said, “Is it really true that you’ve been to see Utsala, the Lichen?”
    “It is true,” he said simply, all at once relieved that he had found Oca-lee here. She could save him much time by relaying the Lichen’s message to the other families. “I need your help, Oca-lee. It is a matter of great importance. The Lichen sends word that all who can must slip away and join him at the Secret Place.”
    “At the – the Secret Place?” she whispered.
    “Yes. Go and tell your father and your mother, and tell them to get word quickly to all the others in this part of the valley. They must slip away before the soldiers come, and leave no trail.”
    “But the soldiers are here already!” Oca-lee exclaimed. “I saw hundreds of them this morning over on the big road that leads to New Echota. Everybody’s worried, for most of our men have gone to the New Echota council, and my father is still away with your father in Washington.”
    Tsi-ya fought down his sudden clutch of fear. “Do you know if there has been any message from my father?”
    “My mother spoke with your mother this morning. There has been no message from any of those who went to Washington.” She bit her lip, then asked, “What shall we do, Tsi-ya?”
    For a moment Tsi-ya felt lost and frightened. What should he do? Then he thought, I am a Cherokee of the deer clan, and I must act bravely. I must do what the Black Fox would do, if he were here.
    “Oca-lee,” he said quickly,” hurry and tell your mother and her neighbors to gather their belongings and pack their horses for travel. They must cross over the ridge and hide. Tell them I will follow as soon as possible and guide them to Utsala.”
    Oca-lee stared at him a moment, startled and roundeyed. Then she whirled and sped like a shadow into the woods.
    Tsi-ya turned and began running down the valley trail. Forgotten were his weariness and his aching foot.
    He had splashed through the creek a half mile from his mother’s house when his sharp ears caught the clatter of shod horses on the stony trail. He knew they were white men’s horses even before he heard the harsh voices of their riders, which were so unlike the softer tones of his own people. Instantly he dove into a thicket and lay motionless.
    Five horsemen moved past his hiding place. Four were soldiers in blue uniforms. The fifth was a bearded civilian with an open map in his hand.
    The man with the map was saying: “I’ll be mighty glad when we git them dirty redskins out o’ here. I got a heap o’ good folks wantin’ to buy all this land.”
    “It’s fine land,” said one of the soldiers. “I wouldn’t mind havin’ some of it myself.”
    “Lot o’ good it’d do you,” said another. “You’re in the Army, bud. You gotta help move them rascals. Ever think how long that’ll take?”
    The horsemen swept out of sight. Tsi-ya scrambled from his thicket. He was trembling, and he felt sick inside. Ignoring the trail, he cut directly through the woods and was soon bounding through the peach orchard behind his mother’s house.
    Before he reached the house he could hear loud voices in the front yard. The yard seemed to be full of laughing soldiers, and there were two bearded men in boots and black hats like the one he had seen on the trail. One of them was saying angrily: “We done bought this place from the agent. Now why don’t you fellers git this squaw an’ her brat away from here? That’s your duty, ain’t it?”
    Tsi-ya, as he rounded the porch, saw the reason for the soldiers’ laughter. Little Kiuga, his brother, who was barely nine, was crouched threateningly in the doorway with a drawn bow. Behind him proud and scornfully silent, stood his mother. Kiuga’s bow was hardly more than a toy, but it kept the two bearded men from crossing the porch.
    Tsi-ya bounded to Kiuga’s side.
    “This is my mother’s home!” he cried in the English he had learned at school. “What right have you to bother her?”
    “We got plenty right!” came the angry reply. “If’n you know what’s good fer you, you’ll git out o’ here fast before you git hurt!”
    “We’re not cattle to be driven!” Tsi-ya retorted, raising the pointed staff he carried. “Don’t you cross this porch!”
    The soldiers in the yard stopped laughing. The sergeant in charge of them growled: “All right, boys, we’ve had our fun. Now let’s round up these varmints an’ take ’em down to camp.”
    It was useless to resist them. At a warning word from his mother, Tsi-ya lowered his weapon. A bayonet suddenly prodded him in the side. His staff and Kiuga’s bow were snatched away and broken. His prized hunting knife was plucked from his belt and he was sent stumbling across the yard behind Nequassee and his brother.
    “Why do you treat us like this?” he protested. “We’re not prisoners! At least let us pack our things and get our horses!”
    A soldier said: “You won’t need no hosses where you’re goin’. Git a move on!”
    Down in the lower lane they were halted abruptly by a soldier who came riding up from the New Echota road. He was a stern-looking young man who wore epaulets on his shoulders.
    “What’s the meaning of this, Sergeant?” he snapped. “What are you doing with these people? What’s happened to their baggage?”
    “We’re jest obeyin’ orders, Lieutenant,” replied the sergeant, saluting.
    “You’re not obeying my orders!” the lieutenant told him coldly. “What manner of men are you to force people from their homes without giving them time to gather their possessions? Why, they haven’t even got blankets or cooking utensils!”
    “Sir,” said the sergeant, “Cap’n McReady said we was jest to round up everybody an’ git ’em started for the stockades, an’ not worry too much about their baggage.”
    “I’ll answer to Captain McReady. I don’t care if it costs me my commission, but I’ll not stand for seeing these Cherokees driven away with only the clothes on their backs. It’s bad enough to dispossess them without treating them like dogs!” He turned toward Nequassee and said: “Madam, I apologize for what has happened. It’s an odious duty I’ve been given, and I’ve no power to stop those thieving land agents from selling your property. But as long as I’m in charge here I’ll do everything possible to help you.”
    Then the lieutenant swung to the sergeant and ordered sharply: “Now take these people back and see that they get their horses and all the personal possessions they want to take with them. And send orders to the rest of your company that every family in this valley must be allowed to do the same!”
    They returned to the house. But here there was trouble again, for the two settlers who had bought the property from the land agent claimed everything on the place. It was only through the insistence of the young lieutenant that Tsi-ya and his brothers were permitted to catch their best horses and help their mother begin the loading of one of the wagons.
    It took much time to do all this, and before the wagon was half loaded squads of soldiers were herding other valley families into the yard. Tsi-ya moved in a daze, so weary he could have closed his eyes and fallen instantly to sleep. It seemed hardly possible that all this was really happening. He wondered if Oca-lee and her people had managed to escape. Then he was dismayed to see both the Pigeon Woman’s daughters struggling up the lane with heavy packs on their shoulders. Tears stained their faces.
    The yard was presently full of people, many of whom had been brought here with little or no equipment. The young lieutenant strode among them, determinedly trying to set matters to right by sending some of the Indians home to bring horses and loaded wagons. Suddenly, into the middle of this confusion, rode another officer. He was a big man with a bushy red beard, and his cold eyes glittered with anger.
    “What’s the reason for all this delay?” he demanded in a booming voice. “Get this batch of redskins on the move, Lieutenant, and be quick about it!”
    “Captain McReady, sir,” said the lieutenant, saluting, “I regret the delay but many of these people have been ordered from their homes with hardly more than the clothes on their backs. They’ve over a thousand miles to travel, and—”
    “I don’t give a hoot how far they have to go!” the captain roared. “Get them going now, and don’t give me any excuses!”
    The lieutenant stiffened. His face was pale. “Captain McReady,” he said evenly, “what we are doing is an infamous thing. I’d rather resign my commission than to blacken the record of the United States Army by carrying out such orders.”
    The big captain glared at him. “Then consider yourself out of the Army as of now!” he boomed angrily. “Sergeant, assemble your men! Line up these people, have ’em searched for weapons, and get ’em out of these mountains as fast as you can make ’em travel. I want to see them all in the stockades at Rattlesnake Springs by tomorrow night!”
    There was no time for Tsi-ya to finish packing. Nor was there room to carry anything but necessities, for all extra wagon space had to be saved for infants and the aged who were unable to walk, and the riding horses had to be loaded with the belongings of the less fortunate families. At the command to march, he managed to shoulder a bag that was far too heavy for him, and went staggering down the lane with Kiuga and his mother.
    At the road he stopped, and glanced back for the last time at the place that had always been home. But his eyes were suddenly blinded with tears, and he could see nothing. A bayonet prodded him in the side, and a soldier ordered: “Git along, you! An’ make it lively, or you’ll git a taste of the point!”

Chapter 2: The Stockades
    Though the soldiers drove them from early morning till dark, with only brief halts for rest, it was not until late on the fifth day that they reached the great camp at Rattlesnake Springs.
    Tsi-ya had been there once before with his father, and ordinarily he would have found it an easy journey of two days, for the place lay hardly fifty miles to the west, just over the foothills in Tennessee. Now the conditions were vastly different. From every branching trail on the way hundreds and more hundreds of his people were driven into the road, until soon it was choked with weary refugees. The line of plodding figures, animals, creaking wagons, and mounted soldiers stretched as far as he could see, and still their ranks swelled hourly.
    On the second afternoon it began to rain. The rain turned into a steady drizzle that continued daily and made a quagmire of the muddy road. The nights were a torment for there was no dry place to camp, nor was there any protection from the elements. The few sodden blankets and covers among them were given to the women and small children, and the men huddled in the lee of trees and rocks. No one had been given time to prepare food for the trip, and it was impossible to cook on the way. Long before they reached the great camp, from which their journey westward would begin, many were ill.
    Tsi-ya dreamed of escape, but from the beginning he was too exhausted to do more than think about it. For the present it seemed impossible. How, without food or weapons, could he ever manage to get Kiuga and his mother safely back through the mountains?
    Once, however, when their guards had forced them relentlessly across a swollen stream that nearly cost the life of Kiuga, who was fast weakening, Tsi-ya raged bitterly: “Enough of this! Our lives mean nothing to the whites! I think we’d better try to get away before it is too late.”
    For a moment his mother wavered, for their hardships were almost beyond her endurance. Then she murmured: “No, I’m afraid it would be worse if we tried to leave now. Let us be patient, son. Wait till we are at the camp, and have had food and rest. Perhaps there will be news of your father. We should not make plans until we’ve heard from him.”
    On the fifth afternoon they dipped down into the lowlands and saw the stockades at Rattlesnake Springs. After the ordeal of the road the sight brought gasps of dismay from those who had visioned the place as a temporary refuge. Around what had once been a meadow rose the high palings of the stockades, but the interior was now a reeking compound of mud. A portion had been fenced off for horses and oxen; the remainder was so jammed with people that there was hardly room for the newcomers to walk among them. No shelter of any kind had been provided, and upon this open prison, steaming after the rains, the late July sun beat down unmercifully. On every face Tsi-ya saw misery and despair.
    For the present they could only accept their fate. Tsi-ya managed to move their wagon close to the palings, where they would have the advantage of a bit of shade during the day. He unloaded it and rigged a cover over the top. Little Kiuga tried to help, but suddenly collapsed under the wagon. For the first time Tsi-ya realized that his brother was very ill, and that his mother was hardly better, for her cheeks were flushed with fever.
    He left them in charge of Oca-lee’s mother, who was a medicine woman, and went in search of food. All supplies he learned, were issued by the Army quartermaster, and the store was open only during the mornings. They would have gone hungry that night had not the family in the adjoining wagon shared a precious kettle of beef broth.
    “It is poor broth,” said the gaunt old man who offered it, whose name was Eskaqua. “There is only a little meat in it, for it cost us dearly.”
    “Why must you buy meat?” Tsi-ya asked, when he had found strength for speech. “I was told that the Army would feed us well when we got here.”
    “The Army!” The old man spat, and his eyes glittered with hate. “Each of us is supposed to draw, for rations, a pound of meat daily and three measures of meal. To get it, one must stand in line all morning. Most of the Army meat is spoiled and is not fit for dogs. And their meal is not meal at all – it is this unspeakable stuff!”
    Tsi-ya peered into the tin that Eskaqua showed him. The lumpy substance inside was the flour of the white men, and it was mottled with green mold.
    “The Cherokee cannot eat the food of the white men, even when fresh,” Eskaqua said. “This is worse than the meat, and it makes everyone ill.” Angrily he tossed it into the fire. “If we would stay alive, we must buy food from the thieving traders who come here daily. And we must pay many times what it is worth with silver. I hope you have plenty of silver.”
    “We have as much as anyone,” Tsi-ya told him. Though he had been forced to leave many needed articles behind, he had managed to bring his father’s calfskin chest, which contained the family savings. To this was added a small bag of money the land agent had given his mother when the house was sold. His mother had disdained to accept so small an amount – a mere token to make the sale legal – but the young officer who had tried to help them had urged him to put it in the wagon. He supposed it was still there, though at the moment he was too exhausted for it to matter.
    There were questions he wanted to ask Eskaqua, but before he could voice them his head rolled, and he fell back under the wagon asleep.
    * * *
    Ugly visions tormented him that night, and when he finally opened his eyes to stare at the disheartening scenes of morning, there seemed to be little difference between dream and dismal reality. Already lines of hungry and bedraggled people were forming at the gate, waiting for the quartermaster’s store to open, and sad-faced women and girls, their clothing spattered with mud, were carrying pails of water from the single spring in the enclosure. He heard a girl complain: “The white men wash but once a week, on Saturday nights. They cannot understand why the Cherokee would bathe every day.”
    He did not realize that the girl who had spoken was Oca-lee until she stopped beside him and set down her pail. Her dress was grimy and her thin face so peaked that her eyes seemed enormous. “We are the only well ones this morning, Tsi-ya,” she said. “Your mother is worse, and both my mother and sister have the fever. I will try and make medicine for them if you will find food. We need food and soap.”
    Tsi-ya’s heart fell when he looked inside the wagon and saw the flushed faces of its occupants. Hurriedly he got the small bag of money and a sack, and took his place in one of the lines at the gate. It was mid-morning before the slowly moving line reached the rough shed that was the Army store. He was allowed to draw rations for only three people. The spoiled meat and the flour he threw away in disgust, but he was glad to have the tiny measure of coffee and the three bars of soap.
    Nearer the gate was the tent of a trader who was doing a brisk business in corn meal and freshly butchered beef. Tsi-ya ordered enough of both for Oca-lee’s family and his own, with plenty to spare for Eskaqua, who had helped them.
    Two dollars would have been a high price to pay for it, but the wizened trader said: “That’ll come to twelve dollars. You got that much money?”
    “You ask ten times what it is worth,” Tsi-ya told him, trying to keep the anger from his voice. “Are you in debt to the Evil One, the white men speak about, that you need money so badly?”
    “Lissen,” growled the trader. “None o’ your sass! I gotta haul this meal clean up from Georgy. Hit’s a dollar a measure, an’ you kin take it or leave it! As fer the meat—”
    “Oh, let us have pity on the poor white,” spoke a very thin and wiry young man at Tsi-ya’s elbow. He spoke in clear English, dripping with derision. “He knows his virtues are too few to open the gates of his heaven, so he would gather all the Cherokee silver to bribe his way beyond the grave. Ha-yu! Even when it dies, a weasel is still a weasel.”
    There was sudden laughter from everyone around them who understood English. Even the guards, who stood by with ready rifles to prevent escape, laughed heartily. The trader cursed them all, but snatched greedily at the coins Tsi-ya threw at him.
    Tsi-ya limped back into the compound with the wiry young man, who wore the striped turban of the Deer People, his own clan. “That weasel felt your tongue,” he told the other, whose name was Ga-yuni.
    “Your tongue is not dull,” said Ga-yuni. “Are you not the Tsi-ya who is the son of the great Inali, who led the other chiefs to Washington?”
    “Inali is my father. Has – has there been any news from him?”
    “There has been no word from any of the chiefs. Many of us here have given up hope that anything can be done, and they despair, for soon we shall be taking the trail West. But there are hundreds of us who would rather die than go West. It is for that reason I would speak to you.”
    Ga-yuni paused as they reached the wagon, and waited while Tsi-ya turned the sack of food over to Oca-lee and Eskaqua. Then he said, “It is whispered that the son of Inali has been to the birthplace of the rivers, and has spoken to the Lichen.”
    “It is true,” Tsi-ya answered, and he repeated the Lichen’s message.
    “Then we need your help,” said Ga-yuni. He hunched down on his heels and said quietly: “We are digging a hole under the stockade. Tonight some of us will try to escape. Will you come with us, and guide us to the Secret Place?”
    Tsi-ya swallowed. “You honor me by asking my help, and I wish I could go. But my mother and brother are very ill, and I cannot leave them now.”
    “I understand,” said Ga-yuni. “No Cherokee will desert his family. The whites know that. That is why they first captured all the women and children, so that the men would give themselves up. Their Government promised us kind treatment if we would move.” His lip curled. “But they are kinder to their pigs.”
    “There is no honor left among the whites,” Tsi-ya said bitterly.
    Ga-yuni’s eyes flashed. “They are less than the weasel, less than the beetle grub! They are nothing!” He could think of no greater word of contempt. He shook his head, then said in a calmer voice: “I gave myself up in order to be with my sister. Her husband was killed by a settler, and she has two small children. She is not strong, and I know she will die unless she escapes tonight. There are six others who would come, and three are children. You see?” Ga-yuni made a spreading gesture with his hand. “Alone, I would not worry about finding the Lichen. But with so many children to protect—”
    “You should have a map,” Tsi-ya said quickly. “It would be much better than if I tried to tell you the way.”
    “A map is the answer,” Ga-yuni agreed. “All the older ones can study it. They will be able to avoid the dangers if our party is separated.”
    Tsi-ya took a pencil and a thin scrap of paper from his father’s chest, and began to draw. Ga-yuni, he knew, was ignoring his pride in asking the help of a junior. But pride did not matter now, for only a person who had never been in the high mountains could fail to realize their perils. There were roaring torrents that could be safely crossed in only a few spots, and there were cliffs and blind ravines that could be death traps for small children. The most dangerous of all were the great tangles of laurel and rhododendron, so thick that a man must crawl through them, and so vast that many a trapped hunter had died before he could find a way out. Bears lived in these terrible places – and so did dwarfs, or so it was said.
    It took most of the afternoon to prepare the map. Tsi-ya was constantly surrounded by other young men and youths who wanted to join Utsala at the first opportunity. The finished map, covered with directions carefully written in the language of his people, was hurriedly passed through many hands before Ga-yuni and his sister carried it away to study.
    Tsi-ya could not sleep that night. Long after he had said farewell to Ga-yuni, he lay on his grimy blanket, listening to the feverish mutterings of the ill ones in the wagon. Twice he got up to bring them cool water from the spring, and each time he found slender Oca-lee awake, bathing her mother’s forehead.
    “It is a bad night,” Oca-lee whispered once. “My mother is much worse, and all the sick ones are restless. I fear for Ga-yuni tonight.”
    “The moon is coming full,” he told her. “Pray that the clouds hide it.”
    At regular intervals he could hear the tramping of the sentries beyond the stockade. At midnight the guard changed, and now he lay tense, listening, for this was the hour when Ga-yuni had planned to escape.
    Suddenly there was a loud barking and snarling in one corner of the compound, where several youths gave a perfect imitation of a dogfight to attract the attention of the sentries. But hardly had it begun when Tsi-ya was horrified to see the night clearing. Presently the bright moon made the compound almost as light as day.
    It happened abruptly. There was a challenging cry in the distance, followed instantly by the sharp report of a musket. There were more shots, and the faint shouts of soldiers running. The compound was silent, but Tsi-ya knew that everyone was awake.
    With dawn the whispered news came to him. “Nine escaped, but Ga-yuni was killed.”
    There were grim faces in the food lines that morning, but no one spoke of what had happened. Tsi-ya had drawn his rations from the Army store when a soldier pulled him aside. “Come along to headquarters, you. Cap’n wants to talk to somebody who speaks English good.”
    Suddenly fearful, he preceded his guard up the slope to the big tent facing the encampment. Inside, he stopped short at the sight of the huge red-bearded man who sat on the other side of the table. The officer was Captain McReady.
    “Can you read and write English?” the captain boomed at him.
    “Yes.”
    “Say ‘sir’ when you answer me!”
    Tsi-ya clamped his jaws and remained disdainfully silent.
    “If you can read English,” the captain snapped, “that means you’ve also been taught to read your own language.” He thrust a thin piece of paper across the table, and ordered, “Let’s hear you translate this.”
    Tsi-ya stared at the paper in sudden shock. It was the map he had drawn for Ga-yuni.
    “Come, come!” the big man boomed. “You can read it! What does it say?”
    Tsi-ya’s fingers trembled as he grasped the paper. Swiftly he crumpled it and thrust it into his mouth. There was a bellow of rage as both the captain and the guard leaped to stop him, but he chewed furiously and managed to gulp the wad of paper down before the captain’s swinging hand sent him sprawling.
    “Dirty thieving redskin!” the captain roared hoarsely. He cursed until he was purple in the face, then jerked Tsi-ya to his feet. “You rascals have a hiding place back in the mountains! Where is it? Speak up before I beat it out of your hide!”
    “You’ll never beat anything out of a Cherokee!” Tsi-ya spat at him, trembling with such hatred as he had never known. “What right have you to treat my people the way you do? You bring them here to die, and you kill them when they try to escape! Ga-yuni said that you and your kind were nothing. And Ga-yuni was right. You are nothing at all! Nothing!”
    “An’ I fear the poor lad’s right,” spoke a new voice behind him. “When I see what’s goin’ on here, it makes me fair ashamed o’ my white skin!”
    “You keep your meddling nose out of this, Parson!” ordered the captain.
    “Don’t give me orders,” said the person who had entered the tent, a round little white-haired man in black suit and hat. “An’ don’t call me ‘Parson,’ if ye please. I’m Dr. O’Sullivan, of the medical missionary group, an’ I’ve official letters in my pocket that give me the right to be here, an’ to speak my mind about it afterward. I’ll tell ye right now that I’m not a bit liking the terrible an’ disgraceful things I’ve seen! I’ve been to all the other stockades, an’ they’re bad enough – but this place is the worst! I’ll remind ye, just as I’ve reminded General Scott, that the Cherokees are not savages, an’ that the cruel thing that’s being done to them has aroused the nation. Cap’n McReady, ye may not realize it, but ye’re helpin’ to write a black page in our history from which we’ll ever turn our eyes in shame!”
    The captain stood with open mouth, too astounded for speech. Dr. O’Sullivan turned and touched Tsi-ya on the shoulder. “Go, lad,” he said kindly. “An’ try an’ wipe the bitterness from your heart. An’ remember, ye’ve thousands o’ white friends all over the land. They’re bleedin’ for ye this very moment, an’ doin’ all in their power to help ye. Go now, an’ may God bless ye.”
    * * *
    The arrival of Dr. O’Sullivan brought a few small changes for the better. But these helped little, for now one tragedy was swiftly followed by others. The next afternoon the gates were opened for new arrivals, and in rode five of the middle district chiefs who had gone with Inali to appeal to Washington. They rode with bowed heads and set faces, and there were black markings on their foreheads as a sign of defeat. Both Inali and the father of Oca-lee, they said, were being held as hostages until General Scott, the Army commander, had moved all their people from the mountains.
    Tsi-ya heard this news with a sinking heart. Now the silence of despair settled over the jammed compound. With the failure of the Washington mission, the last hope was gone.
    Old Eskaqua said: “The first group of wagons is being equipped to leave this place next week. Half of us here are scheduled to go with it. The remainder will go later. I hope you are among the lucky who will leave with the first wagons.”
    “What difference does it make?” Tsi-ya asked.” Either way it will be bad.”
    “It will be doubly bad for those who go last,” said Eskaqua. “For the Nothing with the red beard, whose name is McReady, will be in charge.”
    Tsi-ya clenched his hands. He tried to think what his father would want him to do. His father, of course, would make no attempt to escape until the Army had finished its work. But no prison could hold him for long, and when the time came wouldn’t Inali go straight to the Secret Place, expecting his son to have led his family there?
    There was no question about it. His duty was clear. Not only must he manage to get Kiuga and his mother safely away, but Oca-lee’s family as well, for they were his mother’s relatives. But how?
    At the moment he could only pray that the ill would speedily recover, and that they would all be lucky enough to leave with the first wagons. Escape from the stockade was now almost impossible, for the guards had been doubled and a constant watch was being kept to see that no new tunnels were dug. But once outside, following the wagons, there should be many opportunities.
    As the day for the first departure approached, his uncertainty and uneasiness increased. Nequassee was better now, and Kiuga and Oca-lee’s sister, whom they called Little Mary, were both able to be up. But the Pigeon Woman, like many others in the stockade, refused to eat and seemed to have lost all desire to live.
    Tsi-ya hovered by the gates, hurriedly reading each new list as the names were posted for the different groups. Suddenly he found the names he sought. The family and relatives of the Black Fox were to go with the last wagons, in command of Captain McReady.
    He turned away, sick inside, feeling his courage ebbing. No date had been set for the final departure, and ahead stretched more weeks of uncertain waiting in the stifling compound. When they did leave, what chance would he have with his personal enemy, the Nothing with the red beard?
    He limped numbly back to the wagon to tell his mother. He found her sitting up, pale and shadow-thin, holding the sobbing Oca-lee and Little Mary to her breast. “Their mother is no longer troubled,” Ne-quassee said quietly. “She has closed her eyes and gone to join her people in the Night Land.”

Chapter 3: The Trail of Tears
    For a long while after the first wagons left, the heat lay heavy over the land and the bitter days dragged. Tsi-ya would have lost all track of time but for the knotted string at his belt. Each morning, out of habit, he tied a new knot in the string he had started so many weeks ago when he went in search of the Lichen. A double knot marked important dates, and he had only to run his fingers over the string to know when he had come to the stockade, and how long he had been here.
    There were sixty knots below the double knot marking the day of his arrival at Rattlesnake Springs, and frost lay on the ground, when the order came to make ready to travel.
    After the departure of the first wagons, there had been nearly a thousand people left in the compound. But now, in spite of new prisoners almost daily, hardly more than nine hundred were left, and a third of these were ill. A few of the younger and stronger men and women had managed to climb the palings and escape on stormy nights, but far more of the missing, victims of poor food, exposure, and despair, had followed the Pigeon Woman to the Night Land.
    After the long and seemingly senseless delay, while the lower mountains were being scoured for runaways, the Army was suddenly in a great hurry to take the trail. Captain McReady, astride his black horse, was in constant motion, bellowing orders. Guards went galloping in and out of the stockade, shouting, trying to urge the prisoners along. Dogs barked, men cursed, and drivers cracked their whips and sent the great Army supply wagons lumbering down the hill toward the rutted river road.
    But no amount of threats and cursing could hurry the prisoners. Not until all were ready did they begin to move, nor did a single one pass through the gates until the oldest chief among them had taken his place at the head of the line. He was Dani-taga, who had known the trials of eighty winters. Very slowly, looking neither to the right nor the left and ignoring every order to move faster, he rode out on his yellow pony. There was black upon his forehead, and his lined face was like graven stone. Slowly and in dead silence his people followed. Those who had the strength shouldered packs and walked, leaving the horses and all available space in their overloaded wagons for the more seriously ill. They scorned to glance at the guards or the crowd of gleeful settlers who had gathered to watch the departure.
    Where the river road swung west, Dani-taga paused. Stiffly he turned in his saddle and raised his sunken eyes to the high mountains behind him, glowing now with fall colors. The ragged line paused also, and as one the refugees turned and gazed for the last time upon the beauty of their lost homeland. A low sob broke from their throats, and every face was suddenly wet with tears. Then Dani-taga lifted his hand, and the slow procession went onward. From that moment Dani-taga was never heard to speak again.
    Though Tsi-ya had been counting the days till now, basing all his plans of escape upon the future, he had not realized how the departure would affect him. It seemed all at once that he was on his way to the Night Land. For they were going westward, a direction that was symbolized by black, the color for death. The thought lay heavier in his heart than the pack upon his shoulders, and he could feel the darkness of it in everyone around him. His mother, so frail that she was just able to keep up the pace, said never a word to him all that morning. Gaunt old Eskaqua, who had given up his own wagon so that the more feeble might ride, moved beside her like a man in a dream, often stumbling as if he could not see the ruts in the road. Even Kiuga and Little Mary trudged in dejected silence.
    That afternoon Eskaqua fell and could not rise. Oca-lee, who had never been well after the death of her mother, stopped the horses and slid weakly from the driver’s seat. “Let him take my place in the wagon,” she said. “I can walk now.”
    “No,” said Eskaqua. “The young are more important than the old, for the old will soon die. You must go on without me.”
    Behind them the struggling line had halted, grateful for this sudden chance to rest. Two soldiers rode up, and one said not unkindly, “You better git agoin’ before the cap’n comes.” They dismounted and helped the protesting Eskaqua into the wagon. Hardly were they back in their saddles when Captain McReady appeared, cursing at the delay. At the same moment another rider approached from the opposite direction. He was a plump little white-haired man in a black cape and hat. Tsi-ya was amazed to see that it was his old friend, Dr. O’Sullivan.
    Captain McReady was more than amazed. He was furious. He swore. “What do you think you’re doing here?” he demanded.
    “I’m here by special dispensation,” Dr. O’Sullivan replied mildly. “Ye’re shy a chaplain, an’ the good Lord knows ye need one, if only for the occasional prayer I’ll offer for the dark soul of ye. I’ll warrant mighty few prayers have been said for it.”
    The big red-bearded man glowered at him. “If you must be on this trip,” he boomed, “just keep your presence and your prayers out of my sight and hearing, and don’t ask for favors. I’m an Indian fighter, Doctor. I’ve seen men butchered by the Creeks and Seminoles, and I’ve no use for Indian lovers.” He wheeled his black horse and galloped angrily away.
    Dr. O’Sullivan shook his head. “It is most unfortunate,” he murmured. “He has never learned that every Indian war was started by a white man with a mouth full of lies.” Then, as the line began to move, he looked at frail Oca-lee and Nequassee, and suddenly dismounted. “Madam,” he said, “ye’d oblige me if you an’ the girl would take my saddle for a spell an’ give me a chance to walk some o’ this unhealthy fat off my bones. It is a disgraceful thing for a man o’ God to so nearly resemble a pig.”
    Tsi-ya smiled for the first time in days, and his heart lightened a little as the plump missionary began walking beside him. “You are very kind to let my mother and Oca-lee ride,” he said.
    “They must gather their strength,” said Dr. O’Sullivan. “We shall be many months on the trail. Do you know the route we follow?”
    “I’ve talked with one of the chiefs about it. He said that some of us from the other stockades were taken by boat for part of the way, but that we’ll have to walk the whole distance.”
    “True, m’lad. They did send a few groups by boat, down the Tennessee, but they gave that up. Too many people were able to escape. So now it’s overland. How well do you know your geography?”
    ‘‘I – I’ve studied it carefully,” Tsi-ya admitted. He had, in fact, made a copy of a borrowed map of the country they would be going through, and by now it was so familiar he could have drawn it from memory.
    Dr. O’Sullivan said: “The way would be shorter if we could go straight west, but the land is wild and the trails are bad. So we will take the Nashville road and angle across Tennessee and Kentucky, and lower Illinois.” He paused and frowned down at Tsi-ya’s bare feet. “It will be midwinter when we reach Illinois, and bitterly cold. An’ there’ll be all of Missouri to cross. Have ye no shoes to protect your feet?”
    “I am saving my moccasins, Doctor.”
    He could feel the little man’s sharp glance. “I’ll warrant ye’re not savin’ ’em for the snows of Illinois,” Dr. O’Sullivan said quietly.
    “No, Doctor.”
    “Then let us pray the ill soon recover. Remember, son, I am here to help. Do not hesitate to call on me when ye need it.”
    * * *
    Two days later they crossed the Tennessee River at the ferry near the mouth of the Hiwassee. The ground on either side of the river was stripped bare for a half mile around, for the trails from all the other stockades met at the ferry. Tsi-ya learned that more than ten thousand of his people had already made the crossing here, and that the last party of a thousand was only a few days ahead.
    With the big river behind, Tsi-ya’s despair deepened. The confusion of the crossing would have been a perfect time to escape, for it had taken an extra day and part of a night to get all the horses and baggage to the western bank. But neither Oca-lee nor his mother had had the strength even to forage for fuel. Now the fall rains were upon them, and with each westward mile the lot of everyone grew steadily worse.
    Old Eskaqua died the first night past the river, and each night there were more burials to add to the graves that marked every halting spot. The broad trail, over which so many had passed, was churned to a quagmire that in places was almost impassable. Never did they make more than ten miles a day, and over the worst stretches they hardly made five. The sky remained overcast, and day after day the slow, dismal rain continued.
    Dr. O’Sullivan said: “Fret not for the rain, my friends. Where so many have cried ahead of ye, even God must shed his tears.”
    At every town and village on the way traders were gathered to sell supplies, and at some places the road was lined with hundreds of curious whites who had come to see the Indians go west. To one crowd of settlers, who seemed to find joy in the occasion, Dr. O’ Sullivan lashed out in unexpected anger: “Before ye laugh, ride back an’ count the graves! An’ if that’s not enough to make ye hide your faces in shame, I’ll tell ye something that will! D’ye know what the Cherokee call ye now? Ye’re no longer whites. Ye’re the Nothings! How’ll that sound to Saint Peter when ye go begging at the pearly gates?”
    Nequassee coughed a great deal now. Every morning she made an attempt to walk so that someone else might ride. Seldom, however, was she able to continue through the day. Tsi-ya thought of using some of their money to buy an extra pony from one of the traders so that his mother could ride, but Nequassee would not hear of it.
    “What money we have left,” she said, “must be used to buy food from the traders. The ill cannot eat the Army rations, and without our help many more of them would die.”
    At last there came a morning when Nequassee was too weak to rise. Some of the remaining baggage in the crowded wagon had to be discarded to make room for her. That night she called Tsi-ya and whispered: “My son, I have been very foolish. I thought, by this time, that I would be better. But winter is nearly here, and you must delay no longer. Tonight, when all is quiet, I want you to take Kiuga and the Pigeon Woman’s daughters and slip away.”
    Tsi-ya swallowed. “I – I cannot go without you,” he protested.
    “You must,” she said. “If you wait too long, it may be too late.”
    He couldn’t see how he could ever go off and leave her, even though she ordered it. “We – we’ll have to wait a little longer,” he told her. “Kiuga cut his foot and can hardly walk. And they say Little Mary is sick again.”
    Desperately he tried to plan how they might all escape together, but every scheme seemed hopeless before the continued illness of one or another of them. Alone, it would have been a simple thing to creep past the sentries at night and vanish in the forest tangles. A few had done this. But as the weather grew colder and home was left farther behind, nearly everyone came to feel like the remaining members of Eskaqua’s family. Better, they said, to risk going on than to face starvation in the winter woods.
    They passed the little town of Nashville and crossed the Cumberland River. There was ice on the ground now, and Tsi-ya was forced to wear the moccasins he had been saving. He had lightened his pack all he dared, but there were times when he felt he could not carry it another mile. Only on Sundays was there any rest, for then his people steadfastly refused to travel.
    They left Tennessee behind and entered western Kentucky. The cold increased. Now there was hardly a mile of the trail that did not have its grave, and every camping spot was marked by rows of little crosses.
    Tsi-ya could not look at the crosses. How many of the struggling Cherokees ahead of him had died? Thousands, surely. Of his own group he knew that less than eight hundred remained.
    As slow November passed, he no longer allowed himself to think of the future. Neither Kiuga nor the Pigeon Woman’s daughters were ever well at the same time, and his mother coughed continually and seldom stirred from the wagon.
    The first flurries of December snow were falling when they reached the Ohio. Tsi-ya had never seen a river so large, so dark, so forbidding. The very sight of it filled him with dread. Once over in Illinois, the stream would be a mighty barrier to threaten all his small efforts to return.
    Captain McReady, however, was in a fury of impatience. The river must be crossed, and speedily. The sick did not matter. Relentlessly he drove them from their wagons to the ferry, and cursed every little delay. Even so, all of four days were lost before the last horse and wagon was transferred to the Illinois shore.
    “The captain,” Dr. O’Sullivan said, “can’t wait to reach Cape Girardeau. I understand his wife and little boy are waiting there for him.” He shook his head. “It means nothing to him that his haste is costing lives.”
    “Cape Girardeau,” Tsi-ya said wearily. “Isn’t that on the big river – the Mississippi?”
    The doctor nodded. “Less than a hundred miles from here, on the Missouri side. I’m afraid our party will have to spend the winter in the stockade on the east bank. They tell me the Mississippi is so full of ice that they won’t be able to ferry the wagons across till spring.”
    Tsi-ya stiffened. Cold fear knotted his stomach. Spend the winter in another open prison? Anything would be better than that!
    Dr. O’Sullivan, watching him, said: “If ye’re thinking of escape, my son, I’d advise ye to wait. Both your mother and Little Mary are too ill to risk it.”
    Tsi-ya’s thin hands clenched tightly. “We’ve got to risk it, Doctor! We’ll all die if we have to spend the winter in a stockade!”
    * * *
    Though it snowed for two days, there was no rest now for anyone. Guards rode up and down the slow plodding line, shouting: “Git along, now! Git along! You kin do your resting at the river!”
    They were following the Cape Girardeau post road, going through a dismal stretch of flat, wooded country that had been burned over, partially cleared in spots, then abandoned. Nearer the river the land was richer and thickly settled and offered little chance of finding safe shelter. But twice on this third day Tsi-ya noticed what seemed to be empty cabins in the distance.
    It was almost twilight when he glimpsed the last cabin. He studied it carefully. Sure that it was empty, he made his plans on the instant.
    “Tonight,” he said to Oca-lee and Kiuga, “we start back for the mountains. As soon as we’ve made camp, get your packs ready. Do you remember the things you must carry?”
    For a moment they could only stare at him in numb surprise, too cold and tired for speech. A hundred times during the past weeks he had tried to comfort them by promising escape, even when they all knew escape to be impossible. Finally Oca-lee, who almost never spoke these days, whispered: “You must go without me, Tsi-ya. I cannot walk any farther tonight.”
    “All you have to do,” he said, “is slip back to that last cabin and hide.”
    “But – but what of Little Mary and your mother?”
    “I’ll take care of them. Now, as soon as we’ve made the fire and had something to eat, get your packs, wrap all your blankets about you, and pretend you’re going out to pick up sticks for the fire. Kiuga will do the same. Stay away from the road and circle around to the rear of the cabin. If I’m not there by morning, just wait for me.”
    The procession halted at last in a grove of gaunt trees. Around them stretched open country, the first bit of prairie Tsi-ya had seen. The cabin lay hardly a half mile behind them.
    The evening fires were kindled and blanketed figures huddled over them, broiling the scraps of meat they had been issued for the day. Tsi-ya unhitched the horses and fed them, and went back to the wagon to speak to his mother. Little Mary, crouched in the crowded darkness beside her, said softly: “Nequassee sleeps. She is very tired.”
    Tsi-ya did not have the heart to waken her. There would be time enough later. Quietly he drew his father’s calfskin chest from under the wagon seat. It contained family treasures he hated to lose, but he took from it only the remaining money, his father’s leather jacket, a robe belonging to his mother, and all their extra moccasins. It troubled him to be without a hunting knife, but in the equipment he had managed to save were two light cooking knives which he had instructed Kiuga and Oca-lee to carry. His only weapon was a small hatchet.
    At the campfire, which they shared with Eskaqua’s family, he found that Oca-lee had finished broiling their supply of meat while the women were making a kettle of broth for the sick ones in the two wagons. Swiftly he divided the meat, saving a few pieces for supper but placing the main part of their share in the tin pail that Oca-lee would carry.
    “Hurry,” he said. “You can eat on the way. Eskaqua’s daughters will look after Little Mary and my mother.”
    He had hardly spoken when two soldiers, who had drawn sentry duty for the evening, swung past their fire. Tsi-ya was dismayed to see them take up their position under a tree less than a dozen yards away, in full view of the spot where he had tethered the horses.
    Oca-lee moved casually around the fire and slipped the tin pail and a doeskin bag under the blankets she was wearing. She looked questioningly at Tsi-ya.
    There was no time to wait. Their best chance was now, while there was still enough activity in camp to mask their movements.
    “We need more sticks for the fire,” he said.
    Oca-lee took a few searching steps that carried her beyond the circle of firelight. Kiuga followed. Presently both children vanished in the gloom on the other side of the wagons. The guards, unsuspecting, did not even glance at them.
    For a few seconds afterward Tsi-ya sat very still, suddenly frightened as he considered how much he had undertaken, and how desperate their position was. The presence of the sentries had more than doubled the difficulties ahead, for now he would have to borrow a horse instead of using one of his own.
    It was with a quick rush of relief that he saw Dr. O’Sullivan approaching. But before he could speak the little man said: “’Tis a tragic night, my lad. I know ye’ll be saddened to hear that Dani-taga is dead.”
    “Dani-taga!”
    “Aye, but his spirit goes not alone. They are digging nine graves tonight. ’Twas seven last night, an’ nine tonight.” Dr. O’Sullivan shook his head. Abruptly he said: “I don’t suppose ye’ve seen Captain McReady. I’m trying to find him. For once I fear he needs me.”
    “What – what’s happened, Doctor?”
    “The ways o’ God are strange, lad. The post rider from Cape Girardeau has just brought him fearful news. Some kind o’ fever is plaguing the town, an’ both his wife an’ little boy are dead of it. When he heard it he went tearing through camp like a man out o’ his mind.”
    Dr. O’Sullivan turned away. Tsi-ya stared after him, then ran and plucked his sleeve. “Doctor,” he whispered urgently, “I – I need your help.”
    “Of course, lad. What is it?”
    He drew the little man into the shadow of Eskaqua’s wagon. “Doctor, I must have a horse. I cannot use mine without being seen. May I borrow your pony for an hour?”
    “My pony? Ye would try to leave tonight?”
    “I must! Oca-lee and my brother have already gone. I’m to meet them back at the last cabin we passed. If I can borrow your pony, I know my mother and Little Mary can ride that far.”
    “Ye’re taking a frightful risk, lad.”
    “I know it, but it has to be. Once I get them to the cabin, Doctor, I believe I can manage.”
    Dr. O’Sullivan stood a moment in thought. Finally he gave a slight jerk of his head. “My pony’s right over there, tied up by Old Medicine’s oxen. The bridle’s hanging on a limb beside her. Think ye can get her without being noticed, an’ take her around to the edge of the trees?”
    “Yes, Doctor.”
    “Well, just before we camped I saw a big broken willow at the edge of the prairie. It’s straight off to the right. Take the pony around to the willow an’ wait for me.”
    “But I’ll have to get Little Mary and my mother—”
    “Let me fetch them, lad. It’ll be much safer. I can pretend we’re going to pay our respects to Dani-taga. But we haven’t much time. On your way before the camp begins to settle down.”
    Tsi-ya crept around the wagons and got his pack. A light snow was beginning to fall as he approached the pony and slipped the bridle over her head. Hastily he strapped the saddle on and tied his pack behind it. The snow muffled sound and helped to hide his movements as he cautiously led the pony to the edge of the grove of trees.
    He found the broken willow without trouble. With his blankets wrapped around him, he crouched down at the base of the tree to wait.
    The campfires cast a dim flickering glow in the heart of the grove. As time passed the glow began to die. Tsi-ya was suddenly uneasy. He stood up, searching the gloom, but could see no one approaching. He knew now that something must have happened. He sank down, sick inside.
    The lonesome howl of a timber wolf brought him to his feet again, trembling. It was a sound he had heard often in the past few weeks, but for the first time it pierced him with a cold chill of fear. He wondered if Oca-lee and Kiuga had reached the cabin safely. He swallowed and tried not to think about them.
    A dim figure emerged from the trees. It was Dr. O’Sullivan, and he was carrying Little Mary, swaddled in blankets, in his arms.
    “Where – where is my mother?” Tsi-ya whispered.
    Dr. O’Sullivan did not answer until he had placed Little Mary in the saddle. Then he said: “Ye must have courage, son. Your mother trods an easier trail tonight. Her spirit has followed Dani-taga’s.”
    Tsi-ya could not speak. Something within him seemed turned to stone. He was hardly aware of Dr. O’Sullivan’s hand on his shoulder.
    “It is hard, lad, but ye have others to think about now. Ye must hasten to take Little Mary to shelter. An’ do not try to return the pony. Keep her as long as ye need her, then turn her loose. If she doesn’t come back to me, I can get another horse in Cape Girardeau. Go now, an’ may God help an’ bless ye all.”
    “Thank you, Doctor,” Tsi-ya managed to mumble.
    He grasped the pony’s bridle and moved blindly forward in the snow.

Chapter 4: The Cabin and the Cricket
    In the gray gloom of softly falling snow it was neither very cold nor very dark, but it was hard to make out objects more than a few yards ahead. Tsi-ya had fixed the location of the cabin in his mind, and now he moved toward it mechanically, hardly aware of what he was doing. Though he had long known in his heart that his mother could never recover from her hardships, he was still unable to accept what had happened.
    Once, as they floundered through a deep drift, he heard Little Mary whimper behind him. He turned in time to catch her before she fell.
    “Is it much farther, Tsi-ya?” she asked plaintively, as he set her back in the saddle.
    “We’ll soon be there,” he mumbled. “Can you hang on a little longer?”
    “I – I’ll try.”
    They were hardly on their way again when a huge form took shape in front of them. It was a man.
    The man was Captain McReady.
    The meeting was so sudden, so unexpected, that Tsi-ya could only stare at him dumbly, unable to move as a big hand reached forth and seized him roughly by the shoulder.
    “Where do you think you’re going?” the captain demanded, in a voice that was hoarse and strange.
    “Home,” Tsi-ya said faintly. It was the only word that came to his mind.
    “Home,” the big man repeated. He shook his head as if to rid it of a thought too terrible to carry. “Once I had a home...” His powerful fingers closed crushingly on Tsi-ya’s thin shoulder, then slowly the hand relaxed and fell away. All at once he laughed harshly. “You would start back in midwinter for your mountains – and they’re five hundred miles away! Who am I to stop you? Go! Go! Get out of my sight!” He thrust Tsi-ya aside and lurched off, stumbling like a drunken man.
    For a minute afterward Tsi-ya stood trembling. “He let us go!” he said wonderingly to Little Mary. “He let us go!”
    The shock of the meeting had brought him back to the present. They were free now, but they would not be safe until he could find the cabin. Where was it?
    He realized that it was snowing harder and the night was darkening. The road, as nearly as he could judge, lay a hundred paces over on his left. The cabin should be straight ahead, in a cluster of trees less than a quarter of a mile away.
    With one hand on the saddle to keep Little Mary from falling, he plunged on, urging the reluctant pony ahead. He did not see the fence until the pony stopped. It was an old rail fence, and he angled to the left and followed it until he found a broken place through which he could lead the pony. In the overgrown field beyond he stood confused, unable to see even the dim outlines of trees that had been visible earlier.
    The howl of a timber wolf somewhere behind him sent him blindly on. He would have missed the cabin entirely if Little Mary had not cried: “I see it! To the right!”
    With a quick surge of relief he turned and led the pony around to the rear of the place and tied it to a post by the door.
    “Kiuga!” he called. “Oca-lee! We are here!”
    There was no answer. He pushed against the door. It seemed to be barred from the inside. Again he called, but there was no sound in reply.
    With a word to Little Mary he went stumbling around to the sagging porch and tried the front door. It was closed and barred, and the shutter over the porch window was nailed shut. In swift rising fear he returned to the rear entrance. Was he wrong in thinking the cabin had been abandoned? But it must be, he thought. When he’d glimpsed it earlier in the evening there hadn’t been a sign of life about it, not even a dog.
    He glanced at the dim form of Little Mary, huddled in the saddle, waiting. Abruptly he put his shoulder to the door and pushed with all his strength. There was a dull crack, and the door creaked open a foot and stuck.
    He slid inside. Instantly his hand fumbled under his blankets for his hatchet, and he stood motionless. In the blackness of the cabin he could see nothing, but he knew he was not alone. There was something in here.
    For the first time he caught the faint smell of wood smoke. A single coal gave a dull glow in what must be the fireplace. As he stared at it he heard a slight movement, and the glowing coal vanished. A prickling went up his spine. The thing, whatever it was, lay between him and the hearth.
    “Who’s there?” he demanded shakily.
    And in answer, so low as to be hardly audible, came the words, “I am Tala-tu of the Ani-kawi.”
    It was the frightened voice of a small boy.
    Tsi-ya sagged against the door. In his relief he almost laughed. Tala-tu, the Cricket! “Be not afraid, little Cricket. We are friends, and of the same clan.” Being of the Ani-kawi, the Deer People, made them relatives.
    He slid back through the door and lifted Little Mary from the saddle. In his exhaustion it was all he could do to carry her slight form into the cabin. When he had found his strength, he felt his way over the earthen floor to a corner of the fireplace. His searching fingers gathered a few bits of bark and rotten wood which he crumpled over the coal. As he puffed on it, the coal brightened and burst into flame. Before it died, he located a handful of scattered sticks and nursed the flame to a fire.
    Now, beside him at the hearth, he could see a funny little face with large protruding ears peeking at him from a mound of dirty blankets. Tala-tu, the Cricket. Tsi-ya could not help smiling, though it was evident that the boy was both hungry and ill. He seemed hardly older than Little Mary.
    “The fire,” Tala-tu whispered. “Is – is it safe?”
    “No one will bother us,” Tsi-ya assured him. “Besides, it is snowing.” Earlier he had been grateful for the snow that covered their trail, though he doubted now that any attempt would be made to catch them. But the snow, if Kiuga and Oca-lee were lost in it, had become an enemy. He clenched his numbed hands in anxiety as he wondered what could have happened to them.
    “How long have you been here, Tala-tu?”
    “Four days. It is good to see you. I – I’m all alone.” “You mean you escaped alone from the party ahead of ours?”
    “Yes. All my family died. So I – I ran away.”
    “You are very brave.” Then Tsi-ya frowned. “My brother and Little Mary’s sister slipped away first this evening. They were to meet us here. Tell me, did anyone come here or try to enter before we came?”
    ‘‘A – a man came, not long ago.”
    “A man?”
    “A white man. I did not see him, but I heard him outside, walking up and down, talking strangely to himself. I was very frightened, but he did not try to enter.”
    Suddenly it was clear to Tsi-ya what must have taken place. The man, surely, had been Captain McReady. And Kiuga and Oca-lee, approaching the cabin from the field, had seen him and hurriedly sought another hiding place.
    Tsi-ya limped to the door and tugged it open a little wider. For several minutes he stood there calling. Finally he stepped outside and began searching in the drifts for more wood. He found a few broken limbs and managed to build the fire up to a roaring blaze. Again he went out, leaving the door open and moving in the shaft of light. He shouted until he was hoarse, but his only answer was the long howl of the timber wolf, muffled and eerie in the falling snow. When he turned dejectedly back to the cabin, the snow was falling so thickly that it was difficult to see the light of the open door. It was hard to give up, but he knew it was impossible to do more until daylight.
    He brought in more wood and led the pony inside, barring the door with a stick. Little Mary, rolled in her blankets at one corner of the hearth, was sound asleep. But Tala-tu was watching him wistfully.
    Finally, very hesitantly, Tala-tu asked, “Have you any – food?”
    “I’ll find you something, little Cricket.”
    Tsi-ya opened his pack. All he had was a cloth bag half full of precious corn meal he had been carefully saving. He melted a little snow in his tin drinking cup and used it to dampen a handful of meal. Then he passed the meal into cakes which he placed on a hot stone in the hearth. His mouth watered as they began to brown, for he was hungry himself, but he gave them all to Tala-tu.
    In the pleasant warmth of the cabin the sick boy fell asleep almost as soon as he had eaten. Tsi-ya waited until the fire had burned down. He heaped ashes over the coals and spread his blankets near the hearth.
    He was bone-weary, but for a long time he lay awake, deeply troubled. For weeks he had tried to plan ahead for the time of escape, but he had never dreamed it would come on such an unhappy night, in a snowstorm in far-off Illinois. As he thought of Nequassee, tears suddenly rolled down his cheeks. Then he clenched his hands and cried aloud, “Oh, great Kanati, please watch over Oca-lee and my brother, and help me to find them and lead them safely to the valley of the Lichen.”
    * * *
    He was awakened by the pony nuzzling his cheek. Sunlight streamed through a hole in the roof. The cabin was icy, and when he got up and opened the door, the cold struck him like a blow. He wrapped a blanket about him, got his hatchet, and stepped outside.
    The morning was clear and bright, and the fresh snow reached almost to his knees. The sun was hours high. Suddenly he looked off in the direction of the camp. He could barely make out the distant grove beyond the scattered patches of brush. There seemed to be no stirring of life there, nor could he see even a faint wisp of smoke. By this time, surely, the party would be on the march to Cape Girardeau.
    Hastily Tsi-ya gathered a few fallen limbs, dragged them into the cabin, and built up the fire. When the numbness had left his hands, he went out again, searching.
    He had never seen such flat, lonesome country. The cabin was on a slight rise covered by a sparse growth of barren trees; around it lay great stretches of fire-blackened brush which merged gradually into gaunt and empty forest.
    It was not until he had trudged to the rail fence and had begun circling back that he noticed a slight depression in the snow which indicated a path. His eyes followed it down past a plum thicket to what was probably a spring.
    He knew there ought to be some sort of barn close by, but he did not find it until he was beyond the thicket. It was hidden in a hollow, and its flat low roof, covered with snow, made it invisible from more than a few yards away.
    All at once he was plunging down to it, tugging at the sagging door, calling, “Kiuga! Oca-lee!”
    From the semidarkness of a mound of hay in a corner, two startled faces peered out at him, then broke into glad cries.
    It was just as he had expected. Last evening the sight of Captain McReady at the cabin had frightened them away. By chance they had run down past the plum thicket and stumbled upon the barn.
    “Are the sick ones safe?” Oca-lee asked, as Tsi-ya led them shivering up the path.
    Tsi-ya swallowed, suddenly realizing they did not know about Nequassee. “There – there was trouble,” he began. “Our mother—” It was hard to tell them, but somehow he managed.
    Silent and forlorn, they followed him to the cabin to meet Tala-tu.
    The cabin was pleasantly warm now. The Cricket, peeking buglike from his mound of blankets, was wiggling his big ears at Little Mary, who was screaming with laughter. At the sight of him even sad-eyed Oca-lee could not help smiling.
    “You are very funny,” she told him. “But if you wiggle your ears too hard they’ll turn into wings.”
    “Then I shall just flap them and fly back to the mountains,” said the Cricket. “How far away are the mountains, Tsi-ya?”
    “Five hundred miles.” It was what Captain McReady had told him, and the words slipped out before he thought.
    They all stared at him, instantly silent. Five hundred miles! Tala-tu seemed to shrink within his blankets. Wispy Oca-lee almost dropped the pail of meat she had been carrying so carefully. Skinny Kiuga stuck out his lip and scowled, as he always did when pretending he wasn’t afraid.
    Finally Little Mary asked plaintively, “How far is five hundred miles, Tsi-ya?”
    Though it seemed as far as the moon, Tsi-ya tried to say cheerfully: “Some miles are short, others are long. It depends how we feel and which way we go. The Ohio isn’t far from here. When we’re back on the other side, and have had plenty of food and rest, all the miles will be short.”
    He paused, and then said: “When we’ve eaten, we’ll hold a council. Kiuga, get more wood for the fire while I take the pony to the barn. Oca-lee, take the meat from the pail and I’ll fill it with water from the spring. While I’m gone cook one corn cake apiece and warm up half the meat.”
    At the barn he put the pony in one of the stalls and gave it an armful of hay. As he was dipping water from the spring he noticed several small minnows dart down toward the half-frozen creek that wound through the scrubby willows beyond the barn. Possibly the creek would furnish a few fish large enough to eat. The thought gave him some comfort as he started back to the cabin, for there had been no evidence of game anywhere near. The only tracks he had seen were wolf tracks, which was a bad sign.
    He was nearly at the cabin when the warning cry of a blue jay caused him to glance toward the road. He slipped quickly behind a tree. A horseman was approaching.
    The man was going east, and by the heavy saddlebags strapped behind him Tsi-ya knew he must be a post rider carrying mail from Cape Girardeau. The man slowed as he caught sight of the smoke rising from the cabin chimney. Abruptly he stopped. For nearly a minute he stared at the place. Then he spurred his horse and rode on.
    Tsi-ya did not mention the post rider when he sat down by the hearth to warm his numb hands. He knew the man must have guessed who was staying here, and would probably spread the news to all he met. The thought troubled him. Silently he munched the meal cake and the small piece of meat Oca-lee gave him, making them last as long as possible. Worries played tag through his mind. How many days could they safely remain here? How, with everyone so weak, could they face the cold and manage to get back to the Ohio? And how, once they reached the river, could they ever get across to the other side?
    Suddenly he smiled. Here he was trying to cross a river that was still miles and miles away!
    “Oca-lee,” he said, “your mother was a medicine woman, so you will have to be our doctor. Have the sick ones any fever?”
    “No, Tsi-ya. I – I think if we could just stay here a few days and rest, and you could kill some rabbits—”
    “Rabbits!” chirped the Cricket. “I’m so hungry I dreamed about rabbits all last night! I’ve been dreaming of rabbits every night since—”
    “Is that why your ears are so big?” Little Mary asked.
    “My ears aren’t really big,” said the Cricket. “It is just that the rest of me has shrunk from not eating.”
    “Enough!” said Tsi-ya, laughing. “I see the sick ones are not really sick, if they chase rabbits in their sleep. Kiuga, have you the things you were to bring?”
    “Four sinew cords and two fishlines,” replied his brother, opening the pouch at his belt and taking out the cords of deer sinew and the fishlines of braided horsehair. “But I have only one fishhook.”
    “I have fishhooks,” said the Cricket. “And more lines.”
    “Save your hooks,” Tsi-ya told him. “We’ll need them later if I lose mine. Oca-lee, if you and Little Mary will pluck the strongest and luckiest hairs from your head and make snares for birds, maybe we’ll have quail for supper if I cannot find rabbits.” He frowned a moment in thought. “If only I had a knife—”
    “But – but I have a knife!” The Cricket twisted weakly in his blankets and drew forth a small hunting knife. It was stubby and homemade, but it had a far better blade than the little kitchen knives carried by Kiuga and Oca-lee.
    Tsi-ya’s eyes gleamed as he took it. Now he could make weapons for everyone – spears to begin with, and later possibly a bow for himself. But his first concern was food.
    He waited, watching Oca-lee’s nimble fingers forming nooses in single hairs from her head. Suddenly he remembered how vastly different this country was from their mountains, and the barrenness of it. Perhaps, if birds were scarce, it might be wise to set out stronger snares for small animals. The sinew cords would do for that.
    At last, when everything was ready, he motioned to Kiuga. “Come, brother Chipmunk. We’ve work to do.”
    * * *
    Tsi-ya checked over their snares. They had a dozen made of hair, and eight of sinew. Four of the latter were of lengths of sinew he always carried in his pouch along with a tinder box and a fishing line. With Kiuga’s help he set half the snares in the thickets along the rail fence, and the remainder in the brush bordering the creek. The next thing was to find bait for their hooks.
    The ground was frozen too hard to dig for worms, but a careful search under the straw in the barn produced a few fat beetles; a rotten log in the foundation gave them several white grubs. The fish, however, were not interested in either beetles or grubs. Yet there were fish in the creek, for every large hole seemed to be full of them.
    “They don’t look like our trout at home,” said Kiuga.
    “They are not trout,” Tsi-ya finally had to admit, after studying the dark water. “They’re suckers.”
    He was disappointed. Suckers were lowland fish, full of bones and hardly fit to eat; furthermore, it was almost impossible to catch one on a hook. But any fish was better than no fish.
    “We’ll have to spear them,” he said.
    With his hatchet he cut four straight sturdy poles from the fire-killed brush and carried them back to the cabin. It was past midday and everyone was hungry, but he shook his head when Oca-lee asked if she should cook the rest of the food. Better to go hungry now, he thought, than to have nothing for tomorrow.
    He selected the longest and slenderest pole, whittled it down carefully, and split the large end into three points. With great pains he wedged the points apart, cut barbs near the end of each, charred them in the fire to harden them, and finally scraped them until they were as sharp as needles.
    Leaving Kiuga to trim down the other poles, he returned to the creek.
    Had the water been clear, it would have been no trick at all to slip along the edge of the bank and get all the fish they needed with the barbed spear. But it was hard to see them against the muddy bottom, and the water seemed to be gradually darkening. Suddenly he realized that the air was warmer and that the snow was beginning to thaw.
    He had managed to spear three fish when he heard a faint shout from the direction of the cabin. He plunged through the brush and was in time to see two horsemen dismounting by the front entrance.
    Tsi-ya ran. When he reached the cabin the men had forced their way inside and were standing with hands on their hips in the pleased attitude of hunters who have had a successful day.
    “Well, well!” said the larger of the two, a paunchy fellow in an old wolfskin coat. He had a bulbous red nose and smelled strongly of whisky. “Here’s another one, Smoky! That makes five head.”
    Smoky grinned. He was a wizened man in filthy buckskins, and his grin showed a pair of yellow fangs that made him resemble a hound. “Reckon the jedge at Golconda Landing will pay us two dollars a head fer ’em?”
    “Sure oughta,” said the paunchy one. “If the Army gives ’im five a head fer runaways, like I hear, he hadn’t oughta quibble over two dollars.” All at once he thrust his head at Tsi-ya. “You got any money?”
    Tsi-ya swallowed. “Money for what?”
    “You heard ’im!” snapped Smoky. “You better have money, or we’ll turn you in!”
    “We’d hate to turn you in,” said the big man. “Don’t seem right. On t’other hand, don’t seem right we should lose money fer not turnin’ you in. We aim to be fair. It ought to be worthy twenty dollars to you if we let you go free. You got twenty dollars?”
    Tsi-ya clenched his hands to keep them from trembling. In the bottom of his pouch, forgotten until now, was the remainder of the money he had taken from his father’s chest. It was in paper bills, and he doubted if it amounted to more than fifteen dollars. He had intended giving it to Dr. O’Sullivan to help buy food for Eskaqua’s family, but during the escape it had slipped his mind.
    Should he offer it to these rascals, hoping they would go away in peace? Or was it just a bluff when they said the Army was paying a reward for runaways? He hadn’t heard of any reward. He thought, What can they do but threaten us?
    Suddenly he spread his hands. “Look at us! How could we have money? But please don’t turn us in!”
    The big man scowled. Smoky went to one of the packs and kicked it open. He cursed and pawed through the other packs. “They ain’t got nothin’,” he growled. He jerked his thumb at Tala-tu and Little Mary. “What’s wrong with them two?”
    “They are sick,” said Tsi-ya, trying to control his rage.
    “If they’re sick,” said the big man, “they ain’t gonna do no traveling without hosses. Let’s go see the jedge.”
    “Hadn’t one of us better go git a wagon an’ take ’em to the jedge?”
    “Naw, let the jedge come in his own wagon, unless he wants to pay us extra. If these varmints try to git away, they can’t go far.”
    Tsi-ya watched them leave, his anger turning into dismay that changed to growing fear. It didn’t seem to be a bluff after all.
    What should he do now?
    The others, wide-eyed, were waiting for him to speak. Little Mary began to cry. “W-why can’t the Nothings leave us alone?” she asked miserably.
    “Because they are Nothings,” Tsi-ya ground out. He turned to Kiuga and Oca-lee. “Let’s get our packs ready.”
    “But – but where will we go tonight?” Oca-lee asked. “It will soon be dark.”
    “Don’t worry about tonight. It’s a long way to the ferry. No one will come for us in a wagon before tomorrow. We must cook all our food and be ready to leave at daylight.”

Chapter 5: Across the Great Ohio
    Tsi-ya slept little that night. A dozen times he raised his head, listening, but all he heard was the steady drip of melting snow outside. Though he tried to tell himself that no one would bother to come here before morning, he could not be sure. The Nothings would do anything for money.
    He hated the thought of having to leave so soon. None of them were really able to travel, and it was going to be hard even with the pony to carry Little Mary and Tala-tu. His greatest worry was food. Oca-lee had made cakes of the remaining meal, and they had eaten half of these and the rest of the meat for supper. Now they had left only one cake apiece and the three fish. Just before dark he had made the rounds of the snares, but all had been empty.
    * * *
    Tsi-ya rose at dawn. Hurriedly he built up the fire, then went outside. The red flush of morning was spreading over the gaunt trees; it was much warmer, and patches of bare ground were beginning to show through the thinning blanket of snow. He saddled the pony and led it back to the cabin, intending to have Kiuga and Oca-lee load it while he was getting the sinew snares. The sinew cords were precious, and had many uses. But a small distant sound halted him near the door. It was the crack of a whip far down the road. A wagon was approaching.
    Could it be the Nothings coming after them so early? It hardly seemed possible – unless Smoky and his companion had managed to borrow a wagon from some settler not too far away. If that was the case, there was no time to lose.
    Tsi-ya dashed into the cabin. “Quick!” he cried. “A wagon is coming!”
    He snatched up packs and blankets, lashed them to the saddle ties, and carried Little Mary to the saddle.
    “I’ll walk,” said Tala-tu, wobbling to the door.
    “You’ll ride,” Tsi-ya ordered, heaving him up behind Little Mary. “We’re not walking – we’re running! Hang on to Little Mary and don’t let her fall.”
    They sped down the path to the barn, Kiuga carrying the two unfinished lances they were making from the poles, Tsi-ya with the other lance and the fish spear, and Oca-lee with the tin pail containing the three broiled fish and the five meal cakes.
    As they dipped past the plum thicket Tsi-ya glanced back. He could make out the canvas top of the wagon over on the road. It was turning in toward the cabin.
    Oca-lee said: “What of the sinew snares, Tsi-ya? Must we leave them?”
    “I’ll come back for them later. Hurry! We’ll cross the creek below the barn.”
    He led the way to a shallow spot hidden by the brush. They splashed through the icy water into the thickets on the other side. The only way to safety, he decided, was to follow the creek and keep within the cover of the brush until they reached the woods.
    The woods were only a few hundred yards ahead when weakness forced them to stop.
    They stood still as mice, listening, but there was no sound behind them. Finally Tsi-ya said, “Tala-tu, can you see anyone coming?”
    Tala-tu, with great effort, managed to stand up behind the saddle while Tsi-ya supported him. Even so, his head was barely high enough to peer over the top of the willow thickets.
    “I can make out the cabin,” he said. “The wagon is still there. But I cannot see the Nothings.”
    Kiuga said, “Do you think they’re following us, Tsi-ya?”
    “If they are, I don’t believe it will be for long. They’ll give up after we reach the woods. I’m going back and get those sinew snares.”
    “But, Tsi-ya,” Oca-lee said uneasily, “it isn’t safe to go back! Wouldn’t it be better to lose the snares?”
    “No,” he said doggedly. “We cannot afford to lose all that good sinew. We’ll need it later. You four go on. Follow the creek. Don’t stop to wait for me. Just keep going as long as you can.”
    He gave Tala-tu the fish spear and started warily back over their trail, carrying only the sharpened lance.
    Thick tufts of knee-high grass almost hid their trail, and he was at the spot where they had crossed the creek before he found evidence that they had been followed. Here, on a bit of muddy ground, he saw the fresh prints of boots. Instantly he froze, listening. Where were the men now?
    Then he heard them. They were far over on his left, circling through the creek bottom.
    Stealthily Tsi-ya waded to the opposite bank and began creeping through the tangles where he had set half the snares.
    All were empty. He thrust them into his pouch, and gave his attention to the rail fence, wondering if he could manage to reach it without being seen. But it had to be risked.
    He started across the corner of the field, slipping like a shadow from bush to bush. He reached the fence safely, stopped a moment to listen again, and hurriedly began gathering the remaining sinew snares.
    The first three were empty, but the fourth had been sprung. From the small bent sapling to which it had been fastened dangled a rabbit – a big fat one.
    Tsi-ya could hardly suppress a cry of delight as he reached for it.
    But his trembling fingers had hardly unfastened the snare when there was a loud shout behind him. “Come on, fellers! Here’s one!”
    Tsi-ya tucked the rabbit in his belt and went bounding toward the creek.
    To his right a man yelled: “Head ’im off, Smoky! Hurry, Jake, he can’t git away!”
    There were three of them! Tsi-ya veered to the left, racing in the only direction that lay open. Ordinarily he might have been able to outrun them, but after the first few yards he began to doubt if he could even gain the road before he fell from exhaustion.
    The cabin was straight ahead. He rounded the corner of it and saw the horses and wagon. The lead horse was tied to a tree. On the instant he whipped out his knife and slashed the halter. Springing into the wagon, he snatched up the reins and the whip. At the crack of the whip the suddenly frightened horses pawed air, laid their ears back, and plunged wildly for the road.
    Tsi-ya did not look back until the cabin was far behind. Just before he reached the woods he glimpsed the three angry men stumbling through the mud and slush, hopelessly trying to keep the wagon in sight. Tsi-ya did not laugh. It had been entirely too close for that. Instead he began to tremble with relief.
    Within the woods the rutted road became muddier and the horses slowed. Tsi-ya was on the point of leaping out when he saw the corn in the back of the wagon. It must have been tossed in there for the horses, for it was still in the shuck. Corn, and nearly a bushel of it! At the moment it was more precious than gold.
    But how could he carry it? Then he noticed the strip of canvas under the seat, part of an old wagon top. Quickly he spread out the canvas, piled the corn in the middle of it, and tied the corners together. Corn and canvas, he figured, were worth about a dollar. Even though he did not feel he owed the despised Nothings a penny, pride would not let him go until he had fished a dollar bill from his pouch and wedged it in a crack in the wagon seat. Let it never be said that the Otter, who wore the turban of the Ani-kawi, had ever been a thief!
    * * *
    When he left the wagon he was more than a mile from the cabin, in one of the areas of burned-over woods. Careful to step only on the thick tussocks of dry grass, where he would leave no trail, he headed straight southward, confident he would come eventually to the creek.
    The corn was heavy and it seemed to grow heavier with every passing minute. The creek was much farther away than he had thought. By midmorning there was still no sign of it. He had left the burned-over area far behind, and was moving now through thick forest. It was a gloomy and forbidding place with its gaunt bare trees – so unlike the forests at home where so many things were green all through the winter. At home there would have been game everywhere – but here all he glimpsed was a wolf. The sight of the creature brought an uneasy prickling down his spine; he knew he was far too weak to put up much of a fight if it decided to attack him.
    The wolf followed, staying just far enough behind to be a nuisance and a worry. He wants my rabbit, he thought.
    Suddenly angry, he threw a stick at it. “Go catch your own rabbit!” he cried.
    The wolf vanished and did not reappear until nearly noon, when he finally reached the creek.
    Wearily he sought a shallow spot and waded across, expecting to see the trail of the others somewhere along the bank. But there was no sign that anyone had been by here.
    Tsi-ya dropped his load of corn and slumped down beside it, too hungry and weak to move another step. The wolf appeared on the other bank and sat there in the shadows, watching him with little evil red eyes.
    What could have happened to Oca-lee and the others? Suddenly he realized the creek curved a great deal, and that they must still be following its many windings while he had come in straight from the road.
    All at once the wolf pricked up its ears and vanished. Tsi-ya listened. Was someone coming? He was relieved to hear the whinny of the pony as it caught his scent. A minute later he saw Kiuga, with Oca-lee and the pony close behind.
    “How – how did you get here ahead of us?” Kiuga asked incredulously.
    Tsi-ya smiled. “The Nothings were kind enough to let me use their wagon.” He told them what had happened, and showed them the rabbit and the corn. “Ka-nati still watches over us,” he said thankfully. “Tonight we feast.”
    “Not till tonight?” wailed the Cricket, looking hungrily at the rabbit.
    “Oca-lee still has the fish and meal cakes,” Kiuga said. “She wouldn’t let us touch them.”
    “Of course not!” Oca-lee said sharply. “We do not eat until Tsi-ya does. He is the oldest, and he has furnished all the food.”
    “We’ll have the cakes and the fish now,” he told them. “The pony can have some of the corn. When we have rested, we must go on.”
    They looked at him questioningly, four weary half-sick children, so thin it seemed impossible that they could travel even to the Ohio. How could he ever lead them so far as the mountains? Finally Oca-lee said, “Do you think the Nothings will try to follow us now?”
    “They may,” he said. “Nothings like those will do anything, and they are angry because I ran off with their wagon. Maybe I was foolish to leave a dollar for the corn and the tarpaulin, because they’ll know we have money.”
    “I’m glad you did,” said Oca-lee. “I think I would choke on their old corn if you hadn’t.”
    “Anyhow,” he said, “this is bad country, and I won’t feel that we are safe until we are out of it. We must try to reach the Ohio and cross it before more snow comes.”
    * * *
    In a half hour they were on their way, Tsi-ya leading, with part of the corn over his shoulder, and Kiuga following watchfully in the rear behind their heavily burdened pony. Their safest route to the Ohio, Tsi-ya reasoned, lay through the forest in the general direction of the creek. The creek, despite its many windings, seemed to be flowing southeast. He hoped it emptied into the big river east of the mouth of the Tennessee, for it would save them much trouble later to have the wide part of the Tennessee behind them.
    The shadows lengthened. Twilight came. Finally Tsi-ya stopped beside a great fallen tree near the creek. “We camp,” he said.
    They were too weary for speech as they went about their tasks for the evening. While Tsi-ya cut open a rotten log for dry kindling, Kiuga brought sticks and Oca-lee began fixing the rabbit for a stew. Early in the afternoon she had shelled some of the corn and had the kernels soaking in the tin pail; now she added the chopped rabbit while Tsi-ya, with flint and steel from his tinderbox, began striking sparks into a tiny pile of shredded cedar bark and dry-wood scrapings. A spark smoldered; Tsi-ya blew gently upon it and added shavings. Presently a fire glowed cheerfully in the forest gloom.
    Tsi-ya hung the stew pail over it on a forked stick, and sat back against the log to wait. The others sat back with him, silent, their hungry eyes on the pail. What is one rabbit when there are five of us? he thought. Three rabbits would hardly be enough. We’ll still be hungry if we eat all the stew – and what shall we have for tomorrow?
    Suddenly he got up, collected their fishlines, tied on their largest hooks, and baited them with bits of the rabbit skin and entrails. Then, with the light of a torch, he and Kiuga fastened the lines to roots along the edge of the creek. If there were catfish in the creek, they need not worry about breakfast.
    The stew was far from done when Tsi-ya took the pail from the fire and began filling their tin Army plates with his cup. There was no salt in it nor even a wild onion to give it flavor. But it needed nothing to make it taste like the most wonderful stew in the world. When they had finished, not one drop of it remained, and every bone was picked clean.
    Afterward they rolled in their blankets, too weary even to think of the fishlines, and were almost instantly asleep.
    Tsi-ya was awakened a long time later by the frightened whinny of the pony.
    * * *
    He sat up on the instant, just in time to see the pony, which he had tethered to a tree on the other side of the fire, rearing back in terror, jerking at the halter. Beyond it two baleful eyes glowed red in the light of the dying fire.
    Tsi-ya flung his blankets aside, seized his lance, and hurled it with all his strength. Something snarled, and the baleful eyes vanished. But he was a moment too late, for the plunging pony had snapped the halter and was racing madly away through the night.
    “W-what happened?” Kiuga asked, springing up.
    “Wolf,” Tsi-ya muttered. He found his lance and brought it back to the fire. There was blood on the tip of it. “At least I wounded it, so it won’t be able to catch the pony. But that doesn’t help us much. The pony’s gone.”
    Oca-lee said hopefully, “Maybe we can find it in the morning.”
    “I doubt it. It won’t stay in the woods, and we might have to spend the whole day tracking it.” He sighed. Without the pony Little Mary and Tala-tu would have to walk, and those who were able would be forced to carry heavy packs.
    It raised his spirits somewhat when he lighted a torch and examined the fishlines. Nearly every one held a catfish. He baited the hooks again and returned to his blankets. In the morning there were more fish on the hooks – enough to give them all they could eat for the day.
    The problem now was how they could reach the Ohio. On the chance that the pony had not gone too far he trudged a quarter of a mile through the woods, following its trail; when the tracks showed that it was still running he gave up the search. Back at the camp, while Kiuga and Oca-lee broiled the fish on sticks, he examined their equipment and made it up into three packs. His own, heavier than the other two combined, contained most of the corn. It also held his mother’s robe and his father’s heavy packet. He was tempted to throw them away until Oca-lee said: “Oh, please, you can’t leave those! We’ll need them!”
    “For what?”
    “To make new clothes for us. Look at your breeches and moccasins!”
    “Have you needles?”
    “Of course!” The way she spoke made her seem far more than a wispy girl of twelve.
    He laughed, then looked uneasily at Little Mary and Tala-tu. “Do the sick ones feel like walking today?”
    “I am much stronger,” Little Mary said bravely. “But you must make Tala-tu walk behind me so I cannot see him wiggle his ears. It makes me weak to laugh at him.”
    “I have to flap my ears to keep up my strength,” grumbled the Cricket. “It takes the weight off my feet. How far to the big river, Tsi-ya?”
    “The creek knows better than I. We will follow it. And we must take a lesson from it.”
    “What is that?”
    “It flows silently.”
    * * *
    They did not reach the river until late on the following day. They had been winding through a narrow ravine, slowly, stopping every few yards to rest; there was no sign that the river was any nearer than it had been from the beginning. But abruptly the ravine ended, and there was the mighty Ohio before them – immensely broad and dark and cold, and twice as forbidding as Tsi-ya had remembered it. It was, in fact, far wider here than where they had crossed it at the Golconda ferry, though the reason for this was not immediately apparent.
    For a minute they stood together there on the bank, wordless as they gazed upon it, tired to exhaustion, but forgetting even their pains and hunger in the overwhelming spectacle of so much water flowing past them – water that somehow had to be crossed.
    No one said, “How are we ever going to get over on the other side?” – but Tsi-ya could feel the question in everyone’s mind. How, indeed, could they manage it? A chilling wind was blowing upstream from the west, causing waves large enough to swamp a small boat, if one could be found.
    It was Little Mary, who had the sharpest eyes, who suddenly clutched his arm and pointed upstream. “A – a town!” Her voice was a weak whisper, but they all turned, staring at the faint wisps of smoke in the far distance.
    “What town is it, Tsi-ya?”
    He consulted the map he had copied so long ago. “It must be Paducah, Kentucky,” he mumbled. Paducah was at the mouth of the Tennessee River. His heart sank. He had hoped to come out above the Tennessee instead of below it. No wonder the Ohio was so wide here!
    He led them back into the ravine. They found a sheltered spot and made camp. Leaving Kiuga to set snares and the others to fish, he started downstream to explore the riverbank. His bad foot was aching and he longed to lie down and rest, but the ache was a sure sign that the weather was going to change for the worse. He could feel it in the wind that bit through his blanket, and see it in the misty overcast that hid the evening sun. Cold was coming again. Cold and ice and snow. It could last for weeks. It could even hold them here most of the winter if the river began to freeze. If they would cross the river at all, there could be no delay – they must do it soon.
    A half mile below their camp he found a small bateau. His quick surge of hope turned to disappointment when he saw that most of the bottom had rotted out of the craft. Near it was a raft made of heavy logs pegged together with cross timbers. He looked at it curiously, until he realized it must have been used by traders to carry freight down from the upper river towns. It had grounded here at high water and was only partially afloat. The grounded side was so far up on the bank that he doubted if a dozen strong men could have budged it.
    Still, there must be many such rafts along the river, abandoned like this one after they had served their purpose. He returned to camp, more hopeful than downcast.
    It was in the middle of the night, when he had got up to examine their set lines at the mouth of the creek, that the solution suddenly came to him. Why waste precious time searching for another raft when he could use the one he had found? The logs lay parallel with the bank, and he had a hatchet. If he chopped through the cross timbers, nearly half the raft would be freed – and half of it was far more than they needed to float the five of them safely.
    At the first light of dawn they made a hasty breakfast of part of the fish they had caught, and trudged down to the raft. The wind had changed during the night; it blew now from the northwest and it was much colder. Gray clouds clotted the sky and a few scattered flakes of snow were beginning to fall.
    Oca-lee looked apprehensively at the river and the darkening sky. “Do you think we should try to cross today, Tsi-ya?”
    Tsi-ya pointed at the ice forming along the water’s edge. “We’ve got to,” he said. “Tomorrow may be too late. I think a blizzard’s coming.”
    While he attacked the cross timbers with his hatchet, Kiuga tried in vain to kindle a fire in the rising wind. The others huddled shivering in their blankets, waiting.
    The cross timbers were of oak. There were six of them, and chopping through them with the small hatchet seemed an impossible task. Tsi-ya chopped until he could hardly hold the hatchet. Then Kiuga took his place. Between them they managed to cut through the first three timbers. How much time it took them Tsi-ya could only guess, for the day had become so dark that he could no longer make out the Kentucky side of the river. The snow had turned to fine particles of driving sleet.
    Doggedly he attacked the fourth timber, knowing now that it had become a race between his failing strength and the weather.
    The fifth timber had rotted, for it suddenly snapped before he was half into it. The floating half of the big raft sagged, groaned, and all at once began to swing outward into the stream. Incredulous, he saw that the sixth timber was broken. The floating part was free, and in a matter of seconds the current would have it in its grasp and whirl it away!
    “Quick!” he screamed. “Get aboard!”
    He leaped for his pack as Kiuga and the others scrambled down the bank. Little Mary was slow. Although she had not once complained, the ordeal of the past two days had been too much for her. She had difficulty getting to her feet, and with the first step she tripped in her trailing blankets and fell.
    Tsi-ya heaved his pack on the raft, whirled back, and dragged Little Mary to her feet. But by the time he got her to the river’s edge, five feet of icy water lay between them and the swiftly moving logs. Abruptly he picked her up and plunged forward, praying that the water was not too deep. He went in to his thighs, but managed to thrust Little Mary aboard and throw himself over the end of a log before it swung out of reach. Kiuga and Oca-lee dragged him to safety.
    He slumped in the middle of the raft, chilled through and shivering. The others huddled close to him, drawing the strip of tarpaulin about them to shut out the wind and sleet. Corn that had been tied in it spilled out over the logs; numbed fingers snatched at the scattered ears and wedged them between the packs.
    “Did – did we get everything?” he asked.
    “All the packs are here, but there’s only one lance.”
    “We can make more. Where’s the hatchet?”
    “You had it last,” said Kiuga.
    “I haven’t got it now.”
    “And – and we haven’t the fish we caught last night,” Oca-lee said miserably. “But I have the pail with the rest of the cooked fish.” She looked around with frightened eyes. “How – how are we going to guide the raft, Tsi-ya?”
    “The wind will guide it. We’re bound to be blown to the other side before long.”
    He spoke with a confidence he was suddenly very far from feeling. He glanced back, but all he could see of the Illinois shore was a gray blur. It vanished even as he looked at it. The sleet had changed to fine particles of stinging snow. The ponderous raft was now broadside to the wind, and leaden waves were beginning to slash the side, covering them with an icy spray.
    Time became a numbing agony of cold that seemed to stretch forever. To Tsi-ya the river ceased to be a river; it was as if they were lost in an endless gray world of snow and angry water. Soon, if they did not drown, they could easily freeze to death.
    Bitterly he was blaming himself for foolishly risking their lives when the raft jolted, and came to a grinding stop in a thicket of willows.
    They were on the Kentucky side.

Chapter 6: The Blizzard
    Tsi-ya’s moccasins and breeches were frozen, and it was all he could do at first to move and help gather the scattered ears of corn into the tarpaulin. Finally he was able to straighten and raise his unwieldy pack to his shoulders. A gray twilight had come, and in the driving snow it was impossible to see more than a few paces ahead. Somehow, quickly, he had to find shelter and build a fire.
    He took Little Mary’s hand and staggered off through the willows. “Stay close!” he called to the others. “Don’t lose sight of the one in front of you.”
    There should be rocky bluffs not far beyond the willows. He had noticed them last evening from the other side of the river. They had seemed to stretch for miles. Where there were bluffs, there were hollows and caves.
    He stumbled up a gentle slope covered with a dense growth of cedars. The ground leveled and he groped through a forest tangle, hauling Little Mary over rocks and fallen trees, and was suddenly brought up short by a wall of rock. He stepped back, trying to see through the gloom, undecided which way to turn. Little Mary tugged weakly at his sleeve and pointed. He swung left around a projecting shoulder of the bluff, and slid down into a depression well protected from the wind. A fallen tree made a partial roof overhead.
    “You must have the eyes of an eagle,” he mumbled thankfully to Little Mary.
    While Kiuga and Oca-lee stretched the tarpaulin over the fallen tree, he crouched down under it with knife and tinderbox and a few pieces of dead wood. He scooped out a hole and managed to scrape a tiny pile of shavings and wood dust into it, but his numbed fingers could not hold the flint and steel. He tried warming his hands under his armpits, but it helped little, for his shivering made it impossible to strike sparks in the right direction.
    It was not until Kiuga had nearly smothered him with blankets that he was able finally to control the wayward sparks. Even so, agonizing minutes dragged by before the first faint curl of smoke rose from the hole. Black dark had come by the time the campfire was casting its cheerful warmth about the hollow.
    Though the knifing wind could not reach them here, there was still much work to do before the spot could be made snug for the night. While Oca-lee began preparing a broth of some of the corn and their remaining fish, Kiuga and the Cricket gathered stones and wood and piled them around the sides. Tsi-ya crawled three times through the inky tangle behind them to bring back cedar branches, which he stuffed into the openings not covered by the tarpaulin.
    Fine snow still sifted in here and there, but it did not matter, for the tiny shelter was now comfortable and warm. They huddled into it at last, to sip the hot broth Oca-lee had made while they watched the crackling fire and listened to the moaning wind high overhead.
    Tsi-ya hung up his moccasins to dry and sat rubbing life into his half-frozen feet. But for the loss of the hatchet, and Little Mary’s weakness, he would not have been too greatly concerned over their predicament. The camp was in a good spot, and in the morning they could enlarge the shelter and make it tight against the weather. There was enough corn to feed them for several days, even if the storm made it impossible to catch fish or game. But without the hatchet it was going to be far more difficult to keep warm and stay alive. What if the storm turned into a bad blizzard? They were in no condition to face many more hardships, especially Little Mary.
    It gave him a stab of fright to see her pinched face in the firelight. Although she was nearly as old as Kiuga, she was so tiny, so like a doll. He watched her pluck a final kernel of half-cooked corn from the bottom of her cup, and nibble it mouselike to make it last.
    Suddenly she peered up at him and asked plaintively, “How much farther is it to the Secret Place, Tsi-ya?”
    He swallowed. “It’s still a long way.”
    “Have – have we come a hundred miles yet?”
    “No, not quite.”
    “Fifty?”
    Oca-lee said quietly, “We’ve hardly come thirty.”
    “It seems like a hundred,” said Little Mary.
    “They were long miles,” Tsi-ya told her. “Just crossing the river could count for fifty, or even more. If we were on the other side now, the cold might keep us there all winter.”
    “Then we’ve a lot to be thankful for.” She snuggled deeper into her blankets, and added: “I – I was terribly afraid on the raft. For a while I thought we were all going to die. I think we should thank the great Kanati that we are safely on this side, and have a warm fire and a place to sleep.”
    * * *
    It was the cold that awakened Tsi-ya at dawn. It crept through every crevice of the shelter, it seeped through his blankets and his clothes, and it seemed even to stifle the feeble flame of the fire that he and Kiuga had kept going all night. Cold. Frightening, numbing cold. In all his life he had never felt anything like it.
    Overhead the banshee wind still howled, and around them the fine snow still fell, smothering everything.
    He laced on his moccasins, wrapped all his blankets about him, and dashed out to find more wood for the fire. By the time he had built up a roaring blaze, his hands and feet were numb, and his ears felt as if the least touch would shatter them to little pieces.
    Tsi-ya filled the pail with snow and a few handfuls of shelled corn, and crouched near the fire while he considered his new enemy. Such cold as this was unknown in the mountains, for the high ridges shut out the north wind. At home he would never have thought of wearing the extra clothing in which the whites bundled themselves, even during the January snows. But this was different. They needed protection for their hands and feet; furthermore, they must hurry to rebuild the shelter – and somehow he must find the lost hatchet. Without it they might not be able to stay alive.
    From the edge of his largest blanket he tore strips which he wrapped around his feet and lower legs. He bound two shorter strips around his hands. The others followed his example, and went quickly to work on the shelter while he started down in search of the raft.
    The hatchet, he was sure, must be somewhere on the raft, probably near the forward end where he had used it last. Unless, of course, it had slipped overboard – but he refused to admit that possibility.
    The raft was still at the edge of the willows. It was frozen in solid now and almost completely hidden under a thick layer of ice and snow. He studied it in dismay. Furiously he went to work with the point of his lance, trying to chip away the crust over the logs. A half hour exhausted him, and he was forced to return to the fire and thaw out before trying it again.
    His next attempt was rewarded by an overlooked ear of corn, frozen fast under the broken cross timber. He pried it out – and saw the handle of the hatchet underneath.
    The blade had slipped down between the logs and only the thick end of the handle was holding it. He freed his right hand from the protective blanket strip and tried to grasp the handle with his bare fingers. The flying snow nearly blinded him, and his fumbling only drove the hatchet down farther. Another slip and it would be lost forever, for the water under the raft was not yet frozen.
    Tsi-ya trembled with sudden desperation. Quickly he freed his other hand and slid his fingers down on either side of the handle. Both hands were soon numb, but by pressing them together with all his strength, he was able to clamp the hatchet between them and draw it slowly up to safety.
    He had won the first round against his enemy, the cold. But now the enemy’s fury increased, and the stinging snow flew at him so thickly that the morning became as dark as evening. He had trouble finding his way back to the campfire; without the sloping ground and the bluff to guide him, he might have been lost after a dozen paces.
    Oca-lee and Kiuga were struggling to break off cedar boughs for the shelter. It was an endless task and they were discouraged and half frozen, and not a little frightened, for they had never experienced such cold. At the sight of the priceless hatchet they brightened. Now the impossible became possible. Tsi-ya was able to cut great piles of the heavier branches, which were dragged to the hollow, trimmed, and stacked head-high on either side of the log where the tarpaulin had been stretched. The tarpaulin was removed, and spread later on a bed of cedar tips on the floor. Hurriedly they thatched the outside with cedar tips. Finally, using scoops of bark, they attacked the drifts in the hollow and covered the hut with snow.
    Inside, they built the fire against the overhanging bluff that formed the hut’s main wall. Only a small fire was needed now, for when the tiny entrance was closed with a strip of canvas from one of the packs, the place was as tight as an igloo. At the highest point overhead, Tsi-ya punched a hole for the smoke to escape.
    With the hut finished, the second round against the enemy had been won.
    But still the enemy howled without, its banshee voice carrying a deeper threat.
    “How – how long is it going to last?” Kiuga asked fearfully that evening.
    “Who cares?” Tsi-ya tried to say lightly. “We’re safe here. Let the wind blow. The cold can’t touch us.”
    But they were not safe, and he had only to glance at their dwindling pile of corn to be reminded of it. While the snow fell and the wind blew, there was no use in even trying to set snares. And until he had a better weapon than a lance, hunting was out of the question.
    His last task, before the blizzard drove them inside, had been to chop a straight length of cedar from a small tree. Now, while their supper of boiled corn simmered in the pail, he peeled the bark from the wood and examined it carefully. Finally he took out Tala-tu’s knife and began to whittle.
    The Cricket watched him curiously. “Are you making a bow, Tsi-ya?”
    “I hope to. A hunting bow.”
    “Of cedar?” said Kiuga, doubtfully. “Wouldn’t locust be better?”
    “Much better, little brother, if I could find it in this storm. But there will be no finding anything till the storm is over, and by then I must be ready to hunt. Cedar is not strong, but I’ve heard that it can be used. They say it makes a quick bow.”
    “What will you use for a string?” Kiuga asked.
    “I don’t know yet. I’ll think of something.”
    Oca-lee said quietly, “I’ll make the string.”
    “Out of what?”
    “Out of things in my magic bag,” she said aloofly.
    Oca-lee’s doeskin bag lay beside her near the fire. As she spoke she drew something from it that glittered, and began cutting one of the blanket strips they had used to cover their hands.
    The Cricket gaped. “Scissors!” he exclaimed.
    “Of course,” said Oca-lee. “I said my bag was a magic one. Didn’t you believe me?”
    “Ase-hi! It must be magic to produce scissors! What else does it hold?”
    “More things than you can find in any other bag. If you don’t believe that, just wait and see what comes out of it.”
    Tsi-ya said, “Does it hold a new pair of moccasins for me as well as a bowstring?”
    “You will have new moccasins soon. But there is something else you need first.”
    “What can that be?”
    “You will know by the time the corn is done.”
    A needle appeared in Oca-lee’s slim hand. It was quickly threaded with a bit of string that might have been unraveled from the torn edge of a tarpaulin. She leaned nearer the fire, and the needle began to fly around the curved piece of blanket material she had cut with her scissors. There was more snipping with the scissors, more whipping stitches with the needle. Presently Oca-lee held out a strange pair of woolly objects.
    Tsi-ya stared at them. “Why,” he exclaimed, “they look like the mittens of the whites!”
    “Yes,” she said. “I know they look funny, but we need them here. Without them our hands would freeze. Do they fit?”
    They fitted almost perfectly. “How did you guess the size?”
    She wrinkled her nose. “I have eyes. Your hand is not much larger than mine. Only the whites have big hands. By tomorrow I will have mittens for all of us, and maybe leggings to go with them.”
    All night the wind howled with unceasing fury. It came down out of the frozen reaches of Canada, down across the icy plains, down through the open valley of the Mississippi, howling over Cape Girardeau and this little corner of Kentucky only a few miles away. Its voice was that of a thousand packs of hungry wolves. Even if there had been plenty of food in the hut, the threat of that voice would have brought fear to Tsi-ya’s heart. In the mountains there were sudden violent storms in the spring and summer – but wind like this was unknown.
    He thought of the little pony, and wondered if it had found its way safely to Dr. O’Sullivan; then he thought of his people huddled in the stockade in Cape Girardeau. He tried to tell himself, How lucky we are to be here! But all through the night, whenever he sat up to put more wood on the fire, he could hear that terrible wind; it was impossible to drive out the fear of it.
    * * *
    In the morning Tsi-ya had to tunnel his way outside. The hut was half buried in hard-packed snow, and great drifts filled the hollow and reached high against the bluff. Still the wind howled, and still the blinding snow swirled about him. The cold stunned him.
    With Kiuga’s help he managed to dig out enough fuel for the day and store it inside. He had hoped to be able to set a few snares, but at the first bite of the wind he realized it would be foolish to attempt it. Not even a wolf would be stirring in such a storm.
    Surely it couldn’t last much longer! He sat whittling on his bow, trying to assure himself that by tomorrow the blizzard would be over.
    That evening the wind did seem to be dying down a little, but when he crawled outside he found it was only because the drifting snow had crept over the top of the hut, muffling sound. Now, every few hours, he was forced to clear the entrance for air, and open the hole in the roof so that the smoke could escape.
    The fourth day of the blizzard came and passed without the slightest indication that the wind was tiring. It was a battle now just to find fuel, for most of the wood around them was buried under deep drifts. Without meat they were all weakening fast. Tsi-ya had been rationing the corn carefully, but with five to feed it had been vanishing at an alarming rate, even though no one ever had half enough.
    On the fifth day he knew his enemy the cold was winning. The corn was nearly gone, and it was still impossible to set snares.
    In spite of it they managed to remain cheerful until evening by keeping busy. Oca-lee sewed. She had made mittens for everyone, and now she worked on winter moccasins and leggings, cutting them from the deerskin robe that had belonged to Nequassee. Little Mary, with another needle from the magic bag, painstakingly stitched patches on their torn clothing. The Cricket, with a rough stone, sanded down and smoothed the straight shafts of maple sprouts that Tsi-ya had cut for arrows from a thicket below the cedars. Kiuga crouched by the fire, carefully pounding slivers from a flintlike rock. The thinnest and sharpest of these he set aside for Tsi-ya to chip into rough arrowheads. Without good hunting tips on some of the arrows, Tsi-ya would have difficulty killing large game.
    Tsi-ya put the finishing touches on his bow. It was a beautiful weapon with wide, flat arms, cleverly cut so that all the white sapwood was left on the back to give it strength. He was rubbing it down with a stone when Kigua asked, “What day is this, brother?”
    “I don’t know. I’ve lost my calendar string.” He had long ago filled it with knots; so many things had happened since that he had forgotten to start another.
    Little Mary said, “Do – do you suppose that Christmas has come yet?”
    “Christmas!” scoffed Kiuga. “Who cares about Christmas? Let the Nothings have it. They started it.”
    “No, they didn’t!” Oca-lee told him. “It’s the birthday of Jesus, and he wasn’t a Nothing. He was more like us, really.”
    “She’s right,” Tsi-ya said. “And I think Christmas is close. If I had my calendar string, I believe I could add up the missing days—”
    “Here’s your calendar string,” Oca-lee said in a small voice. She reached into her doeskin bag and timidly held out a gleaming heavy cord of twisted sinew. ‘‘I – I thought you’d thrown it away, so I saved it. It was sinew, and I knew we could use it. I took the knots out and soaked it, and twisted it together with the best sinew cords we had. I had to splice several and knot them, but I believe it’s strong enough. I – I’m sorry, but I promised to make you a bowstring.”
    Tsi-ya took it gratefully, careful not to show his doubts. At home the accepted material for a bowstring was the whole gut of a bear; even twisted rawhide could be used. He had thought of trying wild hemp, but there had been no chance to search for any on their flight. Now it would be hidden under the deep snow. Perhaps the sinew string would serve as well as hemp.
    “I’d much rather have it to hunt with,” he said. “It looks strong. You did a fine job. Anyway, Christmas doesn’t matter.”
    “Oh, but it does!” she said quickly. “Because tomorrow is Christmas – and I thought the storm might be over by then, and you can go hunting, and—”
    “Tomorrow is Christmas?” he exclaimed. ‘‘How did you know?”
    “Because I’ve been keeping count,” she admitted. “See?” And she pointed to the knots tied in the fringe of her doeskin bag. “I told you it was a magic bag. It not only holds everything, but it keeps a record of the days.”
    “If it’s a magic bag,” Tsi-ya said, “it ought to have some feathers in it to fletch my arrows.”
    “Of course,” she said, smiling, and took out two blue jay feathers she had picked up in the woods. “And here are some fine sinew scraps to fasten them with.”
    So they worked and kept up their spirits till evening. But after they had battled the cold to find wood for the night, and had eaten their small ration of boiled corn, the depression came. Outside the wolf wind howled triumphantly, and the famine cold bit deeper. Tomorrow all the world would feast – but here there remained only three ears of corn for the five of them.
    They lay in their blankets and looked hungrily into the fire. For a long time no one spoke. Finally Little Mary said wistfully, “Do – do you think we’ll ever reach the Secret Place, Tsi-ya?”
    “I’m sure we will,” he forced himself to say.
    “Tell us again what it is like, Tsi-ya.”
    Many times in the past months, when hope was low, he had described it to them.
    “It is a great valley beyond a high cliff,” he began. “In all the mountains I have never seen a more beautiful place. It is never hot in the summer, or cold in the winter, for the high peaks turn the cold away. And the game! I saw deer everywhere – hundreds of them. And the streams are full of trout – why, there were so many in places I could have caught them in my hands! And the plums and the cherries and the chestnuts and the berries – they grow as if Kanati and his wife had planted a special garden for us. No one could ever be hungry there....”
    He spoke on and on, and one by one they closed their eyes with this happy vision before them, and fell asleep.

Chapter 7: Flight Southward
    When he awoke, Tsi-ya was almost immediately aware that something had changed. He looked curiously around the dim interior of the hut, at the sleeping figures, at the moccasins and leggings hanging neatly on the poles on either side, at his new bow leaning against the rocky shelf beyond the fire. Something was very different – but what was it? In the odd stillness he could hear the heavy breathing of Kiuga and Tala-tu, both of whom had colds. Suddenly he realized that it wasn’t their breathing that was different – it was the stillness.
    Hurriedly he built up the fire, drew on his moccasins, mittens, and a blanket, and crawled outside. Beyond the entrance he stood up, staring incredulously about him.
    The wind had stopped. The storm was over and all the world was still. The sun shone in a cloudless sky, and the snow sparkled and glittered brilliantly. A few yards away a startled fox, which had been sniffing hungrily at a hollow tree, blinked at him in disbelief and abruptly became a red streak that vanished in the cedars.
    All at once Tsi-ya went scrambling back into the hut, shouting: “Dak-ta! Wake up! Look outside!”
    They sat up, as startled as the fox. Dressing quickly they followed him out into the sparkling morning.
    It was cold, so cold that their faces tingled and their earns burned, but it hardly seemed to matter now that the terrible wind was gone and the sun was shining again. The hard-packed snow was piled in great drifts against the bluff. Beyond them the river was frozen far out, and the open channel in the center was clogged with floating ice. Tsi-ya looked across at the distant Illinois shore, thinking by what a narrow margin they had missed being caught over there for the winter.
    Then he felt the pinching fingers of hunger under his belt. “Kanati has given us a good day for hunting,” he said. “I’m going to get something for our Christmas dinner.”
    He went back into the hut, put on leggings and his father’s jacket, and belted his blanket around him. When he was ready to leave, Kiuga said: “We’ll set the snares while you are gone. I hope you have luck and bring us a fat turkey gobbler.”
    The Cricket said, “I wish you luck too, but I will be glad to have even a skinny crow.”
    “Crows are very good when one is hungry,” Tsi-ya told him. “I will bring whatever Kanati allows me to kill.”
    He floundered over the deep drifts and climbed to the top of the bluff. Here, along the edge of the crowding forest, there was less snow and the going was much easier. It was a natural game trail and he noticed that a small herd of deer had been by here less than an hour ago. At the sight of the hoofprints a little fever of excitement shook him. He wondered glumly if he was strong enough to kill a deer. He rather doubted it. He was very weak, and just climbing the bluff had left him wobbly.
    In case he saw a buck at close range, he paused to string his bow and have an arrow with a flint point ready. He wished he could test the bow, for it had been many months since he had used one. But he had only three arrows, and he hated to risk losing one in the snow.
    He moved slowly, stopping every few yards to stand motionless while he studied the trail ahead, the thick timber on his right, the network of branches high above. A gray squirrel chattered at him from the top of an oak, but he ignored it. Why chance an arrow for so little meat? There was larger game around. Here a fox had followed a rabbit. Yonder a turkey had dropped down to investigate a cedar tangle for tidbits.
    Tsi-ya approached the cedar tangle warily. A growth of young cedars was always good cover for both rabbits and deer, for they fed on the berries and branches. The tracks of the deer led to it. Perhaps they were there now, feeding.
    He crouched and crept forward on hands and knees. Within the cover of the first cedars he stood up carefully, hardly daring to breathe. For several minutes he listened. Suddenly he heard a low snort far off to his right. Again he crouched down and crawled. When he stood up again he could see them.
    There was a break in the woods here, and the cedar growth curved around the side of a rocky slope. In an open spot nearly a hundred yards away he counted five deer.
    Tsi-ya forgot his weakness and his hunger. Rising excitement gave him strength. As stealthily as a panther, he crept through the cedars, his entire attention on the yearling buck nearest him. At forty yards he was well within range – he had often brought down game at greater distances. But his arm was not so strong now, and the bow was new.
    He snaked forward, soundless. The slight breeze was in his favor. The distance separating him from the herd became thirty yards, then twenty-five. The deer were becoming restless now. Their ears twitched nervously and they turned, their breath steaming in the freezing air. For an instant Tsi-ya wondered if it was his own presence that was making the deer uneasy, or something in the woods beyond them. Whatever the reason, he knew he must shoot soon or not at all.
    He gave three little bleats in imitation of a fawn. It attracted the attention of the deer and held them motionless. Quickly he drew off his right mitten and rose to his knee. “Oh, awi,” he whispered to the yearling buck, as he pulled back upon the bowstring, “forgive me if I would take your life, but my need is great. May my aim be true, and may you die quickly and without pain.” No Cherokee hunter would have thought of killing a deer without asking its forgiveness.
    The arrow hissed from the bow. With the sting of it the buck gave a mighty leap that carried him to the bottom of the slope. At the same moment two rifle shots rang out loudly in the still morning, and two of the remaining deer in the suddenly plunging herd fell dead in the snow.
    Tsi-ya froze, staring in openmouthed astonishment as a tall lean man in a fur cap and coat strode out of the woods on the opposite slope. He stopped to load his rifle, glancing down in the drift where Tsi-ya’s wounded buck was struggling feebly to rise. Abruptly he called over his shoulder: “Hurry an’ bring the hoss, Joe. Looks like we got three of ’em to skin!”
    The implication of the words brought Tsi-ya to his feet. The last thing he had expected this morning was that he might run into white hunters and have trouble with them. But they can’t claim my meat, he thought.
    Determinedly he pushed through the cedars and went down the slope. The white man reached the buck ahead of him, and cut its throat to bleed it.
    Tsi-ya said: “That’s my deer. I shot it.”
    The hunter straightened. He was a lantern-jawed man with steely eyes and a thin line of a mouth. He looked Tsi-ya over without a change of expression, and said calmly: “It ain’t your deer now. You better git agoin’.”
    “It’s my deer, and I need the meat!” Tsi-ya’s voice shook with rage and desperation. “I’ve people to feed, and they are hungry!”
    At that moment a youth, who seemed to Tsi-ya to be about his own age, came down the slope leading a pack horse. He had troubled eyes in a freckled face. “Paw,” he said, peering curiously at Tsi-ya, “it don’t seem right we should take that Injun’s meat. He looks mighty hungry to me.”
    “I don’t care how hungry he looks. He can’t eat the hide, an’ anyhow he ain’t got no business here.”
    “Paw, this ole hoss can’t carry but two o’ them critters.”
    “Hold your tongue an’ git up thar an’ bleed ’em an’ git ’em ready to skin. An’ mind your knife. Ruin another hide, an’ I’ll ruin you.” The man turned to Tsi-ya, and in the same calm, deadly voice said: “I tole you to git agoin’, you dirty Injun. Now git!”
    The youth glanced unhappily at Tsi-ya. “When Paw talks that way, he means business.”
    It was meant as a friendly warning, and Tsi-ya retreated. There was nothing else to do.
    He retreated no farther than the cover of the cedars where, safely hidden, he fought down his fury and waited.
    They were hide hunters, as he saw by the speedy way they hung each deer to the nearest tree and skillfully flayed it. The three skins were carefully rolled and packed on the horse, and the two larger carcasses were tied on either side. The horse staggered under the weight, and it was obvious that the small buck would have to be left behind. Even so, the man tried to load it with the others. Apparently, in Paducah – which couldn’t be many miles away – they had a sale for the meat as well as the skins.
    In despair, Tsi-ya watched the man attempt to force the horse along with its impossible load. But all his cursing and beating had no effect. The horse refused to move until the third carcass had been thrown aside.
    The moment they were out of sight Tsi-ya broke from his hiding place and began tugging feverishly at what remained of his buck. Skinned, cleaned, and minus the head, it was far lighter than when freshly killed, yet it remained a heavy load for him to drag. Had it not been for the smooth, hard-packed snow, he could never have managed it without leaving part of it behind for the wolves.
    Halfway to the hut he was relieved to see the worried Kiuga coming in search of him.
    His brother’s eyes bulged at the sight of so much meat. “But – but what did you do with the skin?” he asked.
    Tsi-ya’s anger suddenly evaporated. He laughed. “I met some kind white hunters. They felt such deep pity for me that they saved me all the trouble of doing the skinning and cleaning. Why, they even tried to carry it for me – only they wanted to go in the wrong direction.”
    It was a happy Christmas after all, and they gorged that day on venison.
    Until now it had been impossible to keep clean, for it had taken all their efforts merely to remain alive. But with food and returning strength, Tsi-ya’s first thought was for a bathhouse. Ordinarily he would not have hesitated to chip through the river ice if he wanted only to wash away the accumulated grime. But this was different. Too long they had been in contact with sickness and death. Their very souls felt ill with the lingering illness that affected their bodies. The cleansing steam would change all that.
    Early the next morning he found a level spot where the snow was not too deep, cleared it to the rock beneath, and over it built a small round hut of cedar boughs. After covering it with the tarpaulin to make it as tight as possible, he heated stones in a fire near the entrance and carried them inside with sticks. Now each boy stripped and crawled quickly inside with a cup of water to pour on the stones. In a minute the place was like a cauldron, boiling with hot steam. Sweat ran from their thin bodies. When they had stood the steaming as long as possible they would dash outside, roll in the snow, drink from the pail by the fire, then enter the steaming bathhouse with another cup of water to begin another round of sweating.
    There was no way to wash their clothing, but later, while Oca-lee and Little Mary were enjoying the steam bath, Tsi-ya found that the dirtier articles could be roughly cleaned by rubbing them with dry snow. At least, the act of trying to clean them made them seem cleaner, and they felt better when he put them on. For months the words “dirty Injun” had rankled – for there was nothing a Cherokee hated more than personal uncleanliness.
    That night the Cricket said, “Ha-yu! I hardly know myself! So many layers of dirt did I wash away that I am not sure there is anything left of me.”
    “Can you still wiggle your ears?” asked Little Mary.
    “I am afraid to try. I am so light I should probably float away.”
    “That is good,” said Tsi-ya. “Because now when you travel you can carry a heavy pack to hold you down.”
    The Cricket groaned. “Let us not talk of travel! My feet ache at the thought. It is so comfortable here I would like to go to sleep like Yonah, the bear, and remain all winter.”
    Little Mary said: “It is nice to be clean again, and warm and fed and rested. But – but I would walk barefooted in the snow, and go hungry, just to get back to our mountains.”
    Tsi-ya smiled. It was a good sign when Little Mary talked that way, for it showed she was much better. “We will stay here and hunt until the weather changes. By the time it is warm enough to travel, we should be rested and have all the smoked meat we can carry. Then we will start southward and travel until the next snow comes.”
    He did not add that the nearness of Paducah worried him. He could not trust the whites. Not only had he come to believe that most of them would do anything for money, but it seemed that every white hand was against them. Twice that day he had heard distant shots, and he knew it was only a question of time before wandering hunters discovered their camp. What would happen then?
    The only safe course, he reasoned, was to avoid the whites entirely. He must stay as far away from their towns as possible, and not even use their roads. The way homeward must be through wilderness, over trails that even the white hunters never trod. Southward first, away from the towns and the cold – and then eastward to the mountains.
    It would be much farther than five hundred miles.
    * * *
    The cold continued all that week, but the days remained bright and clear. They snared many birds and rabbits, and Tsi-ya managed to shoot another deer. They lived on the small game which they boiled in the pail with handfuls of basswood buds, but the venison was cut into long, thin strips and smoked. Soon every pole in the hut was hung with the dry strips of smoked meat.
    On the sixth morning after Christmas, Joe, the hunter’s son, appeared. Tsi-ya, sharpening lances for Oca-lee and Little Mary over the outside fire, heard a small sound behind him, and turned to see the freckled-faced youth standing near the hut.
    “Howdy,” said the youth, studying him with his troubled eyes. “I’m Joe Burr. I – I reckon you remember me.”
    “Yes,” Tsi-ya said quietly.
    “You – you speak English?”
    “Of course. We all do.”
    Joe rubbed his mittened hand nervously over his cheek, and came nearer the fire. “I – I’m mighty sorry about Paw tryin’ to take your meat t’other day. He – he’s plum’ ornery.”
    “It doesn’t matter now,” Tsi-ya murmured. Then, because he realized Joe was trying to be friendly, he added politely, “Won’t you have some rabbit stew?”
    “Thanks. I’d like to – but I don’t reckon thar’s time. I – I just come to warn you that Paw’s drunk an’ on the warpath. This ain’t his land, but he claims it an’ everything in it, an’ he hates Injuns. He ain’t got no right to chase you away, but I think you all beter leave before he finds you.”
    Tsi-ya stiffened. “You mean he’s out looking for us now?”
    “He shore is! We live up the river a way, an’ he knows you’re around. It ain’t gonna take ’im too long to find you, even if he is likkered. Paw, he’s mean enough sober, but when he’s been guzzling that panther sweat he makes, he’s forty times as bad. The hoss run off t’other night – it was the wolves chased it off, but he blames it on you. He’s plum’ crazy an’ out for blood. You shore don’t want to let ’im catch you.”
    For a half minute Tsi-ya stood clenching his hands, thinking ahead and trying to plan every move. It would be hard to leave now – but better the frozen woods than trouble with a whisky-crazed hunter.
    Suddenly he said: “Quick, Kiuga – get the snares! Oca-lee, you and Tala-tu help me pack. Little Mary, bring the meat.”
    They hurried, but they were not yet ready when Joe Burr said: “I hear Paw comin’! He’s shore on the warpath!”
    In the distance up the river they could hear, faintly, a hoarse but deadly voice that rose and fell, steadily cursing.
    There was no time to even taste the rabbit stew that had been simmering on the fire. Tsi-ya dumped it out and crammed the tin pail with as much of the smoked venison as it would hold. The rest he piled on the tarpaulin, which he tied into a bundle. Joe Burr snatched it up, saying: “I’ll carry it! You all foller me! I know the best way through these woods. But be sure to step in my tracks. ’Twouldn’t do for Paw to know I’m with you.”
    Joe led the way up the bluff, took the trail downstream for a hundred yards, then plunged into the forest. Tsi-ya, close behind him, matched his stride and stepped directly in his footprints. The pace was fast and it was hard for Little Mary to keep up, but she did not complain.
    It was nearly an hour before the white youth halted. Before them the woods opened, and a winding road angled off to the right. Horse-drawn sleds had been over it recently.
    “Reckon this is a good place to hide the trail,” Joe said. “You all kin head down the road a piece, then backtrack to some o’ them bushes on t’other side.”
    Tsi-ya looked at him in surprise. “Do you think your father will follow us this far?”
    “He shore will! He’ll stop at your camp long enough to tear it up an’ set it afire, then he’ll come rarin’ through the woods tryin’ to find you. He won’t give up till he runs out o’ panther sweat, and even then he’ll be bull-mad an’ snake-mean for a week.” Joe Burr shook his head, then said, “You all are Cherokee, ain’t you?”
    “Yes. We’re going back to our mountains.”
    “Boy! I’d sure like it a heap to go with you!”
    “Then – then why don’t you come along?”
    “Can’t. I got Ma to think about. She’s ailin’, an’ I couldn’t run off an’ leave ’er, not with Paw like he is.”
    “I’m sorry, Joe.” Tsi-ya studied the woods across the road. “What is the country like to the south of us?”
    “Sorta hard-scrabble, but easy traveling. You’ll pass another road soon. They say it runs clean to Memphis, but I wouldn’t know. Once you cross it you better swing east a little, ’cause the hunting’s poor till you git over near the Tennessee River. You won’t find no settlers to worry you, but I’d shore mind the wolves. They’re bad this time o’ the year.”
    “Thank you, Joe.” Suddenly he took Joe’s hand and pressed it gratefully. “We all thank you. You’ve been very kind to us.”
    “’Twarn’t much,” Joe said awkwardly. “I reckon I owed you something. Just cover my tracks so Paw won’t notice ’em when he comes.”
    He handed Tsi-ya the rolled tarpaulin, then gave a strong leap that carried him into a growth of cedars where his departing trail would not easily be seen. “Good-by,” he called, “an’ good luck!”
    “Good luck to you!”
    Tsi-ya smoothed the snow where Joe had been standing, and led the way down the road. It took some time and much care to leave a false trail on the road, and then hide their footprints in the shrubbery on the other side. A sober hunter, he knew, would not be deceived for long, for it was impossible to hide all signs in the telltale snow. But perhaps Joe’s father was too drunk to notice details.
    He took no chances, however, and pushed on as fast as the others could walk. At noon they halted briefly near the second road, resting while they nibbled a few scraps of venison. Again he went to some trouble to hide their trail.
    Beyond the second road the country became more open and rolling. Tsi-ya changed direction several times. He could not shake the uneasy feeling that Joe’s father, despite the whisky that fired him, was cunning enough to read every false sign, and was still implacably following them. In his mind he could still hear that deadly voice. There had been murder in it.
    By the middle of the afternoon everyone was tiring. Furthermore, the day was darkening. It was beginning to look like more snow.
    They reached the top of a low hill, dropped their packs, and sank down exhausted. Tsi-ya wondered if he should take time to kindle a fire and melt some snow for drinking water. They were very thirsty. Then he stood up quickly, looking back over their trail.
    A quarter of a mile away, at the crest of the last slope they had crossed, something moved. He had only a glimpse of it before it was hidden by the growth of scrubby oaks below.
    “Did you see it, Little Mary?”
    “I – I saw something.”
    “Was it a man or a wolf?”
    “If it was a wolf, it was a very big one.”
    Oca-lee said, “It seemed more like a man.”
    Tsi-ya strung his bow, then shouldered his pack and the bundle of meat. “Let us go,” he said. “Kiuga, lead the way. Straight south, fast.”
    He followed in the rear, keeping a careful watch behind. A wolf – even a large timber wolf – did not worry him very much. He had arrows to spare, and strength in his arms again; and each of the others now carried a stout lance for protection.
    But Joe’s father was something else.
    Tsi-ya’s skin prickled at the thought of him. How could he fight off a crazy man who wanted to kill them?

Chapter 8: Waya-waya
    Twilight came early. Several times Tsi-ya glimpsed movement behind them, but it was vague in the distance and he could not recognize the shape of it. As the gloom deepened, he drew closer to the others and began searching anxiously ahead for a place to camp. Just before dark he saw an outcropping of rock under a hill to their left. It seemed a good spot.
    Black dark was on them when they reached the outcropping. Groping in the snow beneath it, they managed to scoop out a hollow and spread their blankets. Tsi-ya opened the tarpaulin, dumped the smoked venison into a hole behind him, covered it with snow, and drew the tarpaulin tent-wise over them all.
    “Where is the pail of meat?” he asked.
    “I have it,” said Oca-lee.
    “Better bury it in the snow behind you so a wolf can’t get it.”
    “That’s what I’m doing,” she said.
    With the rock at their back and the tarpaulin as a sort of shield in front, he felt they were fairly safe for the night – at least from any marauding wolf that might be after their meat supply. But he longed for the sight and comfort of a fire.
    “I’m thirsty,” said Tala-tu.
    “We’re all thirsty,” Tsi-ya told him. “But we are of the Cherokee. What matters thirst? Put some snow in your mouth.”
    “I’m cold,” said Little Mary, “and the snow makes me colder. Can’t we have a fire? Just a tiny fire?”
    “Not tonight,” he said firmly.
    “But, brother,” said Kiuga, “we have come many miles today. Is Joe’s father so mad that he would follow us this far?”
    “Joe’s father—” Tsi-ya began, and stopped.
    The night’s stillness was broken by the sharp report of a rifle. It came from the other side of the last hill they had crossed, just before dark.
    For long seconds afterward no one spoke, but under the tarpaulin they huddled closer together, listening, while they stared out into the night’s blackness.
    Finally Little Mary whispered, “What – what do you suppose he was shooting at?”
    “Maybe he thought he saw us,” said Kiuga. And Tala-tu said, “I – I’ve heard it told that a crazy man can see in the dark like a cat, and – and that his eyes will even shine.”
    Tsi-ya had heard the same thing; the thought sent a chill down his spine. But he managed to say derisively: “The Cricket has been listening to white man’s nonsense! Joe’s father cannot see in the dark any better than we can. Nor is he truly crazy. He is just full of poison whisky.”
    “Panther sweat,” said Kiuga. “That’s what the Nothings call it.”
    Oca-lee said: “We mustn’t think of Joe as a Nothing. His heart is good, like Dr. O’Sullivan’s.”
    “Well, there is no good in the heart of Joe’s father,” Kiuga muttered. “What are we going to do, Tsi-ya?”
    “Nothing until morning. He cannot follow our trail until daylight. By daylight we must be far away from here.”
    They slept little that night. Once, when he was nearly asleep, Tsi-ya was brought to instant wakefulness by the frightened clutch of Tala-tu’s fingers on his arm. Tsi-ya lay rigid, listening. He could hear the faint crunch of snow as something walked past them.
    It sounded more like the footsteps of a man than of an animal, yet it was not quite like either. For minutes afterward he hardly dared breathe. Could it have been Joe’s father, prowling the blackness with the eyes of a cat – or was it the nameless thing that Joe’s father had shot at?
    Tsi-ya prayed for it to snow again and hide their trail, but no snow fell that night. As soon as he was able to make out the shape of his hand in front of his face, he roused the others. Hurriedly they dug up the meat and rolled their packs. It was still too dark to see any strange footprints, and Tsi-ya did not wait to search for them.
    The position of the rocky ledge gave him direction, and he led the way southward between the hills, stumbling, groping in the gloom, feeling his way rather than seeing.
    Slowly the dawn paled, but the sky remained dark with the promise of snow. A few scattered flakes were beginning to fall when he saw the wisp of vapor rising from the jutting rocks under another hill – a sure sign that there was a running spring. They plunged eagerly toward it.
    In the freezing air the water seemed almost hot to their lips. Never, though, had a drink been quite so satisfying.
    Not for an instant did Tsi-ya forget his vigilance; but it was Little Mary, whose quick darting eyes rarely missed a thing, who suddenly pointed and whispered: “Tsi-ya! Something follows!”
    He was in time to glimpse it, but that was all. It was just a gray movement in the snow a hundred yards behind them, a shapeless movement that vanished in the scrub oaks below the hill.
    “It was probably only a wolf,” Tsi-ya tried to say lightly.
    Little Mary clutched her lance fearfully. “If – if it was a wolf, Tsi-ya, it was the biggest wolf I’ve ever seen. It seemed as big as a panther.”
    “Maybe it was a panther.”
    “A panther glides.”
    “How did it walk?”
    “More like a man – a crippled man. Only it didn’t seem quite like a man.”
    Tala-tu said, “Maybe it was Joe Burr’s father.”
    Tsi-ya’s lips tightened. By now the very thought of Joe Burr’s father could bring a sick clutching in his stomach, a cold prickling down his spine. Was the man a demon that he could follow their trail without light to see by? But why did he hide now if he was so close? And what had he shot at last night?
    “Lead the way, Kiuga,” he said suddenly. “Follow the hill and stay close to the ledge. We’ll soon see what comes behind us.”
    The hill curved gradually. A half mile beyond the spring Tsi-ya found what he sought – a break in the ledge where a narrow gully cut into the hill. He herded the others up the gully, and over the drifts into the cover of the hillside thickets. Carefully he crept back, and crouched behind a tree where he could watch the gully entrance. An arrow was ready in his bow.
    Large flakes of softly falling snow had grayed the morning. The shadow that suddenly filled the gully entrance was covered with fresh snow, making it seem more unreal, more impossible, than it actually was. For this great gray thing was too big to be a wolf. Yet a wolf it was – though it was unlike any he had ever seen. It was as large as two ordinary wolves. It looked as big as a panther.
    Tsi-ya was too astounded to be afraid. For long seconds he stared at the thing in disbelief, entirely forgetting the bow in his hand. He’d heard tales of big wolves in the West, and up north, but in all his days he had never dreamed of such a monster as this.
    The great gray shadow raised its head and eyed him balefully. Then, with an odd, halting movement, it turned and quietly vanished.
    Tsi-ya shook his head to clear it of any foolishness, and blinked at the spot where the shadow had been. The thing couldn’t have been real! He must have imagined it! But no – there were its footprints.
    Trembling, but alert and with bow ready, he scrambled down for a better look at those immense tracks. He read the story of them at a glance. The wolf was lame. It walked on three legs. It had been hurt recently, apparently in the left shoulder, for there was a spot of crimson on the snow that might have dripped from a shoulder wound.
    Had Joe Burr’s father shot at it last night? Surely, that must have been what had happened. It explained everything.
    Tsi-ya went up and got his pack and climbed to where the others were waiting.
    “Did you see what I saw?” he asked.
    Their frightened faces answered for them.
    “We saw it,” said Kiuga, “but we cannot believe it.”
    “Maybe,” said Tala-tu, “it was not really a wolf. Only a great evil could take such a shape. Maybe it was the evil that was in Joe Burr’s father.”
    Tsi-ya said: “We can forget Joe Burr’s father. He cannot follow us in this snow – but the great wolf can.”
    “Do you think he will?” Little Mary asked fearfully.
    “Yes. He was wounded, probably by the shot we heard. Now he cannot hunt. He is hungry, and he smells the meat we carry. We must be very careful.”
    * * *
    From the beginning they never thought of him as a waya, another wolf. He was Waya-waya, the wolf of wolves. They came to fear him more than any other creature, even man.
    All that day he followed them with his queer, hobbling gait, staying just out of arrow range. That evening, not long before they stopped to camp, he vanished – only to reappear with terrifying suddenness while Tsi-ya was busy with flint and steel trying to start a fire. There was a scream from Oca-lee, and in the next instant she was knocked down by a hurtling shadow, and the pail of smoked meat she was carrying was gone.
    The next morning Tsi-ya found the pail, badly dented and empty, not far from their camping spot.
    Fearing that Waya-waya might get at their remaining supply of venison, Tsi-ya took most of it from the tarpaulin and gave each person a few pounds of it to carry. It was well that he did so, for the next day the cunning Waya-waya managed to steal the tarpaulin. They never found it, for it was just beginning to rain when it happened and the monster’s trail was speedily washed out in the downpour.
    It was bad enough to lose so much more of the meat. But losing the tarpaulin was a serious matter, for they were caught in country that offered little shelter, and they were forced to spend the next three days huddled under a narrow ledge while the heavens poured and the great snowdrifts turned to streams of slush.
    There was no sign of Waya-waya all during the rain. But when the weather cleared and they started southward again, the wolf appeared like an evil shadow, following. He was bolder now. He remained closer to them during the day. Often, when they stopped to rest, they would see him sitting in plain sight, watching every move they made. He seemed to know just how much food they had, and exactly where it was hidden. And it was obvious that he knew all about Tsi-ya’s bow, the only weapon that might possibly harm him.
    The bowstring, being made of sinew, stretched in the damp weather. Once, when Tsi-ya unnocked the loop and began tightening the lower knot, Waya-waya was on them in an instant and seized Kiuga’s pack. Fortunately the pack was open and everything spilled out. This time only the meat was lost.
    Their only safety at night, unless they could find a cave, was to make camp against the side of a ravine or under a ledge, where they would have a solid wall behind them and the protection of a large fire in front. After Waya-waya’s raids, their supply of smoked venison, that Tsi-ya had thought would last them for many days, was now nearly gone. Yet he dared not go hunting and leave the others unguarded. On two evenings he tried setting snares within a safe distance of the campfire. Birds were caught – but Waya-waya always got to them first.
    For their daily food they finally had to depend on the occasional rabbit or squirrel that Tsi-ya could shoot at close range without leaving the trail. If it fell too far away in the woods, it was always Waya-waya that got it. If it were not for the roots of the wild lilies, whose dead stalks they were occasionally able to find among the forest leaves, they might have suffered far more than they did. The lily roots were good either roasted or crushed and boiled, and the younger children watched for them constantly.
    They came at last to a small river flowing eastward through heavy timber. What river it was Tsi-ya had no idea, nor did it matter if they could manage to cross it safely and leave Waya-waya behind.
    Just out of arrow range, the great wolf crouched and watched them as they began collecting material for a raft. They spent half a day weaving dead branches and driftwood together with split willows. It was a flimsy raft when finished, and barely large enough to float them, but it carried them without mishap to the opposite bank.
    And luck, for once, seemed with them, for they were hardly ashore when Tsi-ya’s bow brought down a wild turkey gobbler.
    They had had little to eat for the past two days, and everyone was famished. While Oca-lee plucked the turkey and the others gathered wood, Tsi-ya laid his bow aside and got out his tinderbox to start the fire. Then, without the least warning, it happened. A great gray shape hurtled from the shadows, snatched the turkey in its jaws, and was gone before Tsi-ya could reach for his bow.
    Oca-lee, clutching a handful of feathers, burst into tears.
    Tsi-ya ground his teeth in a helpless rage.
    The frightened Kiuga stammered, “How – how did Waya-waya cross the river?”
    The equally frightened Cricket said: “I – I think he changed back into the shape of Joe Burr’s father and made himself a raft. He is not a wolf – he is a witch.”
    “He is a wolf,” said Tsi-ya, “and he swam, even though he is wounded. But daily he grows stronger and bolder, while we become weaker. Soon, if we have no food for him to steal, he will kill one of us.” He clenched his hands and added grimly, “Waya-waya must die.”
    Little Mary said: “But he is big, big, big! And he has no fear of us. How can you kill anything so big and so fearless?”
    “He is afraid of my bow,” said Tsi-ya. “He is smart enough to know that it can kill him.”
    * * *
    Carefully Tsi-ya planned his strategy. Until now he had made no attempt to shoot at Waya-waya, mainly because Waya-waya had been cunning enough never to come close while he held the strung bow in his hand. Arrows were too precious to waste. To kill a beast so large and powerful, he must manage to approach it within a few yards, otherwise much of the arrow’s force would be lost. For his purpose he would need a deep gully or a ravine, and all the conditions would have to be exactly right. One little mistake, and Waya-waya would be the victor.
    It was two mornings later before Tsi-ya found a place that suited him. They were in hilly country again, and for the past hour they had been winding upstream beside a tiny creek. On either side the hills pressed close, and in spots the banks rose steeply where the creek had cut into the hillside. At a safe distance behind them, as patient and as grim as death, came the limping shadow that was Waya-waya.
    Suddenly Tsi-ya said: “There is a narrow place ahead where the creek turns. Do not look back if I step aside. Go on and pretend I am still with you.”
    Their eyes were wide and frightened. Oca-lee said, “Tsi-ya—”
    “Go on!” he said sternly. “Waya-waya must not know that we are setting a trap for him.”
    They reached the narrow place. The instant they were past the turn, so that they were momentarily hidden from the shadow behind them, Tsi-ya stepped aside. The others pressed fearfully onward.
    It was a good spot. The wolf could not see him until it came to the turn, nor could it leap directly at him, for there was a leaning tree here that could be used as a shield.
    Tsi-ya knew he had only seconds to get ready. Swiftly he removed his pack and blanket, and took two extra arrows. His hatchet he placed at the base of the tree, within quick reach of his hand. His best arrow was on the bowstring; the other two he held between his left fingers against the bow.
    He crouched and waited, motionless and hardly daring to breathe, the bow raised and ready. There had been a heavy freeze during the night, but the cold he felt now was the chill of fear. He knew that in the space of a few heartbeats he might very quickly die.
    “Oh, great Kanati,” he prayed silently, “give me the courage to fight Waya-waya, and the strength to win. If I must die, let me die like a Cherokee, but please watch over the others and guide them safely on their journey.”
    There was a faint sound beyond the turn. It was the cracking of the thin edge of ice that rimmed the shallow creek. He saw Waya-waya’s head.
    The huge beast stopped, obviously suspicious. There was only the evil red eye for a target. Tsi-ya waited.
    Waya-waya limped forward another step, exposing the shaggy throat and shoulder. In a flash Tsi-ya drew back on the bowstring with all his strength. The arrow was hardly released when he had a second in the bow.
    The sting of the first arrow and the sudden sight of Tsi-ya turned the beast into a snarling fury. In spite of the old shoulder wound, it whirled and sprang with all the speed and viciousness of a panther.
    Tsi-ya had planned carefully for this moment, for he had known it would decide the victory. From long practice he could discharge three arrows in almost as many seconds – but three arrows at this range was the absolute limit.
    The second arrow bit deep into the monster’s chest just as it left the ground. Tsi-ya never saw where the third arrow struck, for he had hardly released it when the bow was knocked from his hand. Only the shielding tree saved him from Waya-waya’s slashing jaws.
    He had barely time enough to snatch up the hatchet when Waya-waya whirled and sprang again. Frenziedly he struck at the murderous head. A searing pain ripped his arm and a crushing weight fell upon him.

Chapter 9: The Good Nothings
    For a long time there was only confusion in Tsi-ya’s mind, and an awareness of pain. His head throbbed and his body ached, but most of the pain was in his left arm, near the shoulder. Once he tried to turn his head to see what was wrong, but the pain stabbed deeper and his head seemed to explode.
    Dimly at last he heard someone say, “Lie very still, or you will open your wounds.” Later, many moons later, it seemed, the same voice said, “You must drink some of this.”
    Small hands carefully raised his head. A tin cup was held to his lips. The hot liquid in it was strong and bitter, yet satisfying. He recognized the flavor of sassafras roots and black cherry bark. It sent a tingling warmth through him. His head began to clear.
    He could smell wood smoke mingling with the fragrance of cedar boughs. Firelight flickered on an earthen wall and the rough poles of a lean-to. On either side of the fire crouched familiar figures, broiling bits of meat on forked sticks. Suddenly he caught the aroma of the meat, and realized he was very hungry.
    A voice said: “Try to eat some meat. Tsi-ya. It will make you stronger.”
    The meat was far from tender, but it tasted wonderful. He ate a large piece of it, and fell immediately to sleep.
    When he awoke he felt a great deal better, so much so that he began to struggle with his memory, trying to recall where he was and what had happened.
    All at once it came back to him.
    “Where is Waya-waya?” he asked.
    They crowded around him, Kiuga and Oca-lee, Little Mary and the Cricket. Kiuga said: “It is good to hear your voice, brother! For three days you burned with fever, and we despaired.”
    “I’ve been here three days?” he said wonderingly.
    “Nearly four,” said Kiuga. “And you would not be here at all if Oca-lee were not such a good medicine woman.”
    The Cricket said, “She refused to let us eat until we had built the shelter and found the roots she wanted.”
    “Of course not,” Oca-lee told him. “But for Tsi-ya, where would we be?”
    Little Mary said, “We were so frightened afterward, for it snowed again and I was afraid we would never find the bloodroot to take the poison from your wounds, or the spider webs to close them.”
    Tsi-ya looked at them gratefully, loving them all. “But what did you have to eat?” he asked. “I thought we were out of food.”
    “Ha!” chirped the Cricket. “You forget! We had Waya-waya.”
    “Waya-waya!”
    " Ase-hi!” said Kiuga, laughing. “You made a good wolf of him, brother! We have been eating him for days. See, what is left of him hangs in strips overhead. His flavor is very fine, but one needs jaws of iron to chew him.”
    “Then he should last us a long time,” Tsi-ya said wryly. “That is fortunate, for I am afraid it will be many days before I can hold a bow again.”
    “Oh, but what beautiful scars you will have!” Kiuga and Tala-tu said enviously.
    * * *
    Tsi-ya had lost much blood, for the great wolf had mauled him badly during its death struggles. It was six more days before he felt strong enough to carry a pack and take the trail again.
    Had the hunting been better, he would have waited a lot longer. But the last snow had melted, and he knew they should travel as far as possible before another blizzard caught them. They were in what Joe Burr had called hard-scrabble country – which was no country to be in with February, the Hungry Month, approaching. What little remained of Waya-waya was hardly fit for stewing, and in the past two days the snares hadn’t yielded even a skinny rabbit.
    “You’ll have to be the hunter,” he told Kiuga, giving him the bow to carry. “But remember, the bow is too heavy for you, so use only the short arrows you can handle easily. We cannot eat the game you miss.”
    He led the way, taking Kiuga’s lance. His left arm, which he was forced to carry in a sling, was still so swollen that he could hardly close his hand, and every step caused it to throb with pain. Kiuga and Tala-tu could be bug-eyed over his scars – a year ago he might have been proud of them himself – but at the moment he would much rather have had the use of his arm. He had an unpleasant feeling that he would be needing it soon.
    For the next few days all went well. He followed the easiest route, taking the old game trails that led south or east, and avoiding the occasional road or wagon trace that might bring them to settled country and the attention of the whites. Whenever possible, he kept to the banks of small streams, following their windings until they turned in the wrong direction. If Kiuga failed with the bow – which was often – they usually managed to catch fish. Once, when they were entirely out of food, and there were neither lily roots nor basswood trees to furnish edible buds, they came upon a grove of huge white oaks. It did not matter that the squirrels and deer, gathered there to feast on the acorns, immediately got out of reach of Kiuga’s arrows. The trees were still loaded with acorns – and a white oak acorn was as rich and as sweet as a chestnut.
    Tsi-ya had only a hazy idea where they were. He hoped they were in Tennessee, and not too far from the Tennessee River, but in this strange country his map was of little help without some definite landmark to use as a guide. The others trudged confidently at his heels, never questioning where he led or dreaming that he was relying entirely on instinct.
    They were gathering white oak acorns from another grove one morning when Little Mary suddenly raised her head, listening intently. “Tsi-ya! Did you hear that? It was like an owl – but it must be as big as Waya-waya to make such a sound!”
    He listened. “Come!” he said abruptly. “That is an owl you should know more about!”
    In half an hour they could see a break in the forest ahead. Tsi-ya pushed forward eagerly. All at once the forest ended, and they found themselves on a high bluff, looking out at the vista of a great gleaming river. It wound for miles in the distance until its silver gleam was lost in the haze of the far-off hills. There was only one great river that could be flowing northward here.
    “The Tennessee!” he cried happily. “And there is your big owl,” he added, pointing to a paddle-wheeler chugging upstream, black smoke belching from its twin stacks. It was the first time Little Mary had ever seen a steamboat or heard its whistle.
    Tsi-ya could hardly wait to cross the river. But crossing it, he realized that afternoon, after searching the bank for hours, was going to be no easy matter. They would have to build a raft. Nor could it be a flimsy affair such as they had used for little streams. This raft must be large and strong – and the others would have to do most of the work.
    They spent the rest of that day and all the next gathering materials. It took all the third day and the following morning for the construction. Two drift logs they found floating in eddies formed the backbone. Across these, with grapevines, were lashed all the fallen limbs and dry pieces of timber they could drag to the water’s edge. Finally willow poles were cut, split in half, and woven through the crosspieces to make the top more secure.
    The day was overcast, and now a fine drizzle of rain began to fall. Tsi-ya studied the sky. The wind was in the south and, aside from the drizzle, the weather was not threatening. What was a little rain? After all the cold of the past weeks, they were lucky to have it so warm.
    He took no chances, and before loosening the mooring vine he made sure that all their packs and equipment were securely tied down to the crosspieces. Then Kiuga and the Cricket threw their weight on the long rudder pole, and the clumsy raft swung out into the current.
    For no reason at all, Tsi-ya was uneasy. His eyes roved the river, the distant bank, the leaden sky, for sign of anything that might be of trouble to them. But for once everything seemed to be in their favor – except, of course, the drizzle, which made it difficult to see distant objects, and his injured arm, which he still had to carry in a sling.
    By working the rudder pole like an oar, and using their lances as paddles on one side, the raft was gradually turned and guided out to midstream. The current was swift here, and with the wind behind them they began moving downstream at a surprising rate. Tsi-ya estimated that they would probably travel more than a mile before they could reach the eastern bank.
    Little Mary asked: “Why must we cross the Tennessee twice going home? We crossed it only once on the way to Illinois.”
    “Because of the way it curves,” he said. He’d explained it to her before, but she could never remember how it looked on the map. “Near the mountains, where we crossed it last year, it flows south. Then it turns west toward the Mississippi, but halfway there it changes its mind and starts north for the Ohio. When we came back over the Ohio, we missed the mouth and got on the west side. But when we—”
    “Oh, it’s so mixed up,” she said. “It must be a woman river to start out in one direction and end in the opposite. Tsi-ya, isn’t that a snag ahead?”
    In the drizzle it seemed to be only a small limb fingering the river’s surface. Then he realized that something much larger must be hidden beneath it.
    “Kiuga!” he cried. “Oca-lee! Paddle! Paddle hard!” He thrust his weight against the rudder pole.
    Their ponderous craft moved a dozen yards before it showed the least response to their frenzied efforts. It began to swing finally, but too late. One corner ran directly over the snag. There was a thumping, grinding sound; the raft tilted sickeningly as the swift current forced the free end downward. Half submerged, it turned on the pivot of the snag and hung there, creaking and weaving as if it would go to pieces at any minute.
    Tsi-ya drew his hatchet and tried to cut through the obstruction. It was impossible, as he saw when he looked down into the swirling water. It was not a small limb that held them, but the upper portion of a huge log.
    During the next hour they broke the rudder pole and a lance trying to pry the raft loose. They succeeded only in increasing their danger by snapping some of the grapevine lashings.
    Suddenly Tsi-ya said: “Everyone get down at the lower end! If you can tilt it enough, maybe I can push us off – but hurry! We haven’t much time!”
    He threw off his blanket, and without a thought of his injured arm, slid over the corner of the raft. The shock of the icy water was almost paralyzing. His feet found the trunk of the submerged log, and instantly he thrust his good shoulder under the raft and pushed upward with all his strength.
    The raft moved a few inches, and caught again. Desperately he jerked his left arm from its sling, seized the corner of the raft with both hands, and heaved forward.
    He was hardly aware that the raft was floating free. Pain had ripped through his arm – red, blinding pain that left him gasping and momentarily helpless. His numbed fingers slipped from the raft, his head went under and he floundered in icy darkness.
    Then he felt movement beside him. He reached the surface, and realized someone was holding him, trying to swim. For a moment he thought it was Kiuga, then his eyes cleared and he saw Oca-lee’s pale, heart-shaped face. The raft was far beyond them, dim in the rain.
    “Tsi-ya,” she gasped, “can you... use one hand... swim?”
    He was Tsi-ya, the Otter, and he had earned his name at five because he could swim better than any boy in his valley. In the mountains were spring-fed pools that never froze, and in these he had plunged every day, even in the coldest winters. It was something every youth did. It was part of the training of a Cherokee.
    But for that, neither he nor Oca-lee could have hoped to reach that distant bank. There were moments when it seemed impossible, long moments of cold agony when his arm was leaden and he could force no movement from his body. He would have drowned but for the knowledge that Oca-lee would surely drown with him. If she had not leaped in to save him, he would never have had a chance. It was this thought that drove him on, that gave him the strength to hold her head above the surface when she was exhausted, that made him fight for breath and put motion into feet that had lost all feeling.
    They were still fifty yards from shore when they touched bottom. They were on a gravel bar. It was a miracle, that bar; surely Kanati must have put it there to save them.
    Kiuga and the others found them a half hour later, nearly dead from exposure. Camp was hastily made in a dry hollow under the bluff, and while Kiuga fumbled with flint and steel, Little Mary and the Cricket hurried back to the raft, a quarter mile downstream, to bring their packs.
    It was black dark before Tsi-ya, rolled in dry blankets before the fire, was able to sit up and drink some of the hot broth simmering in the pail. There had been no time for Kiuga to do any hunting, but he and Tala-tu had found hundreds of clams in the shallows below them; a few cups of these, boiled with pounded acorns, made an odd-tasting but nourishing broth. It brought warmth and life back into Tsi-ya, and a sudden awareness of pain in his wounds.
    But he forgot his pain when he looked over at Oca-lee. Her eyes were closed; she seemed hardly to be breathing. Little Mary was holding her head up, trying to make her swallow some of the broth. Oca-lee was too weak to take more than a few sips of it.
    Little Mary said fearfully: “What are we going to do, Tsi-ya? She’s awfully sick! And her hands feel so cold!”
    “Try rubbing her hands and feet.”
    “We’ve done that. It doesn’t seem to help.”
    “Then build up the fire.”
    They piled more wood on the fire. They kept it blazing high all that night. But Oca-lee was no better in the morning. To Tsi-ya she seemed worse.
    While Kiuga set snares and Tala-tu gathered clams, he stayed by the fire and tried to plan what to do. For the first time he realized how much they had come to depend upon Oca-lee. She always knew how to care for anyone who was ill – but now who was going to care for her? He’d never felt so completely helpless. Bitterly he blamed himself for starting across the river in the rain. Why couldn’t he have waited until today?
    Faintly, from somewhere down the river, he could hear the baying of a hound. And this morning, early, he’d heard a rooster crow. Whites were near. The thought added to his worries. Their situation was far too serious to be complicated by troublesome white people.
    He could hardly move his bad arm. The wound had torn open in the water and it had bled a lot. It might be weeks before he could hold a bow again. How were they going to get fresh meat? Kiuga, of course, would do his best – but Kiuga’s best was seldom good enough to feed them all. Right now Oca-lee needed far more than clams and acorns. To make it worse, this was February, the Hungry Month. Suppose another blizzard caught them here?
    He swallowed and looked again at Oca-lee. Her paleness and her stillness frightened him.
    Little Mary said: “She – she’s worse, Tsi-ya. Isn’t there something we can do for her?”
    Suddenly Tsi-ya knew that he had to get help for Oca-lee. If he didn’t, she would die.
    “There’s only one thing to do,” he said. “I must see the whites.”
    “The whites! Oh, Tsi-ya!”
    “It has to be. Maybe they will help Oca-lee if I pay them. They will do much for money, and I have fifteen dollars.”
    * * *
    Tsi-ya found a trail at the top of the bluff. He followed it for more than half an hour before he saw the first cabin. A high fence of split rails surrounded it. As he hesitated near the gate a scrawny hound came out and barked at him dutifully, then whined as if looking for sympathy. The door cracked open and a woman stared at him suspiciously. Tsi-ya limped on. He could not expect much help from people too mean to feed a hound.
    The second cabin was empty, but there was a road ahead and more buildings in the distance.
    The road, he found, led down to a steamboat landing. Just above the landing was a shed piled with baled cotton. On the bluff overlooking it all was a small log building that might have been a trading post, and beyond it under the oaks, neatly finished and whitewashed, was a large log house. No one was in sight, but smoke rose from one of the chimneys of the house.
    Hesitantly he crossed the road. Halfway to the house he stopped, swallowed, and forced himself to go on. For himself alone, he would rather have died than ask any help of the hated Nothings. But there were others to think about, and it had to be done. He was glad suddenly that his buckskins had got a good soaking in the river; they had dried stiff, but at least they were clean.
    He did not have to knock on the door. Just before he reached the porch a huge black hound dashed around the side of the house, baying fiercely. Instantly the door flew open, and a mighty voice bellowed: “Shut up, you bung-headed son o’ Satan! Can’t a man finish his Sunday breakfast without you raising sin from the grave?” And in the next breath, to Tsi-ya: “Well, cut my throat if it ain’t an Injun! What d’you want, Injun?”
    At the sound of that voice the hound quieted as if it had been throttled. Tsi-ya gulped, sure that he had made a terrible mistake in coming here. The man before him was immense. A hulking bear of a man, black-bearded and fierce-eyed, and full of threat and thunder.
    “Speak up, Injun!” he bellowed. “What d’you want?”
    Behind the giant a woman suddenly spoke in a soothing voice: “Now just you quiet down, Jonas Barfield. They can hear you clean back to Pennsylvania! D’you want to scare the lad to death? Can’t you see how sick he is?”
    “Sure I see it! Look at that arm in the sling! What happened to you, boy?”
    “Trouble with a wolf,” Tsi-ya said. “I – I’m sorry to bother you, sir, but we need some help. Not for me – it’s for one of the others. She’s very ill, and we don’t know what to do. I – I’ve money to pay for help, sir.”
    “I’ll be double singed!” the giant burst out, in great surprise. “The lad spouts English like a schoolteacher!”
    “Of course he speaks English!” the woman behind him said impatiently. “Don’t you recognize a Cherokee when you see one? Enough of them passed this way last year when they were trying to send them west by boat. Jonas Barfield, get your noisy hulk out of the way and let the boy come in. He says he needs help – but how can I help a body with you standing there like a roaring mountain?”
    The roaring mountain moved with sudden meekness, and Tsi-ya entered. It was a pleasant room with bearskin rugs on the floor, and a huge fireplace where a plump Negress sat making johnnycakes on a big iron griddle. Mrs. Barfield – Marthy, the giant called her – was a small gray woman who came hardly to her husband’s shoulder. She had calm eyes in a firm but pleasant face.
    “Now, son,” she said quietly, “just tell me all about it.”
    Tsi-ya hurriedly told her. When he had finished she said: “Jonas, did you hear all that? Call Jabbo and have him saddle the horses. You must go and get that poor child and bring her here just as fast as you can!”
    “Hey?” boomed the giant. “You want me to bring the whole passel of ’em here?”
    “Stop roaring on the Sabbath! Certainly I want them all! There are only five. We can put them over in Charlie’s side of the house. While you’re gone, Junie and I will be getting the place ready. Now hurry!”
    Tsi-ya said: “Please, I didn’t mean for you to take us in! If you can just help Oca-lee somehow, we can make camp in the woods. It’s not right that we should—”
    “I know what’s right,” Martha Barfield said firmly. “You need help yourself – what a sight your arm is! You’re all staying here until you’re well and able to travel. We were poor once, but the Lord has been good to us. If we don’t help others when they need it, we’ve no right to what we have.”
    “Amen!” boomed Jonas Barfield. “Junie,” he bawled at the Negress by the fire, “bring out another jug o’ sorghum, an’ whup up a peck o’ batter! I want to see a yard-high stack o’ cakes when I bring all them lil Injuns back. Come on, boy, an’ show me the way to that sick gal.”
    There were tears in Tsi-ya’s eyes as he followed the giant to the stable. Who would have believed that one could find people like these among the Nothings?

Chapter 10: To Muscle Shoals
    Jonas Barfield carried Oca-lee all the way back in his huge arms and laid her gently on one of the plump feather beds in “Charlie’s side of the house.”
    “Look at her, Marthy,” he boomed. “Ain’t she a purty one? Thin as a shadow’s edge, but as purty as a printed picture!”
    “Get out of here and let me take care of her,” his wife ordered. “And pray she hasn’t got lung fever.”
    “She ain’t got lung fever,” said the giant. “She’s just plum’ tuckered. I’d be tuckered too if I tried to swim the Tennessee River in February and hadn’t had no decent vittles in months.”
    “Then I wish you’d try it sometime,” Mrs. Barfield said calmly. “It might quiet you down a little, and that would be a blessing. Now go on out and give that young man’s arm some medication. And don’t forget the cakes – Junie’s cooked enough for an army.”
    It was almost too good to be true. It was, in fact, very much like being home again – the way home used to be before the soldiers came. Even so, Tsi-ya was determined not to impose upon the kindness of the Bar-fields any longer than was absolutely necessary. Just as soon as Oca-lee was well enough to travel, they would have to leave.
    Under Martha Barfield’s care, Oca-lee showed rapid improvement. In three days she was able to be up. By the end of the week she looked, to Tsi-ya’s eyes, as well as she had ever been. To be on the safe side, he waited a few more days, then hesitantly mentioned that it was time they took to the trail again.
    “Leave so soon?” Martha Barfield exclaimed. “Nonsense! You’re not stirring a foot from here until you’ve all got more meat on your bones. Besides, your arm isn’t well yet. I’ll not let you leave until it is.”
    “Listen to me, boy,” Jonas said in his great voice. “You all want to be feeling lively as fleas before you take the trail. It’s a far stretch to the mountains, an’ this ain’t the time o’ year to be atravelin’. Wait till spring.”
    “That’s very kind of you,” Tsi-ya told him. “But we don’t want to cause you any trouble. I’m afraid we should if we stayed too long.”
    “Hey? How could you cause me any trouble?”
    “Everybody around here knows we’re runaways, going back to the mountains. Already there’s talk about you taking us in.” He could not pass the trading post without noticing the sudden whispering between Jonas’ clerk and the settlers who came in daily. It was the same way at the landing whenever a boat tied up. Strangers always stared and asked questions.
    “Let ’em talk!” the giant growled. “Everybody in Tennessee knows how Jonas Barfield feels about the Cherokee! If there’s a man alive who don’t like who sits at my table, he’d better keep shy o’ Barfield’s landing!”
    Another week passed. Then, on a blustery Monday afternoon early in March, trouble suddenly appeared in the person of Deacon Butler Yancy, from over at Linden on the Nashville road.
    Deacon Yancy was a portly man with a large protruding stomach, more chins than he needed, and a mouth that seemed much too small and tight to be very generous with blessings.
    “Howdy, Brother Barfield. Howdy,” he said unctuously, as Jonas let him in the door. “I heard you had five, ah, guests staying with you. I, ah, considered it my Christian duty to come over and have a look at them.”
    “They’re right here to look at,” roared Jonas. “Them two yonder making dresses, they’re Oca-lee an’ Little Mary. My wife tells me it’s a caution the way they can sew. An’ them boys, the least one with the ears is Tala-tu; next is Kiuga; an’ the tall lad, that’s Tsi-ya.”
    “Well, well, well!” said Deacon Yancy, folding his soft hands across his paunch and twisting his small mouth into a smile. “So these are the little savages I’ve been hearing so much about!”
    “Hey?” bellowed Jonas. “Savages?”
    Little Mary turned her big eyes defiantly on the deacon and said, “I beg your pardon, sir, but we are not savages.”
    “Eh? You speak English? Well, now, dear me! This is most surprising. How did you children happen to come here, little girl? Were you lost?”
    ‘‘No, sir. Tsi-ya led us here, and Tsi-ya has never been lost.”
    “And where did Tsi-ya lead you from?”
    “From Illinois, sir.”
    “All the way from Illinois! Dear me! And what were you doing there, may I ask?”
    Jonas, like a great threatening bear, suddenly growled: “You know as well as everybody else what they were doin’ in Illinois! An’ you know why they’re here, an’ where they’re goin’ when they leave here! Why all this pussyfootin’ around?”
    “Now, now, Brother Barfield,” the deacon purred. “You always were a hasty man, but let us not lose our temper. Naturally I’ve heard much about them – they’re being talked of as far away as Nashville. I wanted to find out firsthand before I took any action.”
    “Cut my throat,” bellowed Jonas, “but there’s only one man goin’ to take action around here, an’ that’s Jonas Barfield!”
    “Now, now, Brother Barfield. Let us not be hasty. You’ve already showed yourself a Christian. You’ve opened your heart and home to these waifs, these poor orphans of the storm, so to speak. You’ve done your duty. Now it’s time others took over. There are proper agencies for handling these cases. I was speaking to Major McFee yesterday about these, ah, unfortunates, you’ve so kindly taken in. He agrees with me that they should be returned to their people – a matter he has promised to look after if I take the children to him. Naturally we cannot, ah, allow them to run unrestrained in the wilderness.” He paused and smiled benevolently around the room, first at Little Mary, and then at Tsi-ya. “Now, my young friends,” he added, rubbing his fat hands together, “I know you will all love to meet our good Major McFee. So, if you will just get your things together and come along—”
    “No!” Tsi-ya burst out. “I know where we are going – and it’s not in Major McFee’s direction!”
    “Are you defying me, young man?”
    “I – I do not like to defy a servant of God, sir. But we are not going with you.”
    “You heard the lad!” Jonas roared suddenly. “You ain’t takin’ these Injuns no place!”
    “Jonas Barfield,” snapped Deacon Yancy, wagging his finger under the giant’s nose, “don’t you defy me! You’re harboring fugitives, and that’s against the law! These heathen brats are runaways! There’s only one place for them and that’s out West with the rest of the savages! I know the law—”
    “An’ I know the law too, you double-tongued, pusillanimous fraud! If you don’t like the way we treat Injuns in Tennessee, you’d better go back to Georgia where you came from!”
    The door leading to the distant kitchen flew open, and Martha Barfield suddenly appeared. “Jonas Bar-field! What’s going on out here?”
    “Stomp me down, Marthy, but I’m just tellin’ this Bible-banging busybody that he can’t take our children away from us!”
    Deacon Yancy pointed a trembling finger at him. “And I’ll be back with proper authority to prove I can! Mark my words, Jonas Barfield, I’ll not be defied by sinners like you!” He threw open the door and stalked furiously out to his carriage.
    “Jonas, tell me what that man’s up to?”
    Jonas told her in a voice that made the windows rattle.
    “But, Jonas, he can’t really do as he threatens, can he?”
    “Not without the Army to help ’im. But that’s what worries me. I hear the Army’s collected a batch o’ sick ones an’ runaways, an’ they’re camped near Nashville now.”
    “Oh, dear!”
    Tsi-ya said, “I think we’d better get our packs and leave.”
    “No,” said Jonas. “Not with that rascally Yancy tryin’ to stir up trouble. He’s just low-down enough to make ’em set dogs after you. Anyhow, we got some bad weather comin’.”
    Tsi-ya knew that. The wind had changed and his bad foot ached. Morosely he listened to the whistle of an approaching steamboat far down the river.
    At the sound of the whistle, Jonas suddenly slapped his great hands together. “That’s the Queen! Cut my throat, I’d plum’ forgot her! There’s the answer! Marthy, we’ll turn ’em over to Cap Ritter, an’ he can take ’em up to Charlie!”
    Charlie, Tsi-ya had learned, was the Barfields’ son, who had something to do with handling freight upstream.
    Martha Barfield frowned. “Will it be safe, Jonas?”
    “Why, fry me brown, ’course it’ll be safe! You know Cap. He’ll hide these kids aboard, an’ no one’ll ever know it. When Charlie gits ’em, he kin take ’em up past the Shoals an’ give ’em a canoe.”
    Jonas pawed through some papers, found a map, and spread it on the table. Tsi-ya saw that it was a chart of the Tennessee River. Jonas put his finger on the great bend where the river curved southward in Alabama. “See there, boy? That’s Muscle Shoals, an’ it’s as far as the Queen can go. When you git there, you’ll be a heap farther south, an’ a mite nearer the mountains. Cap, he’ll turn you over to Charlie, an’ Charlie, he’ll handle everything else. Now, you better git your packs ready. I got to talk to Cap Ritter, and write a letter to Charlie.”
    But at the door Jonas paused a moment, then turned back. Suddenly he stooped and picked up Little Mary in one huge arm and Oca-lee in the other. “Cut my throat for a low-down sinner,” he growled, “but I shore hate to see you younguns leave!”
    “Yes,” said Martha Barfield sadly, “it’s going to be terribly lonesome here without you.”
    * * *
    That night they slipped quietly aboard the Tennessee Queen, where old Captain Ritter hid them in the wheelhouse. It was in the wheelhouse or the cabin behind it that they spent the next two days, their presence known to few but the mate and the helmsman and the big black steward who brought their meals.
    All that first morning the Queen throbbed steadily southward, the forested bluffs on either side almost hidden in the slashing rain. Tsi-ya peered out at the dim river, marveling at their good fortune. This was no weather for foot travelers. Nor had he looked forward to going overland through the middle section of the state; not only did they have bad memories of it, but it was far too well settled for his liking.
    How could he ever repay Jonas for his kindness? He had tried to thank him, but somehow the English words had failed. “I will not forget,” he had told Jonas when they parted. “Someday you will hear from me.”
    Cap Ritter of the Queen was a grim, gnarled white-haired man who spoke little at first beyond an occasional “Yup” or “Nope” to a question. But when the rain lessened that afternoon, he became talkative.
    “Ye kids ever been on ary steamboat before?”
    “No, sir. It’s very exciting.”
    “Humph! Ain’t nothin’ excitin’ about hit, save when some o’ them ornery passengers gits drunk an’ has themselves a fight. Don’t carry many passengers, though. The Queen’s mostly for freight. I been freightin’ on the river nigh forty years. Started out keelboating to New Awleans – took six weeks to go downstream an’ four months to pole-an’-pull back up. Steamboating’s a heap easier on the back. Ye kids ever been to Muscle Shoals?”
    “We’ve never been there,” Tsi-ya answered. “But my father went through it once in a canoe.”
    “Hit’s the most fiendish place ever was to git through. Ary riverman will tell ye ’twas Beelzebub his-self who made the Mississippi, but nobody made Muscle Shoals. Hit never was made. ’Twas the Lord made the Tennessee, hit’s that purty. But when he come to Muscle Shoals he jest skipped over hit – said a river hadn’t orta be too blessed perfect, or we wouldn’t appreciate it. So the river, when hit reached the Shoals an’ seen hit didn’t have no place to go, hit jest spread out an’ went roarin’ over that stony land like a scared lake. Fer thutty-five unblessed miles that’s all hit is – a scared lake runnin’ wild over a stone bed. Reckon they call hit what they do ’cause hit takes all the muscle a man’s got to git a boat through hit.”
    Cap Ritter paused. “Nowadays, though, we git around hit by the new railroad. That was where a heap o’ Cherokees escaped last year.”
    “From that first group they sent by boat?”
    “Yup. They loaded ’em on them railroad cars, an’ every time the fool engine slowed down to git a breath, folks hopped off an’ skedaddled in the woods.” Cap Ritter frowned, and added: “Tomorrow evenin’ we dock at Tuscumbia, Alabamy. That’s where the railroad ends, an’ that’s where ye’ll meet Charlie. Dunno jest how he’ll git you around the Shoals without folks knowin’, but he’ll manage. He handles most o’ the freight there.”
    “What’s he like?” Tsi-ya asked, uneasy at the thought of appearing in a town.
    “Put a beard on ’int an’ ye’d think he was old Jonas. Now don’t ye worry about nothin’. Charlie’ll take care o’ ye. But don’t forgit: when we dock tomorrow ye’d better hide back there in the cabin till things quiet down. There’s always a bunch o’ no-accounts at the dock, an’ ye can’t tell what they’ll do.”
    * * *
    It was twilight the next day when the Tennessee Queen blew for her final landing. From the window of the captain’s cabin Tsi-ya peered out cautiously over the heads of Oca-lee and Kiuga as the pilot eased her in to the dock between two other river boats. Suddenly, among the waiting crowd, Tsi-ya caught the familiar blue of uniforms. Oca-lee saw them at the same time. “Soldiers! " she whispered, and quickly drew the curtains. “What are soldiers doing here, Tsi-ya?”
    The sight had shaken him, but he tried not to show it. “Probably they’re just traveling,” he said.
    Little Mary clutched his hand. “Do – do you suppose they’ll bother us?”
    “Not if they don’t know we’re here.”
    Gradually the dock cleared. It was long after dark before a lantern appeared along the row of warehouses, and Cap Ritter and a stranger came up the landing plank and climbed to the pilothouse. The stranger was a huge young man with a mane of black hair, a face like an eagle, and a voice that shook the pilothouse windows.
    “This is Charlie Barfield,” said Cap Ritter. “An’ Charlie, this is the special freight your pa sent.”
    “Pa’s always handin’ me a surprise,” said Charlie, grinning. “His instructions were to outfit you an’ git you started safe upstream in a canoe. That means we got to work fast. This town won’t be safe tomorrow.”
    “The soldiers?” said Tsi-ya.
    “Naw, it’s the likker an’ the riffraff politicians. They’re passin’ out free likker for votes tomorrow, an’ all they need is a few Cherokees to fight over. Let’s go!”
    He caught up two of the packs and led the way swiftly across the dock to a dark store building, Cap Ritter pacing him with the lantern. He unlocked the door and they followed him inside. The place reminded Tsi-ya of Jonas Barfield’s trading post.
    Hurriedly now Charlie began taking things from shelves and piling them on the counter. As he worked, Cap Ritter checked the items off from a list in his hand. “Five wool blankets,” said Cap Ritter. “Five Pittsburgh hunting knives. Five small mirrors. Fishhooks, salt, side o’ bacon, sorghum, corn meal – hey, Charlie, your pa forgot to include a rifle. Pick out a good rifle for the tall lad here an’ charge it to my account.”
    “But – but I didn’t know all this was for us,” Tsi-ya protested. “It’s more than I have money to pay for. And I cannot—”
    “Your money’s no good in a Barfield Company store,” said Charlie, taking a gleaming new rifle from a rack. “I’m just following Pa’s orders. Pa, he’d really tear me apart if I didn’t.” He grinned. “You wouldn’t want that to happen to me, would you?”
    “But—”
    Cap Ritter said: “Ye kin use all this stuff, boy, an’ we’d feel a heap better if ye’d take it. We can’t change what’s been done by a few rascally politicians, but we kinda hope ye’ll remember that all the whites ain’t alike.”
    “I know that now,” Tsi-ya said. He picked up the rifle lovingly. Suddenly he thought of the Lichen’s words: We must live as our fathers lived, by the bow and without the help of the white man’s goods. What good would a rifle be in the wild land of the Lichen, far from the white man’s powder and bullets? A bow could shoot many times to a rifle’s once, and it was silent. But there were other things he could use – things his people would soon need desperately.
    “Please,” he said, putting the rifle back on the counter. “In the high country where we are going a rifle would soon be useless, for I could never buy ammunition. If you will let me have a few knives, a hoe, and axes, in place of it, and some seeds—”
    “Seeds?” said Charlie.
    “Of course!” Cap Ritter exclaimed. “Why didn’t I think o’ seeds? Charlie, them folks that escaped won’t have hardly more’n the clothes on their backs. They’ll be startin’ life from scratch.”
    “But with nothing to scratch with,” Tsi-ya added. Suddenly he fished the roll of crumpled bills from his pouch and held it out to Charlie. “You say this is no good here – but it is of no use where I’m going. My people, though, will need all the extra seeds it will buy, and things like axes and hoe blades. With a canoe I’ll be able to take everything to within a few days’ journey of our hiding place. Please, won’t you let me do a little trading with you?”
    Charlie grinned. “Sure thing!” And Cap Ritter said, “Let’s fill that canoe up with everything we kin pack in it!”
    * * *
    An hour later a wagon drawn by a team of horses left the rear of the Barfield store, clattered across the railroad tracks, and took the long road leading around the Shoals. Tsi-ya, seated between Charlie and the black driver, glanced back at the huddled figures dozing behind him, and breathed a little prayer of thankfulness for the incredible pile of boxes and bundles that would go with them to the mountains. Truly this was a miracle.
    Seven hours later, with dawn reddening over the river mists, they rumbled past the strange sleeping monster on wheels that was a railroad engine, and turned toward the docks at the head of the Shoals. The Negro halted by a pool containing a flotilla of dugouts and flatboats which downstream travelers had abandoned in favor of the safer railroad. They piled wearily out of the wagon, and Charlie selected one of the larger dugouts which they hastened to load.
    “When you reach the Narrows near Lookout Mountain,” said Charlie, “watch out for the Whirl and Suck.”
    “I’ve heard of it. It’s where the underwater monster lives,” said Tsi-ya. “I’ll be careful.” He took Charlie’s hand. “You’ve been like a brother. I’ll never forget it.”
    “When you’re able, write me a letter an’ send it down by one o’ the boats. I’d like to know how you all make out. So’ll Pa and Cap Ritter. Well, good luck!”

Chapter 11: The Mountains
    The high valley that was to be their home was still more than three hundred miles away when they pushed out into the rising mists that morning. By Tsi-ya’s reckoning all these were short miles. They carried no threat of the hardships and dangers that lay behind them. The bitter cold was over, and the weather in this southern reach of the river was pleasantly mild. His wounds had healed, and everyone was well and strong again. What were three hundred miles when most of them were by water, with plenty of food and no packs to carry?
    He glanced down at their precious cargo, at the bundle of hoe blades at his feet, at the carefully wrapped box of seeds that would plant scores of spring gardens, at the axes amidships that would clear land and build cabins, at the sacked corn that would sow new acres in the highlands and give food for hundreds of his people. His eyes raised as the sun broke through the thinning mists, flinging rainbow banners across the morning sky, and turning the river into a great gleaming path of gold. His heart lifted at the sight, and he cried out in sudden joy.
    Oca-lee, paddling on the forward thwart, turned and smiled at him. Her eyes were bright and the hollows had vanished from her cheeks. “Isn’t it wonderful?” she said happily. “It makes me want to sing.”
    “Then sing!” he cried. “Have you forgotten your name is a bird song? We should all sing. Our trial is past. We are free. Nor are we going home with empty hands. We are on a mission. We bring life to our people.”
    * * *
    The pleasant days passed swiftly. At night, whenever possible, they would camp on one of the many islands in the river. At other times they would draw the dug-out well up into the mouth of a small creek, out of sight of curious travelers. There was not much river traffic at this season, but what they saw they carefully avoided, especially the smaller craft. Their cargo was far too valuable to risk losing any of it to would-be thieves. More than once, on the clear moonlit nights, they pad-died till dawn and camped in some hidden thicket during the day.
    Gradually the low bluffs became higher and turned into hills. On the right the hills grew into the long dark line of Lookout Mountain. They passed Nicka-jack Cave, and saw the greening Cumberlands to the north. To Tsi-ya the Cumberlands were not proper mountains at all, for they seemed as mere hills when he thought of the cloud-high Smokies. But he thrilled at the sight of them, for once all this beautiful land had been the hunting ground of the Cherokee.
    Now, as Lookout Mountain loomed higher, becoming a great wall above the river, they approached the Narrows and the deadly Whirl and Suck. Here the crowding Cumberlands squeezed the river into less than half its normal width, turning it into an awesome stretch of swirling and thundering traps, where many boats and lives had been lost. Before even attempting to go through it, Tsi-ya went ashore and studied it carefully from the bluffs high above.
    To his people it was known as the Boiling Pot, and more than one intrepid explorer, attempting to go upstream, had turned back at the sight of it, thinking it could not be passed.
    Had their dugout been any larger or heavier, the ordeal of getting it through would have been impossible. Had it been any smaller or lighter, it would have been dashed to pieces on the rocks. A dozen times, as they fought their way upward foot by foot, they were in danger of capsizing and losing all their cargo. The river was at a low stage, and at some of the worst spots Tsi-ya was able to scramble ashore with the mooring line and tow them up to safer water.
    Early the next morning they crept stealthily past the little town of Chattanooga. Up the broad valley beyond it they went, past farms and ferries, past the mouth of the Hiwassee of hateful memory, past new farms and settlements and areas of billowing smoke where the land was being cleared, ever upward on a narrowing river until, one morning, they approached a fold in the hills where two large streams came together.
    A bear watched them from the shallows of the far bank while Tsi-ya studied his badly worn map. Tala-tu wiggled his ears at the bear. “Ha! Look how skinny Yonah is! He is not long out of his winter hole. Where are we, Tsi-ya?”
    “At the meeting place of the rivers. To the left is the Clinch. And on the right is the Little Tennessee. Nearly all the water in the mountains flows down through here. We follow the Little Tennessee – and from now on we work.”
    All that day and the next they paddled eastward past the Black Oak ridges, their pace gradually slowing against a current that grew ever swifter with the passing miles. It was raining when they crept by the surging mouth of the Holston, and they could not see the high blue wall ahead. Later mist shrouded the valley, at times hiding even the treetops. Though Tsi-ya had never been here before, he could feel the closeness of the great mountains; there was a difference in the air, and from the crowding forest came a familiar sweetness that sent a tingling through his blood.
    They struggled for an hour through rapids one morning. When they paused to rest, Oca-lee looked wonderingly at the plants growing over the rocks. Redbud flamed under the white of dogwood; in the crevices grew violets and trillium; and overhead was the shiny green of laurel. “Tsi-ya!” she cried. “We must be nearly there!”
    At that moment the mist lifted and they saw the mountains around them. Low peaks and knobs rose from the valley floor; to the left the curving Chilhowee range filled the horizon; and directly in front of them, with great peaks lost in the drifting clouds, rose the mighty blue wall of the Smokies.
    The sight left them speechless. Tears ran down their cheeks. This was the ancient homeland of their people.
    Finally Little Mary asked, “Where lies the Secret Place, Tsi-ya?”
    Tsi-ya studied the great blue wall. Their lost homes, taken by the Georgia settlers, were well to the south, beyond the Hiwassee. The birthplace of the rivers, where the Lichen – and possibly his father – waited, lay somewhere to the east, beyond the high peaks.
    “Upstream,” he said. “As far as we can go. From there we travel on foot.”
    They fought the river. They toiled up through rapids, struggled around boulders, pushing, straining, pulling on the mooring line when possible. Once the worn line broke and the heavily loaded dugout spun about in the swift current, one gunwale going under as it grazed a rock. They came dangerously near to losing all their cargo before Tsi-ya, swimming, forced the bow around. Their precious seeds were safe, but their packs were soaked. They spent the morning drying them. The thunder of a cataract told them finally that they could go no farther by water.
    * * *
    While the others unloaded the dugout, Tsi-ya searched the north bank of the river for a cave. Their treasures would have to be safely hidden from bears and chance hunters until he could return with a party of men to help carry them over the mountains. He found at last a small empty hollow some distance up the slope; it was protected from the weather, and well hidden by a clump of small pines. Here they stored everything they could not carry in their packs, and carefully walled up the opening with stones. Afterward Tsi-ya scattered debris over the entrance and brushed out their footprints with a pine bough. The dugout they set adrift.
    At daybreak the next morning they were on their way, following a game trail that wound over the first ridge.
    Tsi-ya’s heart was light. The heavy pack he carried seemed almost weightless. The moon of winds was past. This was April, the Flower Moon. The trees were greening and the air was heady with the scent of early blossoms and the tang of evergreens. All about him was the music of birds, the splash and gurgle of hidden springs. A trout leaped from a silver pool where a brook escaped the shadows; a slim doe melted into a tangle of laurel and rhododendron. It might have been only yesterday that he had sped through this wild and beautiful land on his mission to the Lichen – yet nearly a year had passed. Now he was returning – not by the same trails, for they were still far west of the route he had taken. Soon there should be familiar landmarks – the Nantahala and the Cheoah to the south, the great balds to the east and north, and the white streams plunging from distant cliffs into blue valleys that seemed to keep changing color under the smoky drift of clouds.
    He was thinking of the Lichen’s valley when the deer path he was following came out beside a small brook. Abruptly he stopped. The others pressed close to him, staring at the soft ground beside the stream. A chill seemed to come over the forest.
    Men had passed here recently. Men and horses and dogs. White men, for the prints had been made by boots.
    Kiuga thrust out his lower lip. “Were they soldiers, Tsi-ya?”
    “No.” He followed the prints upstream and then down, studying them carefully. “Their boots are all different, and they are made of rough leather.”
    “Maybe,” said Tala-tu hopefully, “They are only mountain men from the North.”
    The mountain people of the Clinch and Holston areas were not unfriendly, and Tsi-ya would not have been surprised or alarmed to find an occasional settler of the upper districts down here hunting, for they lived by the rifle. But he said grimly: “No, they are not mountain men. See how they walk! They leave a trail that the blind could follow. They are Georgia men from the low hills.”
    “But – but what are they doing up here?” asked Kiuga.
    “You have eyes. If we would live by the bow like our fathers, we must be able to read signs. What does the trail tell you?”
    Kiuga and Tala-tu huddled beside the brook. Presently Kiuga said, “There were five white men, two unshod horses, and two big dogs.”
    “Is that all?”
    “They – they were following an older trail made by many moccasins.” Kiuga stopped, his eyes widening. He swallowed and exclaimed: “Tsi-ya! They must be after some of our people!”
    “Yes.”
    “But what does this mean, brother?”
    Tsi-ya saw the sudden fear and dismay on all their faces. Before he tried to answer, he examined the trail again, searching for secrets he might have missed. For the first time since their escape he was shaken by doubt. What if the Secret Place were no longer a valley of refuge? What if the Lichen had been wrong? Had they come this great distance from Illinois only to be hounded again by their enemies?
    He thought longingly of his father, all at once frightened by the possibility that the Black Fox had not lived to reach the Lichen’s valley. Then he raised his head and his eyes swept the great panorama of mountains before him. The sight reassured him. How vast this mountain wilderness! Why, last year, he had traveled for days without seeing a human footprint! Much of this land was still unexplored, still pathless save for game trails. It was up-and-down land that white men did not like to settle, for making a living in it came too hard. And there were the words of the Lichen, wisest of men: “All who can reach these heights will find lasting sanctuary.”
    This was no time for doubt. Surely his father, and Oca-lee’s father, had managed to get away and join the Lichen. But scattered through the forests must be many of the Cherokee like those who had passed here – women and children who had escaped the soldiers, but were still seeking safety. They would be at the mercy of every band of ruffians and renegades who might choose to prey upon them.
    “I believe the signs are clear,” he said finally. “These hillmen must be thieves. They are following our people to rob them.”
    Oca-lee stared at him. “How can you be sure?”
    “Why else would they use dogs to follow women and children? Nearly all our people had money, and most of the women wore something made of silver. Anyway the pack horses were unshod – they were stolen from the Cherokee.”
    Tsi-ya paused, suddenly realizing he was faced with a hard decision. Then, as he thought of his people, it came to him that there was only one thing to do. It amounted to a duty.
    His mouth hardened. “There must be at least twenty of our people who passed by here. I believe they are all women and children, and that they are searching for the Lichen. They are lost. They are going north instead of east.” He stopped, and added quietly, “We must go and find them before the hill-men do.”
    Kiuga opened his mouth, then closed it. Tala-tu, incredulous, said, “Are you a wizard that you can fly beyond those far ahead of you, and find pebbles lost among a hundred mountains?”
    “It is not too hard if one can guess where the pebbles are likely to roll. But we’ve no time for foolish talk. Let us hurry!”
    * * *
    The trail of the hillmen was nearly a day old. The moccasin prints had been made hours earlier. Rain had dimmed them, but from their size he was sure that no men were in the group. It was also evident that they carried very little in the way of equipment.
    Tsi-ya followed the trail a short distance, crossed the brook, and began climbing the long slope of the ridge on his right. It was late in the afternoon before they gained the top, but they rested only a few minutes. Plunging down through the tangle between the ridges they began the tortuous struggle up the much greater slope to the east. Night caught them in a ravine still far from the summit.
    As they waited for corncakes to brown over the stones of the campfire, Kiuga asked, “How can you hope to find those people, Tsi-ya, when you go east, away from them?”
    “It is only a hope, little Chipmunk. Do you know where we are?”
    “Why, we’re—” Kiuga stopped. He scowled in deep concentration, then looked up, plainly puzzled. “Where are we, brother?”
    “In Tennessee, a few yards from North Carolina. That is, I think we are. I’ll know in the morning when we reach the top. I think this is part of the great ridge that separates the states. Nearly everyone knows about the great ridge, and there must be many of our people who know that the Lichen’s valley is somewhere to the east of it. Now do you understand?”
    “You mean the group we are trying to find will – will decide to cross the ridge soon?”
    “Yes. When they discover they are on the wrong side, they’ll turn and search for a gap. If we travel along the top of the ridge – and I believe we can – we should come to the gap they use before the whites can reach it. Anyway, it’s our only chance.”
    * * *
    At dawn they were on their way, toiling upward through a forest of immense spruce and balsam firs. Suddenly they were above the trees, even above the clouds, and before them stretched a rolling meadow of lush green grass. They were on the treeless top of a mountain or bald. A herd of grazing deer wheeled at the sight of them, then whirled away like leaping shadows to vanish over the edge.
    Tsi-ya glanced regretfully at the deer, for he was out of meat. But there was no time now for hunting. While he got his breath, he studied the vast and bewildering spectacle of the surrounding mountains. The peaks rose above shifting veils of clouds that were turning incredible colors before the rising sun. All at once he gave a cry of delight as he recognized a rocky peak far to the east.
    They were on the dividing ridge. There was no doubt about it. On the far horizon he could make out the exact spot where they would find the great cliff that hid the Lichen’s valley.
    He led the way along the ridge, following a well-worn path made by generations of deer. The bald lasted for several miles before they dipped down into forest again and reached the first gap. Hopefully Tsi-ya studied the crossing game trail leading into the valley. He could find no sign of human footprints.
    Had he been wrong in believing his people would decide to cross the ridge? There was nothing to do but go on to the next gap.
    They trudged the length of another bald that morning, then went miles out of their way to avoid an impenetrable tangle of rhododendron. The sun was well over on the Tennessee side of the ridge when they dipped down into a rocky pass. Here a spring bubbled under a boulder and ran in a series of little cascades down the barren slope to their left.
    Tsi-ya was examining the faint but recent prints of moccasins around the spring when Little Mary clutched his arm.
    “Horses!” she exclaimed, pointing.
    Far down the sunlit slope, where a swift stream flashed briefly into view, Tsi-ya made out something moving. It vanished in the trees before he could see it clearly.
    “Are you sure it wasn’t a bear or a deer, little eagle eyes?”
    “I saw two horses, Tsi-ya,” she said emphatically. “I also saw a man.”
    “Then they are those thieves from the hills. We barely got here ahead of them. Come, we must catch up with our people!”
    He turned quickly, scrambled over the rocks above the spring, and started down through the forest on the Carolina slope.

Chapter 12: The Secret Place
    It was late in the afternoon when they reached the bottom of the slope, and the valley lay in shadow. Here, where a small stream ran through the forest, the group ahead of them had stopped to make camp. It was immediately evident to Tsi-ya that these people had no suspicion that they were in danger. Some were fishing, some were hunting along the stream’s edge for greens, and others were breaking pine branches to build lean-tos near the fire. Tsi-ya shouted, announcing himself, and suddenly he and his small band were surrounded by eager, questioning faces.
    There were more than a score in all, and over half were children. They were ragged and thin, and on everyone the bitter winter had left its mark. Their leader, the oldest woman among them, was a young mother named Tiana, who had escaped from Rattlesnake Springs. She and several of the others seemed vaguely familiar to Tsi-ya.
    “We know you,” said Tiana. “You are Tsi-ya. Remember me? You helped some of us escape. My brother was Ga-yuni, for whom you made the map. But the map was lost when Ga-yuni was killed.” Her eyes flashed at the dark memory, then she smiled. “Without the map I’ve feared we would wander forever without finding the Lichen.”
    One of the other women said: “Tiana has led us well. She found us when we were starving, and kept us fed through the winter. She knows that the best medicine is hope, and she is afraid to tell us that the Secret Place does not really exist. It is only a legend.”
    The woman laughed as if she were joking, but her eyes showed discouragement.
    “Oh, Wai-la,” said Tiana. “You know it is no legend. Tsi-ya has been there! He will lead us to the Lichen!”
    “We must start immediately,” Tsi-ya said urgently. “You are being followed. We discovered it yesterday, and hurried to the gap here to get ahead of them. They were coming up the gap when we saw them last!”
    “Not soldiers!”
    “No. Five men. I’m sure they are thieves.” He touched the silver brooch she wore.
    Wai-la said, “Last fall after the soldiers came there were five men out robbing our people in the lower valleys.”
    Tiana’s eyes flashed with fury. “If only we had rifles!” Her fury passed and a look of desperation came over her gaunt face. Suddenly she said to the silent children around her: “Get your packs ready to travel! Make haste!” Then to Tsi-ya: “I don’t know how they found our trail. I’ve been so careful to hide it.”
    “They are using dogs, Tiana.”
    “Dogs!” she cried. “They follow us with dogs!” Again her eyes flashed, and again came the look of desperation as she glanced at the hurrying children. “When there are so many of us who are so young, we cannot travel fast. How can we hide from dogs?”
    “Let me worry about the dogs,” Tsi-ya told her quickly. “All you have to do is lay a false trail down the valley, enter the creek, and wade back up as far as you can.”
    Tiana threw things into a blanket and looped it over her shoulder. “Down the creek, everyone!” she called. “Follow me!”
    Tsi-ya strung his bow and waited. Tiana and the entire party vanished in the laurel thickets bordering the stream. Presently they reappeared, a long line of silent figures wading carefully up the shallow creek. Soon they were out of sight in the green tunnel of foliage upstream. The last person he saw was Kiuga, who plodded stubbornly at the end of the line.
    As soon as they were safely out of sight and hearing, Tsi-ya hastened down the creek at the spot where Tiana had entered the water. He had had time enough to make plans while coming through the gap, but now he hesitated, suddenly wishing he had only one dog to contend with instead of two – and wishing also that the creek were wider and deeper. But there was no help for it. His task was not going to be as simple as he had hoped.
    He crossed the creek and trotted slowly along the bank to an open area where the stream broadened at a bend. Now carefully he walked backward to the spot where he had crossed. Then he went on to the bend, splashed over to the other side, and flattened behind a leaning spruce safely back from the water’s edge.
    The trap was set. Behind him were three sets of moccasin prints to substitute for those made by Tiana’s party. They should fool the whites for the time being – and they ought to bring the dogs racing straight to the bend.
    Tsi-ya selected three arrows and leaned them against the tree. He waited, listening. By this time, surely, Tiana’s pursuers must be nearing the abandoned camp where the fire still burned. One of them, probably, would hold back the horses and dogs while the others crept up to take the camp by surprise. Finding the place empty, the dogs would be released.
    The shadows were deepening. In the perpetual twilight of these virgin woods it would soon be too dark to see. The thought worried him.
    Suddenly a blue jay screamed. Across the creek a chipmunk began an angry scolding. From the direction of the camp he thought he heard a hoarse shout.
    The blue jay began giving shrill cries of warning. Tsi-ya rose on one knee, and arrow ready in his bow. In the shadows far up the opposite side of the creek something was moving swiftly. It was a dog.
    Tsi-ya gulped when he saw it better. It was a big brown brute that seemed to be half hound and half mastiff. It ran silently, a creature as vicious and formidable as a wolf, flecks of white foam showing at its heavy jowls. A killer, he thought, and a coldness went through him.
    The brute reached the stream’s edge, paused only to give a short low bark, and dashed into the water. Twenty paces from the tree it stopped still in the shallows as it caught the fresh man scent. A snarling roar burst from it and it charged. Tsi-ya shot it in the throat. It spun over, thrashing in a fury, and before it could gain its feet he put another arrow through its body.
    Where was the second dog?
    Tsi-ya’s hands were unsteady as he notched the next arrow and searched the shadows. From his lips came a silent prayer of thankfulness that he had not had to fight both dogs at once.
    His muscles suddenly tightened as he heard another short, low bark across the creek. Again something moved there. He saw the second dog. It was almost a twin of the first, but instead of running it was straining at a leash – straining so hard that it seemed to be dragging its burly owner along.
    At the bend the man stopped abruptly, jerking on the leash and cursing furiously at the sight of the first dog lying in the shallows. “Hey, Clint!” he shouted. “Them varmints, they’ve kilt Growler! Bring the boys down here!”
    Tsi-ya drew back on the bowstring. It was a long shot and the light was poor, but it had to be risked. As his fingers released the string the big dog lurched; the arrow grazed its shoulder, glanced off, and stung the burly man in the leg.
    The man screamed in fright and dropped the leash. The dog leaped into the creek and charged, snarling.
    Tsi-ya was only half aware that men were racing through the darkening woods, shouting; there was the flash and echoing crack of a rifle, but he ignored it. All his attention was on the great, dark shape hurtling toward him. The brute had to be stopped. So long as these men had it to follow a trail, all Tiana’s company would be in danger.
    He saw the beast stagger in midstream as his next shaft caught it in the shoulder. But still it came on. He had time to drive just two more arrows into it before it gained the tree in front of him. He leaped away, tugging at his hatchet, then realized he did not need it. The arrows had done their work. But the men were after him, shooting.
    He ran, dodging behind trees and boulders, leaping over windfalls, his flying feet carrying him in a wide circle back to the thickets bordering the creek. It was dusk when he slipped into the black tunnel of the creek and began feeling his way slowly upstream. He could hear the men in the forest far behind him, calling to each other and cursing.
    At the open place where Tiana’s party had made camp he paused. The fire was still burning. Beyond, in the flickering light of it, he could see the two pack horses the men had hastily tethered. They had been left unguarded.
    Tsi-ya grinned. With a panther’s stealth he crept through the camp. A few flicks of his knife relieved the horses of their heavy packs. He hauled these to the fire, slashed them open, and threw them on the flames. For a moment he was tempted to steal the horses and use them to carry the hidden cargo from the dugout, but he realized they would be useless in the rough country ahead, more a hindrance and a danger than a help. He removed their bridles, struck each a sharp blow, and heard them race wildly away into the night.
    He stepped backward to the creek and began feeling his way slowly upstream through the black tunnel of laurels. Once he stopped, listening. The forest hid the rising flames at the camp, though he could see the bright glimmer high on the tree trunks. But plainly to his ears came the sudden furious volley of cursing, the hoarse shouts of futile rage, as the thieves discovered their loss. At the moment no music could have been sweeter.
    * * *
    Though he was hungry and exhausted, and in the darkness could find only a damp thicket to spread his blanket, Tsi-ya slept happily that night.
    At daybreak, just as a worried Kiuga was starting in search of him, he came upon Tiana’s party waiting in a deep ravine. His brother grasped his arm thankfully, crying: “He is safe! He is safe!”
    The others crowded about him. Tiana said: “We heard the shooting last evening. All of us were very afraid for you. Tell us what happened?”
    Tsi-ya told them. “We’ve nothing to fear now,” he said finally. “They’ve lost dogs, baggage, and horses, and one of the men has an arrow in his leg. It cost me six good arrows in all – but it was worth a hundred to hear them howl!”
    “Good!” they cried, laughing. “Good! Tsi-ya has done a great thing!”
    “Tsi-ya always does great things,” said Kiuga, proudly. “Now he will lead us to the Lichen.”
    “How far is it to the valley of the Lichen?” Tiana asked.
    “Not far as the eagle flies,” Tsi-ya replied thoughtfully, “but we are not eagles. From now on the way is very difficult, and we must travel slowly. It will take us seven days.” He paused, looking at the thin faces about him, and added: “Before we start, we should have meat. It might be well if we found a safe camp, and I spent two days hunting.”
    “You speak wisely,” said Tiana. “I have been thinking of something else. Oca-lee and your brother tell me that you brought many seeds and tools up the river and have them hidden in a cave. It would be good if some of the strongest of us went back with you to get those things. The planting moon is near.”
    “Yes,” he said eagerly. “Our people should have the tools as soon as possible to get the ground ready. It would save many days if we could take everything with us to the Lichen.”
    That morning they went farther up the valley and found a well-hidden cove, shielded by dense forest, that offered a safe camping spot. For the next two days Tsi-ya hunted on the grassy balds of the mountains around them, where the deer went to graze, and everyone was busy. They worked in groups, the stronger bringing the slain animals to camp on poles, while the others skinned, butchered, scraped hides, and cut up the meat for smoking. Eager hands pounced upon the hides to make new moccasins and much-needed equipment. “It is like the old days of our fathers,” said Tiana, “when our people lived by the bow and made everything themselves instead of buying it from the whites. I have not used a bow since I was a child, but I will learn again. It is better than the rifle, for it makes us independent.”
    When the first of the smoked meat was ready, Tsi-ya led Tiana and seven of the stronger women over the high ridge to the distant river. They traveled light, and returned burdened with the heavy cargo stored in the cave.
    The remaining venison had been smoked by the time they saw camp again, and pack baskets of white oak splints were ready. Now the cargo was carefully divided, so that everyone had a portion to carry. At dawn the following morning Tsi-ya led them forth on the final stage of their journey.
    * * *
    Never was Tsi-ya to forget a day of the seven that lay before him. That first morning the promise of summer was on the mountains, and the air was alive with bird song and sweet with the smells of growing things. From every greening slope a thousand springs burst forth to add their music to the day, and in every little cove and valley the brooks made a great clatter and fuss as they rushed on to meet the wild rivers in the gorges. No ax had touched this virgin land, and there were no trails to follow save the winding ones worn by the sharp hoofs of deer. Nor were there landmarks to serve as guides save at those times when they climbed above the drifting cloud smoke, when Tsi-ya could make out the familiar shape of some hazy peak or ridge. But fixed in his mind was a point on the far horizon, and though countless barriers forced him miles to one side or the other, always he swung surely back in the direction of it.
    Daily the land grew wilder and the way more difficult. There were high valleys and entire slopes that he avoided altogether, for they were covered with nearly impenetrable tangles of rhododendron or dwarf evergreens. There were the steep slopes of gorges and ravines down which the younger children and the baggage had to be lowered on ropes they had made of twisted and braided papaw bark. There were torrents whose swiftness defied them until Tsi-ya fought his way across and made fast the lines to which his followers could cling. There were miles of silent valleys where all directions seemed the same, for they were lost in twilight where giant trees shut out the sun; and in these they moved reverently and a little fearfully, for it was like walking where many spirits dwelt.
    On the afternoon of the sixth day a storm caught them on the side of a mountain, and all that evening and night they huddled shivering under a narrow ledge. For hours thunder rolled and exploded about them with a great clanging, and boulders went crashing into the blackness below them. Then the lightning ceased, and the rain stopped. Tiana’s people had made light of the storm; but now, cold and miserable in this unknown region, they began to be tormented by ugly little doubts.
    “Tsi-ya,” said a woman, “for days I have seen nothing but trees and rocks, and not one place flat or wide enough to build a cabin or plant a row of corn. Is the valley of the Lichen like that?”
    Before he could reply, another woman said, “If it is all like that, it seems foolish to go there.”
    Tsi-ya said: “The Lichen’s valley is very large, and it is only one of many at the birthplace of the rivers. While there I saw many open places and meadows, and there must be others that I did not see.”
    A third woman said: “If it is so fine a place, the whites will surely want it, and someday they will send soldiers to take it from us. What is there to stop them?”
    “They must find it first,” said Tsi-ya.
    “If you can find it, the whites will discover it in time. Then what will the Lichen do?”
    “The Lichen is wise,” Tsi-ya murmured. “He promised us we would be safe there. He must know of a way to keep the whites out.”
    They were silent a moment, but a seed of doubt had been planted in Tsi-ya’s mind, and it was growing swiftly.
    Then suddenly another seed was planted when the first woman said: “We seem to have been traveling forever without getting anywhere. Are you sure, Tsi-ya, that you know where you are taking us?”
    Little Mary said stanchly: “Of course Tsi-ya knows! Didn’t he bring us safely all the way from Illinois?”
    Tiana cried: “Let us stop this foolish talk! Have you forgotten all that Tsi-ya has done for us? Tell them, Tsi-ya, that their journey is nearly over.”
    “Tomorrow,” he promised, “we will see our new homeland and be with our people again.”
    Doubt was strong in his heart as he spoke, for all at once he realized that he did not know for certain where they were. This mountain and this ledge were strange to him, for he had been forced to approach his destination from the west instead of the south. Had his instinct for direction failed?
    With morning some of his confidence returned as he led the way up the narrow, winding valley that now stretched before them. The valley seemed familiar.
    Then abruptly the valley ended, and before them rose a towering cliff.
    Tsi-ya’s heart leaped at the sight of it, but the women stared at it in dismay. One of them cried: “Tsi-ya must be lost! No one can get through here. This is a blind valley.”
    Tiana said uneasily, “Tsi-ya, do you know where we are?”
    “Do not be afraid,” he told her. “It is not far now.”
    He turned and entered a ravine on his left. It twisted and turned, winding up and down over great boulders, around jagged ledges, and then upward through little parklike areas of spruce. The way grew steeper and was suddenly lost as veils of cloud moved damply over them like drifting fog. The clouds passed on, and Tsi-ya stopped and silently pointed.
    There was no need for words.
    By some magic, it seemed, he had led them through the cliff that had barred their way, for now the trail dipped downward to a great valley, a broad and beautiful valley that stretched far into the blue distance. Below them were meadows, and tiny cleared spots where rough cabins stood. There were many small shelters back among the trees, and from these and the cabins the smoke of cooking fires rose in the sweet air.
    Cries of astonishment and delight burst from a dozen throats.
    “It is the valley of the Lichen!” “It is more beautiful than our old home to the south!” “Oh, Tsi-ya, Tsi-ya! How could we have doubted you?”
    Little Mary said smugly, “We’ve never doubted him!”
    * * *
    Long before they reached the valley below they were seen, and figures hurried from cabins and shelters and came running across the upper meadow to meet them. A crowd of more than a hundred were waiting by the time they gained the meadow. All at once friend recognized friend, and relative clasped long-lost relative. Only the quiet tears and strained faces showed the deep emotion that everyone felt. The crowd surged about them. Two women suddenly reached for Tala-tu, and began speaking to him as if he belonged to their family. Tsi-ya saw a big man with tear-stained cheeks catch up Oca-lee and Little Mary and hold them close. It was Dak-wa, their father.
    Eagerly, then with growing apprehension, he searched the crowd for a familiar figure. He was hardly aware of the people about him and the questioning tongues.
   ... “Who led them here?” “Why, it was Tsi-ya, of course. See, there he stands – a true son of the Ani-kawi!” “And they brought us seeds, you say?” “Oh, how we need seeds, and tools to plant them with!”
    “It was Tsi-ya who found us when we were lost, and led us here,” Tiana told them. “And he brought the Pigeon Woman’s daughters safely all the way from Illinois, along with his brother and one other. You must thank him for the tools and the seeds.”
    The crowd fell back respectfully as a tall man thrust his way forward. It was the great Inali, the Black Fox. He was thin, and his face was deeply lined. Suddenly he caught sight of Tsi-ya and Kiuga.
    “My sons! ’’ He tried to speak, then held out his arms.
    Tsi-ya managed to say finally, “Our mother – we did our best—”
    “I know,” said Inali. “The Army told me. The report came while I was still a hostage. But it is all over now. Yesterday was dark, but tomorrow will be bright.”
    “The whites cannot find us here?”
    “Not only that, but they will not bother us again. The Army has gone. They will not return. For that we can thank our martyrs, as well as our friends.”
    “Our martyrs?”
    “I see you have not heard about Tsali and his family, and what Will Thompson is doing.”
    “Tsali? Will Thompson?” The graying Tsali, he remembered, had lived in a valley to the north of their old home. William Thompson, the trader, though a white man, was one of the most powerful friends of the Cherokee, and had been adopted by one of the chiefs, Yona-Gunski.
    “What happened?” he asked his father.
    “Last year,” said Inali, “when the Army came, Tsali and his family managed to escape. But a soldier was accidentally killed. It caused a lot of trouble. Finally General Scott sent word that if Tsali would surrender, the Army would stop searching for all the others who had escaped and let them go in peace. It was Will Thompson who carried the message to Tsali.”
    “And Tsali gave himself up?”
    “Yes. To die. He and his brother and elder son were shot. Because of them we are free. And because of what Will Thompson is doing now, we shall someday be able to call all this great valley and the mountains around it our own.”
    Inali paused, then said: “I have just returned from seeing Will Thompson. Soon, when I have collected what money I can, I am to meet him again. We are not allowed to buy land here, so Will Thompson is using his own money to buy it for us, in his own name. Is that not a great thing for any man to do? So long as a Cherokee lives in these mountains, neither Tsali nor Will Thompson will be forgotten.”
    The last of Tsi-ya’s troubling doubts suddenly vanished. “Then the Lichen was right,” he murmured. “He said that all of us who could reach this place would find lasting sanctuary.”
    “Yes,” said his father. “He was right. We have found sanctuary. But, come, the Lichen expects you. You are to be praised for safely leading so many so far, and for bringing so much that is needed.”
    Tsi-ya felt a happiness he had never before known. It was not for what he had done, for that seemed very small. But it was good to be with his father and his people again, and to know that they were proud of him.

    1957

    Alexander Key was born in Maryland, but prefers to think of Florida as his native state. His people were early settlers there and his childhood was spent on the famous Suwannee River, then one of the wildest regions in the country. With the youthful dream of being a painter, he studied at the Chicago Art Institute. For many years, before his interest turned to writing, he was a leading book illustrator in Chicago. His articles and short stories have appeared in American Boy, Open Road, Argosy, Cosmopolitan, The Saturday Evening Post, and other periodicals. He has written two adult novels, and four books for younger readers. A veteran of World War II, he served in the Navy as a lieutenant commander. He lives now at Port Richey, Florida, with his wife and young son.
    Alexander Key inherited a deep interest in the Cherokee: his great-grandfather once saved the life of a Cherokee chief, who remained a close family friend until his death; another relative, Sam Houston, married a Cherokee girl – one of the characters in this book is named after her. The story of Tsi-ya is the result of years of preparation. Mr. Key has made many trips to the Cherokee country in the Carolina mountains, visited remnants of the tribe in Jalisco, Mexico, and in his travels has retraced nearly the entire route of the Trail of Tears.

>>