FullReads

Now and again they sufficiently remembered that indeterminate quantum of courtesy which they called their “manners” to interpolate “No offense to you, sir,” or “Begging the lady’s pardon.” Throughout she preserved a cool, almost uncomprehending, passive manner; and it was in one of the moments of a heady tumult of words, in which they sometimes involved themselves beyond all interpretation or distinguishment, that she observed with a sort of childish inconsequence that they could get Ralph Emsden easily enough if they would go to Blue Lick Station,–he was there now, and his arm and shoulder were so hurt that he would not be able to make off,–they could get him easily enough, that is, if the French did not raze Blue Lick Station before the herders could reach there.

If a bomb had exploded in the midst of the hearthstone, the astonishment that ensued upon this simple statement could not have been greater. A sudden blank silence supervened. A dozen excited infuriated faces, the angry contortions of the previous moment still stark upon their features, were bent upon her while their eyes stared only limitless amazement.

“The French!” the herders cried at last in chorus. “Blue Lick Station!”

“It was razed once,” she said statistically, “to the ground. The Cherokees did it that time!”

Her grandfather, always averse to admit that he did not hear, noted the influx of excitement, and was fain to lean forward. He even placed his hand behind his ear.

“The French!” bellowed out one of the cow-drivers in a voice that might have graced the king of the herds. “The French! Threatening Blue Lick Station!”

The elderly gentleman drew back from, the painful surcharged vibrations of sound and the unseemly aspect of this interpreter, who was in good sooth like a bull in disguise. “To be sure–the French,” Richard Mivane said in response, repeating the only words which he had heard. “Our nearest white neighbors–the dangerous Alabama garrison!”

A tumult of questions assailed the little linguister.

“Be they mightily troubled at Blue Lick Station?” asked one sympathetically.

The little flower-like head was nodded with meaning, deep and serious. “Oh, sure!” she cried. “And having the Cow-pens against them too–’tis sad!”

“Zooks!” cried the bull in disguise, with a snort. “The Cow-pens ain’t against ’em–when the French are coming!”

“Why haven’t they sent word to the soldiers?” demanded another of the cow-drivers suspiciously.

“The soldiers?” she exclaimed incredulously. “Why–the Cow-pens sent word that the soldiers were against Blue Lick too, and were going to stop the station’s pack-train. Maybe the stationers were afraid of the soldiers.”

To a torrent of questions as to how the news had first come, how the menace lowered, what disposition for defense the stationers could make, the little girl seemed bewildered. She only answered definitely and very indifferently that they could easily get Ralph Emsden if they would go now to Blue Lick, and take his hide,–that is, if the French and their Choctaw Indians had not already possessed themselves of that valuable integument,–as if this were their primal object.

“Why, God-a-mercy, child,” cried the superintendent of the ranch, “this news settles all scores; when it comes to a foreign foe the colonists are brothers.”

“And besides,” admitted one of the most truculent of the cow-drivers, “the cattle are all pretty well rounded in again; I doubt if more are lost than the wolves would have pulled down anyhow.”

“And the Blue Lick Stationers’ horses can be herded easy enough,–they are all on their old grass,–and be driven up to the settlement.”

A courier had been sent off full tilt to the commandant at Fort Prince George, and night though it was, a detail of mounted soldiers appeared presently with orders to escort the ambassador and his linguister into the presence of that officer.

For this intelligence was esteemed serious indeed. Although hostilities had now practically ceased in America, the Seven Years’ War being near its end, and peace negotiations actually in progress, still the treaty had not been concluded. So far on the frontier were such isolated garrisons as this of Fort Prince George, so imperfect and infrequent were their means of communicating with the outside world, that they were necessarily in ignorance of much that took place elsewhere, and a renewal of the conflict might have supervened long before their regular advices from headquarters could reach them. Even a chance rumor might bring them their first intimation of a matter of such great import to them. Therefore the commandant attached much significance to this account of an alarm at Blue Lick Station, because of a menace from the nearest French at Fort Toulouse, often called in that day, by reason of this propinquity, “the dangerous Alabama garrison.”