The pack-man's hand trembled and his florid cheek went pale, for these
lay just under the sharp edge of a huge fragment of rock that had
evidently fallen from the cliff above, breaking the blade and holding
the belt fast.

How long he stood and stared he did not know. For a time he heard
without realizing the significance of the sounds the whoops and shouts
of his comrades, wildly racing back through the old "waste town" in
search of him; but although in the strenuous duty of his rescue they
would venture to pass it in broad daylight, no ardor of persuasion could
induce them to linger there to investigate the locality of his find, or
to aid in moving the rock and exploring the grotto that had evidently
proved a sepulchre.

On the contrary, they deemed the discovery might be resented by the
Indians as intrusive, and, keeping the secret, they made haste to get
out of the country with even more speed than their wont. Cuthbert
Barnett, however, carried his information to the authorities in
Charlestown, who, promptly acting upon it, solved the mystery of the
fate of the cheera-taghe.

Since peace with the Cherokees was becoming more and more precarious,
some satisfaction was experienced by the Royal Governor of South
Carolina, James Glen, at that time, in being able to urge upon the
attention of the head-men of the tribe the fact that, although the two
white strangers had obviously been captured in the act of robbing
Cherokee soil of its gold, they had as evidently been unarmed, and the
Irishman, a British subject, had been shot down by one of the
cheera-taghe, for there was the bullet still imbedded firmly in the