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Attusah was obviously an impostor. Many, however, had full faith in his supernatural power, and often he seemed to believe in his own spectral account of himself. "Tsida-wei-yu!" "Akee-o-hoosa! Akee-o-hoosa!" Then triumphantly, "And behold I am still here." Attusah had gone unscathed through that bloody campaign of 1761 in which the Cherokees suffered such incredible rigors.
This fact focused the observation of the shrewd, pertinacious Scotchman. At first he deemed the special interest lay in a jealousy of artistic handicraft. Atta-Kulla-Kulla's name implied the superlative of a skillful carver in wood, Attusah told him one day. "An' isna he a skilly man?" MacVintie asked. "Look at that!" cried the braggart, holding aloft his own work.
A great bird, an eagle, or one of the hideous mountain vultures, very busy of late, alighting in quest of food which it might find in plenty elsewhere, in the track of the invaders. Attusah does not rely, however, on a facile hypothesis with a triumphant enemy at hand, and a dozen towns charring to ashes in sight. As noiseless as a shadow, as swift, Attusah is on his feet.
MacVintie had almost forgotten the episode when Attusah said suddenly that the colonists translated the name of Atta-Kulla-Kulla as the "Little Carpenter." "Hegh! they hae a ship named for his honor!" exclaimed the Highlander. "I hae seen the Little Carpenter in the harbor in Charlestoun, swingin' an' bobbin' at her cables, just out frae the mither country! Her captain's name wull be Maitland."
Attusah of Kanootare was particularly obnoxious to the British government, the civil as well as the military authorities, and fleeing from death himself, he intended at all hazards to prevent the escape of his prisoner, who would give the alarm, and inaugurate pursuit from the party of the ensign. In this connection a new development attracted the attention of MacVintie.
After one furtive glance at the purple obscurities of the benighted world he would bow his head, and with a smothered groan ask of the ada-wehi, "Where is it now, Attusah?"
Nevertheless it was by means of this imperfect linguistic communication that Kenneth MacVintie, keenly alive to aught of significance in this strange new world, surrounded with unknown unmeasured dangers, was enabled to note how the thoughts of his companion ran upon the half king Atta-Kulla-Kulla. Yet whenever a question was asked or curiosity suggested, the wary Attusah diverted the topic.
The truth soon dawned upon the shrewd Scotchman, albeit he understood only so much Cherokee as he had chanced to catch up in his previous campaign in this region with Montgomerie and the present expedition. Attusah was for some reason obnoxious to his own people as well as to the British, and was in effect a fugitive from both factions.
Tempted by the seeming bait, the catfish would take the finger-tips deep in its gullet, the strong hand would instantly clinch on its head, and Attusah would rise with his struggling gleaming prey, to be broiled on the coals for breakfast.
Doubtless Attusah realized equally the significance of the crisis. But a certain joyous irresponsibility characterized him, and indeed he had never seemed quite the same since he died. He had been much too reckless, however, even previous to that event.
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