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Abram Varney exclaimed, a smile pervading the wrinkles wrought about his eyes by much pondering on the problems of the Indian trade, feeling incongruously a sort of elation in the youth's noisy shouts, which echoed blatantly from the rocky banks of the Tennessee River, and with reduced arrogance and in softer tones from the cliffs of towering Chilhowee.
Chilhowee, near at hand, was dark enough a purplish garnet hue; but the scarlet of the sour-wood gleamed in the cove; the hickory still flared gallantly yellow; the receding ranges to the north and south were blue and more faintly azure. The little log cabin stood with small fields about it, for Purdee barely subsisted on the fruits of the soil, and did not seek to profit.
"When I took the boy Jan Queetlee why do I call him thus, instead of by the name he has earned for himself, the noble Otasite of Tennessee Town?" the old chief began as deliberately, as disregardfully of the surroundings as if seated under the boughs of one of the giant oaks on the safe slopes of Chilhowee yonder "when I took him away from the braves who had overcome the South Carolina stationers, I owed him no duty.
All the western clouds were aflare with gorgeous reflections; the long reaches of the Great Smoky range had grown densely purple; and those dim Cumberland heights that, viewed from this precipice of Chilhowee, were wont to show so softly blue in the distance, had now a variant amethystine hue, hard and translucent of effect as the jewel itself.
Chilhowee Mountain, richly bronze and green, rose in the middle distance, and he was vaguely reminiscent of the day when he watched the young soldier rocking in his boat on the shallows close to the shore, the red coat giving a bright spot of color to the harmonious duller tones of the landscape, and wondered were it possible among these friendly people that the lad could be in danger of a stealthy rifle shot.
Stuart, the sombre red shadow of the terra-cotta walls hardly dulling the glare of his red uniform, sat looking out, quite placid and self-poised, through the open portal at the scattered huts of the town, at the occasional passing of an Indian's figure, at Chilhowee Mountain in the middle distance, densely green with the dark lush growths of summer, and beyond at the domes of the Great Smoky range, a soft velvet blue against the hard turquoise blue of the sky.
It would be hard to find a scene better making a romance of campaigning than that about us. Chilhowee and the great Smoky Mountains piled their deep blue masses against the eastern horizon, whilst at our feet rolled as beautiful a river as ever bore a musical Indian name. The grassy banks rise about a hundred feet above the water, and then the hills roll and rise around us in charming variety.
The Scotchman's eyes narrowed to distinguish if the white flake of light in the deep green water across a little bay were the reflection of the flower known as the Chilhowee lily, or the ethereal blossom itself. Attusah's mind seemed yet with the seagoing craft.
As a sudden suffusion of this broad, low, dusky glare lay upon the scene for a moment, she saw against the dark blue Chilhowee Mountain in the middle distance something glimmering and waving, and as she strained her eyes it suddenly floated broadly forth to the breeze, the blended cross of St. George and St. Andrew blazoned on the British flag.
Now there were no red coats, nevermore were they to be seen here! Between himself and the water he watched only the white swaying of a tall cluster of the great ethereally delicate snowy blossoms, since known as the Chilhowee lily.
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