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Otasite's lance, flung instantly, shot far beyond that missile, for which, had the stone been properly thrown, he should have aimed.
He said as much, and the retort came succinctly, "You live here!" Otasite's English speech was as simple as a child's, but he thought as diplomatically as Colannah himself, whom he esteemed the greatest man in all the world, and he could argue in the strategic Cherokee method.
The backers of Otasite protested that it could not be thus held, since Wyejah's defective cast of the chungke-stone debarred their champion from the possibility of first scoring the eleventh point, which chance was his by right, it being his turn to play; they met the argument caviling at Otasite's lack of aim by the counter-argument that one does not aim at a moving object where it is at the moment, but with an intuitive calculation of distance and speed where it will be when reached by the projectile hurled after it, illustrating cleverly by the example of shooting with bow and arrow at a bird on the wing.
He lifted his eyes suddenly with that long-lashed dreary look of his childhood. "Did you hear of any Queetlees in Charlestown?" he asked. "It is you who should seek your kindred, Jan Queetlee!" Varney said impulsively, calling him by his unaccustomed English name. "It is you who should go to Charlestown to find the Queetlees!" Otasite's face showed suddenly the unwonted expression of fear.
He was content that he and the old chief were once more in affectionate accord, and he did not seek to interpret the flash of triumph in Colannah's face. For seven years! for seven years! the white "Man-killer" could not, if he would, quit the Cherokee country. Well might the old chief's eyes glisten! The youth was like a son to his lonely age, and Otasite's prowess the pride of his life.
How like a Briton born it was, Abram Varney thought, for he alone knew of Otasite's resolution, and the significance of the game to him, that the boy could thus see fair play between the factions that warred within him for his future. He had staked the future on the event, and suddenly it was the present!
His sane mercantile judgment appraised and appreciated the added opportunities of his peculiar position, which he would not lightly throw away, and the development of Otasite's incongruous commercial values not only removed the possibility of loss during his absence, but added to his facilities in enabling him to secure the fidelity of Indians as packmen, hitherto impracticable, but now rendered to Otasite as one of the tribe.
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