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This was John Ronackstone, a stanch Indian fighter; a far-seeing frontier politician; a man of excellent native faculties, all sharpened by active use and frequent emergencies; skilled and experienced in devious pioneer craft; and withal infinitely stubborn, glorying in the fact of the unchangeableness of his opinions and his immutable abiding by his first statements.
"If I could only hear for a day I'd forgive twenty soundless years!" he declared piteously, for he so deprecated the enforced withdrawal from the enterprise that he had heedlessly undertaken, and felt so keenly the reflections upon his sentiments and sincerity surreptitiously canvassed between Ronackstone and "X," and then cavalierly rehearsed in his presence.
"The herders are holding us responsible and have sent an ambassador," explained John Ronackstone, anxiously knitting his brows, "to inform us that not a horse of the pack-train from Blue Lick Station shall pass down to Charlestown till we indemnify them for the loss of the cattle." "Gadso! they can't all be lost!" exclaimed old Mivane floutingly.
John Ronackstone, who found an added liberty of disputation in the emphasis imposed by the necessity of roaring out his immutable opinions in an exceeding loud voice, retorted that so far as he was informed the "cow-drivers" on the Keowee were not certain who it was that had committed this atrocity, unless perhaps their messenger during his sojourn at Blue Lick Station had learned the name from "X." But this uncertainty, Mivane argued, was the very point of difficulty.
"Well, sir," Ronackstone began in a tone of a quasi-apology, "we were just saying that is, I sez to X, who was in here a while ago, I sez, 'I'll tell you what is goin' to happen, I sez, 'old Gentleman Rick, excuse the freedom, sir, 'he'll be wantin' to send somebody else in Ralph Emsden's place. X, he see the p'int, just as you see it.
Mivane noted suddenly that the woman rocking the cradle was laughing with an ostentatious affectation of covert slyness, and a responsive twinkle gleamed in the eyes of John Ronackstone.
And why can't she let me dress in peace as I was early trained to do? God knows I feel myself better than nobody." And he was sensible of his age, his infirmity, his isolation, and his jauntiness was eclipsed. Thus he entered the race with a handicap, and John Ronackstone would hear none of his reasons with grace.
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