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 maddening drink known as taffai, which already had all but ruined the tribes of the lower country. From his cabin in the foothills Gilyan had introduced rum to the Cherokees. For a keg of taffai many deerskins might be had. Stealing away the red hunters' brains with his liquor, Gilyan year after year had robbed them of their pelts. Nor was this the worst. In his long pursuit of Koe Ishto, the puma of Unaka Kanoos, Gilyan had flouted the Cherokees' beliefs and had insulted their gods; and now, to curry favor with this powerful white chief who had come from beyond the Great Water, he was making the Raven himself a traitor to his own faith and exposing him to the Red God's wrath.

Suddenly there leaped full-formed into the Raven's brain a new thought. What if the vengeance which would surely come were visited not upon him alone but upon all his people? What if the Red Spirit who dwelt upon Unaka Kanoos should punish Corane's nation for Corane's crime?

The question was no sooner framed in his mind than it was answered. In a flash he knew that he had made the wrong decision, that of two evils he had chosen not the lesser but the greater. Upon him alone would rest the responsibility if he broke that law which commanded loyalty to a pledged brother, that law which required him to do as Gilyan asked. But not to him alone would punish-