Page:Gray Eagle (1927).pdf/46

 try beyond the mountain barrier; but he scarcely turned his head to look at the troops of deer. His thoughts were busy with other matters.

These were good times, he reflected, these times when the Great Path could be traveled in safety without fear of ambuscade. From Charles Town to Tellequo beyond the Overhills where Moytoy the red Emperor reigned, peace prevailed along the wilderness road. Cherokee, Choctaw, Muskogee and Catawba called the white man friend. How long this friendship would last no man could tell. It sufficed Almayne that for the present peace was secure.

A sharp, loud, whining, singing sound shrilled for a fraction of an instant in his ear. An arrow had whizzed above his right shoulder, missing his throat by an inch. Even as he wheeled his pony, he felt something touch the fringed sleeve of his buckskin shirt just above the elbow. A second shaft had grazed his arm, barely scratching the skin. Bending low on the sorrel mare's back, he dug his heels into her flanks and talked to her in the guttural tongue that she knew best.

"Faster, my little Martin-bird!" he whispered. "Faster, my little Tlutlu! Faster, faster, faster!"

Tlutlu the Martin-bird raced as she had seldom raced before. But she could not outrun the arrows. Another shaft whined past Almayne, another and