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UNRISE found them again on the road—the Path, as Almayne called it—the great Trading Path from Charles Town to the inner country. All that day and through the early hours of the next they pushed on steadily. The Path had long been an Indian trail; now the traders' caravans travelled it also, the long lines of pack ponies bearing cloths, rum, guns, hatchets, paint and innumerable trinkets to the Catawbas of the middle country, the Cherokees of the Blue Mountains, the Chicasaws who dwelt beyond the mountain barrier; and returning, after months in the far wilderness, laden with bales of pelts. It was becoming a well-travelled road, for year by year the peltry traffic grew and the caravans increased in number; yet it was still, throughout most of its length, but a narrow trail through a vast and unspoiled wilderness.

Jolie's heart sang within her, answering the singing birds, of which the number seemed illimitable. Her eyes, thought Lachlan, as she turned to glance behind her, were brighter than the wild flowers strewn along the way; her's lender form, as she swayed with the motion of her horse, was more graceful than the slim,