"It was razed once," she said statistically, "to the ground. The Cherokees did it that time!"
Her grandfather, always averse to admit that he did not hear, noted the influx of excitement, and was fain to lean forward. He even placed his hand behind his ear.
"The French!" bellowed out one of the cow-drivers in a voice that might have graced the king of the herds. "The French! Threatening Blue Lick Station!"
The elderly gentleman drew back from, the painful surcharged vibrations of sound and the unseemly aspect of this interpreter, who was in good sooth like a bull in disguise. "To be sure—the French," Richard Mivane said in response, repeating the only words which he had heard. "Our nearest white neighbors—the dangerous Alabama garrison!"
A tumult of questions assailed the little linguister.
"Be they mightily troubled at Blue Lick Station?" asked one sympathetically.
The little flower-like head was nodded with meaning, deep and serious. "Oh, sure!" she cried. "And having the Cow-pens against them too—'tis sad!"
"Zooks!" cried the bull in disguise, with a snort. "The Cow-pens ain't against 'em—when the French are coming!"
"Why haven't they sent word to the soldiers?" demanded another of the cow-drivers suspiciously.
"The soldiers?" she exclaimed incredulously. "Why—the Cow-pens sent word that the soldiers were against Blue Lick too, and were going to stop the station's pack-train. Maybe the stationers were afraid of the soldiers."