“How long since John Watts, leader of the renegade Cherokees who live in the five lower towns on the Tennessee, gives the law in Great Hiwassee? How long since the hostiles, calling themselves ‘Chickamaugas,’ can leave their five towns and come here to Ayuhwasi Egwahi—Great Hiwassee—a white town and a peace town, and pronounce the sentence of death?”
Watts started convulsively and bared his teeth in a wolfish snarl. Polcher yelled a white man’s curse and grabbed at his belt. Watts seized the breed’s hand and flung it down, then became wooden of face. His followers grunted aloud. Polcher passionately cried:
“The white man lies. Echota is the white town. Ayuhwasi Egwahi is a red town and the path to it is red.”
“Dog of a mixed-breed!” thundered Sevier, levelling a finger at him. “Your soul shall curl up and become as nothing. Killer of great war-eagle out of season, your bones shall rattle in blackness! You dare deny the law of the Cherokees!”
The one shaman present shivered, his eyes glistening with fear, and, unable to witness the blazing scorn the blue eyes were pouring into Polcher, drew his blanket over his head. Watts could not entirely cover up his concern, and, turning to the shaman, he asked—
“What does our father say as to the law?”
The shaman’s figure trembled, for he had great fear of Chief Watts’ anger, even though he were a medicine-man. In a quavering voice he informed—
“A long time ago, when all the old things were new, when water-bears lived at the bottom of the Oconaluftee River, this village of Ayuhwasi Egwahi was a white town.”
“It has not been used as such in three lives,” cried Polcher.
“A man-slayer has never been refused refuge,” said Sevier.