The morning light revealed a milky mist through which the trees showed like phantoms.  Then there came stains upon the mist of royal purple, of scarlet, of yellow like a mandarin’s robe, peeps of deep blue fading into azure as the mist lifted.  The fiery eye of the sun was cocked over the crest, and beyond me I saw a house with its logs all golden brown in the level rays, the withered cornstalks orange among the blackened stumps.  My horse stopped of his own will at the edge of the clearing.  A cock crew, a lean hound prostrate on the porch of the house rose to his haunches, sniffed, growled, leaped down, and ran to the road and sniffed again.  I listened, startled, and made sure of the distant ring of many hoofs.  And yet I stayed there, irresolute.  Could it be Tipton and his men riding from Jonesboro to capture Sevier?  The hoof-beats grew louder, and then the hound in the road gave tongue to the short, sharp bark that is the call to arms.  Other dogs, hitherto unseen, took up the cry, and turning in my saddle I saw a body of men riding hard at me through the alley in the forest.  At their head, on a heavy, strong-legged horse, was one who might have stood for the figure of turbulence, and I made no doubt that this was Colonel Tipton himself,—­Colonel Tipton, once secessionist, now champion of the Old North State and arch-enemy of John Sevier.  At sight of me he reined up so violently that his horse went back on his haunches, and the men behind were near overriding him.

“Look out, boys,” he shouted, with a fierce oath, “they’ve got guards out!” He flung back one hand to his holster for a pistol, while the other reached for the powder flask at his belt.  He primed the pan, and, seeing me immovable, set his horse forward at an amble, his pistol at the cock.

“Who in hell are you?” he cried.

“A traveller from Virginia,” I answered.

“And what are you doing here?” he demanded, with another oath.

“I have just this moment come here,” said I, as calmly as I might.  “I lost the trail in the darkness.”

He glared at me, purpling, perplexed.

“Is Sevier there?” said he, pointing at the house.

“I don’t know,” said I.

Tipton turned to his men, who were listening.

“Surround the house,” he cried, “and watch this fellow.”

I rode on perforce towards the house with Tipton and three others, while his men scattered over the corn-field and cursed the dogs.  And then we saw in the open door the figure of a woman shading her eyes with her hand.  We pulled up, five of us, before the porch in front of her.

“Good morning, Mrs. Brown,” said Tipton, gruffly.

“Good morning, Colonel,” answered the widow.

Tipton leaped from his horse, flung the bridle to a companion, and put his foot on the edge of the porch to mount.  Then a strange thing happened.  The lady turned deftly, seized a chair from within, and pulled it across the threshold.  She sat herself down firmly, an expression on her face which hinted that the late lamented Mr. Brown had been a dominated man.  Colonel Tipton stopped, staggering from the very impetus of his charge, and gazed at her blankly.