ten men, and, that he might utilize Blue Lick Station as an outpost in some sort where they might find refuge and aid, he dispatched to the settlement a present of gunpowder to serve in the defense of the station, in case of attack by the French, and two of the small coehorns of that day, each of which could be carried between two men, to assist the little piece already at the station. In return for the prospective courtesy and shelter to his troops, he wrote a very polite letter urging the settlers to hold out if practicable, relying on his succor with men, ammunition, and provisions; but if compelled to give way, assuring the stationers of a welcome at Fort Prince George.

The herders at the cow-pens on the Keowee had also determined to reinforce Blue Lick Station, and with a number of the runaway horses of the settlers, rounded up and driven in strings, several of them set forth with the British soldiers from the fort. In this company Richard Mivane and his grand daughter also took their way to Blue Lick Station in lieu of waiting for a pack-train with provisions from Charlestown, as they had anticipated.

It was a merry camping party as they fared along through the wilderness, and she had occasion to make many sage observations on the inconsistency and the unwisdom of man! That the prospect of killing some Frenchman, or being themselves cruelly killed, in a national quarrel which neither faction, the cow-drivers nor the Blue Lick Stationers, half understood, should so endear men to each other was a sentiment into which she could not enter. It was better, after all, to be a woman, she said to herself, and sit soberly at home and sew the rational sampler, and let the world wag on as it would and the cutthroats work their wild will on each other. The least suggestion that brought the thought of the French to their minds was received with eyes alight, and nerves aquiver, and blood all in a rush. The favorite of the whole camp was a young fellow who had achieved that enviable station by virtue of an inane yet inconceivably droll intonation of the phrase, "Bong chure" (Bon jour), delivered at all manner of unconformable times and in inappropriate connections, and invariably greeted with shouts of laughter. And when at last the party reached the vicinity of Blue Lick and the stationers swarmed out to meet them, taking the news of the French invasion at second hand, each repeating it to the other, and variously recounting it back again, never dreaming that it was supposed to have