第48章 Chapter IX. King's Mountain(3)

One of the "rebels" was a certain Captain Lytle. When Ferguson drew up at Lytle's door, Lytle had already made his escape; but Mrs. Lytle was there. She was a very handsome woman and she had dressed herself in her best to receive Ferguson, who was reported a gallant as well as a wolf. After a few spirited passages between the lady in the doorway and the officer on the white horse before it, the latter advised Mrs. Lytle to use her influence to bring her husband back to his duty. She became grave then and answered that her husband would never turn traitor to his country. Ferguson frowned at the word "traitor," but presently he said: "Madam, I admire you as the handsomest woman I have seen in North Carolina. I even half way admire your zeal in a bad cause. But take my word for it, the rebellion has had its day and is now virtually put down. Give my regards to Captain Lytle and tell him to come in. He wiil not be asked to compromise his honor. His verbal pledge not again to take up arms against the King is all that will be asked of him."*

* Draper,"King's Mountain and its Heroes," pp. 151-53.

This was another phase of the character of the one-armed Highlander whose final challenge to the backwater men was now being considered in every log cabin beyond the hills. A man who would not shoot an enemy in the back, who was ready to put the same faith in another soldier's honor which he knew was due to his own, yet in battle a wolfish fighter who leaped through the dark to give no quarter and to take none--he was fit challenger to those other mountaineers who also had a chivalry of their own, albeit they too were wolves of war.

When Shelby on the Holston received Ferguson's pungent letter, he flung himself on his horse and rode posthaste to Watauga to consult, with Sevier. He found the bank of the Nolichucky teeming with merrymakers. Nolichucky ,Jack was giving an immense barbecue and a horse race. Without letting the festival crowd have an inkling of the serious nature of Shelby's errand, the two men drew apart to confer. It is said to have been Sevier's idea that they should muster the forces of the western country and go in search of Ferguson ere the latter should be able to get sufficient reinforcements to cross the mountains. Sevier, like Ferguson, always preferred to seek his foe, knowing well the advantage of the offensive. Messengers were sent to Colonel William Campbell of the Virginia settlements on the Clinch, asking his aid. Campbell at first refused, thinking it better to fortify the positions they held and let Ferguson come and put the mountains between himself and Cornwallis. On receipt of a second message, however, he concurred. The call to arms was heard up and down the valleys, and the frontiersmen poured into Watauga. The overhill men were augmented by McDowell's troops from Burke County, who had dashed over the mountains a few weeks before in their escape from Ferguson.

At daybreak on the 26th of September they mustered at the Sycamore Shoals on the Watauga, over a thousand strong. It was a different picture they made from that other great gathering at the same spot when Henderson had made his purchase in money of the Dark and Bloody Ground, and Sevier and Robertson had bought for the Wataugans this strip of Tennessee. There were no Indians in this picture. Dragging Canoe, who had uttered his bloody prophecy, had by these very men been driven far south into the caves of the Tennessee River. But the Indian prophecy still hung over them, and in this day with a heavier menace. Not with money, now, were they to seal their purchase of the free land by the western waters. There had been no women in that other picture, only the white men who were going forward to open the way and the red men who were retreating. But in this picture there were women--wives and children, mothers, sisters, and sweethearts. All the women of the settlement were there at this daybreak muster to cheer on their way the men who were going out to battle that they might keep the way of liberty open not for men only but for women and children also. And the battle to which the men were now going forth must be fought against Back Country men of their own stripe under a leader who, in other circumstances, might well have been one of themselves--a primitive spirit of hardy mountain stock, who, having once taken his stand, would not barter and would not retreat.

"With the Sword of the Lord and of Gideon!" cried their pastor, the Reverend Samuel Doak, with upraised hands, as the mountaineers swung into their saddles. And it is said that all the women took up his words and cried again and again, "With the sword of the Lord and of our Gideons!" To the shouts of their women, as bugles on the wind of dawn, the buckskin-shirted army dashed out upon the mountain trail.

The warriors' equipment included rifles and ammunition, tomahawks, knives, shot pouches, a knapsack, and a blanket for each man. Their uniforms were leggings, breeches, and long loose shirts of gayly fringed deerskin, or of the linsey-woolsey spun by their women. Their hunting shirts were bound in at the waist by bright-colored linsey sashes tied behind in a bow. They wore moccasins for footgear, and on their heads high fur or deerskin caps trimmed with colored bands of raveled cloth. Around their necks hung their powderhorns ornamented with their own rude carvings.

On the first day they drove along with them a number of beeves but, finding that the cattle impeded the march, they left them behind on the mountain side. Their provisions thereafter were wild game and the small supply each man carried of mixed corn meal and maple sugar. For drink, they had the hill streams.