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Page 37
While she and the other women, unconscious of danger, were "coaxing the
snowy fluid from the yielding udders of the kine," suddenly the
war-whoop sounded through the woods, and a band of yelling savages
rushed out upon them. Quick as thought the women turned and darted for
the gate of the fort; but the savages were close upon them in a
neck-and-neck race, and Kate, more remote than the rest, was cut off
from the entrance. Seeing her danger, Sevier and a dozen others opened
the gate and were about to rush out upon the savages, hundreds of whom
were now in front of the fort; but Robertson held them back, saying they
could not rescue her, and to go out would insure their own destruction.
At a glance Kate took in the situation. She could have no help from her
friends, and the tomahawk and scalping-knife were close behind her.
Instantly she turned, and, fleeter than a deer, made for a point in the
stockade some distance from the entrance. The palisades were eight feet
high, but with one bound she reached the top, and with another was over
the wall, falling into the arms of Sevier, who for the first time called
her his "bonnie Kate," his "brave girl for a foot-race." The other women
reached the entrance of the fort in safety.
Then the baffled savages opened fire, and for a full hour it rained
bullets upon the little enclosure. But the missiles fell harmless: not a
man was wounded. Driven by the light charges the Indians were accustomed
to use, the bullets simply bounded off from the thick logs and did no
damage. But it was not so with the fire of the besieged. The order was,
"Wait till you see the whites of your enemies' eyes, and then make sure
of your man." And so every one of those forty rifles did terrible
execution.
For twenty days the Indians hung about the fort, returning again and
again to the attack; but not a man who kept within the walls was even
wounded. It was not so with a man and a boy who, emboldened by a few
days' absence of the Indians, ventured outside to go down to the river.
The man was scalped on the spot; the boy was taken prisoner, and
subjected to a worse fate in one of the Indian villages. His name was
Moore, and he was a younger brother of the lieutenant who fought so
bravely in the battle near Fort Patrick Henry.
At last, baffled and dispirited, the Indians fell back to the Tellico.
They had lost about sixty killed and a larger number wounded, and they
had inflicted next to no damage upon the white settlers. They were
enraged beyond bounds and thirsting for vengeance. Only two prisoners
were in their power; but on them they resolved to wreak their extremest
tortures. Young Moore was taken to the village of his captor, high up in
the mountains, and there burned at a stake. A like fate was determined
upon for good Mrs. Bean, the kindly woman whose hospitable door had ever
been open to all, white man or Indian. Oconostota would not have her
die; but Dragging-Canoe insisted that she should be offered up as a
sacrifice to the _manes_ of his fallen warriors; and the head-king was
not powerful enough to prevent it.
She was taken to the summit of one of the burial-mounds,--those relics
of a forgotten race which are so numerous along the banks of the
Tellico. She was tied to a stake, the fagots were heaped about her, and
the fire was about to be lighted, when suddenly Nancy Ward appeared
among the crowd of savages and ordered a stay of the execution.
Dragging-Canoe was a powerful brave, but not powerful enough to combat
the will of this woman. Mrs. Bean was not only liberated, but sent back
with an honorable escort to her husband.
The village in which young Moore was executed was soon visited by Sevier
with a terrible retribution; and from that day for twenty years his name
was a terror among the Cherokees.
Before many months there was a wedding in the fort at Watauga. It was
that of John Sevier and the "bonnie Kate," famous to this day for
leaping stockades and six-barred fences. He lived to be twelve years
governor of Tennessee and the idol of a whole people. She shared all his
love and all his honors; but in her highest estate she was never ashamed
of her lowly days, and never tired of relating her desperate leap at
Watauga; and, even in her old age, she would merrily add, "I would make
it again--every day in the week--for such a husband."
EDMUND KIRKE.
A PLEASANT SPIRIT.
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