into Carter's valley, and after ravaging it, passed on up
the Clinch. The settlers at once gathered in the little stockades; those
who delayed were surprised by the savages, and were slain as they fled,
or else were captured, perhaps to die by torture,--men, women, and
children alike. The cabins were burnt, the grain destroyed, the cattle
and horses driven off, and the sheep and hogs shot down with arrows; the
Indians carried bows and arrows for this express purpose, so as to avoid
wasting powder and lead. The bolder war-parties, in their search for
scalps and plunder, penetrated into Virginia a hundred miles beyond the
frontier,[27] wasting the country with tomahawk and brand up to the
Seven-Mile Ford. The roads leading to the wooden forts were crowded
with settlers, who, in their mortal need of hurry, had barely time to
snatch up a few of the household goods, and, if especially lucky, to
mount the women and children on horses; as usual in such a flight, there
occurred many deeds of cowardly selfishness, offset by many feats of
courage and self-sacrifice. Once in the fort, the backwoodsmen often
banded into parties, and sallied out to fall on the Indians. Sometimes
these parties were worsted; at other times they overcame their foes
either by ambush or in fair fight. One such party from the Wolf Hills
fort killed eleven Indian warriors; and on their return they hung the
scalps of their slain foes, as trophies of triumph, from a pole over the
fort gate.[28] They were Bible-readers in this fort, and they had their
Presbyterian minister with them, having organized a special party to
bring in the books he had left in his cabin; they joined in prayer and
thanksgiving for their successes; but this did not hinder them from
scalping the men they killed. They were too well-read in the merciless
wars of the Chosen People to feel the need of sparing the fallen; indeed
they would have been most foolish had they done so; for they were
battling with a heathen enemy more ruthless and terrible than ever was
Canaanite or Philistine. The two largest of the invading Indian
bands[29] moved, one by way of the mountains, to fall on the Watauga
fort and its neighbors, and the other, led by the great war chief,
Dragging Canoe, to lay waste the country guarded by Eaton's Station.

The white scouts--trained woodsmen, whose lives had been spent in the
chase and in forest warfare--kept the commanders or headmen of the forts
well informed of the In