oved very cautiously, the night
encampments being made behind breastworks of felled timbers. There was
therefore no chance for a surprise; and their great inferiority in
number made it hopeless for the Cherokees to try a fair fight. In their
despair they asked help from the Creeks; but the latter replied that
they had plucked the thorn of warfare from their (the Creeks') foot, and
were welcome to keep it.[72]

The Virginians came steadily on[73] until they reached the Big Island of
the French Broad.[74] Here the Cherokees had gathered their warriors,
and they sent a tory trader across with a flag of truce. Christian well
knowing that the Virginians greatly outnumbered the Indians, let the man
go through his camp at will,[75] and sent him back with word that the
Cherokee towns were doomed, for that he would surely march to them and
destroy them. That night he left half of his men in camp, lying on their
arms by the watch-fires, while with the others he forded the river below
and came round to surprise the Indian encampment from behind; but he
found that the Indians had fled, for their hearts had become as water,
nor did they venture at any time, during this expedition, to molest the
white forces. Following them up, Christian reached the towns early in
November,[76] and remained two weeks, sending out parties to burn the
cabins and destroy the stores of corn and potatoes. The Indians[77] sent
in a flag to treat for peace, surrendering the horses and prisoners they
had taken, and agreeing to fix a boundary and give up to the settlers
the land they already had, as well as some additional territory.
Christian made peace on these terms and ceased his ravages, but he
excepted the town of Tuskega, whose people had burned alive the boy
taken captive at Watauga. This town he reduced to ashes.

Nor would the chief Dragging Canoe accept peace at all; but gathering
round him the fiercest and most unruly of the young men, he left the
rest of the tribe and retired to the Chickamauga fastnesses.

When the preliminary truce had been made Christian marched his forces
homeward, and disbanded them a fortnight before Christmas, leaving a
garrison at Holston, Great Island. During the ensuing spring and summer
peace treaties were definitely concluded between the Upper Cherokees and
Virginia and North Carolina at the Great Island of the Holston,[78] and
between the Lower Cherokees and South Carolina and Georgia at De Witt's
Corners. The Cher