them, killing seventeen. The savages mutilated the dead bodies in
fantastic ways, with ferocious derision, and left them for their friends
to find and bury. [Footnote: _Do_., Martin to Knox, August 23, 1788.]
Sevier led parties against the Indians without ceasing; and he and his
men by their conduct showed that they waged the war very largely for
profit. On a second incursion, which he made with canoes, into the
Hiawassee country, his followers made numerous tomahawk claims, or
"improvements," as they were termed, in the lands from which the Indians
fled; hoping thus to establish a right of ownership to the country they
had overrun. [Footnote: _Do_., Hutchings to Martin, July 11, 1788.]

The whites speedily got the upper hand, ceasing to stand on the
defensive; and the panic disappeared. When the North Carolina
Legislature met, the members, and the people of the seaboard generally,
were rather surprised to find that the over-hill men talked of the
Indian war as troublesome rather than formidable. [Footnote: _Columbian
Magazine,_ ii., 472.]

The militia officers holding commissions from North Carolina wished
Martin to take command of the retaliatory expeditious against the
Cherokees; but Martin, though a good fighter on occasions, preferred the
arts of peace, and liked best treating with and managing the Indians. He
had already acted as agent to different tribes on behalf of Virginia,
North Carolina, and Georgia; and at this time he accepted an offer from
the Continental Congress to serve in the same capacity for all the
Southern Indians. [Footnote: State Dep. MSS., No. 50, vol. ii., p. 505
etc.] Nevertheless he led a body of militia against the Chickamaugas
towns. He burnt a couple, but one of his detachments was driven back in
a fight on Lookout Mountain; his men became discontented, and he was
forced to withdraw, followed and harassed by the Indians. On his retreat
the Indians attacked the settlements in force, and captured Gillespie's
station.

Sevier's Feats.

Sevier was the natural leader of the Holston riflemen in such a war; and
the bands of frontiersmen insisted that he should take the command
whenever it was possible. Sevier swam well in troubled waters, and he
profited by the storm he had done so much to raise. Again and again
during the summer of 1788 he led his bands of wild horsemen on forays
against the Cherokee towns, and always with success. He followed his
usual tactics, riding hard and long, p