had pounded across it. Here
he turned back. His troops were exhausted from the all-night ride and,
in any case, there were not enough of them to enable him to cross the
mountains and give the Watauga men battle on their own ground with a
fair promise of victory. So keeping east of the hills but still close to
them, Ferguson turned into Burke County, North Carolina. He sat him down
in Gilbert Town (present Lincolnton, Lincoln County) at the foot of the
Blue Ridge and indited a letter to the "Back Water Men," telling them
that if they did not lay down their arms and return to their rightful
allegiance, he would come over their hills and raze their settlements
and hang their leaders. He paroled a kinsman of Shelby's, whom he had
taken prisoner in the chase, and sent him home with the letter. Then he
set about his usual business of gathering up Tories and making soldiers
of them, and of hunting down rebels.

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 will
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 fi