native land. Their families were left in secluded valleys, often at long
distances apart, exposed to danger alike from the Tories and the
Indians. Before them lay the highest peaks of the Alleghanies, to be
traversed only by way of lofty and difficult passes. No highway existed;
there was not even a bridle-path through the dense forest; and for forty
miles between the Watauga and the Catawba there was not a single house
or a cultivated acre. On the evening of the 30th the Westerners were
reinforced by Colonel Cleveland, with three hundred and fifty men from
North Carolina who had been notified by them of their approach.

Their foe was before them. After Ferguson had pursued Macdowell to the
foot of the mountains he shaped his course for King's Mountain, a
natural stronghold, where he established his camp in what seemed a
secure position and sent to Cornwallis for a few hundred more men,
saying that these "would finish the business. This is their last push in
this quarter." Cornwallis at once despatched Tarleton with a
considerable reinforcement. He was destined to be too late.

Ferguson did not know all the peril that threatened him. On the east
Colonel James Williams was pursuing him up the Catawba with over four
hundred horsemen. A vigilant leader, he kept his scouts out on every
side, and on October 2 one of these brought him the most welcome of
news. The backwoodsmen were up, said the scout; half of the people
beyond the mountains were under arms and on the march. A few days later
they met him, thirteen hundred strong.

Not a day, not an hour, was lost. Williams told them where their foes
were encamped, and they resolved to march against them that very night
and seek to take them by surprise. It was the evening of October 6 when
the two forces joined. So prompt were they to act that at eight o' clock
that same evening nine hundred of their best horsemen had been selected
and were on the march. All night they rode, with the moon to light them
on their way. The next day they rode still onward, and in the afternoon
reached the foot of King's Mountain, on whose summit Ferguson lay
encamped.

This mountain lies just south of the North Carolina border, at the end
of a branching ridge from, the main line of the Alleghanies. The British
were posted on its summit, over eleven hundred in number, a thousand of
them being Tories, the others British regulars. They felt thoroughly
secure in their elevated fortress, the approac