prey of the enemy, that modest
partisan alone was to keep alive the fire of liberty in
South Carolina, and so annoy the victors that in the end
they hardly dared show their faces out of the forts. The
Swamp-Fox was to pave the way for the reconquest of the
South by the brave General Greene.

No long time elapsed before Marion increased his
disreputable score to a brigade of more respectable
proportions, with which he struck such quick and telling
blows from all sides on the British and Tories, that no nest
of hornets could have more dismayed a marauding party of
boys. The swamps of the Pedee were his head-quarters. In
their interminable and thicket-hidden depths he found
hiding-places in abundance, and from them he made rapid
darts, north, south, east, and west, making his presence
felt wherever he appeared, and flying back to shelter before
his pursuers could overtake him. His corps was constantly
changing, now swelling, now shrinking, now little larger
than his original ragged score, now grown to a company of a
hundred or more in dimensions. It was always small. The
swamps could not furnish shelter and food for any large body
of men.

Marion's head-quarters were at Snow's Island, at the point
where Lynch's Creek joins the Pedee River. This was a region
of high river-swamp, thickly forested, and abundantly
supplied with game. The camp was on dry land, but around it
spread broad reaches of wet thicket and canebrake, whose
paths were known only to the partisans, and their secrets
sedulously preserved. As regards the mode of life here of
Marion and his men, there is an anecdote which will picture
it better than pages of description.

A young British officer was sent from Georgetown to treat
with Marion for an exchange of prisoners. The Swamp-Fox
fully approved of the interview, being ready enough to rid
himself of his captives, who were a burden on his hands. But
he was too shrewd to lay bare the ways that led to his camp.
The officer was blindfolded, and led by devious paths
through canebrake, thicket, and forest to the hidden camp.
On the removal of the bandage from his eyes he looked about
him with admiration and surprise. He found himself in a
scene worthy of Robin Hood's woodland band. Above him spread
the boughs of magnificent trees, laden with drooping moss,
and hardly letting a ray of sunlight through their crowding
foliage. Around him rose their massive trunks, like the
columns of some vast cathedral.