was their leader in all things. One Sunday, after the news had
come to the settlement that Buford's men had been killed by the British
in cold blood, the eloquent old man went into his pulpit and preached
about the duty of fighting. In the afternoon he preached again, and even
when the service was over he went on in the open air, still preaching to
the people how they should fight for their country, until all the men
in the settlement were full of fighting spirit. The women told the men
to go and do their duty, and that they would take care of the crops.

These little bands of patriots were too small to fight regular battles,
or even to hold strong posts. They had to hide in the woods and swamps,
and only came out when they saw a chance to strike a blow. Then the blow
fell like lightning, and the men who dealt it quickly hid themselves
again.

They had signs by which they told each other what they were going to do.
A twig bent down, a few stones strung along a path, or any other of a
hundred small signs, served to tell every patriot when and where to meet
his friends. A man riding about, breaking a twig here and there, or
making some other sign of the kind, could call together a large force at
a chosen spot within a few hours. The men brought out in this way would
fall suddenly upon some stray British force that was off its guard, and
utterly destroy it. The British would at once send a strong body of
troops to punish the daring patriots, but the redcoat leader would look
in vain for anybody to punish. The patriots could scatter and hide as
quickly as they could come together.

[Illustration: MARTIN PREACHING TO THE PEOPLE ON THE DUTY OF FIGHTING.]

Finding that they could not destroy these patriot companies, the British
and Tories took their revenge on women and children. They burned the
houses of the patriots, carried off their crops, and killed their
cattle, so as to starve their families; but the women were as brave us
the men, and from first to last not one of them ever wished her husband
or son to give up the fight.

If the patriots could not conquer the British, they at least kept them
in a hornets' nest. If they could not drive them out of South Carolina,
they could keep them there, which was nearly as good a thing to do,
because every soldier that Cornwallis had to keep in the South would
have been sent to some other part of the country to fight the Americans
if the Carolinians had let the British alone.