ial authorities under the guidance of
Howard, to attack the stronghold of the bandits. Boone afterward
related that the robbers' fort was situated in the most fitly
chosen place for such a purpose that he could imagine--beneath an
overhanging cliff of rock, with a large natural chimney, and a
considerable area in front well stockaded. The frontiersmen
surrounded the fort, captured five women and eleven children, and
then burned the fort to the ground. Owen and his wife,
Cumberland, and several others were ultimately made prisoners;
but Harman and the remainder of the band escaped by flight. Owen
and his fellow captives were then borne to Salisbury,
incarcerated in the prison there, and finally (May, 1756)
condemned to the gallows. Owen sent word to the Moravians,
petitioning them to adopt his two boys and to apprentice one to a
tailor, the other to a carpenter. But so infuriated was Owen's
wife by Howard's treachery that she branded him as a second
Judas; and this at once fixed upon him the sobriquet "Judas"
Howard-a sobriquet he did not live long to bear, for about a year
later he was ambushed and shot from his horse at the crossing of
a stream. He thus paid the penalty of his betrayal of the outlaw
band. For a number of years, the Regulators continued to wage war
against the remaining outlaws, who from time to time committed
murders as well as thefts. As late as January, 1768, the
Regulators caught a horse thief in the Hollows of Surry County
and brought him to Bethabara, whence Richter and Spach took him
to the jail at Salisbury. After this year, the outlaws were heard
of no more; and peace reigned in the settlements.

Colonel Edmund Fanning--of whom more anon--declared that the
Regulation began in Anson County which bordered upon South
Carolina. Certain it is that the upper country of that province
was kept in an uproar by civil disturbances during this early
period. Owing to the absence of courts in this section, so remote
from Charleston, the inhabitants found it necessary, for the
protection of property and the punishment of outlaws, to form an
association called, like the North Carolina society, the
Regulation. Against this association the horse thieves and other
criminals made common cause, and received tacit support from
certain more reputable persons who condemned "the irregularity of
the Regulators." The Regulation which had been thus organized in
upper South Carolina as early as 1764 led to tumultuous ri