d weather, cheerful wood-fires blazed.

[Illustration: A Barbecue of 1780.]

Here to all, rich and poor alike, and especially to the men who had
followed him in the many battles against the Indians, Sevier gave a hearty
welcome. Rarely was his hospitable home without guests, and the table was
heaped with such plain and wholesome food as woods and fields afforded.

It was Sevier's delight at weddings or special merrymakings to feast all
the backwoods people of the neighborhood at a barbecue, where an ox was
roasted whole over the fire, and where, in fair weather, board tables were
set under the trees. These were loaded with wild fowl, bear's meat,
venison, beef, johnny-cakes, ash-cakes, hominy, and applejack. Should you
not like to have been one of the guests?

During one of these merrymaking feasts (1780) news was brought that Major
Ferguson, one of the ablest officers in Cornwallis's army, was threatening
to make an attack on the back-country settlements. At once Sevier, along
with Isaac Shelby and others, set out to raise an army of frontiersmen to
march against Ferguson. Soon a thousand men were riding through the
forests to find the British force, of which every man except the commander
was an American Tory.

They came upon it in a strong position on King's Mountain. Without delay
the Americans made a furious attack. They fought with great heroism,
charging up the steep mountainside with reckless bravery.

They were divided into three bodies, one on the right of the British, one
on the left, and another in front. Sevier commanded the division on the
left. At just the right moment he led his men in a resistless rush up the
mountainside and made victory certain for the Americans. The British
raised the white flag of surrender. All of Ferguson's soldiers who had not
been killed or wounded were made prisoners.

By this victory the backwoods hunters greatly weakened the British cause
in the south and made easier General Greene's victory over Cornwallis, of
which we have already learned. Thus they took their part in winning the
nation's liberty.

[Illustration: Battle of King's Mountain.]

On returning from King's Mountain to their homes, these pioneer warriors
had to meet the Cherokees again in stubborn warfare. In his usual way
Sevier struck a swift, crushing blow by marching to the mountain homes of
his savage foes, where he burned a thousand of their cabins and destroyed
fifty thousand bushels of their corn.