The Watauga people, the most exposed of all, received timely warning from a friendly squaw,[24] to whom the whites ever after showed respect and gratitude.  They at once began to prepare for the stroke; and in all the western world of woodsmen there were no men better fitted for such a death grapple.  They still formed a typical pioneer community; and their number had been swelled from time to time by the arrival of other bold and restless spirits.  Their westernmost settlement this year was in Carter’s valley; where four men had cleared a few acres of corn-land, and had hunted buffalo for their winter’s meat.[25]

As soon as they learned definitely that the Otari warriors, some seven hundred in number, were marching against them, they took refuge in their wooden forts or stations.  Among the most important of these were the one at Watauga, in which Sevier and Robertson held command, and another known as Baton’s Station, placed just above the forks of the Holston.[26] Some six miles from the latter, near the Long Island or Big Island of the Holston, lay quite a large tract of level land, covered with an open growth of saplings, and known as the Island flats.

The Indians were divided into several bands; some of their number crossed over into Carter’s valley, and after ravaging it, passed on up the Clinch.  The settlers at once gathered in the little stockades; those who delayed were surprised by the savages, and were slain as they fled, or else were captured, perhaps to die by torture,—­men, women, and children alike.  The cabins were burnt, the grain destroyed, the cattle and horses driven off, and the sheep and hogs shot down with arrows; the Indians carried bows and arrows for this express purpose, so as to avoid wasting powder and lead.  The bolder war-parties, in their search for scalps and plunder, penetrated into Virginia a hundred miles beyond the frontier,[27] wasting the country with tomahawk and brand up to the Seven-Mile Ford.  The roads leading to the wooden forts were crowded with settlers, who, in their mortal need of hurry, had barely time to snatch up a few of the household goods, and, if especially lucky, to mount the women and children on horses; as usual in such a flight, there occurred many deeds of cowardly selfishness, offset by many feats of courage and self-sacrifice.  Once in the fort, the backwoodsmen often banded into parties, and sallied out to fall on the Indians.  Sometimes these parties were worsted; at other times they overcame their foes either by ambush or in fair fight.  One such party from the Wolf Hills fort killed eleven Indian warriors; and on their return they hung the scalps of their slain foes, as trophies of triumph, from a pole over the fort gate.[28] They were Bible-readers in this fort, and they had their Presbyterian minister with them, having organized a special party to bring in the books he had left in his cabin; they joined in prayer and thanksgiving for their successes; but this did not hinder them from