At midnight all was still.  The moon shone brightly down on the square block-houses and stockaded yard of the lonely little frontier fort; its rays lit up the clearing, and by contrast darkened the black shadow of the surrounding forest.  None of the sleepers within the log-walls dreamed of danger.  Yet their peril was imminent.  An Indian war band was lurking near by, and was on the point of making an effort to carry Freeland’s station by an attack in the darkness.  In the dead of the night the attempt was made.  One by one the warriors left the protection of the tangled wood-growth, slipped silently across the open space, and crouched under the heavy timber pickets of the palisades, until all had gathered together.  Though the gate was fastened with a strong bar and chain, the dextrous savages finally contrived to open it.

In so doing they made a slight noise, which caught Robertson’s quick ear, as he lay on his buffalo-hide pallet.  Jumping up he saw the gate open, and dusky figures gliding into the yard with stealthy swiftness.  At his cry of “Indians,” and the report of his piece, the settlers sprang up, every man grasping the loaded arm by which he slept.  From each log cabin the rifles cracked and flashed; and though the Indians were actually in the yard they had no cover, and the sudden and unexpected resistance caused them to hurry out much faster than they had come in.  Robertson shot one of their number, and they in return killed a white man who sprang out-of-doors at the first alarm.  When they were driven out the gate was closed after them; but they fired through the loopholes; especially into one of the block-houses, where the chinks had not been filled with mud, as in the others.  They thus killed a negro, and wounded one or two other men; yet they were soon driven off.  Robertson’s return had been at a most opportune moment.  As so often before and afterwards, he had saved the settlement from destruction.

Other bands of Indians joined the war party, and they continued to hover about the stations, daily inflicting loss and damage on the settlers.  They burned down the cabins and fences, drove off the stock and killed the hunters, the women and children who ventured outside the walls, and the men who had gone back to their deserted stockades. [Footnote:  Haywood says they burned “immense quantities of corn”; as Putnam points out, the settlers could have had very little corn to burn.  Haywood is the best authority for the Indian fighting in the Cumberland district during ’80, ’81, and ’82.  Putnam supplies some details learned from Mrs. Robertson in her old age.  The accounts are derived mainly from the statements of old settlers; but the Robertsons seem always to have kept papers, which served to check off the oral statements.  For all the important facts there is good authority.  The annals are filled with name after name of men who were killed by the Indians.  The dates, and even the names, may be misplaced in many of these instances; but this is really a matter of no consequence, for their only interest is to show the nature of the harassing Indian warfare, and the kind of adventure then common.]