of South Carolina. Second to these come such men as Pickens, Horry, Lacey, Hampton, and Hender

son.

In North Carolina there are such dashing leaders as Sevier, Shelby, Ashe, Williams, and McDowell.

In Georgia the bands are led and fought by Generals Elijah Clarke, John Twiggs, James Jackson, Lachlan McIntosh, James Screven, Samuel Elbert, and John White.

These partizan leaders are ever in the saddle. Savannah may fall, Augusta and Charleston may surrender, but the British conquest stops at the limit of the British camp. In the interior, resistance holds its head up all the time. The flag never ceases to fly.

In vain Cornwallis comes with huge regiments; in vain Tarleton and Ferguson raid and ravage the land; they can not stamp out the rebellion. Heavy battalions may win this battle and that battle; but on the morrow will come Marion and Sumpter, and Twiggs and Clarke to fight again.

Chase these partizans from Georgia, and they give battle in the Carolinas. Chase them from the Carolinas, and they are back in Georgia, as ready for the fray as before.

A score of Southern leaders fight as many pitched battles which are not so much as mentioned in the books of general history; and some of these

fights were brilliant little victories for the American cause.

The triumph of Elijah Clarke and Samuel Hammond over a portion of Ferguson's command at Cedar Springs in July, 1780; the success of these officers, aided by Williams and Shelby, at Musgroves' Mill in August, 1780, were the important preludes to that crowning achievement which was soon to follow.

CHAPTER XIX

KING'S MOUNTAIN

BUT what avails all this partizan warfare? What good does it accomplish?

The flying columns gallop from field to field, dodge from swamp to swamp. What is the net result?

Let us look over the Southern territory in the year 1780, when all is so dark at the North-so dark that even Washington almost despairs.

British emissaries have sent the Creeks on the war-path, and the soldiers of Georgia have to go and rout them in pitched battles. The Cherokees are also aroused; and they have to be put down by the men of the Carolinas.

This danger to the Southern flank had come, just as McIntosh had written Washington he feared. But the Indians had been whipped, and the partizan bands turn once more to the British.

We see Ferguson sent out from Cornwallis's main army; we trace him by the smoke of burning homes, the shrieks of those who fly, the groans of those who die. His path is one of desolation. We see the men of the mountains muster; they have

been threatened by Ferguson, and they take up his glove. From valley to valley runs the call to arms -the fiery cross of the Highlands never sped more swiftly to summons the clans.

And they came, these mountaineers of the South. Congress has not ordered them; Washington has not ordered them; it is a rally of volunteers. Under Sevier and Shelby and McDowell and Cleveland and Campbell they mount and they ride. Through mountain pass and over plain, through swamp and forest, over swollen streams which have not bridge or ferry, on they ride-to find Ferguson. Day after day, in fair weather and foul, with bloody spur and tightened rein, they rideseeking Ferguson. The weak man gives out and is left behind; the weak horse gives out and is left behind. The strong man on the strong horse spurs onward, with never a thought but to find Ferguson, to fight Ferguson, and to conquer him or die.

And he knows they are on his track, and he feels his peril. Back, back to Cornwallis! Hurry, couriers, to Ninety-six for help! See him falter, see him double and turn, see his efforts to get back to the main army!

Almost, almost the men of the mountains had taken the wrong road. A watchful patriot sees the danger averts it. Away gallops Edward Lacey, thirty miles through the night, to put the mountain men right.

"Not that road! Not that! This road, this road! And, oh, men of the mountains, ride, RIDE!" Well done, Edward Lacey!

Not more fateful was the act of the shepherd lad who showed Blücher's tired troops the short cut across the muddy fields to Waterloo!

South Carolinians gallop to join the mountaineers; a band of Georgians join the hunt.

He can not escape, he must stand and fightwith Ferguson it has come to that. On King's Mountain he stops-brought to bay.

Here he will entrench himself, here he will await the reenforcements that are pressing the roads to reach him. Only a day's delay, and all will be well.

But with one final push onward, through the night and through the rain, the mountain men are upon him—volunteers of Virginia, Georgia, the Carolinas!

They neither hesitate nor parley; they hitch their horses to the trees; like a girdle of steel they clasp the mountain; and up they go, at the enemy— rifles blazing as they advance, and the Southern yell ringing through the woods.

They are less than a thousand; the British nearly twelve hundred; but they have come to win, believe they can win, and the order is to fight till every man is dead, and the watchword is "Buford!" "Shoot like hell, and fight like devils!" cries