But there were others in his band who knew the fight was lost.
The overmountain men saw two white handkerchiefs, axed to
bayonets, raised above the rocks; and then they saw Ferguson dash
by and slash them down with his sword. Two horses were shot under
Ferguson in the latter part of the action; but he mounted a third
and rode again into the thick of the fray. Suddenly the cry
spread among the attacking troops that the British officer,
Tarleton, had come to Ferguson's rescue; and the mountaineers
began to give way. But it was only the galloping horses of their
own comrades; Tarleton had not come. Nolichucky Jack spurred out
in front of his men and rode along the line. Fired by his courage
they sounded the war whoop again and renewed the attack with
fury.
"These are the same yelling devils that were at Musgrove's Mill,"
said Captain De Peyster to Ferguson.
Now Shelby and Sevier, leading his Wataugans, had reached the
summit. The firing circle pressed in. The buckskin-shirted
warriors leaped the rocky barriers, swinging their tomahawks and
long knives. Again the white handkerchiefs fluttered. Ferguson
saw that the morale of his troops was shattered.
"Surrender," De Peyster, his second in command, begged of him.
"Surrender to those damned banditti? Never!"
Ferguson turned his horse's head downhill and charged into the
Wataugans, hacking right and left with his sword till it was
broken at the hilt.
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