322 The Winning of the West 



which they plucked from the fields, but at this camp- 

 ing-place they slaughtered some beeves and made a 

 feast. 



The mountaineers had hoped to catch Ferguson 

 at Gilbert Town, but they found that he had fled 

 toward the northeast, so they followed after him. 

 Many of their horses were crippled and exhausted, 

 and many of the footmen footsore and weary; and 

 the next day they were able to go but a dozen miles 

 to the ford of Green River. 



That evening Campbell and his fellow-officers 

 held a council to decide what course was best to 

 follow. Lacey, riding over from the militia com- 

 panies who were marching from Flint Hill, had just 

 reached their camp; he told them the direction in 

 which Ferguson had fled, and at the same time ap- 

 pointed the Cowpens as the meeting-place for their 

 respective forces. Their whole army was so jaded 

 that the leaders knew they could not possibly urge 

 it on fast enough to overtake Ferguson, and the 

 flight of the latter made them feel all the more con- 

 fident that they could beat him, and extremely re- 

 luctant that he should get away. In consequence 

 they determined to take seven or eight hundred of 

 the least tired, best armed, and best mounted 

 men, and push rapidly after their foe, picking 

 up on the way any militia they met, and leaving 

 the other half of their army to follow as fast as 

 it could. 



At daybreak on the morning of the sixth the 

 picked men set out, about seven hundred and fifty 



