276 The Winning of the West 



to gather into their stockades and block-houses. 

 The alarm was great. One murder was of peculiar 

 treachery and atrocity. A man named John Kirk 28 

 lived on a clearing on Little River, seven miles south 

 of Knoxville. One day when he was away from 

 home, an Indian named Slim Tom, well known to 

 the family, and believed to be friendly, came to the 

 cabin and asked for food. The food was given him 

 and he withdrew. But he had come merely as a 

 spy; and seeing that he had to deal only with help 

 less women and children, he returned with a party 

 of Indians who had been hiding in the woods. They 

 fell on the wretched creatures, and butchered them 

 all, eleven in number, leaving the mangled bodies 

 in the court-yard. The father and eldest boy were 

 absent and thus escaped. It would have been well 

 had the lad been among the slain, for his coarse 

 and brutal nature was roused to a thirst for indis 

 criminate revenge, and shortly afterward he figured 

 as chief actor in a deed of retaliation as revolting 

 and inhuman as the original crime. 



At the news of the massacres the frontiersmen 

 gathered, as was their custom, mounted and armed, 

 and ready either to follow the marauding parties or 

 to make retaliatory inroads on their own account. 

 Sevier, their darling leader, was among them, and 

 to him they gave the command. 



Another frontier leader and Indian fighter of note 

 was at this time living among the Cherokees. He 



48 State Dept. MSS., No. 150, Vol. II, p. 435. Proclamation 

 of Thos. Hutchings, June 3, 1788. 



