Louisiana and Aaron Burr 177 



went out from it to scour the country and give 

 warning of any Indian advance ; but with the Chero- 

 kees were two very white half-breeds, whose Indian 

 blood was scarcely noticeable, and these two men 

 met the spies and decoyed them to their death. 

 The Indians then, soon after midnight on the 3Oth 

 of September, sought to rush the station by sur- 

 prise. The alarm was given by the running of the 

 frightened cattle, and when the sentinel fired at the 

 assailants they were not ten yards from the gate of 

 the block-house. The barred door withstood the 

 shock and the flame-flashes lighted up the night as 

 the gun-men fired through the loop-holes. The In- 

 dians tried to burn the fort, one of the chiefs, a half- 

 breed, leaping on the roof; he was shot through the 

 thigh and rolled off; but he stayed close to the logs 

 trying to light them with his torch, alternately blow- 

 ing it into a blaze and hallooing to the Indians to 

 keep on with the attack. However, he was slain, as 

 was the Shawnee head chief, and several warriors, 

 while John Watts, leader of the expedition, was shot 

 through both thighs. The log walls of the grim 

 little block-house stood out black in the fitful glare 

 of the cane torches ; and tongues of red fire streamed 

 into the night as the rifles rang. The attack had 

 failed, and the throng of dark, flitting forms faded 

 into the gloom as the baffled Indians retreated. So 

 disheartened were they by the check, and by the 

 loss they had suffered, that they did not further mo- 

 lest the settlements, but fell back to their strong- 

 holds across the Tennessee. Among the Cherokee 



