these were welcome at the rambling log-houses of the neighboring backwoods gentry, who often themselves rode into the taverns to learn from the travellers what was happening in the great world beyond the mountains.  Court-day was a great occasion; all the neighborhood flocked in to gossip, lounge, race horses, and fight.  Of course in such gatherings there were always certain privileged characters.  At Abingdon these were to be found in the persons of a hunter named Edward Callahan, and his wife Sukey.  As regularly as court-day came round they appeared, Sukey driving a cart laden with pies, cakes, and drinkables, while Edward, whose rolls of furs and deer hides were also in the cart, stalked at its tail on foot, in full hunter’s dress, with rifle, powder-horn, and bullet-bag, while his fine, well-taught hunting-dog followed at his heels.  Sukey would halt in the middle of the street, make an awning for herself and begin business, while Edward strolled off to see about selling his peltries.  Sukey never would take out a license, and so was often in trouble for selling liquor.  The judges were strict in proceeding against offenders—­and even stricter against the unfortunate tories—­but they had a humorous liking for Sukey, which was shared by the various grand juries.  By means of some excuse or other she was always let off, and in return showed great gratitude to such of her benefactors as came near her mountain cabin. [Footnote:  Campbell MSS.; an account of the “Town of Abingdon,” by David Campbell, who “first saw it in 1782.”]

Court-day was apt to close with much hard drinking; for the backwoodsmen of every degree dearly loved whiskey.

CHAPTER XI.

ROBERTSON FOUNDS THE CUMBERLAND SETTLEMENT, 1779-1780.

    James Robertson.

Robertson had no share in the glory of King’s Mountain, and no part in the subsequent career of the men who won it; for, at the time, he was doing his allotted work, a work of at least equal importance, in a different field.  The year before the mountaineers faced Ferguson, the man who had done more than any one in founding the settlements from which the victors came, had once more gone into the wilderness to build a new and even more typical frontier commonwealth, the westernmost of any yet founded by the backwoodsmen.

Robertson had been for ten years a leader among the Holston and Watauga people.  He had at different times played the foremost part in organizing the civil government and in repelling outside attack.  He had been particularly successful in his dealings with the Indians, and by his missions to them had managed to keep the peace unbroken on more than one occasion when a war would have been disastrous to the whites.  He was prosperous and successful in his private affairs; nevertheless, in 1779, the restless craving for change and adventure surged so strongly in his breast that it once more drove him forth to wander in the forest.  In the true border temper he determined to abandon the home he had made, and to seek out a new one hundreds of miles farther in the heart of the hunting-grounds of the red warriors.