Page:Southern Life in Southern Literature.djvu/108

90 Mary Musgrove, Butler effected his escape, but in a short time was captured by another Tory party.

In the meantime Mildred Lindsay, hearing of Butler s capture through letters brought from him by Horseshoe Robinson, had started from her home at Dove Cote with her brother for Cornwallis' headquarters in the hope of securing her lover's safety. While in Cornwallis camp she learned of Butler's escape and started on her return to Virginia. On her way she met Mary Musgrove and her father, who had been driven from their home and were fleeing to the North, and learned from them of Butler's recapture. Immediately she turned back to follow and join Butler, accompanied by her brother Henry, Horseshoe Robinson, Mary Musgrove, and Allen Musgrove. This party journeyed toward Gilbert-town unconscious of the fact that military developments were bringing the British troops under Ferguson, whose prisoner Butler was, in the same direction. In the meantime, events had been leading up to the battle of King's Mountain, in which the threads of the story are dramatically brought together into an effective climax.]

Towards noon the army reached the neighborhood of King"s Mountain. The scouts and parties of the advance had brought information that Ferguson had turned aside from his direct road and taken post upon this eminence, where, it was evident, he meant to await the attack of his enemy. Campbell, therefore, lost no time in pushing forward and was soon rewarded with a view of the object of his pursuit. Some two or three miles distant, where an opening through the forest first gave him a sight of the mass of highland, he could indistinctly discern the array of the adverse army perched on the very summit of the hill.