They wound their way through the deep defiles and among the towering peaks of the Great Smoky Mountains, descending by passes so precipitous that it was with difficulty the men led down them even such surefooted beasts as their hardy hill-horses.

At last they burst out of the woods and fell like a thunderbolt on the towns of the Erati, nestling in their high gorges.

The Indians were completely taken by surprise; they had never dreamed that they could be attacked in their innermost strongholds, cut off, as they were, from the nearest settlements by vast trackless wastes of woodland and lofty, bald-topped mountain chains.

They had warriors enough to overwhelm Sevier's band by sheer force of numbers, but he gave them no time to gather.

Falling on their main town, he took it by surprise and stormed it, killing thirty warriors and capturing a large number of women and children.