317.] Other outrages followed, throughout the month.

Sevier as usual came to the rescue of the angered settlers.

He gathered a couple of hundred mounted riflemen, and made one of his swift retaliatory inroads.

His men were simply volunteers, for there was no money in the country treasury with which to pay them or provide them with food and provisions; it was their own quarrel, and they furnished their own services free, each bringing his horse, rifle, ammunition, blanket, and wallet of parched corn.

Naturally such troops made war purely according to their own ideas, and cared nothing whatever for the commands of those governmental bodies who were theoretically their superiors.