Now and again, however, the Highlander
contrived to throw himself prone upon the ground, thus effectually
hampering their progress and requiring the utmost exertions of all three
to lift his great frame. The patience of the Indians seemed illimitable;
again and again they performed this feat, only to renew it at the
distance of a few hundred yards.
At length the fact was divined by MacVintie. More than the ordinary fear
of capture animated Attusah of Kanootare. Colonel Grant's treatment of
his prisoners was humane as the laws of war require. Moreover, his
authority, heavily reinforced by threats of pains and penalties, had
sufficed, except in a few instances, to restrain the Chickasaw allies of
the British from wreaking their vengeance on the captive Cherokees in
the usual tribal method of fire and torture. The inference was obvious.
Attusah of Kanootare was particularly obnoxious to the British
government, the civil as well as the military authorities, and fleeing
from death himself, he intended at all hazards to prevent the escape of
his prisoner, who would give the alarm, and inaugurate pursuit from the
party of the ensign.
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