At last, baffled and dispirited, the Indians fell back to the Tellico. They had lost about sixty killed and a larger number wounded, and they had inflicted next to no damage upon the white settlers. They were enraged beyond bounds and thirsting for vengeance. Only two prisoners were in their power; but on them they resolved to wreak their extremest tortures. Young Moore was taken to the village of his captor, high up in the mountains, and there burned at a stake. A like fate was determined upon for good Mrs. Bean, the kindly woman whose hospitable door had ever been open to all, white man or Indian. Oconostota would not have her die; but Dragging-Canoe insisted that she should be offered up as a sacrifice to the _manes_ of his fallen warriors; and the head-king was not powerful enough to prevent it. She was taken to the summit of one of the burial-mounds,--those relics of a forgotten race which are so numerous along the banks of the Tellico. She was tied to a stake, the fagots were heaped about her, and the fire was about to be lighted, when suddenly Nancy Ward appeared among the crowd of savages and ordered a stay of the execution. Dragging-Canoe was a powerful brave, but not powerful enough to combat the will of this woman. Mrs. Bean was not only liberated, but sent back with an honorable escort to her husband. The village in which young Moore was executed was soon visited by Sevier with a terrible retribution; and from that day for twenty years his name was a terror among the Cherokees. Before many months there was a wedding in the fort at Watauga. It was that of John Sevier and the "bonnie Kate," famous to this day for leaping stockades and six-barred fences. He lived to be twelve years governor of Tennessee and the idol of a whole people. She shared all his love and all his honors; but in her highest estate she was never ashamed of her lowly days, and never tired of relating her desperate leap at Watauga; and, even in her old age, she would merrily add, "I would make it again--every day in the week--for such a husband." EDMUND KIRKE. A PLEASANT SPIRIT. It was drawing toward nine o'clock, and symptoms of closing for the night were beginning to manifest themselves in Mr. Pegram's store. The few among the nightly loungers there who had still a remnant of domestic conscience left had already risen from boxes and "kags," and gathered up the pound packages of sugar and coffee which had served as the pretext for their coming, but which would not, alas! sufficiently account for the length of their stay. The older stagers still sat composedly in the seats of honor immediately surrounding the red-hot stove, and a look of disapproval passed over their faces as Mr. Pegram, opening the door and thereby letting in a blast of cold air upon their legs, proceeded to put up the outside shutters.