The next moment, with a ringing shout and a smartly delivered volley of musketry the Highlanders flung themselves from out the mouth of the ravine. The Cherokee horsemen were going down like so many ten-pins. The first detachment of reinforcements set up a wild shout of joy to perceive the support, then flung themselves on their knees to load while a second volley from the Highlanders passed over their heads. The rear-guard had formed anew, faced about, and were advancing in the opposite direction. The Cherokee horsemen, almost surrounded, gave way; the fire of the others in ambush wavered, slackened, became only a dropping shot here and there, then sunk to silence. And the woods were filled with a wild rout, with the irregular musketry of the troops frenzied with sudden success, out of line, out of hearing, out of reason as they pursued the unmounted savages, dislodged at last from their masked position; with the bugles blowing, the bag-pipes playing; with the unheard, disregarded orders shouted by the officers; with that thrilling cry of the Highlanders “Claymore! Claymore!” the sun flashing on their drawn broadswords as they gained on the flying Indians, themselves as fleet;--a confused, disordered panorama of shadows and sunlight, of men in red coats and men in blue, and men in tartan, and savage Chickasaws and Cherokees in their wild barbaric array. It had been desired that the repulse should be fierce and decisive, the pursuit bloody and relentless. The supply train represented the life of the army, and it was essential to deter the Cherokees from readily renewing the attack on so vital a point. But these ends compassed, every effort of the officers was concentrated on the necessity of recalling the scattered parties. Night was coming on; it was a strange and an alien country; the skulking Cherokees were doubtless in force somewhere in the dense coverts of the woods, and the vicarious terrors of the capture that menaced the valorous and venturesome soldiers began to press heavily upon the officers. Again and again the bugles summoned the stragglers, the rich golden notes drifting through the wilderness, rousing a thousand insistent echoes from many a dumb rock thus endowed with a voice. Certain of the more solicitous officers sent out, with much caution, small details, gathering together the stragglers as they went.