For twenty days the Indians hung about the fort, returning again and
again to the attack; but not a man who kept within the walls was even
wounded. It was not so with a man and a boy who, emboldened by a few
days' absence of the Indians, ventured outside to go down to the river.
The man was scalped on the spot; the boy was taken prisoner, and
subjected to a worse fate in one of the Indian villages. His name was
Moore, and he was a younger brother of the lieutenant who fought so
bravely in the battle near Fort Patrick Henry.

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.