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No leader could stand against them, and in a little while they had wasted
all the lower settlements and advanced into the mountains.
The warriors of the old town of Nikwasi', on the head of Little
Tennessee, gathered their wives and children into the townhouse and kept
scouts constantly on the lookout for the presence of danger. One morning
just before daybreak the spies saw the enemy approaching and at once gave
the alarm.
The Nikwasi' men seized their arms and rushed out to meet the attack, but
after a long, hard fight they found themselves overpowered and began to
retreat, when suddenly a stranger stood among them and shouted to the
chief to call off his men and he himself would drive back the enemy. From
the dress and language of the stranger the Nikwasi' people thought him a
chief who had come with reinforcements from the Overhill settlements in
Tennessee.
They fell back along the trail, and as they came near the townhouse they
saw a great company of warriors coming out from the side of the mound as
through an open doorway. Then they knew that their friends were the
Nûñnë'hï, the Immortals, although no one had ever heard before that they
lived under Nikwasi' mound.
The Nûñnë'hï poured out by hundreds, armed and painted for the fight, and
the most curious thing about it all was that they became invisible as soon
as they were fairly outside of the settlement, so that although the enemy
saw the glancing arrow or the rushing tomahawk, and felt the stroke, he
could not see who sent it.
Before such invisible foes the invaders soon
had to retreat, going first south along the ridge to where joins the main
ridge which separates the French Broad from the Tuckasegee, and then
turning with it to the northeast. As they retreated they tried to shield
themselves behind rocks and trees, but the Nûñnë'hï arrows went around the
rocks and killed them from the other side, and they could find no hiding
place.
All along the ridge they fell, until when they reached the head of
Tuckasegee not more than half a dozen were left alive, and in despair they
sat down and cried out for mercy. Ever since then the Cherokee have called
the place Dayûlsûñ'yï, "Where they cried."
Then the Nûñnë'hï chief told
them they had deserved their punishment for attacking a peaceful tribe,
and he spared their lives and told them to go home and take the news to
their people. This was the Indian custom, always to spare a few to carry
back the news of defeat. They went home toward the north and the Nûñnë'hï
went back to the mound.
And they are still there, because, in the last war, when a strong party of
Federal troops came to surprise a handful of Confederates posted there
they saw so many soldiers guarding the town that they were afraid and went
away without making an attack.
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