until 17<'>5. In the South the very Cherokee who had
acted a^ allies of the British against Fort DuQuesne, and had volun-
tarily offered to guard the frontier south of the Potomac, returned
to rouse their tribe to resistance.
The immediate exciting cause of the trouble was an unfortunate expe-
dition undertaken against the hostile Shawano in February, L756, by
Major Andrew Lewi-- (the same who had built Fort Loudon) withsome
two hundred Virginia troops assisted by about one hundred Cherokee.
After -i\ weeks of fruitless tramping through tin' woods, with the
ground covered with snow and the streams s,, swollen by rains that
they lost their provisions and ammunition in crossing, they were obliged
to return to the settlements in a starving condition, having killed their
horses on the way. The Indian contingent had from the first been
disgusted atthe contempt and neglect experienced from those whom
they had conn 1 to assist. The Tuscarora and others had already gone
home, and the Cherokee now started to return on foot to their own
country. Finding some horses running loose on the range, they
appropriated them, on the theory that as they had lost their own
animals, to say nothing of having risked their lives, in the service
of the colonists, it was only a fair exchange. The frontiersmen
took another view of the question however, attacked the returning
Cherokee, and killed a number of them, variously stated at from
twelve to forty, including several of their prominent men. Accord-
ing to Adair they also scalped and mutilated the bodies in the savage
fashion to which they had become accustomed in the border wars, and
bi'ought the scalps into the