m.

It was not likely that any jail in the western country could hold
Nolichucky Jack overnight. Tipton feared a riot; and it was decided to
send the prisoner for incarceration and trial to Morgantown in North
Carolina, just over the hills.

Tipton did not accompany the guards he sent with Sevier. It was stated
and commonly believed that he had given instructions of which the
honorable men among his friends were ignorant. When the party entered
the mountains, two of the guards were to lag behind with the prisoner,
till the others were out of sight on the twisting trail. Then one of the
two was to kill Sevier and assert that he had done it because Sevier
had attempted to escape. It fell out almost as planned, except that the
other guard warned Sevier of the fate in store for him and gave him
a chance to flee. In plunging down the mountain, Sevier's horse was
entangled in a thicket. The would-be murderer overtook him and fired;
but here again fate had interposed for her favorite. The ball had
dropped out of the assassin's pistol. So Sevier reached Morgantown
in safety and was deposited in care of the sheriff, who was doubtless
cautioned to take a good look at the prisoner and know him for a
dangerous and a daring man.

There is a story to the effect that, when Sevier was arraigned in the
courthouse at Morgantown and presently dashed through the door and away
on a racer that had been brought up by some of his friends, among those
who witnessed the proceedings was a young Ulster Scot named Andrew
Jackson; and that on this occasion these two men, later to become foes,
first saw each other. Jackson may have been in Morgantown at the
time, though this is disputed; but the rest of the tale is pure legend
invented by some one whose love of the spectacular led him far from the
facts. The facts are less theatrical but much more dramatic. Sevier
was not arraigned at all, for no court was sitting in Morgantown at the
time. * The sheriff to whom he was delivered did not need to look twice
at him to know him for a daring man. He had served with him at King's
Mountain. He struck off his handcuffs and set him at liberty at once.
Perhaps he also notified General Charles McDowell at his home in Quaker
Meadows of the presence of a distinguished guest in Burke County, for
McDowell and his brother Joseph, another officer of militia, quickly
appeared and went on Sevier's bond. Nolichucky Jack was presently
holding a court of his own in the