useless flesh upon his frame to soften the prominent surface of his muscles, and his ample thigh, as he sat upon horseback, showed the working of its texture at each step, as if part of the animal on which he rode. His was one of those iron forms that might be imagined almost bullet-proof. With all these advantages of person there was a radiant, broad good nature upon his face; and the glance of a large, clear, blue eye told of arch thoughts, and of shrewd homely wisdom. A ruddy complexion accorded well with his sprightly but massive features, of which the prevailing expression was such as silently invited friendship and trust. If to these traits be added an abundant shock of yellow, curly hair, terminating in a luxuriant queue, confined by a narrow strand of leather cord, my reader will have a tolerably correct idea of the person I wish to describe.
Robinson had been a blacksmith at the breaking out of the Revolution. He was the owner of a little farm in the Waxhaw settlement on the Catawba, and having pitched his habitation upon a promontory, around whose base the Waxhaw creek swept with a regular but narrow circuit, this locality, taken in connection with his calling, gave rise to a common prefix to his name throughout the neighborhood, and he was therefore almost exclusively distinguished by the sobriquet of Horseshoe Robinson. This familiar appellative had followed him into the army.
The age of Horseshoe was some seven or eight years in advance of that of Butler. On the present occasion his dress was of the plainest and most rustic description: a spherical crowned hat with a broad brim, a coarse gray coatee of mixed cotton and wool, dark linsey-woolsey trousers adhering closely to his leg, hobnailed shoes, and a red cotton handkerchief tied carelessly round his neck with a knot upon his bosom. This costume and a long rifle thrown into the angle of the right arm, with the breech resting on his pommel, and a pouch of deerskin,
