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Simon Girty

"THE WHITE SAVAGE."

(So called by Heekewelder, Moravian Missionary.)

A ROMANCE OF THE BORDER

CHARLES Mcknight, '^' v :^ • ^ "i 'V U

Author of "Our Western Border," "Old Fort Duquesne," &c., &c.

" The outlawed white man, by Ohio's flood,
Whose vengeance shamed the Indian's thirst for blood;
Whose hellish arts surpassed the redman's far:
Whose hate enkindled many a border war,
Of which each aged grandame hath a tale
At which man's bosom burns and childhood's cheek grows pale.'

PUBLISHED BY

J. C. MeCURDY & CO.,

PHILADELPHIA, CHICAGO, ST. LOUIS, and CINCINNATI.

'^W-

t:^'

BY CHAS. Mcknight.
1880.

PREFACE.

But few words are needed to explain the purpose of the
following work. F'or nearly a score of years Simon Girty figured
with a bad preeminence on our Western Border. From his
renegade flight from Fort Pitt (now Pittsburgh), in 1778, down
to " Mad Anthony " Wayne's battle of the Fallen Timbers in
1794, when the power and coherence of the Ohio Indian tribes
were forever broken, Girty and his brothers were the scourge
of the border. The dreaded name was a terror in every frontier
cabin, the mere mention of which would cause woman's cheek to
blanch and children's hair to stand with fear.

It is a common saying that the " Devil is not so black as he is
painted," and so with Simon Girty. The author discovered by
carefully sifting border chronicles and pioneer stories, and through
correspondence with those best posted in that branch of American
history, that Girty had really a double character ; that he was not
all or always bad, but possessed many redeeming traits, and that for
many of the atrocities and massacres of which for long years he
has stood the reputed author, he was in no wise or only partially
to blame. He was, it is true, a thorough savage, both by nature
and training, but he was also brave and honest, and at times when
not enraged or maddened by liquor, amiable and good-hearted,
performing many kind and humane actions.

Especially did the author find a hitherto unsuspected vein of
romance running through the desperado's life — that he had once
truly loved and tenderly married. Kate Malott, his wife, was
said to have been once the prettiest girl in Detroit. The know-
ledge thus gained of Girty, so different from the accepted version
of his life and character, the author has sought to utilize, painting
the man in his true colors, and giving him whatever benefit he
deserves — '' nothing extenuating, nor setting down aught in
malice."

The author has aimed in this historical romance not only to
please but to instruct, faithfully following border history, written
and unwritten. All the chief characters had once a veritable
existence, and in no case has he, for the sake of dramatic effect
wittingly done any violence to truth or probability. He is
aware that by thus weaving into his fiction frequent passages
which more properly belong to the historian, he endangers the
interest of the story, and trammels, as it were, its free action; but
his desire has solely been to dress history to advantage, and to
cover its dry details with a drapery of romantic interest.

And thus, he trusts, he has given his simple story more sub-
stance and realism than is ordinary with fictions, and that, in the
opinion of the sensible and judicious, what he may have lost in
exciting interest, he will have gained in historic information. As
to the rest, readers must judge.

CONTENTS,

CHAPTER. PAGE.

I. — The Frontier at the close of the Revolution . . 9

II. — The Massacre op the Moravians 11

III. — A Boating Party of "Ye Olden Time." 13

IV. — Who composed the Boating Party 16

V. — Arrival of the Girls at Pittsburgh 20

VI. — A Rifle Match between Noted Scouts 25

VII. — Larry's Fight with a Buck Elk 29

VIII. — Mrs. Malott relates her Sad Story 32

IX. — An Indian Attack on Emigrant Boats 35

X. — The Arrival at Fort McIntosh 41

XI. — A Fire-Hunt on the Big Beaver 46

XII. — How Larry "Tatthered" a Buck 51

XIII. — Larry makes a Funny Mistake 54

XIV. — A Strange sight at Big Yellow Creek 57

XV. — Complete Success of the Indian Decoy 62

XVI.— Captain Brady and the Birch Stealers 66

XVII. — The Redskins try a Successful Dodge 69

XVIII. — The Ark Boarded by Captain Pipe's Party. ... 72

XIX. — Simon Girty " Puts in an Appearance." 77

XX. — Lydia Boggs creates a Sensation 83

XXI. — Captains Girty and Brady have a Meet .... 85

6 CONTENTS.

CHAPTER. PAGE.

XXII. — Larry hob-nobs with Blackhoof 90

XXIII. — Mrs. Malott has a Revelation 93

XXIV. — Girty prepares to attack another Boat ... 98

XXV. — A Desperate Conflict on the Ohio 102

XXVI — Captain Brady has a Trying Ordeal 105

XXVII. — A Most Mysterious Encounter 108

XXVIII. — The Poe's great fight with "Big Foot." . . 11 1

XXIX. — Adam Poe finishes the Story 117

XXX. — The Poe Party take Girty's Trail 120

XXXI. — The "Hermit of the Big Yellow." 124

XXXII. — A Quartette of Famous Scouts 128

XXXIII. — Lydia Boggs makes a New Sensation 131

XXXIV.— Simon Girty 134

XXXV. — A Curious Confession of Girty 138

XXXVI. — Girty in Love with Kate Malott 142

XXXVII. — Confidential Chat between Friends 145

XXXVIII. — Larry becomes a " Big Medicine." 149

XXXIX. — Larry as an Orator and Wizard 152

XL. — Larry offered a Father and a Wife .... 155

XLI. — Larry's Lone Scout and its Results 160

XLII. — Another Mazeppa — Fate of Fat Bear .... 163

XLIII. — Mrs. Malott and the Little Decoys .... 166

XLIV. — Girty ambushes Brady's Scouts 170

XLV. — A Desperate Struggle 174

XL VI. — " The Combat Deepens ; On, Ye Braves ! " . . 177

XL VII. — A Fierce Conflict between two Old Foes. . 180

CONTENTS. 7
CHAPTER. PAGE.

XLVIII. — The Death of Old Uncle Josh 185

XLIX. — Girty and Brady have a Trial of Wits ... 193

1j. — Off to Gnadenhutten, ("Tents of Grace.") 198

LI. — The Meet of the two Bands of Scouts . . . 205

LII. — Simon Kenton's Thrilling Exploits 207

LIII. — Brady makes a New Acquaintance 211

LIV. — The Massacre at Gnadenhutten 214

LV. — The Massacre at Gnadenhutten 218

LVI. — A Visit to the " Slaughter Houses." .... 222

LVII.~The Scouts "Take Up" a Hot Trail. ... 227

LVIII. — The Scouts come upon Girty's Camp 232

LIX. — Killbuck's Fate — A "Fancy" Chief. .... 237

LX. — Betty Zane's Ruse — Killbuck's Fate 240

LXI. — Killbuck's Torture and Flight 244

LXII. — The Prisoners freed and Girty's Rage. . . 249

LXIII. — The Combat Opens — Girty's Ambush. .... 253

LXIV. — Two Desperate Encounters — The Hermit cone. 258

LXV. — After the Battle — Homeward Bound .... 262

LXVI. — A Stag Hunt — " Mad Ann Bailey.". .... 266

LXVII. — Lydia Boggs and Colonel Eb. Zane 269

LXVIII. — Larry comes out as a Lover 273

LXIX. — Larry reviews the Situation 278

LXX. — Larry " Wanders by the Brook Side." . . . . 281

LXXL — The " Hermit " dragged to Torture .... 286

LXXII. — Mrs. Malott makes a strange Discovery . . 290

LXXni. — A Happy Family Reunion 294

8 CONTENTS.

CHAPTER. PAGE.

LXXIV. — The Hermit's Story — Kate Malott 297

LXXV.— The Hermit Calls on his Old Foe 302

LXXVI. — A Strange but happy Family Reunion. . . . 305

LXXVII. — ^A Grand Council, and what came of It. . . 308

LXXVIII. — The Grand Council Concluded — Its Results. 311

LXXIX. — A Grand Old-Time Circular Hunt 314

LXXX. — The Hunt draws near — Stirring Scenes . . 318

LXXXI. — A Love Passage and its Issue. 327

LXXXII. — A Grand Border Muster and Battle. . . , 330

LXXXIII. — A Retreat and a Battle — Crawford Missing. 333

LXXXIV. — Colonel Crawford's Capture and Adventures 335

LXXXV. — Colonel Crawford's Awful Tortures .... 338

LXXXVI. — Dr. Knight's Escape — Slover's Adventures . 342

LXXX VII. — Slover's Mad Ride — Wetzell's Running Fight 345

LXXXVIII. — A Strange Chief alarms Fort Henry . . . 348

LXXXIX. — Larry's escape as told by himself 352

XC. — Story of Larry's escape continued 358

XCI. — The Battle of the Blue Licks 362

XCII. — Death of McCulloch — Lew Wetzell's Feats. 365

XCIII. — Simon Girty lays siege to Fort Henry . . 369

XCIV. — Girty and Larry have a Tilt 372

XCV. — Simon Girty encounters Lydia Bogcs. ... 376

XCVI. — Girty's Novel Cannon — Betty Zane's Feat . 380

XCVII. — Larry catches a Tartar — Siege Raised, . . 384

XC VIII.— Conclusion 387

SIMON GIRTY,

*'THE WHITE savage:

CHAPTER I.

THE FRONTIER AT THE CLOSE OF THE REVOLUTION.

Our narrative opens on the bright and beautiful morning of Maj
15th, 1782, and at the little frontier post of Fort Pitt, but just then
beginning to take the general name of Pittsburgh. There was an un-
wonted stir and bustle apparent about the Fort, and along the steep
and broken banks which converged towards the junction of the Alle-
gheny and Monongahela. The clear sky was at that early period but
little stained by any smoky impurity. The air was full of the deli-
cious freshness of Spring — fragrant with odors of shrub, tree and flower
wafted from the surrounding woods. But one little level between the
rivers had as yet been wrested from the dominion of Nature, while the
swift and abounding rivers with their steeps and swells of verdure
seemed to crowd this little wedge of land, as if begrudging to the
stranger "pale-face" even that narrow spot.

It must be confessed, that never had gem — whether of man's or
Nature's fashioning — a m.ore glorious "setting." The lofty hills and
billowy slopes that so remarkably hem in and envelop the three rivers
which make the pride of Western Pennsylvania, were clad from base
to summit with the greenest and most luxuriant foliage, just then ex-
panding into the full rich leaf— no break, but by the waters, of this
all-pervading verdure. Under the bright canopies of oak, maple, hick-
ory, walnut and tulip trees, with their fresh and mottled tints, the
red-bud, the dog-wood and the service-berry were just going out of
blossom, while the dewy ground and leafy shades were fairly enamelled
with wild flowers, or fragrant with blossoming vines and shrubs.

All this exuberant prodigality of leafage, as well as the flocks of
swans and water birds, the gushing notes of the various songsters, and
the rapid sweeps and plungings to and fro of birds of prey, betokened
the full advent of joyous spring. One could breathe it in the balmy
air, hear it in the strong rush of waters and melodies of birds, scent
it on all the odor-laden breezes from the woods, and feel it in the
bounding pulse and elastic step.

Not even one full century — brief period in a nation's history — has
passed since that gay morn, and yet we fear it would be a most diffi-

lO SIMON GIRTY.

cult task for one of the busy traffickers of the Pittsburgh of to-day,
with all its hum and clangor and turmoil of multiform industries;
with its jostling throngs of anxious workers ; its long stretches of
rattling mills and work-shops, and its dingy streets daring the steep
inclines or crowding over the tops of the surrounding hills, to even
picture in imagination that shabby and obscure little hamlet of the
Revolution.

Let us attempt, kind reader, by a few suggestive mentionings, to
aid your struggling fancy. Close your eyes but for a little, and strive
to picture to yourself what was the " day of small things" with the
great and opulent city of the present. — Although the surrender of
Cornwallis, at Yorktown, occurred in the October previous— six long
years after the bloody opening of the Revolution at Lexington — it
brought only the promise of peace to our torn and exhausted country.
If it excited hope and occasioned a cessation of hostilities east of the
mountains, the Western frontier had for many a long year yet — and
with its own hardy yeomanry unaided by the regular military — to wage
a fierce and unintermittent war with banded savages. As regularly as
the year came in, and as soon as the snows vanished sufficiently to en-
able the Indian to take the trail, were the Pennsylvania, Virginia
and Kentucky borders scourged by the cruel, ruthless savage, sparing
neither sex, age nor condition. Artfully scattering into small preda-
tory bands, they would come like thieves in the night, smiting, scalp-
ing and destroying.

Fort Pitt was then the Western centre of American operations, as
Detroit was of British. All between these two hostile and opposing
posts— with the exception of the three neutral Moravian towns on the
Muskingum — was Indian country. It embraced every foot of the re-
gion west of the Allegheny river and north of the Ohio, and was over-
run by roaming, outlying war parties of Shawnees, Delawares, Min-
goes, and Wyandotts — a confederation of North-Western tribes which
received their arms, ammunition, scalp-bounties and inspiration from
the British commander Hamilton, or — after his capture — De Peyster,
at Detroit. Desirous of keeping the Indians neutral during the war,
and of giving them no Just cause of offence, the American government
had forbidden all from occupying, or even traveling through this In-
dian country. If any scouted or hunted there, they did it as open
enemies and at their own peril — ready to shoot or be shot at from be-
hind each tree which could shelter a man.

It was not until 1784 that the western side of the Allegheny river
up to the Ohio State-line was secured, and not until 1794, when ''Mad
Anthony Wayne " fought the Confederate Tribes and British Captains
at the " Fallen Timbers," forever breaking their power, that Ohio was
gained to our young Republic by the treaty of Greenville.

In 1782, then, Pittsburgh was nothing but Fort Pitt, with a stretch
of low, rude log-cabins — occupied chiefly by Indian traders — along the
Monongahela river, and behind this, patches of more scattered and
more imposing houses from Ferry up to Market street. Just this little
spot won from the encircling forests — that was all. Where now stands
the populous city of Allegheny, with its 60,000 souls, was then a vast
solitude of 3,000 acres of unbroken wilderness, with its hanging wild-

THE MASSACRE OF THE MORAVIANS. II

hop and grape-vines; its matted undergrowth of pea-vines and bram-
bles ; groves of oak, cherry and walnut, with a rippling little stream
meandering its blithesome way through to the Allegheny, opposite
Smoky Island.*

CHAPTER 11.

THE MASSACRE OF THE MORAVIANS.

Fort Pitt itself had had a varied and eventful history. It was the
successor of the old French Fort Duquesne, of which we have, in an-
other work, written at length. When the French, at the approach of
General Forbes' army in November, 1758, evacuated their snug and
comfortable quarters, they left but a heap of smouldering ruins,
and the stacks of some thirty chimnies ; an old magazine stored with
ball, powder and scalping-knives alone serving to mark its site. A
temporary square stockade for two hundred men was built and left in
charge of Col. Hugh Mercer — who afterwards fell at Princeton — which
was succeeded the next year by the more imposing and formidable
Fort Pitt, built under the direction of General Stanwix, and at first
taking his name. It cost, says Breckenridge, ^300,000, and accord-
ing to an official letter of the time, was intended to "perpetuate Brit-
ish power" at that point. Not even a relic of it remains. The block
house which yet stands strong and staunch, loop-holes for musketry
plainly visible, wasbuilt ^^/Ir^V/^of Fort Pitt by Colonel Bouquet in 1764.

♦ General Washington, who took canoe at Pittsburgh in 1770, on his way to the
Kanawha to examine and locate lands, and who was entertained at Fort Pitt, writes
in his journal : " We lodged in what is called the town, distant about three hundred
yards from the fort, at one Samples, who keeps a very good house of public enter-
tainment. The houses, which are built of logs and ranged in streets, are on the Mo-
nongahela, and, I suppose, may be about twenty in number, and inhabited by Indian
traders."

Arthur Lee, an aristocratic Virginia gentleman fresh from Europe, who visited the
place in '84, two years after the time of our story, writes thus : '' Pittsburgh is inhab-
ited almost entirely by Scots and Irish, who live in paltry log- houses, and are as dir-
ty as in the north of Ireland, or even Scotland. There are in the town four attorneys,
two doctors, and not a priest of any persuasion, nor church nor chapel, so that they
are likely to be damned without the benefit of clergy. The rivers encroach fast upon
the banks. The place, I believe, will never be very considerable."

And yet Lee was not so far wrong in his unfavorable opinion of this military-
trading post. It had at that time little but its incomparable surroundings to recom-
mend it. Many others who paid to it a passing visit, or came out with the purpose
of settling there, were no better pleased. Although there were more houses of pre-
tension and comfort, and many more persons of culture and position then resident
there than Lee wot of, the mass of the inhabitants were rough and uncouth, fond of
low sports, addicted to the bottle, and caring nothing for letters or religion. Num-
bers of well-to-do Eastern emigrants, people of worth and standing, preferred set-
tling in or about Washington, Pa., believing it had far better prospects for future
growth and prominence than Pittsburgh itself. Washington county was even then
pretty well occupied with a fine, sturdy, independent class of God-fearing Scotch-
Irish, having three excellent Presbyterian ministers at work ; possessing churches
and thrifty congregations, a Latin School, and an embryo Theological Seminary es-
tablished near Canonsburg, as, also, many residents of education and high respecta-
bility.

12 SIMON GIRTY.

In 1772, SO little were hostilities apprehended, that the British Gen-
eral Gage advised the abandonment of the fort. It was dismantled,
and part of it sold off, though not destroyed, but was soon afterwards
occupied by the mischievous and turbulent Dr. Connolly, and by or-
der of Gov. Dunmore, of Virginia. During the Revolution, it was
at first occupied by Virginia troops, and then by Continentals, succes-
sively under Gens. Hand, Broadhead, and Gen. Wm. Irvine, who was
appointed to its command by Washington during November, 1781.

Irvine was a tried and skillful officer, of approved courage and
prudence, and was carefully selected by Washington as the best fitted
to restore order out of chaos, and to heal the dissensions in the West-
ern department. On his arrival at that post he found matters in a
most deplorable state. The command was fearfully demoralized ; its
soldiers were dirty, idle, almost starved and most wretchedly dressed.
He found the fort, to use his own words, but a heap of ruins, and
urged the location of a new one on the Ohio at McKee's Rocks. Every
department immediately underwent a strict scrutiny and reform, and
under the efficient aid of Major Rose, his aid-de-camp, and Major
Isaac Craig, of the artillery — both thorough business men — matters
soon began to wear a changed aspect.

The General found, too, the whole frontier in a very excited and
discontented state. On account of the constant harassment by In-
dians; the failure of Clark's and Gibson's expeditions, and the almost
total annihilation of Col. Archibald Lochry's command of over one
hundred of the very bravest and foremost riflemen of Westmoreland
county, there existed universal gloom and dismay.

But this was not all, nor the worst. As Doddridge in his Notes
says: "It would seem that the long continuance of the Indian war
had debased a considerable portion of our population to the savage
state. Having lost so many relatives by the Indians, and witnessed
their horrid murders and other depredations upon so extensive a scale,
they became subjects of that indiscriminating thirst for revenge, which
is such a prominent feature in the savage character." About Decem-
ber, 1 781, General Irvine revisited the East to consult with the Gov-
ernment and Washington as to the state of his department. Return-
ing to Fort Pitt on the 25th of March, 1782, he found the inhabitants,
as he wrote to headquarters,- "in great confusion, and in a fit of
frenzy."

On account of the mild winter, the scalping savages were astir as
early as February, and crossing the Ohio above and below Mingo
Town, (near what is now Steubenville) had committed some murders
and taken many captives on Racoon and Buffalo creeks, Washington
county. Soon after, Colonel Williamson led a band of about a hun-
dred men to the attack of the Moravian towns on the Muskingum,
and, first deceiving them so as to get possession of their arms, they
drove the inpocent Christian Indians into what they appropriately
called "slaughterhouses" — the men into one, and the women and
children into another. After mature deliberation, and giving their
victims a night in which to prepare for death by praying and singing
hymns, they coolly and pitilessly proceeded to massacre them under
conditions of unparalleled atrocity, killing forty-one men, twenty-one

A BOATING PARTY OF "YE OLDEN TIME. IJ,

■women and thirty-four children. It was a horrible and most cowardly
butchery, totally without excuse and terrible in its results.

The very day Irvine returned to Fort Pitt, these miscreants, marching
homewards from their hellish saturnalia of blood — in which they even
instructed the savages themselves in deeds of horrid cruelty — pro-
ceeded to Smoky Island, lying in the Allegheny directly opposite the
Fort, and made an attack on some friendly Indians under Killbuck,
killing a number, with two Indian captains, and compelling the rest
to take refuge in the Fort. An officer's guard from the garrison was
on the island at the very time, which either connived at tiie dastardly
outrage, or else did not dare to interfere.

The murderers even wanted to kill Col. Gibson himself, one of the
most trusted leaders and best Indian fighters on the border, and sim-
ply because, for the sake of good faith and humanity, he endeavored
to protect the Moravians and friendly Delawares from cowardly out-
rage. The tragedy was fitly concluded by its perpetrators having a
vendue, at Pittsburgh, of the Indian property — horses, guns, blankets,
&:c. — stolen from the massacred Moravians.

CHAPTER III.

A BOATING PARTY OF " YE OLDEN TIME."

Before diverging on our little side ramble, we stated that on a fair
May morn there appeared an unusual stir about the junction of the
Allegheny and Monongahela. Just at the very meet of the two streams,
and bending far over their contending and differently-hued currents,
stood a great sycamore — with its whitened trunk and lofty coronal of
tender foliage — long noted as a trysting place for the village lovers.
Under its favoring shadows, the tiny waves plashing among its naked
and gnarled roots, many a story of requited love had been softly
breathed and sealed.

But just now it served a far different, if not more useful purpose.
Moored close to its towering stem, and gently swaying hither and yon,
as the currents tautened or slackened the casting line, swung what was
called a "broad horn," or "Kantuck Boat," used then, but far more
generally in after years, for conveying emigrants and merchandise
down the Ohio. It took different shape and size, according to the
number of persons or character of freightage, and whether or not it
was a time of Indian hostilities. Sometimes it resembled a common
fiat-boat, in having no siding above the gunwale. Sometimes the
curved stern "sweep" which guided, and the rowing "sweeps" which
propelled the clumsy craft, were operated from the deck, the boat look-
ing like some huge and unwieldy box adrift upon the current, having
neither "rake " of bow nor comeliness of shape.

Again, if hostilities from Indians were expected, the steering oar
and sweeps projected through holes just above the gunwale line, those
operating them being wholly under cover; and still again, as in the
present instance, the sides and roof extended only two-thirds of the
boat's length, the stem of the steering-oar being under cover, and the

SIMON GIPTY.

two side sweeps near the bow, and light enough to be worked by seated
rowers, a simple broad plank having been fastened above the gunwale
on the Indian or Ohio side. The Virginia shore, as it had been for
some time open to squatters and settlers and was sparsely occupied as
far as Grave Creek, was called the " Federal," or " civilized " side,
and considered comparatively safe from hostile bullets.

Our boat — as we may well so call it, since it was to convey our
chief characters — was about forty feet long and twelve broad ; sided
and roofed with sawed timber ; lighted with windows of greased pa-
per; the roof curved a little over a raised ridge board, so as to shed
the rain, and had a light canoe of birchen bark floating at its side.
It stood among a number of canoes, piroques, batteaux and flat-boats,
ranged along the beach of both rivers. All morning, tradesmen and
their white and black assistants, dressed in the buckskin breeches and
flapped vests of the day, or, in many instances in the leggins and
moccasins of the western scout, had been loading up with a variety of
articles needed at a frontier settlement — flour, whiskey, groceries, dry
goods and hardware ; while soldiers from the fort hard by, had brought
down a supply of flints, powder and muskets.

And now appeared, coming down the steep road that led to Orms-
by's Ferry, five fine horses — two of them having ladies' saddles — and
all in charge of a huge, brawny, double-fisted " son of Erin," with
good-humored phiz, and hair of a pronounced sanguinary hue, whom
all seemed to know as " Larry." He had on the well-known breeches,
woolen hose„ square shoes, and other habiliments even now used in
his country, for your Irishman is profoundly contemptuous of fash-
ion's changes. He was evidently — ^judging by the smiles and good-
humored chaffing which greeted his progress to the boat — "a charac-
ter," and a very popular one at that.

Now, a decided stir is caused among the growing crowd by the
snortings and affected starts and prancings of a spirited and daintily-
stepping thoroughbred — led by a groom in fort uniform — and known
all over the town as the " Major's Black Bess." It was a blooded
mare of great stride and power, famed as the finest and fleetest horse
on the border, and owned by Major John Rose, General Irvine's
trusted aid-de-camp. The fact, now first made manifest, that the Ma-
jor and his horse were to embark, seemed to excite much curiosity and
comment.

It really appeared as if all the idlers in the town, and all the sol-
diers of Fort Pitt were most vitally interested in seeing those six
horses coaxed or driven on board the Ark. The former crowded the
beach and its overhanging bluff, and the latter thronged the river
ramparts, while Larry's shouts, expostulations, and earnest wheedlings
with his horses, were greeted with many laughs and cheers. Here
were gathered all the Water ■sX\t&\. gamins fresh from their " taws " and
hustle cap. There were the two darky Bens — Jones and Richards, and
General Neville's " black Andy," the best marble-players of the town.
Here stood a group of tall, blanketed and solemn-looking Indians,
Killbuck at the head ; and there, another group of noted hunters and
Indian trackers — Lieutenant Harding, old French Lesnett and squint-
ing Tommy Roach.

A BOATING PARTY OF ''YE OLDEN TIME."

The horses at length safely in the Ark, all is now ready for the pas-
sengers and soon these approach the beach, attended by quite a large
and noisy procession of ladies, officers, and prominent citizens, gayly
laughing and chatting together.

First came Gen. Irvine himself, a fine, portly and noble-looking
officer, in the very prime of life — every inch a soldier — and escorting
Drusilla Swearingen, a young Virginia lady of winning beauty, and
quiet, refined deportment. Colonel George Morgan, the distinguished
Indian agent — so much respected by the Delawares for his justice and
integrity as to be universally called Tamanend, after their greatest chief
— walked behind, having on his arm Mrs. Catharine Malott, a plainly-
dressed and very sad-looking lady of apparently forty years. She
walked with eyes cast down, the traces of great suffering plainly visible
in her wasted form and anxious, troubled face. Her sad story seemed
well-known to most, and was not an unfrequent one on the border ;
and, as she moved feebly along, she was accompanied by whispered
words and a general look of sym^pathy.

Next came Major Rose, a rather slight, natty-looking officer, dressed
with great care and neatness, and with a certain air of precisian but
well-bred courtliness, about him — evidently, both by look and speech,
a foreigner, but a brave and gallant gentleman, and greatly esteemed
of all. We shall know much more of him in the near future, and
nothing to his hurt. By his side, engaged in a very animated and
sprightly conversation, walked, or rather tripped, Elizabeth Zane,>a
young Wheeling lady of some nineteen years, with a shapely figure,
flashing eye, and lovely face. She seemed full of life and spirit, and
was at once carrying on a lively exchange of repartee with those in
front, behind, and with the grave and thoughtful officer by her
side.

And now follows a succession of officers and citizens, with ladies :
Major Isaac Craig, of Proctor's artillery, and Cols. Gibson, Gist,
Butler, Bayard and Neville. These, as well as the prominent citizens
in company — Judge Duncan, Deveraux Smith and Hugh H. Brecken-
ridge, wore their own hair, either queued or plaited down their backs,
the fashion of wigs and powder having then gone out of date.

After these came a trio which seemed to create quite a sensation
among all on-lookers — a small and proud-stepping girl, of lithe figure
and very graceful carriage, with a rich, mellow voice and laughing
eyes, and certainly of not over seventeen years, flanked by two stal-
wart and resolute-looking young men, dressed in full as scouts, with
moccasins, leggings and fringed hunting-shirts. She, too, was rather
oddly clad even for that frontier region of free and easy manners,
where the dress was chosen for use and fitness, rather than for modish
show. She had come on horseback all the way from Fort Henry,
(now Wheeling), riding her nag astride, wearing fringed leggings of
the finest dressed fawn-skin. Her little feet were encased in gaily-
embroidered moccasins ; a narrow fillet of wampum about her brow
confined her jetty curls, while a tunic of rich blue cloth, belted close
to the waist, served to display her graceful proportions. Her walk,
appearance and conversation showed her a person of unusual nerve
and energy, while a certain amusing positiveness of gesture and down-

1 6 SIMON GIRTY.

lightness of speech, rendered her very attractive. She was full of
" snap " and mettle, and the very girl for the border.

This young backwoods beauty was none other than Lydia Boggs,
and her remarkable life, both before and for long, long after the time
she now comes before us, clearly revealed her as a woman of wondrous
force and courage. Her attendants were young Moses Shepherd, of
Wheeling Creek, and Capt. Brady, the most prominent scout of the
upper Ohio. As these three thus closed the procession, and lightly
sprang upon the ark, it was hard to restrain the expressions of admira-
tion excited among all spectators.

After a pleasant and noisy parting, the Misses Boggs, Zane and
Swearingen, with Messrs. Shepherd, Rose and Brady, were fairly on
board and mounted on the roof. Mrs. Malott was sitting solitary in
the little cabin, while Larry Donohue and Killbuck, the Indian steers-
man, were at their places, the former in the bow, rigging the oars, and
the latter inside with hand on the rudder.

All being now ready, the line was cast off, and the rude and clumsy
"Broadiiorn " drifted lazily out until fairly caught by the rapid cur-
rent. Now the garrison band was ranged along the shore, a gun was
fired from the fort, and 'mid the waving of hands, the cheers of those
on the bank answered by those on the deck, the enlivening strains of
music and salvos of artillery, which filled the surrounding hills with
reverberating roar, the ark floated rapidly past Smoky Island and soon
drifted out into the broad and majestic Ohio.

CHAPTER IV.

WHO COMPOSED THE BOATING PARTY.

And now, while our boat's company are thus grouped upon the
deck, in busy survey of or animated conversation on the sylvan
beauty of the shifting panorama ; the free and joyous laugh of fresh
young girlhood awaking the woodland echoes on either shore, it is
high time we should briefly introduce them to our readers. They are
well worthy of your acquaintance, for surely no braver men or more
charming women then lived on the border, from old Redstone down
to the Kanawha. And simply because we can dismiss them earliest,
we must be ungallant enough to present the gentlemen first.

About Major Rose there was ever an inscrutable mystery. His face,
dress, accent and manners all betokened the well-bred foreign gentle-
man, and yet here he was on a distant outpost, contentedly filling his
daily routine of duties, and doing it, too, well and thoroughly. Neat
in his attire, courteous in his manner, quick to conceive and prompt
to execute, and withal, a thorough and exact business man, he was
everybody's favorite, but an especial protege of General Irvine. Rose
had occasional seasons of gloom, at which times he would withdraw
himself from company, and treat with some degree of hauteur even
the approaches of his dearest friends.

This served but to increase the mystery. Although surmises that he

WHO COMPOSED THE BOATING PARTY.

was of different name and antecedents than represented were current,
all that even Gen. Irvine then knew of him was that early in our
Revolutionary struggle, a young foreigner, speaking the French and
German languages, and giving his name as John Rose, sought a com-
mission in the Continental army. Of himself and previous history
he maintained an obstinate silence. Failing in his wishes, he then
took a brief course of surgery, first serving as surgeon's mate, but, on
his showing quickness and ability, he finally received a surgeon's
appointment in the 7th Pennsylvania Regiment ; but soon attracting
the attention of Gen. Irvine, he succeeded in gaining both the esteem
and affection of that able officer.

In 1 780, on account of a feeling of jealousy excited among some of
the American officers towards the young foreigner, he left that regi-
ment ; volunteered as a surgeon in the navy ; was taken prisoner to
New York and exchanged the same year ; returned to Irvine's com-
mand as ensign, and was finally appointed his aid, with the rank of
lieutenant, and taken into the General's family, where he immediately
became a great favorite. On General Irvine's coming West, Rose
accompanied him, and it is but faint praise to say that in every posi-
tion in which he was placed, he did his full duty, with credit to him-
self and satisfaction to all with whom he was connected. During the
whole of Miss Zane's visit to Pittsburgh, Major Rose was very con-
stant in his attentions, so that the service he was now sent upon by
Irvine was, we may be sure, by no means disagreeable to him.

Who in the West has not heard of Samuel Brady, the Captain of the
Spies, and of his wonderful exploits and hair-breadth escapes ? A
soldier from the first drum-tap of the Revolution, he commenced his
service at Boston. He was in all the principal engagements of the
war until the battle of Monmouth, when he was promoted to a cap-
taincy and ordered to Pittsburgh, to join General Broadhead, with
whom he became a great favorite, and was almost constantly employed
in partisan scouting. In 1778 his brother, and in 1779 his father, were
cruelly killed by Indians. This made Captain Brady an Indian
killer, and he never changed his business. The red man never had a
more implacable foe, or a more relentless tracker. Being as well
skilled in woodcraft as any Indian of them all, he could trail them to
their lairs with all the fierceness and tenacity of the sleuth-hound.

We could fill pages with the' mere mention of his lone vigils, his
solitary wanderings, and his terrible revenges. His hate was undy-
ing. It knew no interval — his revenge no surfeit. Day and night,
summer and winter was all the same if it gave him chance to feed fat
his ancient grudge. He was now about twenty-six, and — as lean-
ing upon his trusty rifle which was never out of reach — he stands
there, gaunt, erect and sinewy, upon the deck of this rude ark, clad in
the complete dress of the forest ranger ; as his grim, stern face breaks
into smiles at some sprightly jest of Miss Swearingen, or as he gazes
at her tenderly from his earnest eyes, who would suppose that the
wilderness was his only home, and that the pursuit of the deadly
savage was his life's business? So young, and yet so terrible. He is
now in the very prime of youth, with a fame along the whole border —
a tower of strength in the white man's cabin, a relentless fate iu the
2

l8 SIMON GIRTY.

red man's wigwam. But Brady is to be dreaded by them still more
in the future, for, a full score of years after, he was ever their fell
destroyer.

Of his still younger companion, Moses, afterwards Col. Shepherd,
we have now but little to say. His life lay almost altogether in the
future, and it was a broad and a prominent one ; but even now,
among the daring backwoodsmen, who knew well what true courage
meant, and who would brook no flinching in boy, man or woman, he
had won a wide reputation for woodcraft. He was a splendid speci-
men of the physical man, straight as the pine, tough as the oak,
and yet pliant and supple as the willow. He was now, as always,
richly attired, though in ranger dress, with kind manners and open
countenance ; had dark hair, a clear, fair complexion, strong features,
laughing, gray eyes, and was always full of fun and frolic.

As he and Lydia Boggs descended from the deck, climbed down
into the little birch canoe, and gaily paddled off for a brisk dash after
a distant flock of ducks, one would think they were a very handsome
couple and on the very best terms with each other. And so, indeed,
they were. All their lives they had played together, schooled together
in the same log-cabin, passed later through the same dangers, and now
seemed as happy as frolicsome children.

Of Lydia herself scarce a word need be added. Her life is a public
one, and as was the mature woman, so was the girl — a brave, positive,
energetic character. As a mere child, swimming to Boggs' Island for
her cows ; as a girl, paddling her birchen canoe by night, surrounded
by savage foes ; as holding the head of her dying mother in her
lonely cabin, or doing her duty bravely as a defender of Fort Henry
in Indian attacks, she was the same cool, intrepid, determined cha-
racter, as distinguished for her mind and force as she ■was for her
beauty. It is said by those who knew her best, that when she was
deeply interested in any subject, her face was fairly agio wand radiant.
One can well believe it. It is only those without passion or depth of
character, who have vacant, expressionless countenances. When a
hundred years of age, Lydia was as firm and strong-willed as when
sixteen.

Elizabeth Zane was a young sister of the five who founded Wheel-
ing,— or the Fort Henry settlement, as it was better known in those
days. As we shall shortly make a closer acquaintance with that
notable band of brothers, we need only say here that they were of a
highly respectable Quaker family who came from Berkely, Va., in
1772, settling about Wheeling Creek and Zane's Island, and that no
more worthy or respectable people then lived west of the Alleghenies.

Elizabeth was a girl of unusual beauty and varied accomplishments —
bold and adventurous in character.

In person she is described as tall, graceful and well-proportioned,
with small mouth, pouting lips and shapely hands and feet. Her
eyes were black as sloes, with long lashes and luxuriant hair of the
same raven hue. In distinction from her swart-hued brothers,
her complexion was fair and rosy, but she had the arched eyebrow
and rather prominent cheek-bones of the Zane family.

Drusilla Swearingen was the young, and, we believe, the only

WHO COMPOSED THE BOATING PARTY. 1 9

daughter of Capt. Van Swearingen, one of Gen. Dan Morgan's far-
famed rifle-corps. He did good service at Burgoyne's defeat at Sara-
toga, and settled after the Revolution where Wellsburgh, Va., now
stands. Although not possessing the brilliancy of beauty, the flashing
eye or merry laugh, which gave Betsy Zane (not Bessie, for those
were not the days of the diminutives in ie) so many admirers, yet
Drusilla was equally attractive in her own way. She had what is said
to be a most excellent thing in woman, a soft, sympathetic voice,
with shy, gentle manners, and graceful, womanly ways. Her laugh
was low and sweet ; her disposition sunny, and deportment always
sincere and winning. Added to clear, blue eyes, fair hair, and a
slight but elegant figure, she had a refinement that was very engaging,
and a delicacy of word and manner that won the respect even of the
rude but honest borderers.

As we are all most likely to be attracted by our opposites, it was
probably this very timidity of Drusilla's, and her feminine graces
which so fascinated the bold and reckless Captain Brady, a inan whose
whole life was passed 'mid violence and bloody struggles.

Both the girls last described so imperfectly, had been — what was
very unusual in those rude pioneer days — carefully educated at a Phi-
ladelphia school, among the Quaker relatives of Miss Zane. They
were even now on their return home, "finished" young ladies, most
probably destined to pass much of their lives amid the turbulent scenes
and incessant alarms of an exposed frontier ; with the spinning wheel
and flax swingle as constant companions. They had ridden out from
Philadelphia on their own horses, as horse-back was the fashion in
those days. Indeed, they could then have made the journey in no
other way, as the roads west of the Susquehanna were of a frightful
character, as yet totally unfit for wheeled vehicles, and only traversed
by Indian traders and trains of pack-horses.

They had journeyed under, the escort of General Irvine, who, as
stated, had but lately returned from his consultation on Western af-
fairs with Washington and the government at Philadelphia, but under
the more especial charge of Larry Donohue, who, having lately arrived
in Philadelphia from the Emerald Isle, and, desirousof going West to
join a brother somewhere in Kentucky — he had not the slightest idea
where — had been thus brought to their notice. As young Shepherd
had bought a fine horse in the East and wished it ridden out, Larry
was engaged to perform that congenial service, as also to see that the
young ladies as well as their hackneys, had all the attention and com-
fort required on such a long and trying journey.

This Larry was what might be called a very "broth of a boy."
Large and powerful, but awkward and uncouth ; with a certain re-
freshing verdancy and ludicrous unfitness for American life and cus-
toms, he seemed to be the oddest selection for a ladies' attendant.
When, mounted grandly upon Shepherd's steed he brought around
the two palfreys to the door of the Quaker aunt, and then dismounted
with as much gravity and dignity as if about to surrender a fortress,
the two girls, at this first sight of their protector, could not help ex-
changing frightened glances. He looked as grand and important as
General Washington himself.

20 SIMON GIRTY.

But those who engaged Larry, simply because he wished to go West
and there was no other choice, selected "better than they knew."
His character only developed gradually. Every succeeding day he
opened out richer and richer. Like many others of his countrymen,
he was a shiftless, blundering, devil-may-care, happy-go-lucky sort of
a genius, with the richest of brogues, and the oddest conceits and
ways of speech and action ; perfectly at home any where, at all times
and with every person, but withal so willing and serviceable ; of such
unruffled sweetness of temper and kindness of heart, that he was soon
voted an honest, downright good fellow, and a never-failing source of
merriment.

Larry never seemed to think, talk or act like any other body. He
was irresistibly funny, without meaning or being at all conscious of it,
and hence, was the occasion of great fun to others. It was amusing
to see the fatherly, patronizing airs he assumed towards his fair charges.
He was as proud and fussy about them as a hen with one chicken —
joked, scolded, blarneyed and brogued them by turns ; now sang a
song, told a story, or gave utterance to all kinds of oddities ; yet his
fidelity and kindliness were so conspicuous through all, that the girls
soon voted him a perfect " original," and laughed till they cried over
his queer notions, rattling talks and whimsical wa)'s. He was, without
seeming to know it, ridiculously out of place in the American back-
woods, and promised to be about as appropriate in a Kentucky cabin
as would a King Charles spaniel on the trail of a buck.

CHAPTER V.

ARRIVAL OF THE GIRLS AT PITTSBURGH.

The arrival from the East of two such attractive girls at a far away
backwoods post like Pittsburgh, created a great sensation among the
fort officers and the gallants of the town. Quite a rivalry existed be-
tween the two classes as to which should show them the best attention
and secure most of their society. Amid military balls, woodland
rides on horseback, and water excursions in canoe and barge, their
time rolled away delightfully enough. Now they would have a pic-
nic in the tangled wild woods across the Allegheny ; and now they
would climb to the summits of the lofty hills back of the town or
across the Monongahela. One day they would gallop out to Bower
Hill, the extensive domain of Gen. Neville, where stood the spacious
and hospitable mansion afterwards destroyed during the Whisky In-
surrection ; on the next, they would ride along the Allegheny, on a
visit to the old place of Croghan, the Indian interpreter. Once they
attended a grand deer drive across the Allegheny, gotten up by Ma-
jors Craig and Rose and Captains Springer and Brady. Here, Miss
Zane — who, like Lydia Boggs, Louisa St. Clair, and many of the bor-
der girls, was skillful with the rifle — had the honor of killing the only
buck that was shot, and that too, upon the bound.

Only a few days back. Captain Boggs, with his daughter Lydia, and

ARRIVAL OF THE GIRLS AT PITTSBURGH. 21

Moses Shepherd had come up on horseback from Wheeling, with the
double purpose of escorting the two ladies home, as well as to obtain
a supply of powder, provisions, and other needfuls for Forts Henry,
Rice, Wolf, Van Meter, and several smaller stations along and about
Big Wheeling Creek. The news they brought was quite exciting. They
reported great alarm along the whole Virginia frontier. The tidings
of Williamson's dreadful massacre at the Moravian towns on the Mus-
kingum, where so many Christian Indians with their innocent women
and children had been so inhumanly butchered but one short month
before, had been speedily carried to the Wyandot towns on the San-
dusky, and thence by runners to the Delawares on the Tymochtee,
and the Mack-a-Chack towns on the Mad River, and the whole three
tribes would soon be all up in arms and burning for revenge. The
frontier settlers were preparing to fly to their forts and block-houses,
and expected a hot summer's campaign. They had also heard, through
Isaac Zane and a friendly Delaware, that two of the Girtys, with the
Delaware Captain Pipe ; Pomoacan, the Wyandot Half-King; Guya-
sutha, Big Foot, and other Mingo, Delaware and Huron chiefs, would
all soon be scouring the woods with their scalping parties.

•It was now deemed more prudent to have all three of the girls go
home by the Broad-horn, which was to carry the ammunition and
freight, and it was arranged that Brady, Shepherd, Larry and Killbuck
should accompany them for protection if necessary. General Irvine
was to add Major Rose to the party, in order that he might visit Fort
Mcintosh at the mouth of Beaver, and concert measures of prudence
with Captain Mclntire, and then visit Fort Henry for the same pur-
pose, to be back at Mingo Bottom by the 25th. Captain Boggs, after
finishing his business at Pitt and Mcintosh, had ridden over to Catfish
camp (now Washington) to put the people of Buffalo, Racoon and
Cross creeks on their guards.

All this was simply by way of precaution, for there was not so much
alarm felt either at Fort Pitt or Fort Henry as one would suppose
from the character of this news, or from the state of alarm along the
Ohio ; and, simply because Irvine, in connection with the lieutenants
of the surrounding Pennsylvania and Virginia counties had been
organizing a grand expedition of four hundred mounted hunters
to carry on the offensive, right into the very heart of the Indian
country and operations. This centre was undoubtedly the Wyandot
town on the Sandusky, which was supplied by the British at Detroit.
It did not matter so much then that a few skirmishers of red pawns
should advance up to or even over our border, provided that the white
forces under Cols. Crawford and Williamson could penetrate deep
into the red man's country and give "check " to their king Pomoacan.
This formidable expedition was now almost all ready, and was to
meet at Mingo Bottom, three miles below what is now Steubenville,
between the 20th and 25th, and here it was the 15th.

By this time the unshapely ark has floated amid stream until oppo-
site the mouth of Chartier's Creek, and is now rapidly breasting the

22 SIMON GIRTY.

Steep, jutting cliff known as McKee's Rocks. It was here that the
Ohio Company intended locating their fort, considering it a far more
fitting and defensible place than the Forks at the head of the Ohio.
And a most commanding and picturesque spot it was, with surround-
ings of almost matchless beauty. Brunot's Island, long and densely
wooded, here divided the Ohio, yet in such fashion that the breadth
and volume of the main stream seemed no whit diminished, while the
other branch had cut deeply into the left bank, curving around in a
magnificent sweep, the divided currents uniting again at the Rocks.

The lofty river hills on the creek side had gradually melted down
into gentler forms, receding from the water's margin in a series of
green, rolling knolls and slopes. Just on the broad rich bottom on
one side of McKee's Rocks — on whose top a prominent Indian mound
can even now be seen for miles up or down the river — once stood the
village of the famous Shingiss, war-king of the Delawares.

A right royal place for a king's residence — there was a charming
diversity of hill, stream, plain and valley, with unsurpassed hunting
all about. While the irrepressible Lydia and her companion shot off
in the little birch to visit the site of the long-abandoned village, the
rest were filled with admiration at the inexpressible loveliness of the
whole scene.

" Who could believe, Captain," enthusiastically remarked Miss
Swearingen to Brady, who seldom left her side, " that a few short
weeks could have wrought such marvelous changes. Why, when we
left Philadelphia all was as bleak and biting as Greenland. Scarce a
bud had pushed, while on the mountains the weather was truly fright-
ful— roads slippery, blinding snow-storms, and the icy winds sighing
through the groaning pines — ughl I'm like an animated shiver even at
the very thought of it."

"■ Oh, yes," said Brady, ''a fortnight of April's soft rains and May's
glowing suns works like magic in the woods. It seems as if the whole
earth and air just burst at once into life and blossomed into fragrance
— shrub, vine, tree and flower. I've been out on a trail sometimes
when the woods were as drear as Siberia; ground frozen, dead leaves
rustling to every foot-fall and not a song-bird's note to cheer the way,
and returned when all seemed life and joy — everything in Nature just
stretching up towards the bright sun. I like well the noble old forest
at all times, but May's my favorite month. Unfortunately it's the
infernal redskin's favorite month, too, as Rose there will tell you, if
he can spare a moment from your fair friend."

"What ! Ah, yes; quite true," put in the Major. "An Indian,
like a bear or groundhog, sucks his paws all winter and thaws out in
the spring."

"More like rattlesnakes, Major, confound them. Didn't you ever
see a knot of slippery snakes in a cave or hollow log in winter, twisted
and twined up together in the most loving and sociable way imagi-
nable ? but soon as the spring suns come they creep out, slide off,
swell up, and commence practicing their horrid tail music. The
yellow hides are just as sly and just as venomous, but a plaguy sight
more treacherous, for a striking snake will always give you a warning
rattle, but one of these copperheads — never — the sting first, and — "

ARRIVAL OF THE GIRLS AT PITTSBURGH.

"But surely, Captain," anxiously interrupted Drusilla, a shadow
flitting over her gentle face, "you don't think there's any present
danger? ^God forbid that our border should be harassed as it was
last year. True, Betty and I only heard the reports at a safe distance,
but some of the stories were so dreadful that our hearts were harrowed
with the sad news.".

" Well, no ; no danger exactly now, or just here. Indians seldom
come to the Ohio prepared to attack a boat like this _; but, dead sure,
you'll hear of them soon, and at any moment. They'll not rest long
quiet after that Moravian affair."

"Moravian affair, indeed 1" indignantly flashed out Drusilla. " It
strikes me, Captain, that's a very mild, decent name for a most in-
human and cowardly butchery. I don't see how we are going to ex-
pect a just God to prosper us when we surpass the savages themselves
in deeds of blood and cruelty ! Major Rose, what — "

" Well, well, Silla," quickly interrupted Brady, "call it as you
please — massacre let it be, if it brings such a fine glow into your eyes
and color into your cheeks ; but if you lived — "

"Well, but. Captain, you treat this too lightly. I won't receive any
compliment at the expense of my better feelings. Indian hater as
you are and have good reason to be, you surely cannot approve that
outrage. Generals Irvine and Neville, Colonel Gibson and all the
officers at the Fort denounce the slaughter as totally inexcusable. If
you do not, you would drop a good many degrees in my eyes, I can
tell you that. How many poor Christian women and little innocent
children were there ?"

" Oh, come now, Miss Swearingen," interposed Major Rose, seeing
Brady's embarrassed air, and the dangerous light in her eyes, " don't
let us spoil this lovely scenery with discussion of that truly dreadful
affair. The captain was not there, and has assured me that, much as
he hates the savages, he never has had, nor could have, the blood of
any of their women and children on his conscience. But here comes
the canoe. I thought I heard a rifle crack some ways back, but sup-
pose I was mistaken. Well ! Miss Lydia, where have you two truants
been so long?"

A quick look of pleasure at the Major's words came into Miss
Swearingen's flushed face. There were few engaged in the Gnaden-
hutten massacre who ever ventured to confess it, and she felt relieved
to know that her friend, Brady, was not one of them ; and now all
went to the boat's bow to receive the absent ones.

"Why, I do declare, Lydia," laughed out Miss Zane, "your cheeks
look like two Pineys, as old Aunt Rachel would say; who's been so
painting them ?" with a significant glance at Moses Shepherd.

" None but God's own painting, Betty," replied the blushing young
girl, as her moccasined feet touched the gunwale. " If, instead of
your.crooning poetry to the Major there, you had been paddling the
birch and chasing the dt^r^your cheeks would have bloomed too."

It was Betty's turn to flush up now, and she hastened to say —
"chasing the deer, Lydia, what do you mean ?"

" Just what I say. Miss. We were noiselessly turning a little head-
land at the Rocks, when, upon the shingle beach just around the

24 SIMON GIRTY.

curve, and right in front of Shingiss' old village, stood the loveliest
doe you ever laid eyes on. On hearing us, she lifted her head, arched
her graceful neck, and turned her soft, tender eyes full upon us.
Having the first shot by right of discovery, I drew bead on her, but
was so ilush.id I couldn't pull trigger. All at once the startled deer
gave a bound straight up in the air and dashed up the bank. It was too
late. My bullet went harmlessly by her, and I'm almost glad Imissed."

" I'm afraid you're not as good a shot as you used to be, Lydia,"
laughingly interposed Shepherd.

"Just as good, Mo; but I don't like this short, light rifle — don't
believe it carries true, and it somehow hangs fire and spoils my aim.
If I could only manage a man's long rifle, I'd engage to keep all Fort
Henry in venison and turkeys. But what'll we do now, girls?"

" Oh, Lydia, do stay quiet and look at the scenery ; seems as if you
couldn't rest more than a swallow or a humming-bird — always on
the wing."

" Ah, girls," answered Lydia, with a quaint motherly shake of her
little head, " I'm afraid your long stay in the gay city has thoroughly
spoiled you. I told you it would. Your dresses and hair twistings
savor strongly of modish fashions. You'll soon actually look upon
our Western spinning-wheel with disgust."

" Not a bit of it," laughed Miss Zane; ''we like their curls, frizzes,
bobs, bishops, furbelows and ' gig ' bonnets, not one whit more than
you do. A few months ago we were both invited out to a grand
party, and determining to be in the fashion, we sent for the frizzer,
and were three mortal hours under his hot irons. Our hair was
curled so tight we could scarce close our eyes, and Drusilla there
had almost to stand on her tip-toes, while I sat up nearly all night for
fear of disarranging my head ' tower,' as it is called there. No, no,
Lydia, we come back more in love with the West than ever, in spite
of all its privations and perils."

" Right glad of it, Betty ! Was afraid we'd lost you both, and that
you'd never, never do for the border. So long as father leaves me a
will of my own, I'll make free to dress, talk and behave according to
my Western tastes and ideas of fitness. I must have free life out-of-
doors. I swim, shoot and ride, because the hum-drum of a cabin
would kill me. But come, this slow, monotonous floating is too
tedious for any use. Mo Shepherd, you laughed a good deal at my
bad shot awhile since ; why not have a trial with Captain Brady and
Major Rose? See! there's a couple of swans floating along under
that clump of willows!"

" Excuse me," said Rose, "I am not much of a Nimrod, and am
better with the pistol than the rifle. But Brady, there, is said to be
the truest and longest shot on this end of the river, and I have no
doubt Shepherd is as good on that end. We'd all be glad to see some
skill with those long, ominous-looking rifles." «•

"Well, friends," said Shepherd, "I've no objections; not that I
could hope to excel Brady, but for our own sport. I'm horribly out
of practice. It has been for some time dangerous to hunt far outside
of our forts. Where are the birds, Lydia ?"

"There ! there ! don't you see them, sailing along, with heads up,

A RIFLE MATCH BETWEEN NOTED SCOUTS. 25

wings thrown out, right within the shadow of those willows? Hurry!
do hurry, Mo, or I'll shoot them myself!"

The young scout drew his long rifle carefully up to his eye, took
deliberate aim, crack went the piece, and up arose one of the heavy
birds with his hoarse, trumpety cry, the other struggling in the water.

" Hit, but not killed ! See the feathers ! " cried Rose.

" I take this one," said Brady, as he quickly covered the bird which
was now flying rapidly along shore. Crack ! Quicker than a wink 1
down it tumbled, head foremost, and floated ofl" in the current, dead.

" Both pretty good shots, gentlemen," excitedly cried Lydia, "but
not both fatal. I ask permission to make good the first one; " and
up went her rifle. Crack ! and the crippled swan, hit fairly in the
breast, turned on its side and floated ofl" with its mate.

CHAPTER VI.

A RIFLE MATCH BETWEEN NOTED SCOUTS.

The two hunters now drew out their bullet- and greased patch-
pouches, and laying each a ball in the palm of his hand, poured from
his brass-knobbed horn barely enough powder to cover it, thus grading
the charge. Driving the balis home, and carefully picking their flints,
both stood leaning on their long rifles, waiting for what next might
ofler.

"Why not," said Miss Zane, "try for that large bird overhead,
sailing about in such majestic sweeps, and apparently attracted by the
swans? I've been watching its airy flights for some time."

All eyes were turned upwards. "I see nothing, Brady, but that
fish-hawk, but it's too high for me or my carry. You might reach it."

Just then the magnificent bird closed its wings, and, after the
fashion of its kind, glidingly dropped like a bolt or a falling star
through the still air, and with such inconceivable swiftness and noise
of plumage as to cause a rushing sound like that produced by a gust
of wind passing through a forest. It then, with a heavy flap or two,
arrested its course and again sailed on motionless wing above them.

"By George, Brady; it's no fish-hawk but a sea-eagle, the largest
and noblest of all the eagle kind. I've seen them measure ten feet
or more from tip to tip of wings."

"If you'll excuse the audacity of a soldier's correcting a backwoods-
man on matters of this kind," pleasantly interrupted Major Rose, "I
would say it was neither Osprey or Sea Eagle, but the Bald-Headed
Eagle ; though seeing that they always have a poll of feathers as thick
as Larry's crown of hair, I never could tell why they are called
* bald-headed.' Do you see its white tail and neck, and how it lets
its legs dangle at full length, and then note how it suddenly drops in
mid-air, as I have seen tumbler pigeons do in Europe, bringing itself
up with a sudden check, and again resuming its powerful flight."

"Why, Major, you must know something about American eagles.
I never was aware that branch of knowledge was pursued in the

26 SIMON GIRTY.

"That do I, Miss Boggs," said Rose, "and have studied closely
their various habits and flights. A pair of Golden Eagles used to have
their nest on the steep hill right opposite the Fort — for this kind never
build in trees, but on some ledge or cleft in the rocky cliff, and in the
most inaccessible places. Then, again, a number of Fish-hawks and
enormous Sea-Eagles used to circle and hover — watching for fish —
above the bar just at the meet of the two rivers ; and I've sat before
my quarters for hours of an evening watching their wide sweeps and
fearful plunges. The Golden Eagle has not the speed of either the
Sea or the Bald-Headed Eagle, but has a keener eye and far richer
plumage, and its majestic curves in the air are really magnificent.
The Bald-Headed Eagle, however, has the most sustained flight, now
travelling by easy, regular flappings, and sometimes ascending without
apparent motion of either wing or tail, and by glorious sweeps until
completely lost to sight. It's a great tyrant and robber, though, I
must say. Too proud or lazy to do its own fishing, I have seen it
scores of times sitting sleepily on the top branches of a tree on Smoky
Island, watching till it sees the Osprey flying homewards with a fish
in its beak. Out then rushes Mr. Eagle with a menacing scraugh ;
mounts above in one dash, and pounces down fiercely and with such
a terrible war-whoop that the poor Fish-hawk is glad to drop his
hardly-gotten prey, when the Eagle, like a well-trained juggler,
swoops down upon the fish like lightning, and safely carries it off,
emittmg all the time a coarse, rasping imitation of a laugh, and it can
well afford it, for 'let those laugh who win.' "

"Well, Major," said Shepherd, "I've heard of a horse-laugh, a
hyena-laugh, a Satanic-laugh, and a ' laugh up the sleeve,' but an
Eagle-laugh is a new variety, I must confess."

*' Fact, though, nevertheless; when angry or disturbed, it frequently
gives forth a sharp, discordant haugh-ha-ha, just like the wild laugh of
a maniac. But that's not all ; when this same kind of an Eagle is
suddenly surprised, it utters a strong, hissing noise much like a gander,
and while asleep a loud, wheezy sort of a snore, which, in calm nights
can be heard a hundred yards or more. We kept one a whole season
at the Fort, and I took great interest in studying his kingship."

"That reminds me," interposed the gentle voice of Miss Swearingen,
" of a story my father tells. When Morgan's Rifle Corps were hurry-
ing up towards Albany to beat back General Burgoyne, they en-
camped near the Highlands of the Hudson, Half way up the cliff
was clearly seen the huge nest of a Golden Eagle. With that fondness
for all sorts of deviltries which you know, Major, characterizes the
soldier on the march, nothing would do but to make a visit to the
home of this monarch of the air. Accordingly, a soldier was let down
by a rope from the top of the cliff. When, however, he reached the
nest, and was proceeding to secure the young, he was most fiercely
attacked by the mother-bird. The poor fellow pulled out his knife,
and while defending himself, and making repeated passes at the bird,
he managed to cut the rope so deeply that it hung by a single strand
or so. Those above, frightened almost as much as the unhappy man
himself, dragged him up, but the horror of hanging in mid-air at such
a height, and expecting every moment to be precipitated into the gulf

A RIFLE MATCH BETWEEN NOTED SCOUTS. 27

below, was so awful that the poor fellow fainted just when safely
secured, and in three days his hair had turned completely gray. But
see ! the eagle is moving away, gentlemen ! It must be now or never."

"Pop away, Colonel," said Brady, good-humoredly ; "this is but
a friendly trial for our own sport, with nothing to gain by a hit or to
lose by a miss. * Old Spitfire' here, however, has pinked less targets •
than that, though scarcely any farther off. ' '

The eagle was now at a great height; a little to the rear, and slow-
ly moving off towards the Indian shore. The Colonel slowly drew up
his rifle, followed for some time the motion of the eagle, when crack !
and a sudden lurch of the bird in its course and the dropping of a few
feathers, showed that he had been touched. He was just gathering
himself for a frightened flight, when up went Brady's long tube, the
report following almost instantly. The eagle dropped for a hundred
feet or so ; then a slow, heavy beat of pinion, ending by a complete
turning over and over, until it fell heavily on the water.

*' A splendid shot, by Jove," cried Shepherd, while the rest were
equally loud in their praise. "You're lightning on the trigger. Cap-
tain, and don't give your quarry much time to get out of the way. As
Larry would say, ' This bangs the concate out av me intirely, so it
does, and puts the disgrace until me; but, sure, where's the differ.' "

"Well, Colonel," laughed Brady, gayly, while wiping out his rifle,
" you know by experience that those who hunt the red-cock of our
woods have to shoot pretty quick and pretty straight, too, if they
want to keep their hair where it's rooted. If we didn't learn to load
on the run and fire between two winks, our lives wouldn't be worth
the cast-off horns of a buck ; but let's all go below and see poor Mrs.
Malott, and hunt up some refreshments, solid and fluid. I'm as dry
as a mummy, or, as Larry so illegantly expresses it, * as parched as
pase, and as dry as a lime-burner's wig.' By the by, what's become
of that palavering fellow, and what's he doing ? For more than an
hour I've been hearing strange mutterings and pawings of hoofs from
the—"

" Oh, Captain, Captain ! " came now in the excited voice of Lydia,
who, not altogether pleased with the result of the shooting trial, had
seated herself on the bow-rail, her moccasins almost touching the wa-
ter. " Do but look ahead once ! What whirlpool is this we're being
drawn into? The water's boiling like a pot and running like a mill-
race ; and how swiftly we're beginning to shoot! The whole boat
trembles. Oh, it's fearful !" And the young beauty sprang up and
stood back where the rest were all now gathered in front.

" Oh," replied Brady, " that's nothing but a strong riffle. It's the
worst place, though, between Fort Pitt and Captina Bar. There
needn't be the slightest alarm, ladies. We'll take this chute and run
her through beautifully. It goes like a racer, sure enough ; but it's
just as safe as a shore eddy. Halloo back there ! Larry, tell Killbuck
to keep her fair in the middle!"

The ark had entered what is now "Deadman's Riffle," a remarka-
bly strong and narrow current between a long, low island and the
Indian side. The old boat bounded along at startling speed for a
quarter of an hour, and then darted out, amid a number of sunken

28 SIMON GIRTY.

rocks and angry whirlpools, into calm, clear water. So soon as an
unobstructed prospect was given of the whole river again, Miss Boggs,
who was quite excited and delighted with the late rapid run, ex-
claimed :

*' Captain, what in the world is that stemming the water there,
away in front — seems like something live and swimming."

All eyes were turned to a moving object now pretty plainly visible
a few hundred yards in advance, and apparently crossing — in a direc-
tion diagonal with the current — from the Virginia to the Indian side
of the river.

"It's plainly a buck to my notion," remarked Brady to Rose ; "but
its horns are just sprouting. Yes it must be ; and the gallant fellow is
making a brave swim of it. I've often seen them crossing the Ohio,
but not at this season."

"I'm not so sure. Captain, of that's being a buck — at least a deer
buck," said Shepherd, after a long and very intent gaze; " it looks
like a buck, and then again it don't. I'm thinking it's a stag. A
buck swims with nothing but its head above water, while that fellow
has both head and shoulders well out. Again, a deer's nose and
muzzle are not so black as that. It's an elk ; I'll wager my new horse
on it, and his horns are * in the velvet.' As the bucks were done
* running ' months since, and have little spirit while growing their
new horns, he must have been forced to take water by a ' painter,' or
by wolves."

"You're right, Colonel," cried Brady, with great animation^; "it's
a yearling stag, and a noble prize it will make. Now, young ladies,
who's off for a chase, and where's Larry ? You've been saying he's so
impatient to see an American buck, and now here's the biggest varie-
ty we can show him. Major, hurry him up, will you, and we'll take
him along and have some rare sport ; but don't for the world tell hira
it's an elk."

Miss Drusilla, preferring to stay with the ark, the other two girls,
with kindling eyes jumped into the birch and took the paddles."

"All ready!" said Brady. " Larry and I'll go in the bow. A
stag sometimes gets ugly and shows fierce fight, and it may require two
to manage him, and may be, after all, we'll have to drown him.
Here's the thong of deer's hide, with a slip-noose all ready for a lasso."

Major Rose had stepped back under the cover, shouting —

*' Halloo ! Larry ; what can you be doing back there so long, and so
much fun, too, going on out here? "

** Halloo yoursilf, Major," came back in very doleful, discontented
tones ; "and sure I'm mortial glad you're having fun, for it's the laste
taste in life I'm afther having in this divil's own place."

" Why, what's the matter with you, Larry ? Can't you come out ?"

" Ah, hear till him, now ! You were always a good one, Major,
with your dif;^^-ult conuntherums ; and shure how could I come for
this murtherin baste of your's, bad scran to her ? Be jabers, it's my
heart that's almost broke wid her."

LARRY S FIGHT WITH A BUCK ELK.

CHAPTER VII.
Larry's fight with a buck elk.

Rose advanced till he came to the partition set apart for the six
horses, which was in front of the little cabin in the rear. After his
eyes had become somewhat accustomed to the gloom, he spied Larry
in a most ludicrous position, bent almost double, and perched up as
high as the roof would allow on a kind of rack, and the Major's black
mare occasionally reaching up for him, while Larry would thrust his
foot at her with a " Be aff wid you, now," and "Ah, would you now,
you termagant?" She appeared fretted, nervous and excited, and so
occupied the whole breadth of the boat that Larry could neither come
down or get past. The other horses, with whom Larry had been well
acquainted, seemed quiet enough, but there was a lurking devil in the
mare's eye and the lay of her ears that betokened mischief to poor
Pat. Rose burst out into a loud and hearty fit of laughter.

*' Och, thin, God forgive ye, Major ; ye may well laugh, and me
sitting here as idle as a pot wid a grate brache into it, and as useless
as a mile-stone widout figgers. It's ranting, roaring mad your mare
is the day — the conthrariest and rampagionest baste I iver laid my
born eyes on."

•' Why, Larry," laughed the Major, and laying a caressing stroke on
the mare's neck, " you've been abusing her. She's quiet as a lamb.
See how she rubs her nose against me ! Why, she's all in a tremble
with nervousness."

" Abusing her, is it ? and thrimbling, too ? Oh, shure, thin, there's
a couple of us in that same predicament. Och, divil sweep me, Misther
Rose, she's a rale desaiver, like all her sex, and's taken to deludhering
ye. I repate, she's a born divil, that's what she is, and is only putting
the comether till ye ;" and Larry now came down from his perch,
but keeping a wary eye pn the mare's every motion.

** How did all this happen, Larry? What did you do to her?"

*' Ah, Misther Rose, is it there ye are again ? Shure, hadn't I just
bated and tied my bastes, and put my hot pate out of the wee bit
winder to survey the beautiful scenery, whin what should I feel but a
sharp nip on my back, and something a hoisting me straight out
of my shoes, and tearing my clothes loike, and whinever I turned me,
what did I parsaive. Major, but this divil's own daughther pawjng away
for the dear life, with an eye blazing at me like a light-house lamp, and
her ears laid flat on her neck for very spite ; and whin I endayvoored
quietly to exposthulate wid her at the undacint liberties she was after
taking wid my breeches, shure, didn't she open her mouth woide
like a rat-trap, and make for my poll, which I eshtame so highly, till
I had to spring up like a rabbit to git out of her way. Ah, but it's
enough to make a dog bate his own grandmother, so it is."

" Well, Larry," soberly answered Rose, " I'll forgive you for what
you have done if — "

30 SIMON GIRTY.

" Forgive me ! Arrah, and shure it's joking ye must be, Misther Rose.
If that faymale — the curse o' Cromwell rest on her — wasn't so much
madder nor what I am this minnit, I'd bate it till its own parents
wouldn't own it."

" Well, come along now, Larry. There's a live buck to be caught out
here, and Captain Brady and the young ladies want you to help them."

" Phat ! a buck, Major ! and the young leddies ! and me to catch
it ! Och, mudher of Moses, why didn't you spake that way afore.
I've another kind of thrimble on me now, and feel loike I was goin'
to a rich distiller's wake."

" Come, Larry, hurry up," cried Brady, impatiently, as the now ex-
cited Irishman made his appearance. " Snug yourself there in the
bow. A deer swims like a water-snake, and we'll have trouble catch-
ing it. Now, girls, bend to your paddles ; make her walk lively !"

The light birch sprang forward like a hound from the leash. The
stag had now reached the middle of the river, and was in full view.
On darted the boat, rapidly closing with the struggling animal.

"And that's your American buck, is it, Misthress Boggs ?" rather
sneeringly exclaimed Larry, who was all eyes and excitement. " Be-
gorra, and I joost wish ye could for oncet see the red deer of Ould
Ireland. Look at them wee-she bits o' horns, scarce bigger than my
thumbs, and see its wee thrifle of a tail ; divil a wag it is worth.
More power to you, you tallow-colored wood-sweep."

"Much too busy now to argue, Larry," saidLydia; "but you'd
better keep down your passions awhile. I think that buck will aston-
ish you yet."

" Bedad, and I think it's the hare's heart it has intirely. Look how-
it's pumping away, and throwing its fore-feet like two shillelies at
Donnybrook Fair. Now an Irish buck would ruffle up like a game-
cock, and would cast his wicked eyes on you, and then foight the very
divil himself av he coomed this near."

" Oh, stop your palaver, Larry," shouted Brady ; " we're running
alongside ; and stand ready with the slip-knot ! Now, Betty, another
stroke to turn the bow in. So ! — that will do !"

" The top of the morning to ye, Misther Buck," shouted Larry, in
a broad grin. " Tare and Ounty, how big it is you're getting all to
oncet. I thocht you were but a weenty crowwhibble, and here you've
growed to be like a yearling bull. Oh, blessed vargin and holy
marthyrs, what's this ! Oh, Captain ! Captain ! for the dear love of
God, kape off ! kape off! or he'll murther us ! Down wid ye, you black-
mouthed savige !"

High time for Larry's exclamations, for the gallant stag, finding es-
cape impossible, had — as is not uncommon when hard pressed — turned
himself right around, and with mouth open, vicious eyes, stiffened
bristles, and loud snortings made straight for the boat and Larry at
its end. By a great effort, he reared up and got one foot over the
broad birch, while the other kept scraping Larry's poor legs, and
seemed bent upon either upsetting the canoe or getting into it ; not-
withstanding the imminent peril of the position, the girls could, for
their laughing, scarce obey Brady's order to back off and all lean to
the far side.

LARRY S FIGHT WITH A BUCK ELK. jl

It is usual for hunters when their boats are thus attacked by even
an ordinary buck, to either beat him off and then kill him with a
heavy club which they put in the boat, or else hold down his neck by
means of a forked stick, with a slip-noose fastened over the prongs,
and thus drown him, the thong serving to keep his body from sinking
or getting away. But there was no club in the canoe, and, wishing
to have some revenge on Larry for his sneers, Brady would not use
his rifle-butt, nor the girls their paddles.

And so Larry had it all to himself. Well for him it was not a cross,
cranky six-year-old, or it would have gone much harder with him.
As it stood, and powerful as Larry was, he had fully as much as he
could handle. It was irresistibly comical to watch his wrestlings,
amid short, hurried, snappish exclamations of *' Bad cess to you, ye
blackguard!" ''Did ye ever hear the loikes?" "It bangs all;"
"Thunder an 'ouns," and "By all the Apostles."

His hat had fallen off. His short, sandy hair fairly stood stiff with
rage or surprise, and so he tusseled and wrestled, and would have
dearly delighted to have sworn stronger ; but, like the ash-man when
the boys took the tail out of his cart, he couldn't do justice to the
occasion. At last, breathless and exhausted, but more from surprise
than hard work, Larry managed to push the fierce beast off into the
water again, when it resumed its course.

"Now, Larry," innocently put in Lydia, as soon as she could com-
mand her words from laughing, "if that had been an Irish buck, he
never would have been persuaded off in that easy, gentle way, but
would have just driven us all out, took possession of the boat, and
paddled himself ashore."

"Ah, Misthress Boggs," replied Larry, in most mournful, lugu-
brious tones, "but it's the plisant but cruyel voice ye have — swate
and bitther words to oncet. Axe yer pardon, leddies, for what I sed
to you a whiles gone. Don't be afther sticking pins into me — don't
now ! I feel like as cripples was kicking o' me along the best street
in Ould Dublin ; and you, Captain, I'm much beholden to ye for
howlding your prate this blessed minnit, and won't you dhrive us
along side o' that divil's own whelp again? Shure it has the eyes, the
sulphur breath and murtherin hoofs of Ould Hornie himself."

" And what are you going to do now, Larry?" said Brady, who
even yet could scarce find words fromi laughing.

"Dhrive on!" shouted Larry, with a loud voice and commanding
gesture, his eyes sternly fixed upon the swift-swimming stag; and then,
as if to himself and between his clenched teeth : " If I don't bate the
divil's tattoo on the naked ribs of that skileton, and tear his gaunt
sides into tatthers with my hob-nails, as he did my breeches, then my
name's not Larry Donohue, that's all. An Irishman takes no banther,
moind ye that now, leddies."

The boat was now alongside again, and suddenly, without declaring
his intentions, Larry cried out — "quick! to the other side," and,
noose in hand, gave a sudden leap, with the yell of a Choctaw, land-
ing directly astride the stag's back, and bearing him down deeply into
the water. He evidently had the advantage of his old antagonist now,
and enjoyed it, too, by yelling like an Indian, digging his heels into

32 SIMON GIRTY.

the deer's side, and twisting his head down by the horns. The poor
animal at first tossed and struggled, nearly drowning Larry, but soon
thoroughly frightened and exhausted and greatly over-weighted, it
gave up further contest. Larry fastened the thongs about the horns,
proudly kept his seat, and the ark having by this time floated down to
the scene of contest, the young stag was with much difficulty — all on
both boats assisting — forced to scramble on board, and was tied near
the horses.

Larry's gallant adventure was in full view of all on the ark, and was
greatly enjoyed by them, even the stoical Killbuck laughing grimly.

"Well, Larry," said Drusilla, as he sprang on to the boat, dripping
like a Newfoundland dog, " and how did you like your novel ride?"

"Well, Misthress, I cannot deny but it wor a thrifle damp, with
lashings of chape wather on all sides o' me, and as for my saddle of a
buck's shoulther — well, well, ask me no questions and I'll tell ye no
lies; but may the divil run away wid me, this minnit, if I wouldn't as
soon be roosting on the blade of a knife. Sure am I that crayture
could shave hisself wid his own shin-bone," and Larry disappeared
amid a hearty round of laughter.

The whole company now navigated their way into the little cabin
at the rear. Here they found Mrs. Malott, with the same tired, anx-
ous look about her eyes, and the same nervous, restless manner. She
had evidently but one great burden at her yearning woman's heart —
her lost husband and dear children. Were they now living? and if
so, where ? But we anticipate. With this gentle lady's assistance, a
table of refreshments was soon spread, of which all partook most
heartily.

CHAPTER VIII.

MRS. MALOTT RELATES HER SAD STORY.

And now the simple lunch in the cabin is over, and an animated
conversation ensues. In this, Mrs. Malott, striving to throw as little
restraint as possible on the youthful spirits of the party, would make
occasional effort to participate ; but her interest was plainly assumed
and fitful. The smile would quickly vanish from her troubled face,
and the old look of sadness usurp its place. Her thoughts wandered ;
her wasted hands nervously clasped and rubbed each other, and there
was an anxious, yearning look about her fever-lit eyes which showed
the unquiet spirit within. She would now start at every new noise;
now listen, listen intently for what was not to be heard ; and then
look eagerly at each face, and catch at every word which fell from the
lips.

No peace there, nor could there be. It was impossible for any to
be in her gentle presence without having a feeling of earnest sympathy
excited. In order to give relief to her burdened heart by allowing
others to share in its hopes or fears, Maj. Rose, with delicacy and a
tone and look of heartfelt feeling, said :

MRS. MALOTT RELATES HER SAD STORY. 33

" Mrs. Malott, we are all more or less familiar with the chief points
of your sad story ; but, if not too painful to you, we would wish to
hear it more fully from your own lips, in order that we may give you
what aid and comfort we can."

"Oh, do! pray, do! Mrs. Malott," cried Betty and Drusilla both
at once, on seating themselves on either side, while Lydia, taking a
stool at her feet, added : *' You are among dear friends, Mrs. Malott,
and it will do you so much good to make us all your confidantes."

A look of pain passed hurriedly over the good lady's wan face ; her
eyes closed for a moment, as if the request were impossible to be
granted ; but recovering herself, she said :

"I fear, kind friends, my simple story will have little novelty to
you. It is, unfortunately, a too, too common one along this border ;
but if its telling will interest, or aid me in my lonely search, I can
willingly go over it, no matter how much pain its recital causes. I
have no doubt you think me very, very foolish and nervous, and yet
a boat like this recalls such wretched memories, and so vividly brings
back the terrible scenes which have haunted me — night and day, for
years — that it would be a marvel indeed if my heart could be still.

" I will never cease to wonder why women should be content to
live on a lonely, troubled frontier in time of Indian war. To a man,
full of courage and enterprise, fond of the woods, its sports and ex-
citements, and anxious to push his fortune in landed possessions, such
a life may not only be tolerable, but even fascinating ; but for a fond
mother, of tender heart and shrinking nerves, to be subjected, with
all she holds dear, to the horrors, privations and terrible experiences
of a border-life, is simply awful."

'* Indeed, Mrs. Malott," spoke the gentle Drusilla, ''I agree with
you most heartily. Even what I myself have heard of our women's
sufferings and trials, the solitary lives, the constant suspense, repeated
alarms, and frequently even worse in the way of shocking deaths or
barbarous mutilation of children, is enough to quail the courage of the
very boldest."

** And I could add largely to your store of examples," put in Brady.
"I have seen sensitive women, that would run from a bumble-bee, and
scream at the sight of a mouse, yet who in times of sorest trial behave
with so much fortitude and true heroism, and display such unparal-
leled coolness, among the most appalling cruelties to those dearest to
them, that I am quick to confess them braver than the bravest of men.
Yet still, Mrs. Malott, there must be border settlements ; but nothing
but love or duty could ever justify woman's presence in the back-
woods. I wonder if posterity will ever do justice to the pioneer-
mothers of the West ?"

"Never! never! it cannot possibly!" vehemently returned Mrs.
Malott — " at least until it knows what has been their daily life for
years — their fears, privations and frequent sufferings. Not for one
moment to be free from anxiety. Left alone for weeks ; fearing the
spoiler in every breeze, rustle of the leaf or bark of the watch-dog ;
tortured at their every absence from home through fear lest the return
may witness a smitten or scattered household. You men become
familiar with danger — even reckless enough to court it for its excite-
3

34 SIMON GIRTY.

ments or its revenges ; but women are cast in a softer mold : they are
oftenest and most keenly wounded through their affections, and espe-
cially their tender mother's heart."

"Yes, indeed," added Lydia, "and how the seasons are reversed
for us ! Now here's spring, which ought to be a time of joy and glad-
ness to all, and t's to you hunters, and yet to us women it is, as you
all know, the saddest time of the year, while winter is the most wel-
come. As soon as the wood-flowers open ; when the frogs begin to
pipe, or the wild geese to go north, just so soon are we visited with
swarms of pitiless savages, while winter sees them safe in their own
forest-homes.

" Now just let me mention one instance of woman's pluck. You
all know widow Clendenning who lives up Wheeling Creek — near
your fort, Mr. Shepherd. Well, she is one of the best and bravest
women ever God made, and she repays Him by putting a most unfal-
tering trust in Him. In time of Indian troubles, when all the settlers
take refuge in forts, she has always refused to enter one, preferring
the solitude of the wilderness to society, and so disliking the oaths of
soldiers and hunters — for you know, Mo, you scouts ze//// swear in the
most provoking and unnecessary manner, going through your round
of oaths as if it were a regular Litany — that she preferred to risk living
alone rather than have her sensitive nature and Christian principles
shocked.

'* Well, she has two children, and here's how she plans. Beneath
her puncheon floor she has dug a little cellar, in which she places a
rough bed. Every night she lifts a couple of puncheons, puts her
children in bed, replaces the timbers as soon as they are asleep, and
sits over them knitting or sewing by the little wood-fire, and watching
for Indians. If the youngest child grows wakeful, she takes it, sits on
the edge of the opened floor and lulls it to sleep. She has it all fixed
that if the Indians should attack one door, she would escape to the fort
by the other, give the alarm, and bring rescue before her children could
be found. Strange to say, too, while other settlers about have fre-
quently been attacked and two or three killed, her cabin has only been
twice visited, and the savages, finding the door securely barred, have
never attempted to force it.

"And then there was 'Mad Ann' Bailey, as she was called, whose
husband being killed at the battle of Point Pleasant in '74, became
disordered in mind and turned regular Indian killer, discarding wo-
man's dress and putting on hunting shirt and moccasins ; knife, gun
and tomahawk. Did you ever hear how she saved Charleston Fort,
in the Kanawha Country, by taking night rides of a hundred miles,
after powder, and through trackless woods, where the wolves followed
her trail for miles, while she" —

" Well now, my dear child," laughingly interrupted Drusilla, "if
you once get on Mad Ann's dare-devil exploits, and those of Rebecca
Williams and many other heroines of Western Virginia, night will
catch us before you are done. Mad Ann was always reckless enough
but far too coarse and masculine for my fancy. You see Mrs. Malott
is ready to proceed with her story."

*' Pardon me, Mrs. Malott ! Pray, go on; but I like women who

AN INDIAN ATTACK ON EMIGRANT BOATS.' 31^

show heart and true grit out on our border. I, too, am called dare-
devil and crack-brained and just because I have learned how to pro-
tect myself, and can run, swim, ride, shoot, paddle, and do many-
things which women generally don't do; and when I get started on
the heroic deeds of women whom I know, my tongue is apt to run
away with me."
( "Well," resumed Mrs. Malott, "my husband was of an old French
family and possessed a fine farm in Maryland, but he, as well as a
number of neighbors, were made restless by the glowing reports
brought East of the great rivers, grand old woods and rare hunting
grounds of Kentucky. Hundreds of acres of fat, rich bottom land
could be had by 'tomahawk right,' and for the mere 'taking up.'
The woods were all parks, abounding with herds of elk, deer and
buffalo. It was a perfect Paradise ; another Eldorado ; a Canaan
flowing with milk and honey.

"All this ended as usual. Fired with enthusiasm, and longing for
adventure, nothing would do but that my husband, Capt. Reynolds,
a Revolutionary officer in the Maryland line, and others of our neigh-
bors, should sell off their farms, stock, &c., at a great sacrifice, and
set off with their families, by what was called the Glade Road, for
Simrell's Ferry — the point on the Yough where, you know, ' Kentucky
boats,' much like this, are always kept ready for emigrants going
doivn the Ohio.

"Oh, the terrible times we had — and that all emigrating families
have — in crossing those dreary, howling Allegheny Mountains. We,
of course, had to use pack-horses. Our family consisted of four chil-
dren— Kate, my eldest, a handsome girl of fifteen, and of great as-
sistance to me ; Harry, a stirring, high-mettled lad of ten ; Frank, a
merry, black-eyed little fellow of four, and ' baby ' Nell, a dear, gen-
tle, and oh, so precious, little prattler of but two years, and whom I
loved as the very apple of my eye.

" This little toddler, with its cunning ways and wealth of golden
curls — but, stay ! here's a locket of her hair which I've worn on my
heart during all my weary wanderings," and the poor sufferer, her
eyes blinded with tears, tremblingly drew forth a little curl of glossy,
silken hair, and tried — but with very poor success — to choke back
some mother's sobs. The locket soon passed from hand to hand,
Lydia pressing it to her lips while vainly trying to keep back the tears
of sympathy.

CHAPTER IX.

AN INDIAN ATTACK ON EMIGRANT BOATS.

"Excuse me, friends," Mrs. Malott at length faltered out; "I
thought I had gotten beyond tears. Well ; this little darling I car-
ried in my own arms, or on a little pad before me, the whole journey
out. About my horse were strung cooking utensils and some few in-
dispensable articles of furniture. My husband rode another, which
was almost hidden under sacks of provisions, bedding, &c. Our third

36 SIMON GIRTY.

horse was rigged out with a pack-saddle and two large creels, made of
hickory withes in the fashion of a crate, one over each side, in which
were stored the beds and wearing apparel. In the centre of these
creels there was an aperture prepared for the children, the tops being
well secured by lacing to keep them in their places, the heads only ap-
pearing above.

"Katy rode this horse, with Harry behind, and Franky and a little
girl of Mrs. Reynolds in either creel. The other families had similar
arrangements, each being supplied with one or more cows, their milk
furnishing the children's meals and the surplus being carried in can-
teens to be used during the day.

" I need not tell you, young ladies, who have just crossed the
mountains on horseback, the state of the rocky, dangerous trail in
March. It was in places hardly passable ; sometimes lying along the
brink of precipices ; frequently overflown in places by swollen streams,
all of which had to be forded ; horses slipping, falling, and carried
away, both women and children being in great danger.

" Sometimes the creels would break loose, the children falling to
the ground, and rolling off amid great confusion. Frequently mothers
were separated for hours from their children, and long after the stop-
ping places had been reached, would be obliged to gather them to-
gether, and then prepare the meals, thus losing the rest so much re-
quired, and then sleeping in the numbing, pinching cold, alongside
of some icy stream. But I need scarce dwell on scenes and facts
which you must know are common to all emigrants seeking homes in
the West."*

"I can most heartily endorse all you say about mountain roads,"
laughingly remarked Miss Zane. " Indeed, had it not been for Larry's
good humor, droll devices and shrewd horse management, I don't see
how we'd ever have crossed with whole necks. At one of our rude
wayside stopping-places, kept by a huge, one-eyed Pennsylvania
Dutchman, who had been a great fighter in his young days, Larry
noticed that the rounds of the rack were so close together that the
horses could scarcely pull any hay through, and thus was this mean-
spirited fellow accustomed to save a little money by cheating travelers'
horses. But Larry grew indignant, hunted him up, telling him he
* wor maner than a haythan, and that his soul wor so small it could
dance a jig on a pin's point, so it wor,' and on his refusal to do any-
thing, Larry proceeded to break out every other round so as to give
the beasts a chance.

"This was too much for Boniface, so he fell on our Irishman like
a fury, but only got a sound drubbing for his pains, or, as Larry said,
' I joost crunched my two gospils forninst his ugly countenance,
Misthress, and bate him out of his tantrums in the twinkling of a
bed-post.'

"You forget," said Drusilla, "one great danger we escaped, which
General Irvine experienced and has since learned from the best au-
thority. At Sidling Hill the General was very undecided which of

* This was the novel way in which emigrants to the West traveled for many years.
Their experience was about the same as narrated above.

AN INDIAN ATTACK ON EMIGRANT BOATS.

three paths to take, finally choosing the one which turned out to be
the least traveled. Well for him that he did so, as Simon Girty,
having learned from the Tories of the General's expected arrival at
Fort Pitt, laid in ambush for him several days on the chief road, and
could not understand how his intended victim escaped him.*

*' At Simrell's Ferry (now West Newton) two ' Kentuck boats ' were
bought, my husband, with one neighbor to assist, embarking in the
first with all the stock, and in the other Captain Reynolds, his wife
and seven children; Mrs. Hardin and two children; myself and four
children, and some others, in all about twenty-five souls.

"We glided smoothly on our course, as we are doing now, and
without anything unusual happening until at some point below Fort
Henry. I remember as if it were yesterday the whole appalling
scene — " and here a shudder passed over Mrs. Malott's person, and
her eyes closed as if to shut out the dreadful events which next befel.
; " All was joy on our boat at the prospect of a speedy arrival at our
destination, which was Limestone, Kentucky, when all at once we
heard Mr. Malott's excited voice shouting back from the stock-boat
in front to keep further out in the stream, and to lose no time, as he
had discovered some Indian ' blinds ' along shore, and one or two of
the red rascals skulking behind them. You know, gentlemen, it was
March, and there was neither foliage or undergrowth to give the usual
concealment."

" Oh, yes," said Brady, " I have often seen Indian ' blinds,' both in
summer and winter, and most artfully, too,, they are made sometimes —
more natural than nature itself. For all sorts of wood-craftiness and
devilish devices commend me to a red-skin. But why, Mrs. Malott,
were your boats not kept out in mid-stream?"

" Well, Captain, we had gone in a little before to get some wood
for our cooking, never for one moment — it being so early in the
season — expecting Indian attacks. Indeed, our steersman and side-
sweepers had no protection whatever. Joseph's voice had scarce died
away, when a whole raft of Indians, thinking, no doubt, they were
now discovered, rushed down towards the river, yelling, screeching
and leaping in the most frightful way. Most of us had never seen an
Indian before — that is on the war-path, with his paint and scalping-
lock and in his native wilds, — and such a scene of awful terror and
confusion followed as beggars description. The children — and there
were plenty of them — raised the most doleful clamor, and clung
tightly to their parents, with cries and screams.

"This behaviour only made matters worse, for the Indians, to the
number of at least thirty, now redoubled their yells, firing their guns
and brandishing their tomahawks. Some of them pulled out some
canoes which we had not before seen, while others rushed right into
the water to the attack, firing broadside after broadside.

"Poor Captain Reynolds, who was at the shore sweep in front,
doing everything possible to get the boat out again into the current,
was struck down almost at the first volley ; and, friends, I never want

* We have this incident from Dr. Wm. Irvine, grandson of the General, and no\^
living at Irvine, Warren Co., Pa,

38 SIMON GIRTY.

to hear again such piercing and agonizing cries as went up from his
poor wife and seven children. It would have touched hearts of stone,
and moved almost any humans but merciless Indians to stay their
bloody work. Regardless of the hail of bullets raining around, Mrs.
Reynolds, who was a woman of great nerve and energy, rushed out
with some of her eldest children and dragged the Captain under
cover. Too late ; he died in their very arms,

" The next volley killed our steersman and a young daughter of
Mrs. Hardin. We had only one other man on board. He fired and
brought down one of the Indians ; but better for us had he spared his
shot, for it seemed then as if their rage knew no bounds. They now
caught hold of the boat, clambered up its sides, giving forth most hor-
rible yells, and crying out in broken English, ' Gib up ! gib up ! and
we no kill.'

" What could we more ? We were completely at their mercy. A
dozen of the horrid, painted wretches had now mounted the boat,
and, with treacherous grins and 'How-de-does,' came back to where
we were all huddled together, the children in extreme terror. Their
first act was to seize the only man left, tomahawk and scalp him right
in our very presence. His blood actually spurted out on some of our
dresses.

'* They then took off the scalp of Capt. Reynolds and the other two
they had killed, and when Mrs. Reynolds' Maggie — a dear little girl-
rushed forward, clinging to the knees of the biggest and most fero-
cious of them, crying out in pitiful tones, ' You naughty, naughty In-
dian ; why you make my mamma cry, and papa all so still and bloody?'
the inhuman wretch caught her by the foot, whirled her about and
dashed her brains out against one of the posts of the boat.

"At this time I had one arm about Franky, and the other about
little Nell, and was endeavoring to shelter them from this savage's
baleful eyes. No use. He quickly observed Nelly, caught her up to
his breast, and was about to swing her, too, when the dear child threw
her little arms in terror close about his neck and clung there so tight
that even this brutal villain was disarmed, walked about proudly awhile,
and at last gently disengaging her little arms, brought her back to me,
a grim smile brightening up his horrid visage, and saying, ' Pretty Pa-
poose ; loves old Indian. Some day make nice squaw for Indian chief.'
But oh ! the memory of this trying scene is too agonizing; I can go
no further," and Mrs. Malott covered her face with her hands and
burst into a flood of tears.

After a feeling pause, Brady said: "But how did it fare with your
husband, Mrs. Malott? Did his boat escape?"

"Alas ! sir, that's the saddest part of my life. I know not. I have
never seen him since. We heard him and his assistant fire several
times at the canoes which followed him ; we then heard the screams of
the wounded horses, when his boat, which was much farther out in the
current than ours, gradually drifted out of sight. As I have never
since been able to learn of his being a captive, although I made every
possible inquiry, and as I did hear through a trader whom I had per-
suaded to make search for him through all the tribes, that a boat with
cattle had been taken on the Ohio, and two men defending it killed.

AN INDIAN ATTACK ON EMIGRANT BOATS.

I very much fear my husband is no more. He was a brave, deter-
mined, passionate man, and would not likely be taken alive.

" Well, those who were left — nineteen in all of women and children
— were taken on shore; the boat was completely rifled and then burned,
and we were moved back into the woods. Our captors were of mixed
tribes, but most of them Shawnees, and led, as we picked up afterwards,
by a white man who talked Indian very well, the very Simon Girty
himself. ' *

*' Girty again ; that infernal scoundrel !" exclaimed Brady. " What
sins that cruel wretch has to answer for. I knew well he had lately
been in several forays along the Ohio, for his name is in every mouth ;
but I did not suppose he had commenced the dirty, contemptible work
of attacking emigrants' boats so soon after his flight from Fort Pitt."

*' Well,'" continued Mrs. Malott, " I must say I did not see him. If
he was leader of the attack he kept aloof, and never showed himself
after."

"No wonder," sneered Shepherd. *' He was ashamed. There's
not much glory in attacking and murdering poor unfortunate white
women and children. Did you ever see him afterwards, Mrs. Malott ?"

" Yes, several times, and he always stoutly denied having anything
to do with this attack — swore he was a hundred miles away. He seems
to have two entirely different characters — but to go on. The unhappy
captives were now parcelled off among their captors. I found I had
been drawn by the Delawares, and had to go north, and alone. Oh,
dear friends, why should I harrow up your souls by recounting the
mother's agonies I went through ! the torrents of tears I shed ; the pas-
sionate appeals I made ; all, all, in vain. Captivity could have been
borne in the company of my dear children ; but to see them one after
another severed from me ; their affectionate hearts bleeding at the un-
natural separation, and mine torn, desolate, and in despair. I will
not dwell on this, but simply state that Catharine was allotted to some
Shawnees, whom I heard lived on the Mad River. Harry — my ten-
year-old — was taken by a grim old Huron, and my two younger — only
consolation I had — were given to a friendly and kind-looking old chief
of the Miami tribe.

"I remember so well," faltered out the poor mother through her
tears, '* when the poor little innocents — Frank and Nell — left me for
the last time. They had been playing about my knees, seemingly
perfectly unconscious of the terrible past and the still less promising
future, and asking what made ' Dear mamma cry so much,' when the
chief before mentioned, without looking at or speaking to me, tried to
coax little Franky away.

"I went straight up to him, and, trying hard to smile through my
tears, told him that pale-faced mother was like Indian mother, and
loved her children ; pleaded with him to be good to Franky, as he
would make a fine chief some day. The old chief answered that he
would adopt him into his own family, and make him a good hunter ;
that he had a fine eye and a bold heart, and bade me, on leaving for
the woods, not to fret. Fret I my heart was almost broken, but I dare
not follow.

**Then a rough, fierce-looking fellow, who had evidently been

'40 SIMON GIRTY.

drinking, took ' baby ' by its little hand, and was leading it off, when
it slipped from him and came toddling back to me, murmuring,
'won't leave poor sick mamma.' The wretch then snatched the child
up in his strong arms, when it cried and struggled so violently that he
became very angry, and all at once seized it by the foot and com-
menced swinging it about. I gave a loud scream, and ran forward to
save it.

" Just then I saw the chief, who had put Franky somewhere out of
sight, rush back, snatch Nell from his drunken companion, and fell
him to the earth with a blow from the butt end of his tomahawk. My
eyes closed, and my heart went up in thankfulness to God; but that
was the last I saw of my precious baby — only this bright curl" — lay-
ing her hand on her bosom — " to remind me of her."

After a considerable pause — more than one eye around swimming in
tears — Drusilla sympathetically pressed the hand of the stricken and
desolate woman, thus so cruelly bereft of husband and children, and
said:

" Dear Mrs. Malott, your story is exceedingly sad. I have heard
very many such on our frontier, but none that has touched me so
deeply. But all this was three years ago. I do trust you can give me
and these good friends whose hearts have been so moved, and who are
so anxious to assist you, some tidings of these dear children."

**I cannot; oh, I cannot!" sobbed the poor woman; "but my
heart yearns and hungers for them. If I only knew they were all
dead, as I have reason to fear they are, it would be some relief to me,
although a melancholy one ; but this constant suspense ; this feverish
alternation of hope and despair, it is crazing and killing me, and has
brought me to what you now see me."

"And what of yourself during these long years?" softly asked
Lydia.

" Oh, do please, please excuse me from going over that dreary,
horrible time !" cried Mrs. Malott, putting her thin hands over her
face as if to shut out the vision of horror. " You can imagine what a
mother, bereft of all she held dear and tenderly nurtured as I have
been, must have endured in three long, dreadful years. Oh ! the mer-
ciful God has clean forgotten me, or he never would have left me to
endure so long such a weight of sorrow. Suffice it to say, I was car-
ried from village to village; endured untold misery and insult; suf-
fered much both in body and mind ; had every variety of adventure ;
at last, by means of a Scotch trader by the name of McCormack, who
had been sent specially by Simon Girty, I was ransomed and taken to
Detroit. Some other time I may relate my singular adventures and
the manner of my release, but not now ! not now !

" Everywhere I went, however, I made anxious, constant inquiry
for my children. I persuaded white traders to hunt them out if alive,
or else bring me news of their death, but all in vain. Sometimes I
would be buoyed up by thinking I had found trace of one or the other
of them, but it all ended in disappointment. At last I despaired ut-
terly; my health was greatly broken; my very reason was threatened;
and giving up all as lost, I turned sad and almost distracted, towards
• my Maryland relatives. I left Detroit a broken-hearted woman, and

AN INDIAN ATTACK ON EMIGRANT BOATS. 41

went along the lakes to Oswego, thence to Albany, and thence to what
was once home to me, but now, alas, so no longer.

'' Friends and relatives could not be kinder than they : but I was
wretched, and inexpressibly unhappy. A voice seemed constantly
whispering to me ' Maybe your husband and dear children yet live.'

" In obedience to tl^at voice, and the God-given yearnings of a mo-
ther's heart, I found myself alone on my way to Pittsburgh ; there I
was kindly offered by Gen. Geo. Morgan, the good Indian Commis-
sioner, passage in your boat, and here I am, and with my heart full of
gratitude to you all for your kind assistance thus far on my way."

"A sad, sad experience of yours, Mrs. Malott," said Brady. "Would
it were less frequent on our border; but believe me, we'll be glad to
render you all the service we can. And now, what do you propose to
do?"

"I scarce, know myself," was the mournful, despairing answer.
" Only of this I'm sure : I can find no rest or comfort this side the
grave — and oh, how I have prayed for that ending to all my sorrows
and wanderings — till I know whether my husband and children be
dead or alive. I go now to Fort Henry, near where the attack on
the boat occurred. I will ask the scouts and traders at each fort or
station ; I will hunt up returned captives, and, if unsuccessful, visit
every Indian town I can hear of. I have but one life left."

"Well," replied Brady, " I do not wish to excite hopes which may
be only born to be blasted, but one speck of comfort I think I ought
to give. Indians, no matter how cruel and savage in attack, never
kill females after being once made captive, and never boys or men
after adoption, unless under very extraordinary circumstances. "

"Oh thanks! thanks! dear sir, for that!" eagerly interrupted the
poor mother. " You know the red-man well; and do you think my
children live ?"

"The girls I do, unless carried off by natural causes, and the boy —
well, it seems probable, since he was taken by a Huron. The Che-
rokees and Shawnees are fiercer and more cruel than the Delawares or
Wyandotts, and sometimes kill lads because they will soon become
warriors and enemies. We'll hope for the best ; and now let us go
out into the open air."

CHAPTER X.

THE ARRIVAL AT FORT MCINTOSH.

Again are our company — Mrs. Malott preferring to remain in the
cabin — gathered about the boat's prow, breathing in anew the deli-
cious freshness from wood and water. A most grateful change had
lately come over the beauteous landscape. The garish sun was now,
at intervals, obscured ; heavy, sombre clouds were driving along in rapid
chase over the mottled sky, throwing their pleasant shadows athwart
the waters. Flocks of birds, with clamorous notes, either parted the
air with winnowing wing, or sailed rapidly on the choppy waves which
now commenced to gather under the freshening breezes from the west.

42 SIMON GIRTY.

The clouds, at some distance off, seemed full of slumbering electricity,
and all signs denoted a plenteous rain-storm before the evening.

The river was at what is called, in boatman's parlance, half-bank
high—

*' Strong without rage ;
Without o'erflowing full."

Hence it had been hitherto unnecessary to ply the side-sweeps,
Killbuck only aiming to keep the boat amid stream.

The shifting scenery, with its frequent bends and long reaches of
water ; its bold and lofty hills ; its emerald isles, luxuriant in their
verdure, and everywhere the vast virgin forest, just as they came from
the hand of their Maker, afforded a most pleasing and impressive varie-
ty. Here and there the jutting hills on either side would be broken
into broad, smiling valleys or deep, gloomy gorges, adown which
could be heard, or occasionally seen, the noisy, dashing streams, or
the bright leaping waterfalls as they plunged their way to the broad
river below.

Who that has been reared amid the wooded heights or lovely valleys
of Western Pennsylvania, ever forgets their strong and irresistible
charms. No dweller on the plains or prairies — however beautiful these
may be — can ever know the powerful attractions which a bold, wild,
hilly country has for those born among its ridges and ravines; its dells
and dingles; its leafy slopes and breezy uplands, now rising into
towering crags and steep juts, and now softening into grassy knolls
and swells, with vale and plain, defile and sparkling stream, plenti-
fully interspersed.

The in-dwellers of such a country — rough and rugged though it
may be — scatter east and west, and north and south, but their hearts are
ever constant to their native hills. They look back to them with
much of that same intense and passionate craving with which the
Swiss long for their dear, absent Alps. They re-visit the old haunts
and re-climb the old hill-paths of their best days with joy, or think of
them, if absent, with tenderest affection ; but forget them, they can
never.

Evening, with all its weird witcheries and magic influences, was
now drawing apace. At last appeared on their right the mouth of
the Big Beaver, and on the summit of the high bluff immediately
beyond — now occupied by the flourishing and delightfully posed town
of Beaver, Pa. — could be descried the waving folds of the American flag,
as it floated to the breeze above Fort Mcintosh. This frontier post
was to be the stopping-place for the night, and the boat had not
advanced much further before the guns and cheers of the two scouts
gave notice of their expected coming.

Soon an answering gun from the bluff responds, awakening the
echoes of the river hills, and down the zig-zag path leading to the
water, appeared a group of officers and soldiers, led by the tall, gaunt,
wiry form of the gallant Captain Mclntyre, a famous hunter and
Indian-fighter of the time, and then in charge — but with much too
small a force — of this lonely and remote border post.

After warm and pleasant greetings, the four ladies and their escort

THE ARRINAL AT FORT MCINTOSH. 43

slowly climbed the hill until they reached the lofty plateau on which
stood this rude frontier fort, dominating the great Indian trail between
the Ohio and the lakes. It had been erected in '78 by the brave
General Lachlin Mcintosh when on his expedition from Fort Pitt
against the Wyandotts, and when he like —

The King of France, with ten thousand men,
Marched up the hill, and then — marched down again.

For the expedition was a futile one, only resulting in the erection
of this fort and that of Fort Laurens, left in charge of Col. John
Gibson, situate seventy miles further west on the Tuscarawas (near the
present town of Bolivar, Ohio).

It would be impossible to exaggerate the hot wrath and storm of
hostility which were engendered among the proud and jealous Ohio
tribes by the unwise establishment of this last post, right in the very
midst of their own country. It was a declaration of war of the most
insulting kind, and was immediately followed by fierce attacks,
and then a siege of two months duration, in which a large
wood-chopping party was ambushed and killed to a man, and the
feeble garrison so starved and reduced, that General Mcintosh, and a
party of volunteers from south of the Ohio, had to march to its relief.
As a post so far distant from ready support was untenable, Fort
Laurens was abandoned the same year.

Fort Mcintosh, wiiich was still maintained, was a small but regularly
stockaded work of four bastions, mounting six cannon. The dense
woods had been cleared for just a little space about, but beyond that
circumscribed line, the dark, solemn wilderness stretched on every
side — vast, majestic, illimitable.

The wild and exceedingly picturesque region along this great
Indian trail was one of Brady's famous scouting grounds. A mile or
two above the mouth of Beaver is a small run called after him, and a
road which winds up the hill behind Fallstown, still to this day re-
tains the name of "Brady's Path" — being probably the way by which
he reached Fort Mcintosh after his Jenny Stupes adventure. The
whole country about was famous for the variety and quantity of its
game, and the feast to which all sat down that evening — amid the
peltings and groanings of the long-threatened storm outside — not only
did full justice to this reputation, but also to that of Mclntyre as a
notable provider. There were venison haunch, rib and coUops ; bear,
opossum, swan, duck and turkey, besides smaller game birds and
fresh caught bass, cat-fish and jack-salmon from the Ohio and Beaver.

No Roman voluptuary of LucuUus' time, with his cooked bird's-
nests, lark's brains, or peacock's combs, ever lived more daintily than
did this old bachelor-hunter by the banks of the Ohio. As Larry
afterwards, while wiping his greasy chops over a juicy and fragrant
broil of snipe, plover, wood-cock and wild pigeons by way of a
dessert — enviously and confidentially whispered to the soldier-cook :

''And shure, mon, by the wig of the great Chafe j[ustice, but this
blissid ould duffer of your'n lives loike an Irish fighting cock ; and
it's moighty well I'd like to have your stiddy job in this rare Injun

44 SIMON GIRTY.

fort, wid lashings and lavings galore. Shure the potheen ye swash
about here as if it cost niver a farding, is of the most sarching and
pinethrating char-d;<;-ter. It wa-r-rms up the very cockles o' my heart.
And now joost give me a poipe o' ' Ginny terbaccy,' and dawmed if
I'd call ould King George hisself my cousin."

After the meal, the whole company gathered outside on some old
vine-twisted settles in front of Captain Mclntyre's quarters. The rain
was long over, freshening the whole landscape ; the air was filled with
spicy woodland odors; the brooding glooms of evening were closing
down, and when jest, anecdote, backwoods' news and stories began
to flag somewhat, Shepherd said banteringly:

" Well, now, Mclntyre, since you have fed us so royally, how do
you propose to entertain us this delightful evening? The night is too
young, and we are too merry and canty a party to sit dozing and
moping about at night, telling old hunters' yarns."

"Oh, yes," gaily laughed Brady, ''give us something stirring.
Couldn't we scare up a cat, or maybe a bear or ' painter ' in this
wild, broken country, and these thick woods of yours ? They used
to be plenty as deer in mast time."

"I've thought of that. Captain," replied Mclntyre, "It's little
we bachelors of the wild -woods have to offer in the way of amuse-
ment, especially what would suit such fair guests as honor our rude
fort to-night ; but our only sport out on this exposed point is hunt-
ing, and watching lest Indians should hunt us. What say you to
taking the dogs and making a turn after coons and possums? We
might then come across something big and more gamy,"

"Oh, fie. Captain," rather pettishly exclaimed Lydia. "That
sport might do for young callow lads, but it's rather too tame for us,
surrounded by such grand hunting woods as we hear you have about
here."

" Well, upon my word, young ladies, it was upon your account I
proposed that comparatively ' tame ' amusement as you call it. My
favorite night sport here" — as if suggesting it doubtfully — "is fire-
hunting, and if you'd like to try it, this is just the very night for it — •
still, dark and moist with the rain. I can have everything ready in a
jiffy. I think I can take you to a ' deer-bed ' within a short mile,
where we are almost sure to get a couple of does."

"Oh, that will be just the very thing," excitedly exclaimed Lydia
and Betty at the same moment, clapping their hands for very glee,

"Why, ladies," laughed Mclntyre, but greatly brightening up at
the same time, "I must confess I scarcely expected you'd take up
with my offer; but if so, it's splendid sport, I assure you."

"And why not?" jauntily replied Lydia. "It's famous sport,
and there's nothing I like better, when well mounted, than a fire-hunt
in a clean, open, park-like piece of woods; but I must confess. Cap-
tain, I don't much admire scouring dirty forests on foot and in a
night so dark as this, to be tripped up by logs and ground-creepers;
jagged by thorns and brambles, and have my hair all mussed up by
low branches and hanging vines. Come, Silla, will you be one of the
party ? ' '

"Rather think not," languidly answered Miss Swearingen ; " can't

THE ARRIVAL AT FORT MCINTOSH. 45

say I take to wood-sports, I don't shoot, and can see but little fun
scrambling among dark woods and wet grass; the dank branches
flapping you at every step ; everything that has a sharp point snatch-
ing at your dress, and coming home all touselled up and looking like
a fright. Betty and I will take a romantic stroll along the river
bluff."

" Not I, indeed, Miss," laughed Betty. " If the Captain can raise
me a pair of moccasins, I'm with the hunt, and Larry will carry my
fire-pan. I would love dearly to see him out on a fire-hunt. His
late funny adventure with the stag has given me a wonderful admira-
tion for his novel and wonderful hunting powers."

" I've got it, ladies," quickly spoke Mclntyre, with a new sparkle
in his eye, and bringing down his hand with an emphatic thump.
" Why didn't I think of it before?"

"Upon my word, I can't tell," saucily laughed Lydia, "unless it
be that the presence of so many wild, romantic border girls has some-
what bothered your bachelor ideas: or, to use one of Larry's ex-
pressions, ' complately mulfathered your sinses.' '"

" Not a bit of it," laughed Mclntyre. " I'm as cool and wary as a
loon, when he rises from a dive and shakes the water out of his bright
eye; but my idea is this — we'll give up the hunt in the woods; it's
too wet and tiresome to go on foot, and would take too much time to
get the ' beasts ' ready for a mount, but instead, we'll take a water
hunt on Big Beaver. I often go that way, and it will suit ladies
on a nicety — no wet, trouble, or tramping, and a much better
chance for game. Besides, I've a grand improvement on the old
* fire-box' to show you — all my own invention."

"A splendid idea," said Lydia. "I have been out two or three times
to Wheeling Creek, with Betty's brothers,and once, you remember, with
you, Shepherd, and have enjoyed the sport amazingly. About a half
mile from its mouth, Wheeling Creek makes a most remarkable bend
so as to form a complete peninsula, on one side all steep bluffs and
ridges, and in the horse-shoe a rich, luxuriant bottom, covered with
nettles, deer-grass, sweet annis, wild rye and pea-vines. To this
bottom the deer used to descend at night in droves. You never saw
such exuberance. Why, our cattle have sometimes died from over-
feeding on the rich, lush herbage, and a drove of hogs could be
scented a hundred yards from the flavor of the annis-root which they
had eaten."

"Well, Miss"Lydia," laughed Brady, "that's the only thing po-
etical I ever knew associated with swine. You'll next have wild bees
lighting on them in search of honey."

"Brady, Miss Boggs is right," laughed Mclntyre, "and where's the
marvel? You, as a hunter, can, by looking at a deer's carcase, know
the kind of country in which it has run, whether up or lowlands, and
frequently on what it has fed. If on mast, then its flesh is fat but
firm ; if on grasses, pond-lilies, or wild rye, then it is tender and
juicy; if on the spice bushes, it is strongly so flavored, and if on
spruce or hemlock leaves, you cannot eat it for the pungent odor and
flavor."

" Well," laughed Betty, "for my part, not being very anxious for

46 SIMON GIRTY.

another Beccy Bryan adventure, I am glad of the change from wood
to water."

" Beccy Bryan ! And who in the world was she ? " cried both the
others at once.

"Why, girls, have you never heard how Daniel Boone, the famous
Kentucky hunter, won his wife ? Quite a romantic story, I assure
you ; Simon Butler and Colonel Logan, when on visits to our fort,
are ever praising up Boone as a world's wonder, and both told me the
same story, so it must be true. Here it is in brief.

CHAPTER XI.

A FIRE-HUNT ON THE BIG BEAVER.

" Boone was once, when a young man .on the Yadkin, out on a
fire-hunt, with what might be called — if you'll excuse the wretched
pun — a ' boone companion.' They had gotten into a heavily-timbered
piece of ' bottom,' skirted by a small stream which bordered the
plantation of a Mr. Morgan Bryan, the hunter's friend preceding him
with the ' fire-pan,' when, all at once, Boone quietly gave the con-
certed signal to stop — an indication that he had ' shined the eyes' of a
deer. Dismounting and tying his horse, he then crept cautiously for-
ward— his rifle at a present — behind a covert of hazel and plum
bushes, and, sure enough ! there again were the two bright, liquid
orbs turned full upon him.

" Boone now raised his fatal rifle, but a mysterious something — only
tender lovers can say what — arrested his arm and caused his hand to
tremble — when off sprang the startled game with a bound and a
rustle, and the ardent young hunter in hot chase after it. On ! on !
they go, when lo and behold ! a fence appears, over which the nimble
deer vaulted in a strangely human sort of a way, while Boone, bur-
dened with his rifle and hunting-gear, clambered after as best he
could.

" Another kind and differently-spelled deer now takes possession of
Boone's fancy, as he sees Bryan's house in the distance. *I will
chase this pet deer to its covert,' thinks he, and so, fighting his way
through a score of snarling and scolding hounds, he knocked at the
door, and was admitted and welcomed by farmer Bryan.

" The young hunter, panting from his recent exertions, had scarce
time to throw his eyes about inquiringly, before a boy of ten, and a
flushed and breathless girl of sixteen, with ruddy cheeks, flaxen hair,
and soft blue eyes, rushed into the room.

'"Oh, father! father!' excitedly cried out young hopeful. 'Sis
was down to the creek to set my lines, and was chased by a
' painter ' or something. She's too skeared to tell.'

*' The * painter ' and * deer ' were now engaged in exchanging
glances, and apparently the eyes of ^0t/i had been most eff'ectually
' shined,' for, to make a long story short, that is how Rebecca Bryan
became Rebecca Boone, and a most excellent wife I'm told she
makes."

A FIRE HUNT ON THE BIG BEAVER. 47

" A very pretty story, and very neatly told, Miss Zane," laughed
Rose; "and who, pray," — and here a look of affected unconcern —
" was to have been the pursuing Boone in yozir case, who — from fear
of results — you did not wish to shine your eyes? "

" Oh, it wasn't in that light I made the remark, believe me," eagerly
replied the young girl, a bright flush mantling her cheek as she cast a
glance at Colonel Shepherd; ''but if Larry goes with us, he's such a
blundering, harum-scarum sort of a fellow, that if we had gone by
the woods, like as not he would take some oi our eyes for deer eyes."

"And are they not ? " slyly whispered Brady, with a meaning glance
to Drusilla, as he helped to make her ready for the hunt.

And so the hunt was arranged, and Mclntyre went around to the
barracks kitchen to find Larry and Killbuck to make ready the " fire-
boxes." Larry was sitting with his heels cocked high upon a rude
mantle; a mug of hot punch on the oaken bench beside him; his
head enveloped in clouds of smoke, and with a look of supreme con-
tent resting on his good-natured phiz.

^* Come, Larry, we're all off for a ' fire-hunt.' Would you like to
join us ? "

Larry jumped as if he had seen a ghost.

"Phat ! " — and then reflectively — " Captain, wud a duck swim or
a pig dhrink butthermilk ; wud a Paddy kiss a purty girl at a fair, if
she joost flirted up to him her two rose-bud lips, and as much as axed
him? Av coorse I'll go. Faix, an' — "

" Hurry up, then, and you and the Delaware make all ready. Have
you tethered the horses, Larry? "

" Divil the bit did we tather thim or lather thim, but joost tied hick-
ory * hopples ' about their trotters, so as they could take a bite o' some-
thing toothsome in the ' botthom,' tho' why yez all call it ' bot-
thom ' when it's all top^ and heaps uv it, that's joost what I'll never
tell yiz."

There were two canoes belonging to the fort, while Larry and
Killbuck took the ark's birch. Across the bow of each was now
fastened a strip, with an auger-hole in the middle, through which was
placed an upright stick some four feet long, and on top was securely
fastened a sort of semicircular piece of bark, lined with tin, so as to
serve as reflectors, and fitted to a board of the same curve. In the
centre of this was placed a compact bunch of fat, resinous woods, so
as to give a broad stream of bright light.

" Why, Captain," said Brady, admiringly, '' these are the best ' fire-
pans' I ever saw."

"Ain't they, though? And all my own invention. The old tri-
angular and semi-circular bark boxes, with their wretched tallow dips,
did not give enough light, and could only be used in a very still night,
while the simple pine-torches, carried in the hand in open air, were
worse. So knowing the defects and exactly what I wanted, I set my
wits to work.

"First I made the stem rest on the cross-piece hole with a shoulder,
so the box could be swept in any direction ; and, therefore, we won't
have to turn the boat to get a passed deer in focus ; then I made the
box high, and lined it with bright tin, so as to increase the light and

48 SIMON GIRTY.

shield it pretty well from the wind ; and then I prepared the torches
with great care. It all works like a charm, as we hope you'll see ;
but come, young ladies ! take your places, please ! If we'd had the
making of the night, it couldn't be better for a fire-hunt."

In the first boat, on two seats placed right behind the fire-box
stem, and of course intended to be in deep shadow when it was
lighted up, were seated Lydia and Shepherd, with rifles all ready, and
Captain Mclntyre to paddle and lead the hunt. Next came Rose and
Drusilla as paddles, and Betty and Brady at the front, and lastly came
the birch, with the old triangular fire-box and candles, the grim and
silent Killbuck at the paddle and Larry in the bow, all excitement
and standing upright, peering sternly into the darkness ahead, as if he
would not only ' shine ' but also annihilate a whole herd of deer by the
very fire of his eye alone.

" And now, friends," said Shepherd, "let me warn you all to
keep perfect silence — not a sound or whisper. Our deer about here
are beginning to grow very scary. Between this and the Falls are
several excellent deer grounds. They come down at nights to the
margin of the Beaver, both to escape the gnats and mosquitoes and
to browse on the tender grasses and water plants."

" Why deer don't feed in the water, do they?" innocently asked
Drusilla, whose education and tastes had been more of the cabin than
oi the woods.

" Don't they, though?" laughed Brady. "Why, Silla, in summer
they would just like to live in the water. They are not only dainty
feeders, but fastidious bathers, too. They seek a hard, sandy bot-
tom, and after scraping away all rough stones, they lie down as if
they meant to be comfortable. Occasionally after the water has had
time to cool their sensitive skins, they will roll from side to side, and
then rise and shake the drops from their tawny hides like a spaniel."

"Yes," said Mclntyre, " and I have passed them in the Beaver at
nightfall, with nothing but their slender muzzles exposed, and a
cloud of buzzing mosquitoes about. They will lie thus for hours,
occasionally fooling their tormentors by sinking their nostrils entirely
out of sight. Oh, I tell you, a deer's a sly, knowing, cunning beast,
and if anybody thinks he can hunt them easily, he's much mistaken,
that's all. He must long study their haunts, liabits, coverts and tem-
pers. It's a constant trial of wits ; but come ! now for a yearling,
* spike ' buck, or maybe, as some of the bucks have not yet shed their
horns, we may hap on an old ' ten-pronger,' with his bristling points."

The paddles are softly dipped in the water, and the boats, in
ghostly procession, feel their way up the Beaver. It was pitchy dark
— nothing ahead or on either side but walls of impenetrable black-
ness ; no sound as they crept along but the hoot of owl, plaint of
whippoorwill, or distant howl of wolf. Occasionally a little bark or
rustle would be heard from the dense wilds on either side from some
bird or squirrel, or other harlequin of the woods; or perhaps a
muskrat would give out a little grunt of angry surprise. At one time
all were startled by the whirr of plumage and the shrill, clarion-like,
and strangely mournful quaver of the loon, as, disturbed from its
sedgy nest, it gave vent to its alarm and displeasure.

A FIRE-HUNT ON THE BIG BEAVER. 49

There was something exceedingly solemn and impressive in this
still night ride on the quiet water, shut in on every side by the brood-
ing, inky darkness. The deep breathings of nature were hushed, or,
at least, were unknown to the senses, save in those weird, uncanny
night-voices of an American wilderness, or by the richly distilled
aromas and fragrances which float off so profusely on a foggy, misty
night from tree, vine, bush, fern and flower. And how the scud of a
cool breeze coming down from the foaming, vapory falls above, fans
their cheeks like a loving caress. The darkness could almost be felt,
so dense it was, and the very silence oppressed. Just then, when the
hearts and minds of all were attuned to and en rapporte with the
'mysterious influences of the hour and place was heard, first a thump
and a rustle of leaves, and then a loud and fretful whisper.

" Och, chafe ! chafe ! but it's bothering this job ye be, you omad-
hound. Shure, my heart's joost gray wid ye. You've druv this whif-
fet uv a boat roight forninst the wuds. The wet laves and durthy
branches and vines are banging my eyes andscrapingmy poll, till I'm
moightily mixed np, and divil a one of me knows where I bees, at all
at all."

At the Irishman's testy tones, so utterly out of harmony with the
brooding quiet and holy hush of Nature, a silvery laugh rippled from
Lydia's lips. She positively could not help it, while the rest had to
join in, but trying hard to suppress their merriment.

''Where are you, Larry, and what's the matter with you?" said
Betty, with a low voice.

" Matther?" grumbled Larry. " Misthress, if you wud but speer
at me asier questions. Bad cess to the know I know where I be, or
what's the matther, and small blame to me. I'he murtherin' 'skeeters,
too, are a joost devhouring me, tough as I am, and widout as much as
saying ' by your lave,' or singing a blessing over me. Captin, dear
Captin, shure now couldn't we have a wee bit light — the dark's as
thick as the walls o' purgathory."

" Pretty soon, Larry," laughed Brady. "Pull yourself along by
the branches for a little, and we'll then light up."

"By coorse I will, av these tormenting blood-suckers will lave me
do it, bad luck to the blackguards. Now, chafe, howld yer whist,
and don't be afther always chatthering away loike a Judy at a fair.
Av I had the tanned hide of ye, begorra, wouldn't I fool these little
songsters, and blunt their sharp stingers ?"

And now the signal is given for firing the boxes, the punk is pro-
duced, and, presto, the whole scene changes at once. The water and
dense masses of verdure on both sides are brought into brilliant relief
Low, sweeping bushes, hanging vine, towering tree stem reveal them-
selves on either side, while beyond the narrow circle of luminous rays,
the straining eye, striving to pierce the vast opaque, sees misty, spec-
tral shapes, or goblin, fantastic forms. The woody dingles and
matted coverts, fitfully lightened by the flickering gleams, are passed
one by one with quiet dip of paddle. Now the fish jump to the .light
and fall back into the water with idle plash.

" Now," said Mclntyre, "just beyond lies a low swale, with rank
herbage. It is the beginning of the deer-beds. Larry, the boats

SIMON GIRTY.

must keep apart at intervals of a hundred yards or so. Our boat
first, Brady's next and your's last ; and you look out for the right
side of the stream ! we'll take the left, and, mind, perfect silence, or
no deei^."

" Yis, sur, I will; niver fear me," whispered back Larry, and then
to Killbuck : " Now, chafe, the Captain's disremembered it, but at
this thrying minnit I'll joost saze the blissed opporthunity to take a
wee dhrap of comfhorting potheen, and then I'm mum as an oyster.
Shure, an' we've had but the one the night, and a single toss of
speerits sits iver lonely on an Irishman's stomach, but three's joost
lovely. Phat's that you say; ye'U not take any joost now. Well,
chafe, I'll do the purty by ye to say, it's the furst time I've iver
heerd you ' decline with thanks,' for whin there's whisky about, an
Injun's niver back'ard in coming for'rard — no, niver !"

The boats were now creeping along amid the most profound
silence. Over a quarter of a mile had thus been passed, when on the
left was heard, first a stamping in the water, then a loud snort, fol-
lowed by a shrill whistle.

"Run the boat up close. Captain: quick! quick!" whispered
Shepherd, excitedly. " By Jove, Lydia, there he stands, the light full
in his eyes. Don't you see them twinkle ? A splendid buck, too, as
I live ! Keep the boat steady, Cap ! Now, girl, cock your piece and
let's fire together ! Ready!"

" Do wait a moment. Mo ! " nervously spoke Lydia, "Where are
they ? I don't see — oh, now I do ! how big and bright they are !
Now ! "

" Crack ! crack ! " went off both rifles, awakening the echoes of the
hills around, and followed by a heavy fall and splashing in the water.

" Dead for a ducat ! dead ! " cried Shepherd, as the boat dashed
into the place where the buck fell. Yes, dead ! one or two gasps j a
toss of the tawny head ; two or three twitches of the legs ; a shiver of
the whole body, and the " shined " eyes are glazed and closed in death
forever.

The other boats gathered about, and some time was spent in low
but animated conversation. All were pleased with their buck, and
both shooters claimed their deer.

"That will do very well," said Mclntyre. " We'll mark the place,
and leave the buck till we come back. Now, Brady, you take the
lead, and keep out a wary eye. We're on game ground."

On ! on ! sped the boats again, the bright lights casting broad,
.luminous stretches into the thick darkness ahead, and on both sides,
as the staffs were slowly turned. No response. All quiet as the
grave.

On ! slowly, silently on, until the ears catch the swelling sounds of
.the Falls and Rapids of the Beaver. Every man and woman on the
alert.

"Hist! what's that?" whispered Brady. " I thought I heard a
;splash. Yes, there they go. By Jehosaphat, we've missed them.
'They're does, or we'd had a snort and whistle. Hush-h-h ! not awhis-
.per 1 They sometimes go off a piece and then turn. They're as curi-
ous as women, Betty."

HOW LARRY TATTHERED A BUCK. 5!

"Look! look! Captain," softly breathed Betty ; "it's so dark I
can't see far. But what's that shining I Pshaw ! must be some dew-
drops, or a leaf shaking in the breeze."

" Wait till I turn the light fuller on it," said Brady, standing up
and peering intently in that direction. " Don't know, Betty ;
blamed if I don't risk it. Looks mighty like a deer's eyes, or eye,
for I can only see one. Let's blaze away ! Ready ! aim 1 fire 1 "
and two shots again broke the stillness of the midnight air.

A great plash, plash, plashing was heard, as two or three deer —
thus the sounds would indicate — broke for the shore, and bounded
off in the woods, the measured beat of their hard, polished hoofs
being distinctly heard among the leaves and rubbish of the forest.
An anxious listen, listen, listen, but no other or nearer sound.

"Missed, by Jupiter," cried Brady, in a tone of great chagrin.
"Come, Betty, we'd better 'go foot;' and yet I drew a true and
deadly bead. How could old ' Spitfire ' serve me such a scurvy turn ?
'Twas the one eye which betrayed me, but I don't believe it was a deer's
eye at all."

" If we only had the track hound now," said Mclntyre, "we might
have unstuffed his bell and nosed him on the scent ; but I'll send to-
morrow and follow them up. Maybe you wounded one after all."

CHAPTER XU.

HOW LARRY ' ' TATTHERED " A BUCK.

While the party were now at a halt, and busily discussing the even-
ing's hunt and arranging for a return, Larry whispered quietly to the
Delaware :

"Killbuck, avick ! D'ye hear Captain Leather Stockings, there, fault-
ing hisself? Now I've a notion, d'ye moind, that there s an ould bull
deer on the shore there. Thrue as my name's Larry, I saw his blazing
eye, or that of a banshee. Joost give me a wee turn o' your paddle,
there's a mon, and I'll go to the side forninst us."

The old chief, who seemed to be on the very best of terms with the
Irishman, did as he was asked, and Larry leaped out on the shore. He
had not been gone over a couple of minutes before he sent forth a
loud whoop that would have done credit to Killbuck himself.

" What the devil's the matter, you Irish mar-sport and bog-trotter,
you?" angrily cried out Brady. " You'll scare all the deer between
this and the fort."

" Matther ! " shouted Larry. "Why nothing, and iverything's the
matther. Oh, bally whackmacrew, but you're a purty batch of hunters,
and so yez be. Here's your ould buck, and a rouser he is — as dead as
Julius Caesar, and as fast as the Rock of Cashel ; no, bedad, he's not
so dead now, but is getting on his knees — the pious, hypocritical
baste — and now he's making fur me ! God be betune us and har-r-m !
Off wid ye ! ye divil ye. Och, by the hokey, and wud ye now ! ''

There was a general shout of surprise and laughter. All the lights

K2 SIMON GIRTY.

were now turned that way, and there, sure enough, stood Larry, will-
ing to tackle anything that had fight in it — with a tight grip of the
buck's horns ; with hat off, eyes set, teeth clenched, and shock of red
hair all abristle. He was endeavoring to hold the buck off at arm's
length, and had all he could do at that. The deer was not violent,
but stood stock still, with head down, legs braced, and steadily push-
ing Larry backward, just as if it were battling with one of its kind.

Soon as the hunters saw the buck was so far spent that Larry could
easily hold his own, the absurdity of the situation produced peals of
laughter. This angered Larry.

" Och, ye may well laugh, and me a stan'ing here like a thafe in
the pillory. It's help that I nade. Sind the Delaware to me, and I'll
forgive ye all, and toss ye my blessing."

"What is it you are wrestling with, Larry?" cried Brady.

" Shure, it's the deer bull that I tould yiz uv as I had surrounded
and stronger than the Pope's bull he is this blissed — no, this cursed
minnit. Be jabers, ye moight all see that widout spectakles, or taking
a rest on it."

''Well, why don't he run away?"

"A purty question, Misther Brady, and you a mon o' sinse and
dacency, more shame till ye. Shure an' I won't let him run away."

'* Well, why don't you bring him in here then ? "

** An', begorra, an' he won't let me" answered Larry, with a ghastly
grin, in which vexation struggled with drollery.

At this there was another explosion of laughter ; but Brady and
Mclntyre, thinking the joke had gone far enough, shot their canoes
to land, where the buck, excited to a last terrible eifort at their
approach, made a most desperate lunge, which backed the Irishman a
few short, hurried steps, nearly taking him off his feet, and making
him as mad as a hornet, with an " Och, be jabers, ye will, will ye, you
one-eyed monsther." Larry put forth one last mighty effort in his
turn, and giving the buck's head a powerful wrench in order to throw
him on the ground, both the big horns — five prongs to each — came
off in his hands.

We are utterly powerless to depict the irresistibly ludicrous scene,
or the convulsions of laughter which ensued. The whole tableau vivant
beggars description. The weird lights from the boats, brilliantly
kindling up this narrow circle out of the surrounding blackness ;
Larry holding a buck's horn in either hand, and looking now at one
and now at the other ; then at the deer, which appeared as much be-
wildered as he did himself, and then gazing from one to the other of
the party as he or she bent over in a perfect paroxysm of laughter —
and none so affected as the hunters, who alone understood the joke —
with a blank, dazed, stupefied expression, which would have drawn a
laugh from a statue of Niobe itself.

■ Even Killbuck burst over all bounds for this once. The guards to
his pride and stoicism were utterly broken down. It was seldom the
grim old Delaware laughed, but when he did it took him hard — so
hard that it hurt. The hoarse, violent, spasmodic roars and guffaws
which he now brought out were alarming for their loudness and
intensity. They seemed to gather up from all parts of his; system, and

HOW LARRY TATTHERED A BUCK. 53

to come from his huge cave of a mouth — as he bent over with hands
on knees, as if to help their delivery, — with such explosive force and
energy as to make his jaws open and shut like the spring of a
steel-trap.

Larry's roving eye happened to catch him as the big tears rolled
piteously down his leathern cheeks, and wanting badly somebody to
vent his own spleen on, he dropped the horns, made one bound to the
old chief, who was absolutely helpless from an explosion even more
violent than usual — and shook him till his teeth rattled in his jaws
like castanets.

" In God's name, phat d'ye stand here fur, grinning loike a skull
on a gibbet, and laughing loike a stroiped hyena, you copper-colored,
idyut. Consume me av I don't poonch ye under yer weskit, and larn
ye a trick worth two o' that."

No use, the Indian was limber as a rag from laughing, and couldn'
have stopped short of the scalping-knife.

" Holy marthyrs and the blissed Apostles ; and ye won't, won't ye ?
Now shut up your wolf trap uv a mouth, or by the piper that played
afore Moses, I'll make an unplisint corpse uv ye ! "

"Oh! ha! hee ! " at length snorted the Indian; " Irisher twist
off buck's horns like storm tear up tree's roots. He stronger than —
than — " and here a bright idea struck him as he thought how rum had
conquered the most powerful of his tribe, himself included, and he
added, " stronger than ' fire-water.' "

But now the ludicrous side of the matter strikes Larry ; his good
nature resumes its sway, and his honest face crumples up into broad
creases and wrinkles of fun. Looking pensively at Killbuck, he said
reflectively : " Thrue for you, old lith^r-breeches ; and it's joost that
same Monygaheely whisky that I've been softly schmelling and tasting
uv for a month by, as has done it all. It's guven a moighty power to
my shoulther, but sorra the bit did Larry Donahoe iver dhrame that
he could tatther a buck to bits as aisy loike as ye could toss off
' Garry Owen ' or whissle ' Croos-keen Lawn.' "

While Larry resumed his place in the birch, rather puffed up with
his late exploit, the sly joke went round at his expense, and Mclntyre
explained the late adventure : " You see the buck — as often happens
in their fierce conflicts with each other — had one eye horn-gored,
which accounts for Brady and Miss Zane 'shining' only the other.
This hole you see, is in his skull, and he must have been stunned, as
well as fatally wounded, or he would not have dropped without a
struggle, and as for his horns " — and here the captain merrily chuckled
at the memory of Larry's late struggle — " why the bucks hereaway
shed their antlers about the last of May, but occasionally one holds on
until late in June. Now the horns of Larry's buck were just com-
mencing to loosen at the roots a little, but would not probably have
dropped off for three weeks yet. I've sometimes seen bucks late in
June with one horn gone, and rubbing against trees to get rid of the
other."

At this natural explanation of what otherwise would have been a
mystery to them, the girls laughed heartily, and the deer, having been
safely placed one in each canoe, the back course was taken.

54 SIMON GIRTY.

But Fortune had not yet done with our Irishman for the night.
His birch led the way, and Larry kept a bright look-out on the
" home-stretch," determined that he would have a shot at At's deer.
The boat had arrived within a quarter of a mile of the Beaver's mouth ;
the lights were burning dim, and Larry, giving up all hopes, had
grown testy and careless, when the quick ear of the Indian caught the
noise of something moving on the fort side. His paddle was stilled on
the instant, and Larry was on foot in a trice, stretching out his neck like
a crane, his eager eyes attempting to bore into the darkness on every
side. Another distinct rustle near by, and a peculiar breathing, be-
tween a snort and a whistle, kept Larry's head and neck in constant
motion.

" That no move or sound like deer," softly whispered the Delaware.
" Too heavy — maybe it moose or painter."

At the last word Larry winced as if he had received an electric
shock, but just then he caught sight of the deer's two eyes. They
were quite near, and gleaming at him with a mild, fascinating sort of
lustre.

"Whist! whist!" hoarsely whispered Larry, in great agitation.
"There they are right forninst me, and shining like twin-stars. Now,
reddy, howld yer prate, ye blather-skite." Poor Killbuck had scarce
uttered a word the whole night. A long pause.

" Why you no shoot ?" impatiently cried Killbuck.

" Divil swape ye, mon," answered Larry, fretfully "wul you iver
howld your gab ? The machane won't go. I towld ye oncet afore,
an' I'm pulling on't and pulling on't till I'm all in a thrimble.
Begorra, it must be the * buck-laver ' I'se gotten. A wee dhrap o'
spert's would soother me — joost' enough to damp my tongue, for shure
its as rough as a rat's back, and I'm as dhry as a powdher-horn."

" No ! no ! " quickly said the Indian. " You lose deer. Give
me gun," advancing and taking it from Larry's hand. One glance at
it showed him that Larry, in his nervousness, had forgotten to cock
it. The Indian handed it back with a look of disgust. ** No shoot
deer all night that-a-way ; must cock your gun first."

CHAPTER XIIL

LARRY MAKES A FUNNY MISTAKE.

Larry thus caught in the act was fairly staggered for a moment, but
recovering himself immediately, with ready Irish assurance, made
answer blandly :

" Have ind to your nonshense, chafe ! that's the way I allers shoot.
Niver froighten your game, mon, wid the click and rattle uv a lock,
but dhrive the fire from the flint joost by pure stringth, be the powers.
D'ye moind the buck's horns, a bit back ? But, chafe, I'll humor ye
fur oncet," and Larry, with a sly twinkle, proceeded to cock his
piece.

"Hallo! Where's the purty eyes? Och, there they be agin,

LARRY MAKES A FUNNY MISTAKE. 55

ptinctooal as a hungry stomach or an Irishman's rint day, and their
owner accommodating loike, joost waiting to be murthered. Shure
I've deluthered the crayture, an' av I could have so bamboozled Judy
Mulrooney, her that keeps the public tap in Ballyoregan, faix, and
it's not in' America I'd be fooling this blissed night; but here goes,
and God sind the baste — and meself, too, fur the matther of that —
■safe out uv it all."

"Too much talk, talk, talk," grunted the Indian.

Boom ! went the roomy and greatly overcharged smooth-bore,
more like a blunderbuss than a rifle — kicking Larry over the thwarts
and filling the whole valley with clamor.

Larry picked himself up with much lively, internal swearing, listened
intently for the result, and was much gratified to hear a heavy fall
and grunt, and a terrible kicking and rustling among the bushes. He
first gave a whoop of triumph for the party above, and then, as the
noise in the bushes continued, said softly, and as it were to himself:

" Bedad, an' I'm joost thinking, Larry Donohue, ye sinner, but
that sounds more like an ilephant or a cawmel-lepard than a mere
thrifling buck ; be me showl, iDut it's a small airthquaike I ve kicked
up the noight."

'' What an awful load you had, Larry," cried Shepherd, soon as he
came within hailing distance. "Your gun sounded like a cannon, and
you made a devil of a racket — enough powder in it to have killed a
whole herd."

" Sorra a bit, but thrue hunters' measure, as I was towld — two finger
lengths uv powdher."

^'■Lengths! you blundering blockhead," shouted Shepherd ;" two
finger breadths deep is the rule. It's a wonder you didn't blow the
top of your head off; and what did you hit?"

*' WuU, sir, first and foremost, Larry Donahue was struck all of a
heap at the won ind, and at the 'tother, God only knows, for /don't,
but I'm joost aff fur to see; but I'll niver rist aisy in my bid if
it's less, counting by the thoomping and the dridful scatthera/tion in
the joongle, than an elk or a bull moose."

Larry's report was waited for with impatient curiosity — nothing heard
but smothered expressions, of which disjointed exclamations, like
"murther," "unlucky day," and "wirra, wirra," came floated off.

As no answers were made to all the anxious queries but doleful expres-
sions, as follows: "I feel powerful wake " — " Och hone, och hone,
that I live to see this day," and " I'm joost thinking I'll fut it back to
the fort," Brady, not knowing what to expect, and fearful that the inir
prudent fellow had come to some harm, jumped ashore, cautiously
proceeded a few steps, and said : " Where are you, Larry, and what
can you be doing ? "

" And it's here I am. Captain, as I kape telling ye, and howlding
her head tinderly in my lap, and she wid her mournful eyes looking
so besachingly intil my face."

" Holding her head, you fool ! WJiose head ? Shepherd, turn all
the lights this way ! — quick ! and you and the Captain hurry here ! "
and Brady pushed away the bushes, sprang forward, scarce knowing
what to expect, since, besides the girls in the boats, Mrs. Malott was
the only other her he knew about.

56 SIMON GIRTY.

The underbrush being now somewhat lightened up, Brady's eye
quickly gleamed around and caught sight of Larry, sitting lugubri-
ously on the ground, his shock of red hair all standing every which
way, the big drops of sweat on his face, and holding in his lap the
head of Lydia's riding-mare. It must have somehow broken its hop-
ples, and wandered along the Beaver, and its eyes having been
"shined" by Larry's candles, she had been tumbled over by his
blunderbuss.

The scout was for a moment bewildered ; then gave a great sigh of
relief, and, as he took in the whole scene, burst out into a loud shout
of laughter, and the whole affair was known to all.

" Och, Captin ! Captin ! for the tinder marcies of Heaven, dale
gintly wid me. Shure I'd joost as soon be living as dying this very
minnit."

At this Irish bull, another boisterous peal. It was enough to extort
a guffaw from a graven image. By this time the rest had gathered
about, and as Shepherd proceeded carefully to examine the wounded
nag, Lydia stooped down and patted its head, saying ''Oh, Larry,
Larry, how could you shoot poor ' Lightfoot ', and she so gentle ? "

" Say murther, jist, Misthress Boggs, and the wurd wud be wake."

At this the mare half rose up and whinnied, and Larry added:

" There's it's last dying kick and spache, and it's twinty good
pounds I've saved, and yez may have it all, and shure that's the
unly way this will be a dear hunt for me."

"Oh, don't take it so hard, Larry," said Mclntyre; "far better
hunters than you have made worse mistakes. Its only an old woods-
man that knows a deer's eyes are larger and more brilliant when
' shined' at night than any other animal's, and that their gaze is more
fixed and steady like, and of all beasts a horse's eyes are most like a
deer's on a fire hunt. Why, not long since, I * shined ' the eyes of
my very best hound, and shot it as dead as a mackerel."

" An' I'm right glad to hear ye say it, sur " cried Larry, bright -
eiing up, and shaking the Captain's hand heartily.

" Yes, and I can say for your comfort, Larry, that ' Lightfoot ' will
be, I think, well enough to travel by to-morrow. Your bullet just
struck the mare's skull, and while stunning it for awhile, glanced off
the bone, and ploughed its way through the skin and flesh — an ugly
wound to look at, but an easy one to mend."

" Phat's that ye say? And the mare's not kilt at all, at all ! " and
then instantly bounding back to his old spirits and assurance, as he
Raw how the late affair might reduce his consequence, he added, with
;i broad grin : " An' shure, Misthress Boggs, ye'll forgive me for joost
putting on ye the Irishman's joke. Begorra, when I first 'shined'
the crayture's eyes, they had a sort o' funning, ould-croney look about
thim. The fact is " — looking about him with inimitable confidence as a
bright idea struck him — " I suspicioned it might be one of our bastes,
an' so I joost aimed in that slanting way so as to miss it av it wor oije
Uv ours, and to bore it through an' through av it wor a deer " At
this sally there was a perfect explosion of merriment, and Lydia
laughingly cried, "■ Oh, Larry ! Larry ! but you're a hard one to
catch; however, I'm glad it's no worse."

A STRANGE SIGHT AT BIG YELLOW CREEK.

"It's thrue, Misthress, ivery wur-r-d, an' by the vartue av my oath.
Don't belave me av ye iver knowed me to joomp the bridth uv a hair
from what's joost so ; " and then, turning to Killbuck, who was stand-
ing by placidly, but with a ghastly grin on his face, he said :

•'And look ye here chafe, av ye iver breathe uv my not cocking me
gun, by all the crosses in a roll of check, av I don't throttle ye — that's
phat I'll do. The joke will kape, and I joost want to tell it meself at
some handy moment betwane pipes."

"And now," said Mclntyre, "we'd better scatter for the fort right
off. I've had enough fun to-night to keep me grinning for a month
of Sundays."

'•Yes," laughed Betty, "we have to make an early start, and it must
be very late— or rather early. Larry, you had better see ' Lightfoot '
safe through. You can get Killbuck to stay with you."

" Niver fear me, Misthress Zane. I'll stick to the baste loike fleas
to an Irishman's pig in summer."

And so the party returned, amid much fun, to the fort, and soon
sought the rest so much required.

CHAPTER XIV.

A STRANGE SIGHT AT BIG YELLOW CREEK.

An early start was made on the morrow. All being safely on
board — including Lydia's wounded mare — the ark again floated down
the Ohio.

Another perfect day ! The late rain had wonderfully refreshed the
whole face of Nature, and the May air was so pure and balmy that
the mere sense of living was an unmixed delight. Owing to the last
night's frolic, there were some sleepy eyes, and the conversation was,
at times, rather languid ; but our party were young and gay, and,
under the influence of a light up-river breeze, life and animation were
soon restored.

They err greatly who suppose that the title "dark and bloody
ground" was given to Kentucky alone. It applied with equal
truth to most of the country bordering the upper Ohio ; for this
region, like Kentucky, was used not as a permanent residence, but as
a common hunting-ground by many wandering tribes. The Ohio, in
some of the Indian dialects, was called the " river of blood," and tra-
dition tells of many a desperate fray along its sylvan shores, the crim-
son tide of Indian massacre mingling with its peaceful waters.

It had, in times past, been the fashion of the Iroquois settled about the
York lakes, to come down the Allegheny and Ohio in flotillas of canoes ;
and, moving thus swiftly and secretly — having few impedimenta or any
trouble about provisions, and leaving no trail either to betray their
presence or indicate their retreat, they could thus swoop down like a
tempest upon towns and villages within easy striking distance of the
Ohio.

For this reason the regions on both sides of that majestic stream

58 SIMON GIRTY.

had long been unoccupied, and were only roamed over by hunting
parties of various nations, the tribal villages generally lying from fifty
to a hundred miles back, and being located at the forks of some tri-
butary stream, allowing easy canoe navigation in all directions.

As the '"' broadhorn " was thus floating quietly along, general atten-
tion was called by Rose to a morning scene not unfrequent in those
early times on the Ohio. A couple of noisy "bald-headed eagles"
appeared in front, fluttering over some object in the water, and seem-
ing to be in most desperate earnest.

" Now, just watch those fierce free-booters," said the Major, " if you
want to see them earn an easy breakfast. They generally hunt in
couples, and the very best thing that can be said of them is that they
ever, through a long life, remain constant to each other, and are rarely
seen apart. Do you see ? they have a black swan there, near the
shore, and as they cannot, like the fish hawk or sea-eagle, plunge deep
into the water after their prey, and as the duck, goose or swan, can dive,
and thus elude them, they manage very adroitly. See how the two
take it by turns ! One first swoops down upon the quarry, and the
swan dives deep. As it emerges from the water, watch how the other
rustles dovfn upon it like a meteor, the first meanwhile having mounted
and now standing poised in mid-air, ready for another plunge. By
thus alternately darting after the same poor bird, it soon becomes
frightened, and then tired out, and falls an easy victim."

" There ! do but see how it has given up the struggle, and is
moving off, with loud cries of fear and distress, towards the shore, in
the hope of concealing itself beneath the undergrowth ! It is its last
and only chance. Ah !" too late — too late ! Just see how one of them
has struck it with its remorseless beak in the shallow water, while the
other fastens its sharp talons into its sides, and is fast bearing it ofl to
its eyrie. Now listen to the discordant, triumphant laughs of the
fierce murderers ! "

" I fear me that's the way of the world," said the gentle Drusilla,
whose sympathetic heart had been touched by the painful outcries of
the poor, terrified bird; "the weak and innocent are ever at the
mercy of the strong and designing. I'm beginning to hate eagles."

" Well, now, Silla," laughed Brady, " that's scarcely fair ! Hanged
if I don't rather like them. They are so bold and powerful ; so proud
and imperious ; so defiant and tameless. Why, they're the very kings
of the air. You'd like them, too if you only knew the mean, shabbj
airs of the foul birds which ape their lordly ways.

" Take the turkey-buzzard, for instance, just as majestic and glo-
rious away off in the high heavens, as he sails in magnificent circles
on the bosom of the still air, without either flap of pinion or flutter of
plumage ; but see him once on the ground, with his halting, beggarly
gait, as he hobbles up to a nasty carrion ; watch his vulgar ways, vile
habits and cowardly eye. He's ragged of feather, covered with sores
and vermin, and disgusting in odor. Bah ! don't name them to-
gether. It's Hyperion to a Satyr ; " and so the conversation ran on.

The ark had now floated swiftly and steadily forward, until about
half of the destined course between Forts Pitt and Henry had been
safely passed. The sun was well up in the heavens, and the novelty

A STRANGE SIGHT AT BIG YELLOW CREEK. 59

of the scenic panorama having somewhat worn off, Miss Zane and
Major Rose had retired to the far end of the deck, while the rest, in-
cluding Larry, were, as usual, grouped about the bow-sweeps. The
time had hitherto glided away rapidly in merry song or pleasant con-
versation. Occasionally long shots would be made, sometimes at a
deer standing on the wooded edge of the bluff, gazing at the unusual
craft with startled look ; or, again, at flocks of water-fowl as they
either flew past on rapid wing, or quietly floated on the full stream.

Larry had just finished a droll rendering of the " Groves of Blar-
ney " — each verse of which was received with vociferous applause and
laughter — when, all at once, Brady, whose wary and practiced eye
was constantly searching long-reaches ahead, and scanning, with an
Indian's quickness, every covert and headland as they passed, gave a
sudden start, and called attention to some objects which appeared to
be motioning to them from the right, or the Indian side of the river.

"It looks to me, Shepherd, like a woman, and a child on either
side. What do yoti make it out ? "

All now stood up attentively and anxiously gazed at what seemed
to be human figures.

" Great Heavens," answered Shepherd," it is a woman and her two
children, and they are hailing the boat ; but whether they are white
or red I cannot make out. What can it mean ? "

The boat had now swept down nearly abreast, and there, sure
enough, could be distinctly seen right on the margin of the bluff, a
woman kneeling, her hands clasped above her head, and on either
side a young child, with its little hands raised imploringly, as if in
great distress. Their voices and pitiful cries, too, were now plainly
audible, the woman begging the boat to come to shore and pick
them up.

" They look dark in the face, like Indians." exclaimed Lydia ;
" and yet they are dressed like white people. They are surely in
great trouble about something. Let us run in and take them up."

" Not a bit of it ! " hotly answered Brady. " I'm too old a bird to
be caught by such chaff. That's a stale old Indian trick. We're too near
already. Take the shore-sweep, Larry, and give her a turn or two to-
wards the other side ; and Killbuck ! " he shouted back to the Dela-
ware, " keep the boat well over ; I smell Indians ! "

By this time the whole boat's company, save only the Indian
steersman, were gathered in front, all excitement and eager ex-
pectancy.

Brady now shouted to the woman, who, with the boy and girl —
the former of apparently about six or seven years, and the other,
may be, a couple of years younger — were running down the bank so
as to keep abreast of the ark.

"Who are you, ray good woman, and what do you want? "

" O, dear, good people ! " came back in the most pitiful tones ;
" for the mercy of God have pity on us, and take us into your boat !
We were made captive from the Kanawha settlements by Indians, and
have just escaped."

" They seem entirely sincere, Captain," exclaimed Drusilla "and
no white woman would invent such a story. Let us run ashore and
save them."

6o SIMON GIRTY.

" Wouldn't they, though ! " answered the cautious scout. " Silla,
you plainly don't know an Indian's decoy, nor what strange and artful
devices the serpents invent to entrap the unwary and entice emigrants'
boats ashore." Then to the woman —

"You say you were captives ! how did you make your escape ?"

"Oh, sir" — wringing her hands — " please don't suspect me, a poor
mother, but hasten ere it be too late ! How could such little children
as these act the lie ? My husband and baby murdered, these are all
left me. We stole off from the Indians in the night, and any minute
they may be here. If you won't take me, save, I beseech you, my poor
children from the horrid knife ! " and the unhappy mother, overcome
by emotion, knelt again, her arm upraised, and each child crying and
wringing its little hands.

All were more or less moved. It was plain none but Brady had
any mistrust left ; Mrs. Malott, especially, now so strongly reminded
by this mother's presence and these two children, of her own sad ex-
perience, spoke out with tears in her eyes, and alarm in her tones :

** Oh, Captain, Captain, that surely is no decoy ! Even suppose a
white woman could be found so false and recreant as to betray inno-
cent people of her own color, how could such young children practice
this deceit? Be sure their distress is real, and — "

"I will hQ sure, Mrs. Malott. I am neither cruel nor unfeeling —
far from it — but I have a trust to keep. All you ladies have been sol-
emnly confided to us, and we would be false to our duty did we lend
too ready an ear to looks or tales of distress. All seems right, even to
me, but I've seen and heard so much of Indian deviltries on this river,
that even a white mother and her children, I am sorry to say, may
prove false ; but, Shepherd, will you take Killbuck's place for a mo-
ment, and send him forward ? "

The grim, silent old Delaware, with stealthy tread and passionless
face, was among them so quickly and quietly that his deep, guttural
ugh ! as he quickly cast his dark, restless eye along the shore, was the
first intimation of his presence.

The woman and her children were still hurrying along the shore,
redoubling their cries and gestures in proportion as the danger of
being left increased.

"Well, chief, what think you?" said Brady. "That woman's
white, I'll dare be sworn ; but are the children so, or only Indian
children tricked out with the stolen clothes from some settler's
cabin? "

The Delaware gave an earnest and scrutinizing glance, first at the
■woods, now at the bluff above and below, and finally takmg in the
little group on shore, and then promptly and decidedly answered :
" No red man's papooses. Look dark, but run and cry like ' pale-face '
children. They no talk lie, me tinks ; they too little to have forked
tona^es," and the old chief, seemingly satisfied, stalked quietly back
to his post.

" There ! " exclaimed Mrs. Malott, the three girls and Major Rose
evidently agreeing, " even Killbuck believes that moving story of dis-
tress. Had you not better hurry the boat in ? It may be too late.

Before answering, Brady leaned forward, with his hands over his

A STRANGE SIGHT AT BIG YELLOW CREEK. 6l

eyes, and gazed for a full minute and with the greatest intensity, all
along the heavily-wooded shore. His bold, eagle eye seemed search-
ing the very recesses of the forest. " Well," he said at last, as if to
himself, musingly, "I see no sign of a single redskin back in the
woods keeping pace with them. It may be as they think. If I didn't
know how risky a thing it was to put trust in those pesky, circum-
venting devils, I wouldn't have a doubt ; " and then, more cheerfully,
as a decided thought struck him :

" I'll tell you how we'll fix it. There is the yawning mouth of Yel-
low Creek. We'll send the boat so near to that steep, grassy bluff
just this side of the creek, that I'll jump off and talk with the woman.
The boat will be pushed straight off again. If all right, you can then
land at my hail. If all wrong, and the Indians are about, you can
either come in for me, or I can swim after you at the first sight of a
painted hide. Now, no word more!" as he saw all beginning ear-
nestly to protest; "I must have it so, and no other way. There's
very little danger to me, anyways, as I've a quick eye and will be on
my guard ; but even if there were, better me than a whole boat's com-
pany. I take far bigger risks every scouting season for my own diver-
sion, and why not for you ? " and his earnest, gleaming eye rested
for a moment on Drusilla's anxious face. " Major, will you lay hold
of that far sweep ? and, Larry, you take the other."

" Faix, that I will, Captin, avick ; and we'll have the ould Noah's
ark ashore in a brace uv shakes," eagerly cried the true-hearted Irish-
man, as he sprang to his sweep. "And wud ye be plazed to stoop
this way, Captin ? "

" Well, Larry, what is it ? hurry up ! "

" Captin," earnestly whispered the Irishman, "av you'll joost howld
a dacent tongue in yer skull and say nothing to nobody, whin ye
joomps I'll be wid ye, and we'll have them two little gossoons and the
modher before one can say — "

"Oh, no, Larry; that would never do. I thought you were too
much of an Irishman to desert the ladies."

" Arrah, be me showl, and is it desart thim ye mane ; divil a taste
uv it ; it's for definding them I be, and wid my heart's best red. Av I
only had my bit stick uv black-thorn, I wud want no betther or
tasthier weepon av there's louping red divils about ; barring the
shillaly, mebbe ye'd git the Major there to lind me his flutes (mean-
ing pistols.) By the tarnal war, it's divil a trauneen I'd thin care
for enny tallow-hide uv them all."

" Can't be done, Larry, and there's an end. We'll want you at the
sweep." Then aloud to Shepherd and Rose: ''Try and bring her in,
stern on, bow out, to that bluff. The water's so high there's no
beach, and I'll walk aft and jump ashore right from the deck."

62 SIMON GIRTY.

CHAPTER XV.

COMPLETE SUCCESS OF THE INDIAN DECOY.

By this time the woman and children were hastening down to the
green bluff, right in the angle made by the river and the creek's
mouth, which latter was almost bowered over by masses of foliage.
A thick clump of dwarf-willows, elder-berries, hazel-bushes, and other
undergrowth grew along the bank and the line of the creek. The
trees on this particular bluff were large, but not crowded, while one
spreading, heavily-foliaged water-maple, which stood near the creek's
mouth, inclined — owing to its roots having been laid bare by the en-
croaching waters — far over the river, scarcely giving room for the
boat to sweep under the thick pendant boughs.

Under vigorous strokes from Rose and Larry, the boat soon ap-
proached the bluff. Brady, rifle in hand, stood erect and vigilant on
the deck, right over the steering oar, which Killbuck had so managed
as to bring the clumsy " broadhorn " round in a curve, the stern
sweeping in within a couple of yards or so of the shore.

The brave scout had just made ready for a spring, when his quick,
wary eye discovered a movement in the bushes, and then the tufted
heads and gleaming eyes of several Indians as they peered from be-
hind the hazel thicket ; while, far back in the woods, he dimly ob-
served the dusky, naked, glistering forms of other savages on a long
lope as they hurried up to take part in the expected exercises.

*' Stop, chief, stop ! " shouted Brady, taking in the whole situation
at a glance. " By Heaven, we're betrayed ! and by a mother and her
children, too ! I'll ne'er put faith in them more ! Out into the current
again, or we're lost! and, you, Larry, drop that oar and help Rose at
the shore one. Pull ! pull ! for your lives ! and bend down below the
gunwale or you'll be riddled ! Shepherd ! help the ladies into the
cabin, and make them lie down flat on the floor and close up to the
shore gunwale, or every one of them will be shot ! "

'•'AH right," answered Shepherd. " I take it for granted, Brady,
that we're to fight the boat to the last ? "

" Of course ; but we'll first run when we can, and fight when we
must. The ladies will be in your charge below."

The whole party was now in the greatest alarm and confusion, for
scarcely had Brady shouted out the above remarks, which were well
understood on shore, when the Indians, finding themselves discovered,
broke cover on all sides, rushed on towards the boat, some from the
bluffs and woods above, and others from behind the creek bank,
where they were crouching. The ground seemed fairly alive with the
yelling, screeching, leaping figures, while their bullets commenced to
patter against and go clear through the sides of the boat, causing the
horses to rear and leap.

By this time all the ladies had disappeared below, while Brady
leaped along the deck and jumped down to help Larry and Rose at

COMPLETE SUCCESS OF THE INDIAN DECOY. 63

the shore sweep, everything depending on getting the boat out again
into the current. It now stood nearly at right angles to the shore —
the stern drifting slowly down stream, and about five yards from the
bluff, — until it approached the shadow of the thick, overhanging maple
above mentioned.

Brady now hurried to the oflT-sweep in order to pull straight out
into the stream. At this moment Lydia, with resolution in her every
look and motion, appeared in front, Killbuck's long, heavy rifle in her
arms. Quietly setting it down against the cabin, she said :

" Captain, while you row I'll watch, for getting out into the
stream's our only chance. My mare's shot dead, and Drusilla's is
badly hurt."

"Now, Lydia, this is all folly," testily replied Brady. " Get back
instantly ! I wonder at Shepherd letting you come 1 Don't you see
we're getting just in line of the shore shots, and why this useless ex-
posure ? ' '

"I slipped off without Shepherd's knowing," answered Lydia, in
low tones, and evidently somewhat hurt. " I'll stay here just under
cover, and keep a sharp iook-out. You may need me."

" Confound it ! it seems desperate hard to get out of this slow
water," remarked Brady, hotly. " There must be something holding
us back."

Sure enough there was. As the stern end swung fairly under the
foliage of the big tree, the strong wooden chimney was somehow
caught and held by a low branch or hanging vine. The three men
crouching down as much behind the gunwale board as possible, tugged
and tugged until the heavy drops of sweat rolled from their faces.
No use.

" Great Heavens, Major," angrily muttered Brady, " this will never
do ! We must clear the boat or we're lost; " and Brady leaped again
to the deck and hurried aft, just as a big, burly redskin fell to a shot
from Shepherd's rifle, which was thrust through the cabin-window

At this moment, Larry, whose massive form had — in his desperate
struggle to jerk the boat loose — gradually risen from the crouching
posture, and become the target for the concealed Indians, was sharply
hit in the rear by a buckshot, while a bullet had gone right through
his hat, and just scratched up his scalp. This put him in a towering
rage. Standing up to his full height, his eyes aflame with wrath, and
his face all red and shining from his tremendous exertions, he shook
his brawny fist at his yelling tormentors, and shouted :

" Och, be aff wid ye, ye thafes of the wur-r-ld and Lantherum
Swash bullies, you. Av ye'll jest pick out yer biggest blackguard, and
sit him forninst me, wid a nate slip uv a hickory shillaly, I'll bate him
as aisy as a game of foot-ball. There'll not be enough left uv him to
physic a snipe, Wull ye do it, now, and be — "

iBut just here Rose, who was at first as much astonished at Larry's
rashness as were evidently the Indians themselves, pulled him roughly
down, barely in time to escape a shower of bullets, saying coolly :

" Don't be a fool, Larry ! that kind of talk's wasted on savages.
They'll punch your skin like a sieve. Keep down, I say ! It's your
best chance."

64 SIMON GIRTY.

"And shure, Major," grumbled Larry in muttering wrath, "it's a
crying shame, an' so it is, for thim painted, bald-headed scaramouches
to be so bothering us when we're joost doing all we know to git out
uv their way; and there's the young leddies, too, Oh, wirra ! wirra !
but I'm down on my luck."

While Larry's brisk little speech had for a brief moment, and from
very surprise, stopped the Indians' shots, Brady had rapidly ad-
vanced along the deck until he came under the tree, and whipping
out his tomahawk, was slashing away at the branches which held the
boat, when Lydia's anxious, warning voice could be distinctly heard :

" Have a care. Captain ! There's Indians right above you ! I see
all the leaves shaking. Come back ! come back ! they're dropping
down on you ! "

True enough. Whether the savages had previously concealed them-
selves in the tree with the understanding that right on this bluff was
to be the fight with the boat; or whether, with an Indian's shrewd-
ness, they had clambered up the inclined trunk soon. as they saw the
scow held fast, was not then known ; but certain it was, that right on
Brady's shoulders there dropped the active, supple form of a naked
Indian, whom Brady threw off as a panther would a cur-dog, and
grappled at once.

Immediately after, and close by the two contestants, there came
down with a thump and shock which caused the whole boat to shake,
an immense, brawny hulk of a fellow, nearly seven feet high, who,
with a terrific whoop, proceeded to twine his fingers in Brady's hair,
and was about drawing forth the fatal scalping-knife, when Larry,
with a few short bounds and an Irish yell that fairly outdid that of the
Indian itself, rushed to the scout's aid, hissing out between his clenched
teeth, as he aimed a vicious blow at his burly antagonist :

" Troth and be jabers, I moost tackle ye, big and ugly as ye be.
Ye'U know now the vartue of an Irish hug ; but if I'd oncet my whist-
ling stick uv thorn here, I'd bate you from Connaught to Purgatory."

Large and powerful as Larry undoubtedly was, he was greatly over-
matched by "Bigfoot," the famous Wyandotte chief. But Larry
never hesitated a moment, but made at the huge, burly Indian with a
pluck and vigor that made up in dash and activity what it lacked in
brute strength. He had been once skilled as a wrestler, and knew all
about the best Tipperary twists and locks and falls, and after a short
but terrible struggle, he brought down his gigantic foe to the deck,
the ark fairly trembling from stem to stern under the shock.

But the trouble with Larry was to keep him down. Bigfoot was
naked from the waist up, and his smooth and slippery skin, as the
two writhed and twisted together in the most tremendous throes and
struggles, would elude Larry's grip, and now one and now the other
would be on the top.

All this time the Indians on shore refrained from shooting, partly
from fear of wounding their friends, and partly from intense interest
in the fray, since there was as many Indians now on deck as there
were white men, and Bigfoot was a whole host in himself.

By this time Rose was engaged with a third savage at the bow, and
Shepherd was still down below with Killbuck, trying to manage the
maddened horses, and direct and protect the ladies.

COMPLETE SUCCESS OF THE INDIAN DECOY. 65

Larry again had the big Indian down; with his knees firmly braced
on the deck on either side, and one arm about Bigfoot's throat, he
at last held him there as in a vise.

Now there was no more malice than there was fear in the good-
natured Irishman's composition, and he would have been perfectly
content with his honest victory, had he not seen Bigfoot slipping
down his hand to get at his knife.

" An' none o' that now, Injin, if you lay inny valoo on yer fithered
pig-tail, for shure's my name's Larry, I'll be making you cummit a
shoeaside. Ain't ye ashamed o' yoursilf, innyhow, to be meandering
and philandering hereabout wid yer vishyus mug ; an' where there's
dacent young leddies, too, and you widout a rag to yer back or a tack
to yer big feet."

The tawny giant here gave a ghastly grin, and panted out in pretty
good English : " White man strong as buffalo ; great warrior, and has
big heart. Redman get up, and we be brudders."

" An' this," said Larry, as he lay heavily on his foe, and as if so-
liloquizing to himself, " an' this is an American foighting savidge ;
aye, faith, an' it's a quare-looking an' swate-scinted haythen he is, wid
a grin loike a rat-trap, a mouth loike the slit uv a fiddle, an' a set o'
teeth loike a wood- saw ; an' joost luk at his big futs, ye'd mistrust ould
Horny hisself couldn't thrup 'em up. Arrah, be aisy now, machree !
Och ! murther ! murther ! Phat's this ? Drop that, ye born divil,
ye ! ouch ! Oh-o-o ! Tare-an-ouns ! "

These exclamations were caused by Bigfoot's executing a sudden
turn on Larry, and taking part of his arm into his capacious maw, and
under the writhings caused by the pain, making a dash for his knife,
which he drew from its sheath.

''An ye wul do it, wul yiz? " hissed Larry through his clenched
teeth, as he snatched the knife through the Indian's fingers — cutting
them severely — and then threw the blade far out into the river; *'an'
why not take a new grip o' yer luck, reddy, an' foight me loike a man,
and an Irishmon ; but now that you'se risin' my mad up, I'll joost take
Mike Mooney's council to his gossoon going to Donnybrook. An,
moind, Teddy, whiniver ye see a head, hit it,' " and Larry's fists de-
scended again and again, with the neatest precision, upon the In-
dian's face and naked sconce, until he was fain to escape by wriggling
himself over the edge of the sloping roof, and attempting to draw
Larry down into the water with him.

But the Irishman was too quick for him. Seeing the aim, he
wrenched himself loose from Bigfoot's grasp, gave him a terrific kick
as he went over, and tossed him this parting shot :

"By-bye, Injun, and good luck to yiz. Niver forgit to remimber
me by the crook in yer back and the stutter in yer eyes, that I
guv ye."

He turned just in time to receive on his shoulders, from the tree,
another but much smaller Indian, who had been sent to the help of
his fellows, but this one happened just at the wrong moment, and was
mere child's play compared with the giant; so Larry met him with a
stinging, blinding cuff across the face, caught him by an arm and leg,
and, with a powerful effort, tossed him into the stream, at the same
time panting out :
5

66 SIMON GIRTY.

"Bad scran to ye, ye thrifle, but ye bother me, and me so hot and
tired, and as dhry as a lime-kiln. You've missed me loike ye did yer
mammy's blessing, ye durihy bosthoon."

CHAPTER XVI.

CAPT. BRADY AND THE BIRCH STEALERS.

Now all this occurred in less time than we take to tell it, and while
the others were hy no means idle. Brady's fight had been a tough,
square, stand-up, hand-to-hand conflict, and was finally ended by his
Indian's receiving a grievous knife-thrust under the ribs, and being
jforced off, mortally wounded into the water.

Major Rose, too, had had more than he could handle in his wily
foe at the bow; but his pluck and agility stood him in good stead,
and when, at a lucky moment, the Indian's arms were fairly pinioned,
Lydia, who was standing just under cover, ready to aid, was called out
to tie his hands behind him with the deer-thongs. This being neatly
and securely done by the brave girl, and the savage having been made
quiet and docile by a {ew timely thumps with Rose's pistol-butts, he
was rolled over as helpless, but by no means as amiable looking as a
big baby.

And so the boat was well cleared of all its assailants, and had just
now, very fortunately, broken loose from its obstructions ; and, under
Killbuck's careful steering, was slowly drifting below the mouth of
Yellow Creek. Could it only be gotten out again into mid-stream —
and this endeavor was much aided as soon as the ark felt the strong
current coming out from the creek — there was a strong probability of
yet making a safe escape.

To this end the three men had hastened again to the sweeps, but so
soon as the unexpected result of the deck contest had been seen from
the shore, a howl of baffled rage and indignation had gone up from
the crowd of Indians there, and intense activity was everywhere visi-
ble, while the bullets whistled about all parts of the boat, and espe-
cially around the half-exposed figures at the bow. Nothing could
stay there and live; so much was sure. Brady had scarce touched his
oar, when a whizzing bullet went straight through his arm, causing
intense pain, and for the time completely disabling it. Rose soon got
another leaden favor in the fleshy part of his thigh, while Larry, duck-
ing his head at the whistle of a bullet, received two buckshot in the
shoulder.

At last Brady, casting a careful and anxious look on all sides, while
pushing on the oar with his well arm, spoke in low, hurried tones :

"Major, this thing begins to look desperate. Were it not for our
women, we men could fight it out to the last ; but we can do nothing
here— that's cock sure ! We'll all be dropped like a lot of boars in a
bee-tree. Must get under cover ! It's our only chance, and let the
old scow float till she gets out of range."

** No other way, indeed," said Rose, calmly but anxiously, he and

Capt. Sam. Brady, the Daring Partisan Leader.

St€pagt ^

CAPT. BRADY AND THE BIRCH STEALERS. 67

Larry, however, still tugging at the oar. " I see no canoes, and
they dare not board us by swimming ; but here comes Shepherd,
looking very grave, too. All crouch down out of range ! Well,
Shepherd, how fares it in the cabin ? None hurt, I do trust. Miss
Zane and the rest all well?"

*' Bad enough, you may be sure," gloomily responded Shepherd.
*' I have just forced Lydia to go back. Mrs. Malott received a slight
j flesh-wound, but is more frightened, I think, than hurt. She has just
fainted away, and is now under the care of the others. Killbuck has been
hurt somewhat about the breast, but exactly where, and how badly, I
don't know or can't know. The old stoic's face winces a good deal
from the pain, but he won't leave his oar."

"Bat Drusilla — and the others?" anxiously inquired Brady.

" Oh, Miss Swearingen has received a slight scratch- wound in the
arm, but she makes light of it. Now, Captain, I assure you it is
nothing," as Brady started towards the cabin with a troubled face.
'* I've come to relieve one of you at the sweep."

" Shepherd ! " said Brady, gravely, but in low tones, "this is no
time for delusions ; what think you of our chances ! "

" Bad, very bad, if the red devils have canoes. In that case, and
on account of the women under our care, I think 'twould be better to
give up the boat, if they've a decent leader, and we can make any
kind of terms."

" Am afraid you're right," sadly responded Brady. " If 'twere us
only, we could fight to the last and take the risks ; but 'twould be
folly to subject those in the cabin to the harshest treatment by use-
lessly maddening a pack of savages. But let us hope they haven't
boats," he added more cheerfully, "and we needn't consider any such
unpleasant necessity."

*'If it does come to that, though," replied Shepherd, more hope-
fully, " Bigfoot, the Wyandott giant, whom Larry there whaled so
beautifully in a fair fight — has a good reputation as an honorable
chief; and I thought I observed 'Big-hoof,' the well-known Shawnee
chief, on the bluff — another bold war-brave and clever fellow, for an
Indian."

^'I'm sure I saw him, and, I think, Guyasutha, too, the great
Mingo. Well, so it's settled. No canoes — fight. Canoes — give up
only if we must ; in which case, pursuers from both Forts Mcintosh
and Henry will soon be on our trail ; but what does make the boa*
pitch and toss so ?"

"Step back, and I'll show you," said Shepherd. "The infernal elk
was worst of all — frightened to very madness, and so goring and alarm-
ing the horses that I stuck my knife in his throat as I came out."

The two now walked past the freight part of the boat, and came to
the space partitioned off for the six horses. Lydia's mare might as
well have fallen to Larry's bullet, for it had been killed outright,
almost at the first shot ; Shepherd's had been badly wounded in the
leg, and was lying down, moaning with pain. The stag was beside it,
in a pool of blood, and each of the other horses had either been hit
by bullets or buckshot, or been hurt by the buck's horns, while all had
broken their halters and were ranging around in a perfect frenzy of

68 SIMON GIRTY.

fear, which had been greatly increased by the rolling, uneasy motion
of the boat.

Rose now joined them, and while all three went back to comfort
the females in the cabin, a new danger suddenly appeared, speedily
dissipating all hopes — if any such existed — that the Indians were about
to abandon the contest. A slight noise and rubbing on the off-side
of the ark some little time previous had excited Brady's suspicions,
and brought him to the little window just in time to see two Indians
hurriedly paddling back, out of range, in the boat's birch. His prac-
ticed eye at once saw how the feat had probably been executed. A
large bough, with a very bushy, leafy end, was floating off. This had
doubtless been thrown, or been found in the water ; and, concealed
behind its thick screen, the cunning fellows had quietly, and without
any suspicion, floated down until opposite the canoe, of which they
had stealthily taken possession.

" Beaten, as I m a living sinner ! and by a pesky Indian, too," cried
Brady, in tones of great vexation, as he explained the trick. " Boys,
we've deserved this. I thought I was pretty well up in redskin devil-
tries, but this fetch, I must confess, I was never looking for. In case
of having to give up, I had hoped Killbuck would secretly steal off
to the other shore, and carry the news to our friends. Confound it
all ! how could we be so blind and forgetful ! But stay ! those rascals
don't get off without 'Spit-fire's" mark; " and Brady sprang for his
rifle, took post at the stern-window by the side of Killbuck, and fired
quick as thought at the fellow in the stern, who was paddling for dear
life in a line, so as to be as little exposed as possible.

The bullet took him fairly in the back. He uttered no cry, but
tottered and staggered, clutched at the air, and finally fell across the
thwart of the canoe — a totally used-up Indian.

"I thought," quickly remarked Brady, " I could dog-ear that fellow
so I would know him again if I wanted him. Now for the other !
Where's your rifle, Killbuck ? "

But this was the one Lydia had borrowed, and before Brady had it
pointed, the other Indian had made the very best use of his time.
Brady plumped away, however, and managed to strike the other Indian
on the arm, knocking his paddle high in air.

" Not such a wonderfully cheap canoe after all," quietly chuckled the
scout, as he saw the frightened Indian make a dash for his lost paddle,
and then redouble his exertions. "Give me another tube. Shepherd,
and, by Jove, I'll have our birch back yet."

But just here a clamor from Larry, who still retained his watchful
position at the bow, and a startled exclamation from Rose, speedily
diverted Brady's attention to a much greater danger. A quick out-
look from the window, on the shore side, revealed to their wondering
eyes the unpleasant sight of four large canoes coming out of the mouth
of Yellow Creek. They were probably all crowded with warriors, but
this could not well be told, for each canoe bore in front a sort of frame-
work, on which was stretched a blanket or a skin, as well as could be
made out, and serving as an efficient shield for those behind, until the
ark would be reached. The men gazed at this unexpected and appall-
ing sight dumbly, and with a sort of dazed look, while the poor women

THE REDSKINS TRY A SUCCESSFUL DODGE. 69

watched their protectors with anxious, questioning eyes, but made no
sound.

The canoes were now grouping together for a safe boarding attack.
The ark having by this time drifted a little distance below the creek's
mouth, was about fifty yards from the shore, and standing out towards
mid-stream. A crowd of some fifteen or twenty warriors, meantime,
had crossed the creek and continued down the bluff, yelling, leaping
and shooting off their pieces, their object evidently being to prevent
any resistance to the boarding-party in front.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE REDSKINS TRY A SUCCESSFUL DODGE.

The case looked utterly hopeless. If anything was to be done, it
must be done on the instant. All the males, including Larry and
Killbuck, stood gathered about the two little windows on the shore
side. No word was spoken, but gradually all eyes turned to Brady,
who was calmed by the very imminence of the danger, but most anx-
iously and intently scanning every minutest object, while his fingers
nervously clutched his rifle. At length a soft whisper issued from the
scout's lips, as if to aid him in his hard thinking. His air was, how-
ever, still abstracted ; but at length, as if musingly to himself, he
quickly exclaimed :

"A deuced unlucky spot that, at the mouth of Big Yellow. Just on that
green bluff, there, abreast of which we had our late tussle" — and here
the scout coolly extended his hand in that direction, as if there were
not a hostile Indian near them — '* lay a hunting party of Indians —
bucks, squaws and papooses. Right across here " — pointing his hand
over to the Virginia side — '' was a party of whites in ambuscade, under
Daniel Greathouse.

"It was in 1774 — a time of dead peace — and a number of the
reddys, with their squaws, were enticed over to Baker's cabin, made
drunk and killed in the most cowardly and treacherous manner by
Greathouse and a few of his party, the rest protesting against the
murder as an atrocious butchery. The unsuspecting savages in
camp, hearing the rumpus, sent some of their number to see what was
the matter. They also were shot down like dogs. A large canoe full
of warriors then followed, all of whom were killed except two or three,
who carried the astounding news to the camp— only one little girl
saved from the slaughter."

"That," concluded Brady, "was the beginning of Lord Dunmore's
bloody Indian war of 1774. Among the slain were all the relatives of
Logan, the famous Mingo, as brave and knowing a chief as ever plumed
a scalp-lock. No wonder the old savage took a bloody revenge. By
Jove, I'd have — "

" Howly Joseph and blissed St. Dominick ! " here impatiently
broke in the Irishman, who was restlessly rubbing his fists together,
and who had stood it as long as he could ; " do but hear til the mon,

•JO SIMON GIRTY.

looking as plisint as a bull in the pound, divarting hisself wid ould
blatherin' wives' tales, an' roight forninst us a screeching throop of
howlin', murtherin' thafes uv the wur-r-ld, a dying to be tugging at
our hair. Be me troth, Captin, it's not siventy-four nor Lord Duna-
more which kapes botherin' fne this blissed minnit ; but, faix, an' it's
eighty-two, an' Larry Donahue, an' small blame to him."

" My mind is this," quickly spoke up Brady, with decision, never
seeming to have heard Larry's interruption, but now removing his
earnest gaze from the shore : " Those rascals have a devilish crafty
leader. I've scouted years and years along these shores, but this is the
first trick of that kind I've ever seen. I'll first try a shot at one of those
screens, and see if it's bullet-proof, and then " — and here the scout
slowly primed his rifle.

"And if so, what then?" quickly remarked Rose and Shepherd,
the rest awaiting the reply with the most intense anxiety.

"Why then, it's all over with us," adding in a low, meaning voice,
to the three men, while significantly pointing back to the females,
" and better to give up at once when obstinate fighting would only
enrage and make matters worse for all of us."

" Oh, it wouldn't do to yield the boat," hotly spoke Shepherd,
" without another effort. Those fellows in coming at us so obliquely,
must expose themselves to all our rifles."

" From what you've heard of me. Shepherd," answered Brady, quick
and sharp as lightning, " am I one likely to tamely give up when
fighting would be better ? Sometimes the truest courage lies in pru-
dence ; " and he again motioned significantly to the four ladies, and
then added : " I've thought of the boarding party being exposed to
our flank fire from the windows, and, in that case, would of course be
as keen for a continued struggle as you could be, Shepherd ; but don't
you see that the wit that could devise those screens could just as easy
manage them so as to make them effective? Now, mark my words !
if the boats come at us straight, be sure those screens can be shifted
from the bow to the side, and are padded so as to turn our bullets;
if not, the boats will first creep down close along shore and get below
us, and then come heads on. In that case, what is left but to sur-
render, if we want to save those so dear to us, and slip Killbuck into
the water to swim across and spread the news to the forts above and
below?"

"You're right, Brady!" said Rose, promptly, warmly shaking the
scout's hand; "and there they come, making straight for the bow;
and there, by Heavens, it's just as you thought ! The ruffianly scoun-
drels are slipping their screens round to the sides ! "

"Up with your rifle, Shepherd ! " cried Brady, "and aim you at
the centre of that blanket screen on the left, and I'll take the bear-
skin on the right."

Crack ! crack ! went the two pieces on the instant, but without any
perceptible effect but to call forth mocking shouts of derision and tri-
umph from all the boats and the crowds along shore.

"Just as I feared," exclaimed Brady, with deep feeling and a look
of utter disgust; "we've done all that men can do, and must now
make the best terms we may. Thank God, some of the red leaders

THE RED SKINS TRY A SUCCESSFUL DODGE. 71

are chiefs of good name ; and now, ladies, you must keep up brave
hearts and retire to the cabin. We'll join you soon and protect you
from insult with our lives,"

Brady now hurried back to Killbuck, and said, in low, earnest
tones :

"The time's come, chief! You know our fix. Will you stay
or go? "

" Me go at once," quickly replied the grim old Delaware, drawing
himself up with dignity. " Gellellemend, a peace chief, has no busi-
ness with all those war chiefs, and dat rascal, Girty — "

**Girty!" answered Brady, quickly. "I feared as much; but
what makes you think so? Where does he hide himself?"

'* Girty cunning as beaver," sneered Killbuck. " He like the bear-
hunter; he hiss on de dogs but no go himself. He got head and
fangs like serpent, and keep under grass till strike time comes. Gel-
lelemend see him behind the plum-trees give the words to red men.
Girty wise chief, and fix canoes so ' pale- face ' bullet no hit."

"So much the worse for us," despondingly answered the scout;
"would rather deal with the fierce and bloody Shawnees than with that
ruffianly traitor and cut-throat. Well, Killbuck, you had better drop
into the river and strike out for the other side. I need not urge you
to keep the boat between you and the shore, and to lie low in the
water. Go straight to the Poes, who live but a little way down the
bank, and set them on the track. Tell them not to lose a minute, but
to send runners to Forts Mcintosh and Henry. But how's this, chief?
You look pale and weak. Are you much hurt ?"

"Water good for rifle-shot," answered the old chief with difficulty,
but trying hard to smile ; and, drawing himself up proudly, " better
hurt in the breast than fire round whole body. Gellellemend must
leave his gun wid his brother." ,

"Ah, chief! you must be sore wounded, or you'd never do that.
Better let Larry go."

"No, no, no!" was the quiet answer. "Irisher go off like gun-
powder; brave heart, but no head — sooner fight dan eat, but talk, talk,
talk too much," and the old chief pulled out the eagle's plumes from
his head-crest, so as to show as little as possible to the keen eyes of
those on shore ; then, tightening his belt, he opened the door amidship,
that presented to the other side, and stealthily slipped into the water,
striking bravely out for the opposite shore.

"Major," said Brady, now again joining the rest, "if you'll go into
the store-room and roll out the powder. Shepherd will watch the cabin-
door, and I'll go forward and receive the varmints. They're almost on
board. D'ye hear their yells? and here, Larry, I'd almost forgot ! Go
you with Rose, take my tomahawk and knock in the head of the whisky-
barrel. There's a keg of the stuff, too, under — ' '

" Phat! Captin, dear," answered Larry, his eyes opening with sur-
prise at such an unexpected command."Shure it's joking ye be. Lit spill
all tliat illigant Monygahala — God be good to the he that invinted it —
the very schm'ell uv which puts the legs under won whin he's in thruble.
Faix, I couldn't do it no ways. Shure an' the blissed Book tells me I
must love my inimies, an' faith it's the only Bible docthrine I've en-

72 SIMON GIRTY.

dayvoored sthrictly to follow, and how, thin, could I knock it in the
head ? Bad luck to it, but I've the thirsty curse deep down in my throt-
tle, Captin ; and I admire the crayture so much that it must be low
days wid me when I take undacent liberties wid such lashings, one
dhrop of which wud bring tears to a young widdy's eyes. But, wid
your lave, Captin, I'se tell you phat I'll do. I seed Killbuck, a by gone,
slipping off, like an old rat from a scuttled ship. Bedad, I'll stroide
the barrhel, and joost float off, promiskeous like by meself, an' chance
my fate on the wide wathers."

" Oh, stop your blather, Larry, or you'll rue it," sharply answered
Brady, who, otherwise occupied, only caught the last words of Larry's
[Complaint. " Better do as you're told, and, • mind ye ! when the
Ireddys have you, you'd better humor and not anger them, if you want
to preserve your hair. This is no time for fun."

"An' it's foon, is it? " grumbled Larry, as he retreated. " Thin,
by the powders-o-war, divil a wun a me parcaives it, at all, at all.
Whin Larry Donohue, who claims dacint descint, from an ould family
uv divlish deep dhrinkers, can wasthe sooch tongue-tickling stuff, that
has niver tasthed wather, it's in tirrible airnest he must be. The curse
o' Cromwell rest on the whole mane, durthybizzness, for shure sthronger
fluid niver went down the red latie^^ (throat), and Larry proceeded,
with many sniffs and tastes and scoldings, to do as he was bid.

All the firing from the shore had ceased but a few pattering shots.
The crowded boats now reached the ark's bow. Everything being
arranged for the reception, Brady, for policy's sake, putting on as
cheerful a face as he could command, was just waving his hand, as a
signal of surrender, when Killbuck's head, being now noticed for the
first time from the shore, raised a great commotion.

CHAPTER XVIIL

THE ARK BOARDED BY CAPT. PIPE's PARTY.

The news was at once shouted to the boarding party ; a number of
(harmless shots were fired, and one of the canoes — its screen having
been cast away — ^sped across the broadhorn's bow in rapid pursuit.

The chase was a short one. Weakened by loss of blood, small
chance had the poor Delaware against a canoe with four paddles. He
had made but slow progress, but at the sound of his pursuers, re-
doubled his exertions, but all to no purpose. The boat soon shot
alongside, then in front, and the almost exhausted Indian, finding
further effort useless, raised the death-chant, and bent his head to
the tomahawk's stroke.

Already were several rifles aimed and tomahawks raised at him, but
Big-hoof, who commanded the canoe, at once recognized the gallant
swimmer, and, with the shout of Gellellemend ! Gellellemend ! he
waved down all hostile weapons, and drew the brave old chief aboard,
the air being rent with shouts of triumph as scon as it was discovered
who he was.

THE ARK BOARDED BY CAPT. PIPE S PARTY. 73

This brief but exciting chase had been watched with breathless in-
terest from shore, ark and canoes, and now that the last hope
seemed taken away, Brady stepped forward with dignity and accosted
each dusky form as it climbed on board. The Indians seemed in par-
ticularly good spirits. Girty's device — if his it was — had won an easy
and almost bloodless victory. Those of their party who had been
killed or wounded, had each preserved his scalp — a matter of far
greater pride and importance to them than life itself — and the prize
taken was, they felt sure, a very valuable one, both in goods and per-
sons. Captains Brady and Shepherd had at once been recognized,
while Major Rose's uniform had shown him an officer of some rank,
and he was, besides, well known to those of the chiefs who had been
at Fort Pitt.

As each warrior, therefore, stepped aboard, he extended his hand,
and accosted the redoubtable Brady with much good humor, and a
"how de do, brudder?" or " how de do, Eagle-Eye?" just as he
happened to be known to the visitors.

This friendly feeling was much increased when they saw the one
of their party who had fought Rose, and whom they supposed killed
and scalped, not only with lock secure, but not even seriously hurt.
Brady now advanced and cut the thongs which bound him, when the
ill-looking savage sullenly arose, amid the jeers and laughs of his com-
panions ; and, laying his hand on his knife, and muttering some
threats against the Major, slunk off into the boats.

It is a great error to suppose that Indians are always sullen or fero-
cious. It is only among strangers or enemies that they are grim or
reserved. It is part of their education never to show any natural feel-
ing or curiosity among strangers. But those who have followed their
trail, waylaid them in their camps, or been captive in their villages,
say that among themselves they are kind, affectionate and light-hearted,
passing most of their time when on the hunt or in camp, with dance,
song, games and jokes. Indian hunters, after the evening meal and
pipe are over, will sometimes spend whole nights joking and telling
all sorts of adventures, and the shouts of laughter which frequently
make the woodland arches ring, abundantly witness their humor,
drollery and love of the jest.

So soon as Captain Pipe, the great war chief of the Moncies, or
Wolf Tribe of the Delawares, put foot on deck, Brady drew him
aside, and most earnestly besought him to restrain his warriors from
flocking back into the little cabin, where the four females were hud-
dled together in the greatest dismay.

This grim and sour-looking old Delaware — a chief who, ever since
the outbreak of the Revolution had been particularly hostile to the
Americans, as also to the Moravian Indians and their protectors, the
Turtle Tribe of Delawares under Captains White Eyes, Big Cat and
Killbuck — sullenly made answer that he might try, but all the white
men, even supposing they could be saved from hard treatment, would
have to be sent bound to their villages.

He fiercely told Brady that such was the intense feeling for revenge
at the late cowardly and atrocious slaughter of the Moravians by
the "Long Knives " — as the Virginians living on the thither side of

74 SIMON GIRTY.

the Ohio, were then universally called — that if their defense of the
boat had lasted much longer, or been any more bloody, nothing
could have saved the whole party from the harshest treatment ; that
most of this war party had been hastily gathered from various tribes,
solely to avenge the Gnadenhutten butchery. The "braves" were
now pleased at the rich booty and the success of their stratagem, but
there was no telling when their wrath might blaze out again.

Brady took the greatest pains to assure this influential chieftain that
the massacre was strongly denounced as an inhuman butchery by
those in authority; not only at Forts Pitt and Henry, but by Wash-
ington and Congress ; that not one aboard the boat was present at or
privy to it ; and that steps were now being taken by the authorities to
hunt out and punish the perpetrators.

To all this. Pipe listened grimly, but with an ill-concealed sneer on
his ferocious countenance. If that were so he pertinently asked, how
happened it that the miscreants, on their return from the massacre in
March, had been allowed, under the very guns of Fort Pitt, to attack
a village of peaceable and friendly Delawares, who lived on Smoky
Island under Gellellemend and the young head chief. White Eyes'
successor ; and how happened it that afterwards there was a great
public sale at Pittsburgh of all the horses, robes, etc., stolen by Wil-
liamson's gang ?

"You see," added Pipe in pretty good English, "we have plenty
spies, and know all dat happen. Why does not Captain Brady make
dis clear?"

This query was a poser to our scout. The facts could not be gain-
sayed, as, also, that a number of the people of Pittsburgh approved
of Williamson's burnings and butcheries ; but he got over it as best
he could by stating that the Smoky Island attack was a complete sur-
prise, and that Gen. Irvine (which was the truth) was East at the
time,- and the rest had not sufficient authority.

" Ugh !" snorted the sharp old warrior, disgustfully, " dat very bad.
When red warriors do not obey war chief, they turned out of tribe,
and become no more dan squaws. Dat not speak good for dis * pale-
face ' officer," — pointing to Rose — "when his people no mind him.
Maybe he help kill the Peace Delawares on the island, and Gellelle-
mend, too. We must tell him no go wid our young chief to the Fort,
and dat ' pale-face ' hate red-man and kill dem all, and now he take
gun wid his enemies, and the Great Spirit kill him!^

Brady spoke up for both Rose and Killbuck, and although he could
not convince the stern old savage, he drew from him a promise that
he would keep the cabin clear,

"And now me want to see" — looking curiously around the boat —
" the strong ' brave ' wid hair like the sun, who turn over and over
and over our big Huron. Ugh ! Bigfoot great and strong like oak,
but * painted hair ' tough, and bend like de hickory. Why he no
take scalp when he can get him, eh?"

Ah, yes ; Pipe was not the only one that wanted to see Larry, who
had so easily overthrown their fighting Goliath. He was plainly an
object of curiosity to all who came on board. Bigfoot was evidently
their great champion ; and to have him so badly worsted by one so

THE ARK BOARDED BY CAPT. PIPE'S PARTY. 75

much smaller, and in a fair, square, stand-up tussle, was something
they could not understand.

While Brady and Pipe, therefore, were having their talk, Catahe-
cassa, or Big Hoof, followed by a swarm of curious savages, worked
back through the store-house into that part used as a stable. Here a
glad shout went up at the sight of the fine horses, and the big elk
all ready for flaying, while a strong smell of whisky, which pervaded
the whole apartment, elevated every painted nose in mid-air.

When their eyes had become somewhat accustomed to the gloom,
Larry was seen — Killbuck's rifle in one hand and Brady's tomahawk
in the other — sitting pensively on the empty barrel, gazing at a pile
of gunpowder which had been wet through and through with the
whisky which he had so grumblingly poured out. An angry circle
soon gathered about him, but the Irishman's power in overcoming
"Bigfoot " had plainly bred in them a wholesome respect. At last
Larry :

" Och, tundher and turf, my yaller boys; you may well sniff and
bate the air wid yer big noses, ye divil's own pack a«d gallis pets.
Why for doun't ye come to the fore? D'ye think I'm Mars, the
great God of war, that ye so kape ofl" from me ? Out wid yer spake
now, or I'll exkiminicate ye, ye bloody haythen, ye. Arrah, thin,
but ye'll sup sorra for the heart-scalding ye've guv me in regard to
this wasthed stuff."

Tlie enraged Blackhoof, with his hideous parchment-like face, huge
Roman nose and glaring eyes, now approached Larry with uplifted
tomahawk, and poured forth a torrent of imprecations for the loss of
so much excellent " fire-water." He still, however, kept a respecta-
ble distance between them, and he could not help gazing at the fight-
ing and imperturbable Irishman with a kind of awe, as if he must be
some great " Medicine."

"An' phat for are ye faulting me, ye rap uv the divil, you, wid yer
swivel eye, yer big schmeller, and yer face all streaked and puffed out
loike a bag-piper. Be me showl, ye Judy Fitzsimmons ye, but ye've
did the bizzness inny how the day, boorsting in pure old Monygahaly
what niver knowed gager, and sthrong enough to make yer very nose
curl, big an' ugly as it is.

*' An' phat did I knock in the barrel fur? Be jabers, ye'd betther
say that an' thin die, an' guv the buzzards a puddin'. Shure, an'
wasn't the powther an' the whisky — thim two gratest innimies of mon
— lying sociably and lovingly soide by soide, niver saying nothing to
nobody, whin in patthers yer murderin' bullets, vexing and tatthering
the horses, until the Major's blud mare there, wid ears laid flat and
music in her eye — ah, swate good luck to the fiery demon that's in her
— up wid her two handy heels and bate the divil's own tatoo on the
pair of barrel inds.

" Begorra, but it's the chrame uv a good lathering ye ought to have,
ivery mudher's son of ye, ye varnished beauties. Howiver now wul
ye wet yer whistles an' kape yourselves in wind, or set yer toes a wag-
gin the noight, whin sich lashings of good dhrink are foriver gone
loike a schwate dhrame. Be the mortual, but it wor the illigantest
sthuff, that wud sarch ye and war-r-rm ye to the very marrow, and

76 SIMON GIRTY.

wud tickle and slewtlier ye to yer very finger nails. Och, hone ! och,
hone ! but it bates cock-foighting intirely, so it does; an' my heart's
jist low wid ye, an' sich dape grafe as mine is iver droughty. Shure
my throath's as dusty as a road to the fair, and ye've desthroyed the
fluid, ye gallenippers."

Larry could not have adopted a tone with his gaping visitors which
would have been more effective. There were few that understood it
all, but there was a scolding ring and a quiet style in it averse to any
cowering or craven submission. The wondering savages now crowded
closer about him, and some even ventured to feel his arms and his
legs, as if to find where all his power resided, until at last one hap-
pened to touch his wounded shoulder, when Larry, realizing now to
the full that his late victory over Bigfoot had made him quite a hero
to be feared and admired, sprung around at him with a sudden snort
and snap of his jaws that made the audacious meddler execute a
quick backward spring against Black Bess, who, at the same time,
lifting her dexterous foot, gave him a kick that sent him howling away
amid the laughs and jeers of his companions.

Blackhoof then said : " ' Painted Hair,' no very big, but strong
like buffalo, and quick like panther. Does the ' pale-face ' eat pow-
der and drink ' fire-water' that makes him so like iron?"

Larry was now just in his element. His spirits rose with the occa-
sion, and in proportion as he was flattered, his style and language
grew more airy and exuberant.

" Tare-an-ounty, ye painted spalpeens; ate is it? Divil an ate at
all at all, fur I've iver obsarved that the more I ate and ate the less
grows my appethite, and as fur the wee dhrap o' moisture I take,
shure it's niver worth the mention — sometimes but a mere schmell of
the native mountain-brewed — ^jist enough to bring the dhrap into the
eye, lightness to the elbow, and suppleness to the jints. Shure it's not
tkaf makes me foight like a Trojan, ye deludher, ye ; but, loike Sam-
son, my stringth lies in my hair — av ye'll not be wishing fur it too
much — an' thin at wakes and fairs, an' sich loike, I'm made supple wid
the oil of hazel, an' am rubbed down wid an oaken towel ; an' d'ye
think now, ye divil's own brood, that I make much uv foighting a
slippery ould buffer loike 'Bigfoot,' who was joost fairly blue-mould-
ing for a bating. Why, he's loike new milk from the cow compared
wid the giant — him they called the 'Limerick Baby,' who came
boostering an' roostering about at our fair, spreading out his tail loike
a paycock, an' asking innybody to plase tread on it. Faith an' I was
jist the won that did that same. Och, but I was the broth uv a boy
thin, far known fur bringing the bottom uv my noggin into close fel-
lowship wid my eyebrow, an' I tackled him to wunst, an' in half uv
a crack uv a cow's thumb, he wur laid out, cowld as a wedge, an'
a' most ready to be * waked,' bad scran to him. Be the hokey, but
ye must bring oji yer 'Bigfoots,' an' wid their pumps aff, too, av they
want a wholesome bating," and Larry now rose quietly from his seat
and stretched forth his brawny arms.

''And is there no more * fire-water' about*?" eagerly queried
Blackhoof, peering around on all sides.

'•Sorra one uv me knows," answered Larry, with a broad grin.

SIMON GIRTY "PUTS IN AN APPEARANCE. 77

''But av ye cannot scint it out yerself wid sich a magnificent pro-
boskis as ye have, thin there's no use in a nose at all, at all ; shure it
seems built a purpose for joost that bizzness ; an' ye ought to follow
a whisky scint as ye wud that uv an Injun;" — and then in a side
voice, "An' bedad one's as sthrong as the other; but moind ye,
reddy, an' ye do find some, be sure I'll be clost to yer back."

The Indians now scoured the boat for booty. Some secured the
horses, while others commenced to flay and cut up the dead stag.
Meanwhile a couple of men at the sweeps soon brought the ark to
the grassy bluff before mentioned, just above the mouth of the Big
Yellow. A rough slab was thrown ashore, another raft of Indians
thronged on board, and all was ready for debarkation.

The four women, but especially poor Mrs. Malott, had been at
first very much distressed, but as time passed on and no one appe'ared
to disturb them but Pipe, who, in company with Rose and Brady, had
paid them a brief visit. Shepherd was quickly enabled to calm their
fears, and make them somewhat resigned to their fate. Such wounds
as required attention had been cared for, and all that they wished to
carry with them had been tearfully selected. It was a sad, sad end-
ing to their water excursion, commenced with such high hopes and
pleasant anticipations of home greetings.

Now followed a scene of great animation. Some brief delay
occurred before the captives were ready to land ; but soon Captain
Pipe appeared at the ark's bow, closely followed by the unhappy
ladies of our party, and then Bighoof, with Brady, Rose, Shepherd
and Larry, all of whom had their arms securely bound behind them.
The procession was closed by poor Killbuck, so grievously wounded
as to require the support of an Indian on either side. Owing in part
to the easy success of the attacking party, and the richness of the
spoil, and, in part, to the character of the chiefs in charge, unusual
freedom and consideration had been shown to the females. Thus far
they had nothing of which to complain.

CHAPTER XIX.

SIMON GIRTY " PUTS IN AN APPEARANCE."^

And just now a new and prominent actor appeared, for the first
time, upon the wooded bluff. The prisoners had scarce made the first
step towards the plank, when the crowd of savages opening, a stern,
determined, and weather-beaten person — emerging somewhere from
the vast wilderness behind — stepped briskly to the front.

He was a man of apparently thirty-five years of age, complexion
deeply tanned, and of medium height, but very broad-chested and
strong-limbed, denoting unusual strength and power of endurance.
His step was firm and quick — his look cool and defiant. The dark,
shaggy hair and heavy brows ; the sharp, sunken grey eyes ; the thin,
compressed lips ; the square and massive under jaw, all gave token of
a man of force and strong passions.

7 8 SmqN GIRTY.

This white chief— for leader he evidently seemed — was well, if not
richly, clad in a picturesque costume — half scout, half Indian, with
buckskin leggins and moccasins; a cap of muskrat skin, the tail
pendent behind, with an eagle plume in front, and a fringed hunting
frock, fastened before by a row of wolves' teeth. In his belt, which was
singularly broidered with bears' claws, were stuck, on the one side a
hunting-knife and tomahawk, and on the other a pair of heavy, silver-
mounted pistols.

A long, heavy rifle supported him in an easy and not ungraceful
attitude; and thus he stood, a little back from the plank-head, silent
and waiting, surrounded by chiefs and warriors, the whole group —
with its back-ground of deep, thick woods, and the broad, swift-flow-
ing stream in front— presenting a striking picture.

Thus, on that fair May day, looked Simon Girty, or Katepacomen,
as he was called by the Senecas, among whom his early years were
passed. He called himself, and liked others to call him. Captain
Girty, though whether he ever had, like his fellow-tory, Elliot, a Cap-
tain's commission trom the British, is uncertain. He was now in the
very prime of life, and at the very height of his influence — a power-
ful friend, if our poor captives could so arrange it, or a most rancor-
ous enemy should they dare to cross him.

We defer, for the present, any sketch of Girty's life, or estimate of
his character. At the time we now present him, he was undoubtedly
one of the most trusted and influential chiefs — both in war and coun-
cil— of the Confederated Northwestern tribes, who were banded
together by the British to stay and resist the advancing waves of
American emigration. He was a brave, active and sagacious leader,
but fierce, cruel, stormy and vindictive.

No name along the whole border from Fort Redstone (now Browns-
ville, Pa.,) down to the Falls of the Ohio (now Louisville) was so
universally dreaded. Scarce a maraud, massacre or scalping foray
occurred, but what the Girtys — for there were three brothers of them,
(George, James and Simon) all operating with the western Indians —
were at the bottom of them. The hated name was a terror in every
borderer's cabin, and its mere mention would cause women's cheeks
to blanch and children's hair to stand with fear.

And yet, as he gravely and courteously inclined to receive Miss
Boggs, who was the first to reach the bluff", and as a grim smile broke
across his sinister face, like a gleam of sunshine athwart a gloomy,
savage tarn, he scarce looked so very deadly and dangerous. Indeed,
he now appeared at his very best. Only in his times of terrible de-
bauch, or when unusually enraged by some particular object of his
intense hate, could his victims witness the awful storms and throes
which seemed to demonize his whole nature, and " clothe him with
curses as with a garment."

Misses Zane and Swearingen were received with a rather awkward
courtesy, Girty speaking a few cheering words to each, and excusing
the attack on the boat. To these common-places, the girls having
learned who the man was, replied as curtly as possible.

And now, with sad mien and downcast eyes, approached Mrs.
Malott. As soon as Girty cast his eyes on her, he gave a sudden

SIMON GIRTY "PUTS IN AN APPEARANCE." 79

Start and exclamation of surprise, which caused her to look for the
first time at her captor. She appeared even more surprised than he,
for she had not yet been told, like the rest, of Girty's being, the plan-
ner of the attack. Girty, recovering himself immediately, exclaimed,
while assisting her by the hand :

" Do I see aright ? Can this be Mrs. Malott, that I parted with at
Detroit last year?"

"I might ask you the first question. Captain," answered Mrs. Ma-
lott, wearily. "My surprise is, I assure you, as great as your own.
Are you our captor?"

" Indeed I am, ma'am," unblushingly answered Girty. " You'll
have to suffer for the bad company you keep. What in the world
took you in that boat?"

" How could you ask. Captain? The same old story. You ought
to know that a wife and mother cannot give up all that is dear to her,
until the truth is known," and then darting at him a quick, meaning
look: "Anynews? Oh, please tell me if you have learned anything !"

A change came over Girty's face. He looked troubled, somewhat
anxious, replying: "Well, no — nothing," and as he saw her imme-
diate disappointment and despairing look, he added, "but stay! I
think I can tell you somethi?ig that will interest you. The merest
trace. Maybe something — maybe nothing ; but go for the present
with the other women and take your rest on yonder log. I'll tell
you what I know very soon."

Just at this point a loud and joyful shout was heard from the boat,
and a knot of Indians appeared with the keg of whisky, which they
had hunted out from under the stores.

At tiiis prospect of a regular drinking frolic, the whole assemblage
of redskins grew jubilant, and a large proportion of them — the
whisky keg carried in triumph in the middle — went back into the
woods.

Girty spoke a few earnest words in Delaware to some of the chiefs
about him, who proceeded to join the rest, doubtless to see that there
might be no drinking to excess. Other Indians were detailed to
bring out the horses, and everything that could be used or carried off
— lead, powder, clothing, etc. Girty then received Brady in these
words :

" Well, Captain, you and me have long been after each other ; but
this is the first time we've chanced to meet. I have rather the squeeze
on you this time. Eh?"

It had previously been agreed among Brady, Rose and Shepherd, to
have as little to do with the renegade as possible ; and, for the sake of
the companions so dear to them all, to say nothing that would chafe
him. Now, that Killbuck's escape had been prevented, the prospect for
a speedy deliverance had grown rather slender, and so Brady quietly
answered :

" You have, indeed. Captain Girty. We're entirely at your mercy,
but, I (rust, for the sake of these innocent females, that you and your
men will not be cruel."

"Oh, yes, of course," sneered Girty, his wrath mounting and a
malignant expression gleaming athwart his scowling face ; "but that'll

8o SIMON GIRTY.

be a deuced sight harder than you think. All the tribes are as mad
as at the late butchery on the Muskingum, and cry out for ven-
geance. You're the first lot of whites we've caught, and it may go
devilish hard with you. 'Innocent's' a pretty word, Brady; but
warn't the praying Indians just as mild and innocent as yer hand-
some women; but what was the good? B^ 'twas the meanest

and dirtiest cut-throat slaughter I ever seen. Talk of Simon Girty
and redskin scalpings after that ! Bah ! it makes me sick. / never
lied or coaxingly sneaked poor women and children into a room, and
then knocked them on the head, like a pack of hogs, with a mallet.
Think of it ! twenty Christian women and thirty-four little children !
Where's the child or woman that Girty ever scalped ? but there's
many of them that I've redeemed and sent home. Mrs. Malott her-
self is one, and I am now busy hunting up her children. You Yan-
kee rebels are infernal rascals and hypocrites."

** I told you before," hotly replied Brady, his anger now rising rap-
idly, especially under the sneers and curses of a tory renegade, whom
he hated and had hunted like a 'rattler.' "I told you before that
we're at your mercy, and it isn't, therefore, a very brave thing for
you to be jibing and taunting us when answers of the same kind
might bring on us all the harshest treatment. It sounds odd, though,
to hear you, of all the world, affecting to pity and feel for the
Moravians, since, if report speaks true, you — yes, don't start ! just
you — have been their greatest enemy and bitterest persecutor for
years." ^,^

"It's a lie, a most damnable lie," hissed out Girty. "I've been
their friend ; but I was, and am dead against their squatting down
near your border and blabbing to your forts of every war party that
went out against you."

"Well," said Brady, scornfully and defiantly, "now's no time to
argue this matter; but we certainly heard at Fort Pitt, and from the
very best authority, too, that you had not only backed the Huron
Half-King in his forced removal of the Moravians to the Sandusky
last Fall, but were its chief instigator ; that you were cruel and
abusive to Heckewelder, and the other missionaries since then ; that
you made, after White Eyes' death, a secret attempt, with eight Min-
goes, to waylay and scalp the old missionary Zeisberger ; that — "

"Stop! stop! I tell you! Lies, cursed lies, all!" roared Girty,
now terribly excited at these imprudent utterances of our scout, and
then more calmly — " Brady, knowing you as a brave foe, whose pluck
and grit I respected, I meant to deal fair by you, and show you and
your party that the ' Devil's not so black as he's painted ; ' but by
you fret an rile me, and I'll soon show you who's master."

Brady, never counted a very prudent man where he himself was
concerned, had been provoked by Girty's tory epithets into his home
thrusts, which had proved none the less galling because of their truth.
It was rash and yet natural enough. But now the scout regretted it,
and to make amends said quietly : —

"I was wrong, Girty, and shouldn't have argued the subject; but
'rascals' and 'rebels' are confounded hard words to stand, and I
was stung to the quick by them. If you feel hurt, and will loose my

SIMON GIRTY "PUTS IN AN APPEARANCE." 8l

arms and hand me old 'Spitfire,' we'll step off ten or twenty paces,
just as you choose, and settle this matter for the whole of us. But
mind, the victor — "

A harsh, mocking laugh from Girty here broke in discordantly.
"Brady," he said, in his most rasping tones, "that's a stale old trick
with captives. 'Twould put us on a level when I've already got you.
I said we had long hunted each other. Well, I've found you and
snared you, and by my own mother wit, too; and are you ass enough
to think that, by way of reward for my own sharpness, I'd be such
a fool as to put a deadly rifle in your hands, to be bored through the
gizzard, and thus set free my wind and your party at the same time?
That isn't exactly the way we do things in these woods. Besides
I've known captives prefer many deaths to torture. I'll tell you,
though, how you may get rid of your high spirits — try hugging a
hickory for awhile ; " and Girty called up some warriors, and bade
them tie the whole four men to trees. He then said to the rest —
"Men, I wanted to do the decent thing by you, but your peppery
friend here wouldn't let me. By Heaven ! I'll cut his comb, though,
before we get through."

Brady at once saw he had blundered, and kept silence. The others
followed his example, and all three marched quietly off to their
respective trees. Larry was last, and as he passed, Girty touched him
on the shoulder, saying :

" Here, my man ! Ain't you the fine fellow that tumbled our big
fighter into the water? By thunder, you're a pretty hard nut to
crack. Who are you, anyhow ?"

Larry's eyes twinkled with a mixture of fun and indignation as,
with apparent meekness, he made answer :

"Be me showl, Misther Girty, I don't — "

" Captain Girty, if you please," interrupted Simon, with some
asperity.

"Well, then, Captin, may the divil run away wid ye — no, wid me
— if ye don't ax a quistion ye must answer yerself, fur sorra one o' me
knows who I be, at all, at all, I'm so harrished and mulfathered and
all through-other, but I'm joost thinking, if ye plaze, that I must be
the 'resarves' or the 'furlorn hope,' and all that's left uv an old
Corkish family, the sole shupport av won mudher, won grandmudder,
a cross-eyed nevvy and eliven orphling childre."

"Well," laughed Girty, " I see, at any rate, that you're an Irish-
man— a regular bog-trotter, and green from the sod. I claim to be
an Irishman myself"

" Faix, an' ye do, do ye ?" quickly jerked out Larry, greatly nettled
at the other's words. "Well, thin, to spake God's truth, Misther
Gurthy, if all's so that I hear tell uv ye, I'm afeard our dear island
wouldn't hasthen much to own the conniction.'*

Girty here darted a quick, angry look at Larry, who could, how-
ever, when needed, put on such a stolid, vacant expression that Girty
allowed him to proceed, which he did thus:

" There be a heap uv Paddys in America — high hanging to thim —
who are as full uv crime and chruilthy as an egg's full uv mate, and
who are fast going to the bad ; an' be jabers, though you same to be
o

82 SIMON GIRTY.

cock-o'-the-walk joost here, its, mebbe, av the culd counthry had ye,
an' ye but got yer desarts, yer last dance wud be a hornpipe in the
air."

" How's this, you impudent fellow, you ! What d'ye mean? It's
hard to say whether you're knave or fool. Why, you re as brassy and
sassy as Brady, your master there "

" Masther? — the Lord be about us — there's none masther's me, but
God above, an' I'm 'feared He's far too aisy on me."

" Well, what's your name, and who are you, at any rate?"

" Larry Do-no-hue, or all that's to the fore uv him, may it plaze
yer honor, or grace, or riverence, fur the divil a one o' me knows
what's yer tithle in the wuds and among these God-forsaken hay-
then."

" And so you do'-no-who you are," laughed Girty, alluding to his
last name. "Well, Larry, you look as if you were no great shakes
and of small descent. Now, I'll teach you that the Girty's are one of
the hrst and oldest families in Ireland — older than St. Patrick himself."

"I'll niver doubt ye, mon — av yell take yer book oath on it; but
whin ye put thim against the Donohues, shure it's clane lost in yer
sinses ye be. I'm not loike Pathrick ORion, who brags that one of
his ancesthors, who took the prize belt, was raised to the Heavens,
and is now a blissid consthellashun of his name, wid the same belt
wrapped about it ; nayther wud I do loike Shamus Flaherty, who
says his family wur oulder than Noah, an' floated away at the flood in
an ark uv their own, but this I will jist mention as a tradishun
in the Donohue family — moind ye, I say, tradishun, for I
don't remimber being there me own self — that whin Adam and Eve —
may the Heavens be their bed — wor in Paradise, my maternal
ancesthor helped thim sew their weeshy fig-leave aperns, while my pa-
ternal ancesthor — God be good to him and rest his showl in glory —
used to divart hisself, in aff hours in Eden, by casting stones at the
sarpint that tempted Mrs. Adam and bred the furst ruction betwane
mon and wife. Och, bedad, but you're the quare Gurthy, innyhow,
to be setting up families wid the Donohues. If they're not ould,
skipper 'd chase is niver ould."

Girty laughed at this specimen of tall Irish boasting, saying,
" Well, Larry, you can beat me in blather, if not in old blood. You
may be strong of shoulders and supple of joints, but you are devlish
weak of head. How would you like to take service with me — you'd
be treated well, have plenty of whisky, and as many wives as you
wish."

"OamyfaixI'ni obleeged to ye, sur. Divil the bit do I under-
sthand the scul[)ing and hair-pulling thrade, and I misthrust I'se too
ould now to lara. It's a bloody, durthy life at best ; so is this tory
bizzness. If Amerika guvs me my living she must have my heart and
my foight, too, an' not thim that's druv me over here ; and as for the
tallow-colored wives, I've nothin' agin thim who take to that color
an' I'ragrance, but they're not lur me ! I'd rather marry a nagur, I
wud, be jabers. No, Gurthy, betther sind me to my three, and treat
m.e as ye do my frinds. I want no differ made. But I'se a'most fam-
ished wid the druth, an' av ye've inny heart under yer leadern jerkin,

LYDIA BOGGS CREATES A SENSATION. 83

plaze me wid a jorum of Monygahaly. It's a crying shame, and so it
is, to throw sooch fluids down throaths that haven't hearts anunder
thira. So far as I've heerd, Injuns are the manest drinkhers that iver
chewed chase."

CHAPTER XX.

LYDIA BOGGS CREATES A SENSATION.

The Irishman had scarce been safely bound to his tree, before there
arose a terrible hubbub and commotion on the little bluff— shouting,
yelling, and running to and fro — all was confusion and excitement.
To explain this new and unexpected phase of affairs, we will have to
go back a little.

When such horses as could be moved, and all goods which were
intended for immediate distribution, had been brought up on the
bank, preparations were made to take the ark some little distance up
Big Yellow creek. All the canoes had already been poled there.
It was Girty's design to entice still other Ohio boats to their ruin, and
in case of failure, to man the ark and give chase. To this end it was
necessary first to conceal both ark and boats, so as to disarm all sus-
picion.

Most of the Indians were now back a little distance in the woods,
engaged at the whisky and wrangling over the partition of the spoils.
The four ladies, anxious and sorrowing, had at first taken their seat
on the big log, as directed by Girty, but as soon as the prisoners were
made fast and the horses had been brought up, Lydia, observing that
it was not worth while to keep any watch on them, ventured to draw
near the Major's "Black Bess," which was yet fretting and restless
from its fright and wound, and was standing near the tree to which its
owner was tied.

Lydia now patted and caressed the noble animal, and after quieting
it somewhat, approached Rose, and, under the pretence of gathering
some grass for the mare, managed to say in a low tone to the Major,
and without looking up :

"Major, do you think Bess is much hurt?"

Rose started at first, but soon replied in the same cautious manner :

"No, Miss Boggs, only a flesh wound in the neck, losing her some
blood, that's all."

" Would she ride kindly under a stranger? — me for instance ; and
will she take to the water?"

" Why, of course she will. Miss Lydia," answered the Major, in sur-
prise. " She can swim like an otter ; but why do you ask ?"

*' Would you like to save her, save yourself, save all of us ?" replied
the girl in an earnest whisper, evidently in a great but carefully-
suppressed excitement, and breaking off a long honey-locust switch
covered with sharp thorns. " If so you must lend the mare to me."

"Why, Miss Boggs, what can you mean, and what are you about to
do?"

"I mean. Major, the Lord helping, to attempt an escape and res-

84 SIMON GIRTY.

cue," Lydia replied with kindling eye and quick, hurried words, as
she held a tuft of grass to the mare's mouth, patted its arching neck,
and smoothed down tlie panther-skin along its back. '' Now's our
only chance 1 All are busy elsewhere ! Tiie canoes are safe up the
creek ! I've swum the Ohio on horseback before ! The rifles are all
stacked away out of instant reach, and there's my only risk. Before
the canoes are in pursuit, I'll be out of danger. Once over, I'll stir
up the two Poes, and the whole line of settlers between this and Fort
Henry; so here goes, or it will be too late. It's now or never !" as
the brave girl sprang lightly and silently astride the mare's back, and
applied the thorny switch.

For one moment only, the mare stood stock still like a beautiful
statue. So soon, however, as she felt the thorns in her flanks, she
gave one mighty bound, and darted off in a succession of light
springs. Lydia made no sound, but held her, with firm rein, straight
for the bank and with head pointing down stream. The brink reached,
the mare made a momentary refuse, but at a new application of the
thorny spurs she bounded far out into the stream, and was gallantly
breasting her way almost before any but Rose knew what was amiss.

Girty had fortunately gone somewhat up the river at the time, and
had his back turned, and as the mare whirled past, the plunge into
the Ohio was the first intimation he had of the escape : even then he
stood for a few seconds as if spell-bound. Not for long, however.

Those who would know what kind of man Girty was, should have
seen him then, as he stormed around like a perfect fury. He first
sternly ordered the other three women, who were thunder-struck at
Lydia's unexpected leap and greatly concerned for her life, again to
their log ; roared back to those in the woods to hurry forward ;
shouted to another lot to get out the canoes as soon as possible, and
then he made a quick rush for the row of rifles — which were stood up
against a horizontal sapling stretched across two forked uprights —
seized the first that came to hand, sprang to the edge of the bluff,
aimed and — click ! went the lock, but no fire followed.
. Girty threw the rifle violently to the ground with a horrible impre-
cation, and made for a second — this time loaded. Another run to
the front, a new aim, and crack ! went the rifle. But Lydia was, by
this time, over a hundred yards out in the stream. The gallant mare,
as if conscious of its precious burden, and of the extraordinary effort
required of her, sped along like a water-snake, its head, neck, and
floating tail only visible.

Soon as Lydia saw Girty taking aim, she watched the flash, leaned
as far over the mare's neck as possible, and the bullet whistled by per-
fectly harmless. The beautiful girl waved her little hand about her
head in triumph, gave a ringing cheer, and urged her faithful steed to
still greater effort. Girty, knowing full well the consequences of
Miss Lydia's escape, was now fairly beside himself with rage and
trembling passion. It were hard to say what was the amount of his
swearing in Delaware and Shawnee — both of which languages he
understood well — but his performances in that line in English were
simply awful. A number of savages — some of them far gone in
liquor — were now ready with their rifles. Fortunately, not expecting

CAPTAINS GIRTY AND BRADY HAVE A MEET. 85

the slightest occasion for their use, many of their guns were unloaded
and no effect from all the shots could be perceived. The horse and
its spirited rider still kept straight on, swerving neither to the right
nor to the left.

And now two canoes, ladened down with warriors under lead of
Bigfoot, who was most anxious to restore his faded laurels, shot out of
the creek. The exertions made by the paddlers, who were stimulated
by Girty and the crowd on shore, were almost superhuman, but every
one soon saw it was too late. The mare was now two-thirds over,
and Lydia actually turned in her seat and curiously surveyed the pro-
gress of the pursuers, occasionally waving them on with her hand.

At length the Virginia shore was reached. The faithful mare sprang
nimbly upon the strand; was quickly turned around to front the
baffled savages on shore and water ; then a wave of the hand, a glad
cheer, a clanking of hoofs along the pebbly beach, and the two were
soon lost in the woods.

A narrow escape, truly ! and a portentous one to Girty and his
swarthy band. A great sigh of relief burst from Lydia's female friends
and from the four bound prisoners, and the broad grin which broke
over and fairly illuminated Larry's freckled face, would at once have
brought down on his sconce the fatal tomahawk of Giity, had that
infuriated demon chanced to have seen him.

CHAPTER XXI.

CAPTAINS GIRTY AND BRADY HAVE A MEET.

And so Lydia was fairly off and away, out of all harm's reach. Her
daring escape at once put a new complexion on matters at the bluff.
The walls of living green had scarce closed behind " Black Bess " and
her spirited rider, when the leaders of the attacking party put their
heads together for consultation.

During the chase, Girty, a pistol in either hand, had tramped to
and fro along the margin of the bank, hot, chafed and tempestuous.
None knew better than he what mischief the brave girl might work
to all their plans. His prisoners, of both sexes, were of too great prom-
inence on the border for the news of their capture not to stir up a
great pother along the whole line of the Virginia settlements, from
the Poe cabin down to Fort Henry. But the chief anxiety arose
from another direction, and one which would not be properly under-
stood by our readers without direct reference to a map of that whole
region.

We have already stated that the entire district south of the Ohio,
from Fort Pitt down to the mouth of the Kanawha, had not long
before been sold to the whites by the Six Nations — who claimed the
whole West by right of conquest — and a stream of settlers had ever
since set steadily in that direction, occupying a broad belt of land
along the Ohio.

All north and west of that river and west of the Allegheny, was

SIMON GIRTY.

^BRANCH- ^ >

NORTH.

wholly Indian country, occupied by a confederacy of fierce, jealous,
and warlike tribes, all alike infuriate at the sale of their hunting
grounds by the Iroquois, whose authority they were now strong
enough to deny, and whose dominion they were now distant enough
to defy. They knew by sad experience at what petty prices and by
what contemptible arts such land grants were generally obtained, as,
also, their immediate and inevitable consequences, and were terribly
implacable to the advancing tide of " Big Knives," for so they inva-
riably styled the Virginians in contra-distinction to the Pennsylva-
nians.

Penn and his Quakers had at least always given the aborigines some

CAPTAINS GIRTY AND BRADY HAVE A MEET. 87

little show for their lands, and never occupied them without going
through the formality of a purchase by a treaty. Hence, Western
Indians invariably made a marked distinction between Pennsylvania
settlers and captives, and those coming from other Eastern provinces.

These " Big Knives" the Ohio tribes hated with an undying, ven-
omous rancor. But it was the same old story. Resistance came too
late. The redmen could not, try as they might and long did, arrest
that wonderful "wild turkey breed" of restless, steel-nerved, iron-
hearted valiants, who swarmed over the Allegheny and Blue Ridge
Mountains or floated down the Monongahela and Ohio rivers in a
resistless tide. Hardy, intrepid, unflinching borderers ; carrying, as
it were, their lives in their hands, they braved the wilderness with all
its hidden perils, whether of savage beast or man. They absolutely
quailed at nothing, and were inevitable as Fate itself.

A long and bloody struggle ensued with the usual result. Might
made right, and the savages were forced to yield their lands, and to
retire sullenly to the thither side of the Ohio. With stifled rage
and abhorrence they heard the sounds of the settler's axe or the crack
of his deadly rifle, and saw the smoke of his cabin fires stretching
ever onward in an inflexible line, first to Yellow Creek, then to Fort
Henry ; and so on, on, to the Kanawha, then to Kentucky and the
Falls of the Ohio.

Now look at the map ! Just about the mouth of Big Yellow, the
Ohio takes an almost southern trend for over sixty miles, and thence
a southwesterly trend for a hundred more, forming over two-thirds of
the Eastern boundary of the State of Ohio. On the west lay the In-
dian country, on the east what is now known as the Pan Handle of
Virginia — a narrow strip of territory, which, by an error of survey-
ors, has been singularly allowed to interject itself for sixty miles be-
tween two great States. It and Southwestern Pennsylvania were then
all known as Augusta county, Va. Hence it is, that in border chron-
icles we read of Green, Washington and Fayette counties, Pa., suffer-
ing from Indian inroads into Western Virginia. The territories were
contiguous. The Pan Handle is but a few miles across, and the set-
tlers of those Pennsylvania counties were likewise "Big Knives,"
approached by way of Short, Buffalo, Ten-Mile and Wheeling
Creeks.

What Girty and his fellows had to fear, therefore, from Lydia's
tell-tale flight, was not alone instant pursuit in force by the settlers
from the thirty miles between Yellow and Wheeling Creeks, but from
a heading force starting directly west from Fort Henry to intercept
their trail. As the two points lay directly north and south, and the
Shawnee and Delaware towns directly west and equi-distant from
both, it was clear to all those crafty heads which were not yet fuddled
with liquor, that the Fort Henry pursuit would have no farther to
travel than themselves if the Muskingum towns were made the objec-
tive point — not so far if the Miami or Scioto towns were the destina-
tion.

Of Lydia's speedy arrival at the Wheeling Creek settlement none
seemed to doubt, which carried a high compliment to the young girl's
pluck and spirit. Hence the occasion for the immediate pow-wowing

88 SIMON GIRTY.

between Girty and his chiefs ; but, finally, they all evidently arrived
at some satisfactory conclusion. The looks of anger and vexation
which had clouded their leathern faces, now gave way to the indiffer-
ence of perfect security, and Pipe, Bighoof and the rest, after first
attending to the slight wounds of the captives, and especially Kill-
buck, by applications of Slippery Elm, Stramonium and chewed Sas-
safras, went back into the woods to join the noisy and turbulent
crowds of drinkers.

Girty, while waiting for Bigfoot's return with his party and the
two canoes which had shot, first across and then down the Ohio after
Lydia, now stepped about with great briskness. He had the broad-
horn poled up the creek, and the remaining canoes, with the ark's
birch, kept out of sight from the river.

This done to his satisfaction, and his storm of passion having
greatly subsided, he approached Brady, who, disdaining to ask of his
notorious captor any — even the slightest — favor, stood erect against
his tree, with face calm and impassive, but with feelings of inward joy
and deep satisfaction.

" Blast me. Captain," commenced the outlaw, with an insolent
sneer, and essaying to conceal his chagrin at the untoward turn events
had taken under a braggart and nonchalant air, " Captain Boggs'
girl's a chip of the old block — a devlish trim, tight, pretty little
wench, spry as a catamount, and with as much spirit, too ; but she's
on a fool's errand now. ' Bigfoot ' and his brothers are hot in chase,
and darsn't come back without her. She'll soon be drying her dainty
moccasins by our camp fire."

" She's clean gone, Girty, and you know it," answered Brady,
quietly, and without turning his head.

" Have it so, then, Brady !" sneered Girty, " but so much the worse
for the rest of you. Yer wimmen must be bound, and the whole lot
of ye will be parcelled off among the tribes like so many beaver
skins. If this hadn't happened, I could have saved you all as I did
Simon Butler from the Shawnees in 'yS^and after he was painted
black, too — but now things must have their run."

"I have no doubt," said Brady, '-you would have made it very
pleasant for us. The kindness and gentleness of Simon Girty to
white captives is known all along our border. Perhaps that's the rea-
son you just now drew bead on a brave girl trying to get out of the
clutches of a lot of savages."

<' D — n it, man," hotly snapped out Girty; "don't rile me too far,
or there'll be ill blood betwixt us ! I'm often blamed for bloody acts
which I never knew of at all, or which my brothers George and James
have done. Why, Brady, you yourself, with your senseless sneers and
taunts, give the best proof that I ain't the d — d villain I'm called.
Since you are j-,f/on my being rough and hard on you and your'n, by

I'll larn you that Girty's been your best friend, and that the

devil you've stirred up within me can't be easily laid."

" All right," said Brady, quietly, lamenting again the hotness into
which he had been betrayed, "you can do with us what you please.
It is but natural we should think and act differently. I ask no favor
of you for myself, but if you are kind and merciful to the women of

CAPTAINS GIRTY AND BRADY HAVE A MEET. 89

our party, I'll put it to your credit, and make it known far and
wide."

" And where were you all going in your ark ; and the Major and Kill-
buck there, what takes them away from Fort Pitt just now?"

Brady was on his guard at once. " Oh, we were just escorting the
three young ladies home, and your friend, Mrs. Malott, to Fort Henry
— a sort of May pic-nic -excursion. It hasn't turned out very well,
though, thanks to you and your pressing friends. As for Killbuck,
Pipe and the British Delawares drove him from his tribe, and forced
him to take refuge at our fort, and he must do something to sup-
port himself."

"Yes, dod-rot him," hissed out Girty, ''we'll do for him, and all
white-livered deserters like him. He's lucky if he gets off with his
scalp or without torture this time; but when pleasure parties go boat-
ing. Captain, they don't generally load down with knives, ball and
arms for the amusement of the vvomen ; neither can they eat powder
or drink whisky. Eh ? Maybe General Irvine, who I hear's got back
to Fort Pitt from the East with a lot of troops, has sent Rose on the
round of the forts."

"What a shrewd guesser you are, Simon ! Why don't you call at
the fort? I'm sure Irvine, if, as you say, he's returned, and your old
friend Col. Gibson, would — "

**Oh, Col. Gibson be d — d," snappishly jerked out Girty, on whom
that hated name acted somewhat as a red flag on a bull; "for a year
back I've been hunting that infernal scoundrel. 'Twas he who drove
me—"

" Yes, that's exactly what the Colonel tells me," said Brady, with
the greatest apparent innocence. •' He says he drove you, and drove
you, but can never get you and your red-hides to stand ; and, by-the-
by, * infernal scoundrel ' are the very words which he applies to you.
If you're hunting Col. Gibson, Girty, you know pretry well where to
find him. He's hunting you, too ; and when both are of the same
mind, it's hard to so keep apart. I think I could arrange a loving
meet between you two."

Girty bit his lips and kicked up the sod for awhile, trying hard to
suppress his rage. At last: —

" The rascal's not worth talking about. What's the use of beating
about the bush, Brady? Our spies tell us of a great stir among
the settlers in the western counties. If they're after the 'pray-
ing Indians* again," and this was said with a quick and curious look
at Brady, "they ought to know that there are none left on the Musk-
ingum to murder, and neither horses nor pelts to steal. Eh ?"

Our scout knew this well, and was surprised to know that the prep-
arations for the mounted expedition about to go against the Sandusky
towns, had somehow been brought to Girty' s notice, but he assumed
an air and expression of perfect ignorance as he replied: —

"I don't think the Moravians are troubling our western settlers.
I've heard of no movement that way; indeed, if there were, Gen.
Irvine would suppress it with sword and musket. There maybe a big
county hunt coming off ; game's still thick in oui neighborhood."

"Captain," quickly responded Girty, with a coarse laugh, but evi-

9© SIMON GIRTY.

dently with some bitterness in his tones, " you think yer devlish deep,
with your face looking as blank as a rabbit's, and your eyes as meek
as a dove's; but I'm not the stupid dolt you take me for, and am
about as well booked up as you. It's about time now for the other
boat to be coming down. It was to leave Fort Pitt soon after your's,
wasn't it?"

This was a mere venture on Girty's part, as there was no other boat
to leave Fort Pitt, and Brady smiled scornfully to think that his
adversary could expect to entrap him by so childlike a query. He,
however, made answer :

^^ Tm no chicken, either, Girty, though your questions would seem
to make me out one ; but I can answer to this one frankly and decid-
edly. There was no other boat at Fort Pitt about to start down the
river."

"Well, well ; I believe you, Captain," answered the renegade with
some disappointment. " We'll wait here for a spell, anyway, until
Bigfoot's party comes back. Maybe we may chance a boat from Red-
stone."

Girty's attempt at pumping information from the scout had evi-
dently not been a striking success; and, after some further efforts,'
which were just as easily baffled, he, after setting a strict watch on the
whole captive party, joined the other carousers around the whisky keg.
The noise and angry altercation were fast becoming uproarious.

CHAPTER XXII.

LARRY HOB NOBS WITH BLACKHOOF.

While this discussion had been going on, the rest of the prisoners,
each fastened to his tree, was making himself as comfortable as cir-
cum.stances would allow. Rose and Shepherd had been stationed near
the ladies, and. enjoyed occasional opportunity of exchanging remarks
with each other and their female companions. Larry was tied to a
rough shellbark hickory, somewhat off from the rest, and a little up
the stream. It was amusing to see him shifting about from leg to leg,
and moving his thick shock of hair on all sides, trying to find a softer
and smoother place for it to rest. All his gay humor had deserted him
with the close confinement. Freedom and activity were necessary to
his existence. As he stood thus pensively reclining his head against
the tree, his face, the very incarnation of gloom and distress. Black-
hoof, under the influence of a good deal of liquor, quietly stepped up
to Larry, tapped him gently on the pate, and said softly : —

"Will ' painted hair' have some whisky?"

Larry's visage at once commenced to unwrinkle. The merry twinkle
1 aped again into his eyes; a bland and satisfied expression stole over
his rugged but honest face, and the old humor lurked in the corners
of his mouth. Cocking up his head quite pertly, he murmured: —

"An' shure, an' is it all a schwate drame? Me thocht I heerd an
angel whisper something plisint. Will it plaze repate the remark?"

LARRY HOB NOBS WITH BLACKHOOF. 9!

"Yes; good, strong 'firewater;' Catahecassa see ' painted hair '
sorry and tired, and steal off to him. Must drink quick, and say
noting. I be your brudder."

" Och, by me sowks, an' I thank ye kindly, my ould sunburnt frind.
Niver fear me but I'll be close as wax an' dape as a draw-well ; an' is
it my brother only you'd be ? Faix, I'd choose ye from the whole
clutch of thim for fader, modher, uncle and aunt. I know'd and so
telled ye, that the schwate modher uv Heaven guv ye that proboskis
for some good. Be my showl, but my mouth's as parched as pase, dry
as a burnt bone, an' my throttle rattles like a skileton. Shure, it's fam-
ished with the druth I am. An' do ye understand English, Injin, when
I spake it in good Irish ? but first and foremost phat's yer name ?"

"Catahecassa, Shawnee; Blackhoof, English — "

"Aye, an' I'll go bail there's plenty bad o' the name. But push me
the lush, an' come more contagious to me. Here have I been trussed
up loike a skewered goose, standing lone an' dissolute for hours, wid-
out bit nor sup. I've a brace uv holes in my shoulther, a smotherin'
about the heart, and an alloverishness that nothing but Monygahely
will cure."

The Indian now first took a long draught of the whisky out of a
gourd ; and then smacking his lips and beating his burly breast he
handed it to Larry with a " Ugh ! dat make Injun's heart big," and
adding, with a sly dash at humor, "make 'pale-face' tongue move
more rusty."

" Bad manners to ye, ould Black Heart, but sorra bit o' lie yer tell-
ing the day innyhow," grumbled Larry, with a roguish twinkle in
his eye ; " for, loike a thrue Patlander, Larry's tongue is hung on
greased wires, an' moves as nimbly as a greyhound's fut." Then put-
ting on his blandest and most coaxing expression, he added : — ■

"But, Black Guard — no, Blackhoof, how can I hoide the sthuff
anunder me belt an' me trussed up to the tree loike a spitted slip uv a
rabbit? Shure, you're the hoight uv good company, an' as welcome
as the flowers uv May; but av ye wish to swaten our discoorse, be-
gorra ye moost untie me, and I'll guv ye my '^ parool duwzer.' "

" What's dat?" quickly put in Blackhoof "Me no understand dat.
Something good to drink — stronger dan whisky. Eh ?"

Larry laughed consumedly at this most wonderful joke; indeed, as
his object was to get free again, he would have guffawed over anything
the Indian said — even had it been his dying speech. The more, too,
that he found the chief mystified at his English, the more style and
glibness did he throw into his talk, using, or rather misusing, the long-
est words.

" Och, may the divil swape me thru, Black Guard, av I didn't dis-
remember ye were non compus, an' more betoken couldn't untwisti-
cate the Latint. That illegant word manes, av ye take it misilla-
nuously by its own self, that av ye'll lift the hickories off me for oncet,
and wet my whissle wid a wee dhrap av yer potheen, that divil the
one uv me'll run away — ontil a good chance comes forninst me. I'll
kiss the book on it, wid no mintal resarvations — no, f/ia/ can't be
done here noways; but av you'll loosen my fingers I'll put my two
five-pointers acrost an' sware by thim five crasses."

92 SIMON GIRTY.

** Me no understand so much big talk, but if you no run away me cut
you loose; " and the Indian, whisking out his knife, zig-zagged up, and
managed to cut the withes. " Now, it done."

"An' done it is, and done's enough betwane us two inny time,"
cried Larry, joyfully, giving a jump, stretching himself to his full
height and then reaching for the gourd.

"Och, by the powers, but it has the divine schmell; and now
here's long days to ye, Clovenhoof, an' may yer shadder and yer
scalp-handle niver grow less, an' may the blissing of yours respictfully,
Larry Donohue, follow ye all yer born days and — niver catch up to
ye," said Larry as his eager eyes and good-humored phiz were lost in
the gourd. The draught was a deep one, the Irishman giving it his
undivided attention — so very long that the Indian at last seized the
vessel and slowly drew it off, and applied it to his own mouth with
a : —

" Pale-face drink a great much heap. It burn him up. Mustn't go
down so deep. Now! Blackhoof show his brudder."

"Och, musha!" said Larry softly, shutting his eyes, drawing a long
breath, and smacking his lips explosively together, "but that bates
Matthew-Matticks. By the curled wig of the grate Chafe Justice,
but that sthuff's as sthrong as Samson. Bedad, it's enough to make a
laid corpse get up on its elbow. Be my troth, redskin, but you're a
Jewell, an' that's the gruel for me. Such tipple'll make us two thick
as whigged milk. It's ginooine mountain dew that's brewed under the
mists, and that nayther sun nor ganger iver blinked at. But paws
off ! Phat's the matther wid ye, innyhow, chafe?"

Blackhoof now began to show very unsteady on his legs, and was
reaching forth for Larry's coat.

"Blackhoof want coat. Swap him blanket for it." This was said
with a maudlin leer, followed by a ghastly grin, the Indian's fingers
twitching with an unmistakable meaning at the Irishman's coat.

"Phat !" said Larry beginning to grow excited, " an' ye want my
unly coat, ye divil's spawn, ye. Niver say it twict, honey, av yer
wise," but seeing the necessity of humoring the tipsy Indian, he at
once added, with a pleasant smile, "take it, Black Guard, while I
make another long pull at the moisture. 'Twill be a nate fit, I'll go
bound, but it's my private opinion, chafe, ye'll soon be as dhrunk as
a boiled owl." Larry took another long draught.

" Vely good," said the chief, " here Injun blanket," handing his old
soiled blanket, much torn and worse for the wear; " now swop more,
till all gone. Ugh? Catahecassa want oder coat," laying his dirty
hands on Larry's waistcoat.

" The divil whip the tongue out uv ye, ye nagur, but shure that
bates gommethry, innyway. You'd betther not shorten my temper,
Blackfoot, or I'll guv ye yer blanket full uv sore bones. I'd present
ye innything in reason or fairity, Injun, but, by the hokey, you'll
crave my hair soon, or stale my molar tooth while I'se talking at ye.
You're purty-well-I-thank-you now as to the whisky, an' av ye guzzle
more ye'll be so dhrunk ye can't see the bole in a laddher. An' phat
want I wid yer swate-scinted vintelation garments?" and here Larry
threw back Blackhoof 's tattered blanket over his head.

MRS. MALOTT HAS A REVELATION. 93

The Shawnee chief was just in that well-known condition with
drinkers when hugs turn easily to blows, and fondling to cursing.
He resented Larry's act as a great indignity, and immediately laid his
hands on his knife and advanced on our Irishman with an angry
growl of wrath. Larry himself began to feel the effects of his deep
potations; and, like a true Emeralder, was more ready to fight than
explain, so he said, while holding the Indian off : —

'* Och, murther, an' is it there ye are, my beauty. I'm not yet
widin many swallows uv my foighting point, but av ye bully-rag me,
I'll do my endayvoors to put a rainbow about yer two head-lights.
Shure an' ye'll but throw away yer sticker I'll wallop ye as aisy as kiss
my hand. An, ye won't, won't ye? thin, as we scholards say, I'll
put you horse-de-combit, an' faix that's the roughest horse ye could be
on."

Larry now, by a dexterous move, tripped his adversary up, jerked
away his only weapon, threw it to a distance, and was proceeding to
pummel him according to the rules of Donnybrook Fair, when a
crowd of noisy and tipsy roysterers soon staggered about, at first
laughing heartily at the wrestle; when, however, they saw their chief
roughly handled by Larry, they began to grow menacing, and one
young and fiery warrior was just about to dash on Larry with his
keen tomahawk, when Captain Pipe hurriedly rushed up, beat back
the crowd with a tirade of scolding words, separated the combatants,
and with the assistance of two others, more sober than the rest,
pounced upon poor Larry, and bound him again to his tree, empha-
sizing the way thither with many rough cuffs and shakes and threats
of the tomahawk. Unlucky Pat had now ample time to bewail his
fate, and to meditate on the strange and rapid mutations in all human
affairs.

CHAPTER XXIII.

MRS. MALOTT HAS A REVELATION.

One other scene yet remains to be described. Mrs, Malott, being
as it were, a volunteer captive and an acquaintance of the Renegade,
was left unguarded — almost unwatched, and allowed to wander at
will. Overcome by the late excitements, and greatly agitated by the
hint which Girty had casually dropped of news for her, she longed
for rest and solitude, and so wended her way to the grand old woods
along the margin of the creek —

" A tiative temple, so'emn, hushed and dim."

Here she soon found a quiet, secluded nook — a sombre and vine-matted
dingle, and just at the foot of a merry little cascade, where the bab-
bling waters were collected into a cool, rocky basin.

Right on the margin of this dimpling, wimpling little stream —
which seemed as it danced its blithesome way athwart the sun-flecked
glooms, to be murmuring a constant benediction — she sat herself
down on a mossy log, her sad thoughts naturally turning on her mourn-

94 SIMON GIRTY.

ful fate, and the best course now proper for her to take. She felt
weak, depressed and unutterably wretched. Alarm for her defence-
less situation among so many pitiless savages, and anxiety for the fate
of those she had lost — now these three miserable years — weighed
heavily upon her.

"Hope deferred maketh the heartsick," and her hope had not
only been deferred but was almost extinguished. Leaden-eyed De-
spair had now marked her for her own, and such was her sad state of
mind, and so great a contrast did the holy hush and quiet of this
sequestered sylvan retreat offer to the late scenes of bloody violence
and the perturbation of her own mind, that Nature at once came to
her relief in a most copious gush of blinding tears. She sobbed as if
her very heart must break.

As the poor sufferer was thus bitterly weeping, she heard close by a
stealthy step, and was at once made aware that her privacy had been
invaded — her solitude disturbed. Emitting an exclamation of alarm,
she started to her feet for a hasty flight, but her wondering eyes rested
on the mournful and woe-begone face of the wretched woman, who,
with her children, had lately betrayed the boat's party — the very last
person on earth whom she desired to see. The forlorn-looking
stranger had a puny babe in her arms, and sank down upon the log
near Mrs. Malott with a shrinking, guilty and deprecating air, steal-
ing timid glances at her companion, as if doubtful of her recep-
tion.

Mrs. Malott fairly shuddered with aversion. She gazed upon the
intruder with horror, and yet with a sort of fascinated look. The
strange woman moved not, but sat with downcast eye, pressing her
frettirg child to her bosom. Finally Mrs. Malott turned her back
upon her, covered her eyes with her hands and murmured : —

" Oh, you wicked, miserable woman, and must you, too, of all
others, seek me out to insult distress, and mock at misery ? Oh, how
could you. a white woman and a mother, too, betray your sex and
color into the hands of brutal savages ! Worse still, teach your poor,
innocent little children to practice such deceit — that dear little girl
and boy, too — "

But Mrs. Malott did not finish her sentence, for this mysterious
woman, with a low cry of distress, the bitter tears streaming from her
eyes, fell directly at her feet, caught the hem of her dress, wailing
out: —

" Oh, my dear, good lady ! spare me ! spare me ! I'm a poor, sick,
unfortunate creature ; but, thank God, I'm not the guilty thing I
seem to you. I was forced to do what I did by threats of torture to
this, my only child. My husband, too, insisted on it. Oh, if you
only knew all, I'm sure you'd pity and not accuse me. Those chil-
dren who were with me, were not mine. Oh ! I haven't, indeed,
indeed I haven't, that^ too, on my conscience !"

" What do I hear! those — children — not — yours?" slowly repeated
Mrs. Malott, turning down to her companion and staring at her with
a bewildered air. " Woman, what do you, what can you mean? And
who, then, are you?"

" Oh ! madame," replied the penitent, "only have patience, and I'll

MRS. MALOTT HAS A REVELATION. 95

tell you all. You imcst believe me, for I'm telling God's truth ;
and if you're a mother, you must pity me from your very heart's
core."

^^ If Pin a mother, Woman !" repeated Mrs. Malott slowly in most
touching tones, her tears streaming afresh and looking up to Heaven,
*' God knows I'm a mother — but of all mothers on earth the most mis-
erable— my husband, my children — not one, ma'am, or two, but all !
all /—the whole four, two . dear boys, and two, if possible, dearer
girls, taken from me at one fell swoop," and then turning quickly and
passionately to the very woman whom she had so lately spurned almost
with loathing, and raising her to her feet, she added in heart-rending
tones: "but what of them? Have you seen them, heard of them?
Oh, tell me where they are ; if they are still alive, and I'll forgive
your late betrayal and bless you from the bottom of my heart."

" Alas, dear madame," cried the stranger, in tones of deepest sor-
row, and so drawn to her companion by the holy sympathies of a
common motherhood as to take and press Mrs. Malott's unresisting
hand, " I have no tidings of those you have lost. I only — "

"Goon! go on with your story;" faltered out Mrs. Malott, in
broken tones, and bowing her head wearily, and oh, so despairingly
between her thin hands. " Only another hope fled. I might have
known it. Go on, pray !"

"My story's a brief but a most painful one for a wife to tell," an-
swered the woman. " My husband's name is Timothy Dorman. We
lived in a little cabin near Buchanan Fort in the Kanawha country.
Just about two months ago some fresh tracks of Indians were discov-
ered, which, on account of its being so early in the season, created
great alarm among the scattered settlers. As William White, a noted
and active scout ; my husband and myself, this little babe and little
Eddy, my only other child, a curly-headed boy of six years past, were
hastening to the fort, we were set upon by a lot of savages. Neigh-
bor White was shot through the hips, fell from his horse, and was
then tomahawked, scalped and mutilated in the most frightful man-
ner, and we all taken prisoners."

"We were hurried rapidly through the woods, both my children
having been repeatedly threatened by our captors, because, said they,
their flight was impeded. The second day little Eddy began to fret
and cry on account of soreness of his feet, and finally fell behind.
This was the last I ever saw of him. An hour later some of the In-
dians having joined us again, I beheld — and what a siglit to a fond
mother!' — and here Mrs. Dorman shuddered at the harrowing mem-
ory— "the fresh, bleeding scalp of my dear boy fastened to one of
the Indian's girdles. I knew it by its jetty curls, and boldly charged
the cruel savage with killing and scalping it ; but he only 1 uighed,
crying out, " No, no, only otter skin." But I knew better, and from
that moment lost all heart, and was indifferent to my fate."

" Three times did I throw down a heavy kettle which I was forced
to carry; closed my eyes and bent my head to receive the invited
stroke of the tomahawk, but no use. Each time tlie kettle was re-
placed with angry and scolding words. At bst, I threw it off again
and refused to go one step further, when a chief, gcwewiia-i. kinder

g6 SIMON GIRTY.

than the others, said I should not be made to carry the pot and my
child, too."

" My husband," and here Mrs. Dorman hesitated in her tones, with
her eyes cast to the ground, " had all this time been making up with
the captors ; laughed, eat and drank with them, and was so cheerful
and contented and expressed himself so anxious to become an Indian,
that we were now treated well enough. My husband, for some years,
has been much given to drink and low company, and being of a very
passionate disposition when in liquor, had made a number of enemies
in the fort. It is a most painful and humiliating confession for a
poor wife to make; but, indeed, Timothy was once a good, kind,
loving man, but lately the drink seems to have so changed and de-
based him, that he is more cruel and revengeful than an Indian him*
self, and has thrice led parties against the border settlements."

"And where is your husband now?" asked Mrs. Malott, her own
keen memories being somewhat blunted by sympathy for this poor,
forlorn wife and mother, in her so much more recent sufferings.

"Alas, ma'am, that I, once his loved wife, and the mother of his
children, am compelled to confess it ; but he is becoming more and
more lost to all that is good. The one fatal misstep of betraying his
own neighbors, seems to have turned all that was good in him to gall.
He has lost his own self-respect, and seems ashamed to show himself
before white people. He is now back in yonder woods conversing
with the Indians. I sometimes think, if God will not take fne, that I
will have to leave /i/mj but then, again, I have hopes that by con-
stant love and tenderness, I may win back the free, hearty and affec-
tionate Tim of my youth — such as he was before he took to the
drink."*

" I think you do right, Mrs. Dorman. A wife should never despair
of her ill-doing husband. But after your capture, what ?"

" We were first taken to the Chillicothe towns, and there remained
during the cold weather. Then we journeyed Eastward along the
Ohio, and fell in with a party of Cherokees from south of that river,
who had the two children with whom you saw me. They were edu-
cated to decoy Ohio boats to the shore, and the poor little innocents
seemed perfectly skilled in the use of all the arts to simulate distress.
You would be perfectly amazed to see how these little ones would
cry, kneel and clap their hands and run along the shore in the most
artful manner. Oh, they are smart little things, and deserve a better
life.

" It was only a couple of days ago that we fell in with Girty's large
party, who, marching towards the Ohio to take vengeance for what

* Timothy Dorman was a veritable character. He and his wife were taken pris-
oners, as above stated, on March 8th, 1782. So bad was his reputation among the
settlers, and so often had he sworn vengeance on certain of his neighbors that, as
soon as his capture was known, Buchanon Fort was abandoned. Subsequent events
proved that but for this evacuation all would have fallen before the fury of savages
led on by this infamous miscreant. The only good thing he was afterwards known
to do was, during one of the raids, to leave a paper giving informatirm of all who
were held captive at the various Indian towns, from that part of Virginia. Let us
hope this penitential act was brought about by his wife.

MRS. MALOTT HAS A REVELATION. g-j

they call the Moravian massacre, easily arranged for the transfer of
the children and ourselves to them. The result of their arts you
know well, as you and your party were the first victims ; but I must
tell you that I long resisted every attempt to make me a party in their
miserable decoy. The Indians, knowing how much of their chances
of success depended on having a supposed mother with children, re-
peatedly ordered me to play traitor. I even refused to obey my hus-
band's commands."

" Finally, one grim, ferocious old Shawnee, made furious by my
obstinacy, snatched my babe from my breast, and threatened to brain
it against a tree unless I instantly complied. I wept and screamed
and implored, but all to no purpose. Your boat was just then in
sight, and while I was running along shore playing the false mother,
this brutal Shawnee kept behind me in the woods the whole way,
holding my precious babe by one foot ready to dash out its brains at
the first sign of failure on my part to do his bidding."

" Why did I not make signs? Oh, I ^/^, I did, but they were not
seen, and when I found your boat really coming in, I fainted outright,
and had to be carried back out of sight. Oh, you are a mother, too.
Can you not then forgive one for wishing to preserve her only babe
from such a horrible fate ?"

" Mrs. Dorman, I do. I must. It was, indeed, a sore, sore trial ;
but you say these children came from de/ow the Ohio," hurriedly con-
tinued Mrs. Malott, beginning now to catch at an idea which had just
come to her with startling force. " Were they late captures?"

" Oh, not at all, I was told. They had been taken several years
since near or on the Ohio, and could neither speak nor understand
English. They are, however, evidently brother and sister, and appear
to be quick, merry, joyous children, perfectly at home with the In-
dians."

" Oh, idiot that I am," cried Mrs. Malott, rising from her seat'with
great excitement, and striking her forehead with her hands; " I have
been thinking of my lost ones as of the same age and size as when I
parted with them, and believing so, and that they were your children,
it never struck me they could have any interest in me, but who
knows ! My Franky and Nellie were carried off three years since —
although it appears at least three times three to me — and, if living,
would now be the size of the children you had with you.

"Why, to be sure they would !" with increasing excitement. "Oh,
stupid me ! never once to have thought of it. I'll go — They will be
— oh, tell me, Mrs. Dorman, how they looked, how dressed, and
where they now are. Tell me all ! all ! Who knows but you, one
stricken mother, are sent to me, another still more bereaved, as a
minister of mercy. Tell me all, I beseech you !"

" Well, both the children are so tanned that I can say nothing of
complexion. The hair, too, has evidently changed, and has grown
coarse by exposure ; but the little girl's is light and wavy, and the
boy's black and curly, very much like that of my own."

"Oh! Mrs. Dorman !" broke in the anxious mother, beginning,
with clasped hands, to pace to and fro in the most intense agita-
tion; "who knows! who knows ! My Nellie had golden hair, and
7

pS SIMON GIRTY.

Franky's was curly, but not coarse. Oh, do, please, say if there was
anything peculiar about them which could enable me to identify them.
Tell me how they were clothed, for when they ran along this morn-
ing I could not see clearly — I only knew they did not look like Indian
children; but, if used to entice whites, the dress of whites would
naturally be kept as long as possible."

" The girl — who has, by-the-by, a clear blue eye, and such a gentle,
winning smile — had on, when I first saw her, a sort of plain calico
sun-bonnet, and one simple linsey-woolsey dress, rather too long — "

"Too long/" exclaimed the poor mother, her countenance falling
and her voice expressing the keenest disappointment. " Oh, it should
have been much too short for her, and of gray stuff. I spun and dyed
it myself I am afraid — but what of the boy ?"

" Well, he had on as little as possible — tow linen pants and a coarse,
blue shirt — no hat or shoes."

" Oh, Franky never wore that color," murmured the poor mother,
feeling so faint under the reaction that she had to sink down upon
the log; "but what am I thinking of? How could the boy of seven
wear the clothes of a four-year-old ? Others larger could have been
stolen though. It's all very mysterious. Can they be some other
unhappy mother's darlings? but stay ! why not ask Girty? He must
know if any one does. He said he would tell me something of inter-
est to me. Why didn't I think of it before? Good-bye, Mrs. Dor-
man. There is something in your appearance and manner that tells
me you are as honest as you are unfortunate, and that your story is
true as it is sad. I go straight to Girty," and Mrs. Malott rose at
once, and proceeded with rapid steps toward that part of the woods
where the noise and shouts denoted the Indian encampment.

CHAPTER XXIV.

GIRTY PREPARES TO ATTACK ANOTHER BOAT.

As she approached the spot, her heart quite sank within her. Here
was one party almost in a state of helpless intoxication ; there another
engaged in a boisterous contest, while all the rest, save the ones
selected to keep sober and to watch lest those in liquor should com-
mit some gross outrage, were noisy, turbulent and quarrelsome. To
dash all her hopes, she soon saw Girty himself sitting on the keg of
powder taken from the ark, and in the midst of an excited, riotous
assemblage of chiefs and leading warriors of the three tribes repre-
sented.

Brady had been mistaken in supposing that Guyasutha, the famous
Seneca Sachem, was present. No Mingo whatever was out with this
party, and the Hurons, Shawnees and Delawares were present in about
equal numbers, and had had great trouble and excitement over the
partition of the rich spoils. As their potations increased, so did the
swearing and quarrelling. Girty and Blackhoof were both hard

GIRTY PREPARES TO ATTACK ANOTHER BOAT. 99

drinkers, and with abundance of whisky before them, they were very
free in the indulgence of it.

It is a matter of history^ that Simon Girty, when in liquor, was seen
at his very worst. All the bad traits of his rough, strong character
then came to the surface. He was at those times cruel, bloody, reck-
less and vindictive. His oaths were awful, both in kind and number,
and his furious rage and violence knew no bounds. Those who knew
him best, kept aloof from him when thus raging like a mad bull, and
Mrs. Malott, so deciding from her own knowledge, took refuge be-
hind a black oak, not knowing what to do — her mother's heart urg-
ing her forward to find out the truth at once, and her experience and
womanly modesty giving her prudence to pause irresolute.

As thus she stood, uncertain what to do, Girty was just finishing a most
violent harangue to the crowd about him. His chief quarrel seemed
to be with Blackhoof and the Shawnees about the distribution of the
prisoners, as also the horses and the powder — both of which articles
were very greatly prized by all red men. He did not fraternize well
with that fierce tribe, his home and influence lying chiefly among the
Hurons under the Half-King, Pomoacon, and the Delawares under
Captain Pipe.

Blackhoof, now considerably sobered by his late tussle with Larry,
but still drunk enough to be crabbed and pugnacious, then made a
short and sarcastic speech in reply, alluding to Girty's pushing them
on in the late fight, yet remaining himself on the bank and compara-
tively out of danger. This was too much for the renegade. To
impugn one's courage among Indians is to deny him all virtue and
manhood, and Girty, whatever else he lacked, was always reputed
brave and desperate, even to recklessness.

Springing from his keg, therefore, he denounced Blackhoof to the
crowd, with great vehemence and bitterness, and then growing more
violent as his passions became ungovernable, he gave one bound to
the camp-fire, snatched a brand from beneath the kettle, sprang back
to his powder-keg, and challenged the Shawnee chief to stand by him
while he touched off the powder, that those present could soon see
who of the two would be the first to flinch.

It was some little time before the Indians could realize this Hari-
Kari method of fighting a duel as a courage test, but soon as they did
there was a general scatterment; and Girty stood, fire-brand in hand,
master of the field, his adversary, Blackhoof, safely ensconced behind
a tree.

Mrs. Malott soon saw that this was no time to press the subject
nearest her heart, and so, biding a more auspicious season, and trying
to possess her soul in patience, she slowly wended her way back to the
bluff, where the other prisoners were passing away the long and weary
hours as best they could. *

All these scenes, which we have attempted to relate succinctly, and
others occurring for the details of which we have no room, took up
much time. The afternoon was now pretty well advanced, and prep-

* This is an actual fact taken from Girty's life. Whatever faults the outlaw had,
a certain reckless, dare-devil courage could not be denied him.

lOO SIMON GIRTY.

arations were being made, from the venison and birds which had been
brought in by the hunters and from the fish which had been speared
in the creek and river, for the evening meal.

All at once, a sharp and significant, but not a very loud, yell from
the "lookout," who had been stationed up the river, was heard, and
again the little bluff witnessed a scene of renewed activity. The red
rascals knew well the meaning of this peculiar halloo, and were on
the lookout for whatever craft might descend the Ohio. Brady,
greatly wearied by his rigorous confinement, turned his head up stream
with the greatest interest and surprise, knowing that no boat was ex-
pected to leave Fort Pitt, and hoping that something else might be
indicated.

But no. In a few minutes there appeared, lazily floating around
the bend in the river, a large and strongly-built broad horn, covered
and well protected almost to the bow, and having two pairs of heavy
sweeps, all four being under cover. The steering oar, however, was
worked from the deck. How Brady, Rose and Shepherd did yearn to
be able to give the unthinking occupants some sigh which would warn
them of their imminent danger, but this was impossible; they were
all securely bound, and could move neither hand nor foot.

And now Girty made his appearance, a little unsteady yet from his
potations, but rapidly sobering up under the important news of an-
other still more splendid prize than the former, quietly floating down
into the toils he had so cunningly spread. After giving one long,
earnest look at the approaching craft, he sent parties to man the ark
and the two canoes, which, it will be remembered, were all concealed
a little ways up the creek, and to have them ready for instant pursuit.
He then had all the captive females removed far back into the woods,
as also every possible sign of occupation of the shore "bluff.

Knowing the impossibility of either persuading or compelling any
of our party to act as decoys, and much regretting the absence of the
two children — who had been dispatched off on the chief route in-
tended to be followed, some hours before — he sent back to the camp
for Dorman and his wife. This depraved wretch, followed by his
submissive, but heart-broken partner, her little babe still in her arms,
soon swaggered into view. His bloated face, vulgar manner, and
brutalized, hang-dog expression, betokened a man of low principles
— a caitiff far gone in a course of shameless debasement. The very
savages who thus so vilely employed the traitor, refused to fellowship
him, but turned away with contempt.

While the Dormans were hurrying up the river to take 'position,
eight Indians were dispatched by Girty — a couple to each of the four
prisoners — first to release and then guard them to the ark as hands at
the bow-sweeps, where, in case of conflict, they would be most ex-
posed.

Larry's tree, as before stated, was farthest up stream and just on
the bluff's edge, and seeing the unwieldy boat thus sweeping swiftly
on to its fate and divining the purpose of the two whom he saw
approaching in the distance, he was much concerned for fear he would
not be able to put the strangers on their guard. His hands being
firmly tied, he could not, Paddy fashion, scratch his head to stimulate

GIRTY PREPARES TO ATTACK ANOTHER BOAT. lOI

his wits, but was forced to do a deal of hard thinking in the briefest
possible space.

Happily for him his eyes at that moment chanced to fall on Black-
hoof's old blanket, which had proved the occasion of the late quarrel.
What so apt to arouse suspicion of Indians as one of their own gaud-
ily-marked blankets ! Larry, therefore, hastened to stretch out one
of his feet, and managed to coax the garment towards him. He then
contrived to gather it together in a bundle, and then to give it a pow-
erful backward kick, which sent it over the bank. Fortunately it lit
on a clump of water-willows ; and, coming unrolled at the same time,
it became — while hidden from those above — pretty well displayed to-
wards the river.

This Larry did not, of course, know at the time, but he was — since
the crafty reddies had been so careful to remove all signs of their
presence — greatly content to be able to get so conspicuous an object
over the bluff in any fashion. When the two savages came up, there-
fore, he was in high feather; and, to divert their attention, not know-
ing or caring much whether they could understand English, he cried
out to them hilariously: —

'• An' by the blessed Piper that played afore Moses, ye painted vag-
abones, you're welcome from my heart out. I'm deloighted to see
yiz so soople and balmy. Here stands Larry hugging this hickory as
av it were the belle uv the fair, an' him as dull as ditch wather, an' as
heavy-hearted as a Gib cat. An' phat's to the fore now? Here ye
are running wid yer noses to the wind, at the toe uv another hunt.
By me troth, but ye Injuns are the quare craytures, all out an' out.
An' where's the divil's pet, Gurthy ? the curse o' the crows be on him !
Shure av there's a cool corner in hell, thatskamer uv the wur-r-ld will
just miss it. He was niver good, I'm tould, egg nor bird, and is
going hot-trot to the divil. Out wid it, now ! spake yer spake 1"

" Girty go to fight boat. Want ' Painted Hair ' to pull bow-
sweep," answered one of the Indians, with a broad grin on his face.

"Och, swape me no swapes the day," cried Larry ; who, as soon as
he was untied, immediately led the way from the bank. " My heart's
a beating loike a new catched pullet ; an', faith, it's a smoking my
dudheen I'd be just now. This life's goin' agin the breath wid me ;
an' what wid the tying and the foighting, and the want uv regularity in
my pottheen, my very jints are becoming marrow-dried ; but lead me
to Gurthy and my old frind, Splithoof Shure the ' fire-wather,' as
ye call it, is no cripple wid hi7n annyhow. He gets dhrunk as a
wheelbarrow. Here, reddy, avick, I'd counsel ye not to squaze me
arm so tight; I'll not lave ye av ye trate me dacint ! * Honor bright,"
as the nagur said whin he stole the boots."

Larry was now quietly led down to the creek and placed in the ark
with the others — all save Killbuck, who was too badly wounded to be
so employed. For the sake of the females under their care, they
were forced to make a virtue of necessity ; but the resolve was made
among them to impede the boat as much as possible.

SIMON GIRTY.

CHAPTER XXV.

A DESPERATE CONFLICT ON THE OHIO.

By this time the Dormans were running down the bank, using all
their arts to entice the boat to shore. The steersman alone was visi-
ble on deck — a tall, stalwart, powerful fellow, dressed in ranger cos-
tume, with a huge red handkerchief bound about his head. He had,
at the first appearance of the decoy, inclined his craft somewhat to-
wards the shore, and might have run in still further had not some
suspicious circumstances arrested his quick eye and caused a pause.

He then stamped thrice upon the deck, when there immediately
appeared through a trap-door in the roof a person from below, dressed
in a sort of half uniform — a field glass in one hand and a long rifle in
the other. The two conferred together for a moment, and then the
one at the helm could clearly be seen pointing to something in the
sky just above the woods.

This was doubtless the thin column of blue smoke now rising from
the camp-fire back in the woods, and which had been supplied with
fresh fuel for the evening meal. The officer then swept the whole
shore and woods more carefully with his glass, holding it for a minute
as he caught sight of the blanket which Larry had so opportunely
kicked over the bluff. He spoke a few earnest words, which caused
his companion to give the boat a turn out, while he himself quickly
raised his rifle, drew a bead on Dorman, and let fly.

Poor Dorman and wife had rather overdone the matter. The want
of sincerity in their manner and tones ; the smoke in the woods and
the blanket, had, taken together, betrayed them ; and Dorman had
just recognized the decoy as a total failure by turning off into the
woods, when the bullet sped from the boat took him in the thigh, and
he fell to the shot, and right in the presence of his terrified wife.

This result was at once made known to Girty and his band. They
had all taken places in their allotted boats, and awaited the signal to
spring out upon the broadhorn.

The two canoes, with the padded frameworks all adjusted, stood
close together just at the mouth of the creek ; eight Indians — exclu-
sive of the four paddles — with rifles in hand in each, arid at least
twenty in the captured ark, which was just behind. Larry and Brady
were at one oar, and Rose and Shepherd at the other ; and near each
man stood a savage with keen tomahawk, ready to cleave the brain of
the first who refused to pull a sweep.

Girty, mindful of Blackhoof 's taunt and confident of another vic-
tory, was in one of the canoes to lead the attack. He waited until
the big broadhorn had floated down just far enough for his three
boats to cross its bow, then gave a shrill whistle for all to have their
paddles poised; then came a pistol shot, and out into the stream

A DESPERATE CONFLICT ON THE OHIO. I03

darted the little assaulting fleet, to the great surprise, doubtless, of all
on board the strange boat.

We say doubtless, for this was not at all evident. Nothing on deck but
the tall, intrepid steersman; who, calm and undismayed, held steadily
on his course. He was plainly either most ignorant of the appalling
danger his boat was just confronting, or else, feeling secure in his de-
fence, felt utterly indifferent to it. So soon as the boats were sighted,
the two shore sweeps had been plied with greater vigor and quickness ;
some few faces had appeared at the windows, and the officer had van-
ished below ; but this was all. It looked ominous, and now the helms-
man, too, disappeared.

On, on, sped the attacking boats. Nothing heard but the regular
dip of the paddles, and the click, click, click of the rifles behind the
screens as they were made ready for service. They have now come
within fifty feet of the broadhorn's bow, and a momentary delay and
perfect quiet ensue — much like the portentous crouch of the tiger as
he gathers himself for the last fatal spring.

As stated, this strange boat was almost completely covered in, leav-
ing only a small space in front for the coils of rope, standards for
bow-lines, etc. To this narrow ledge the attack was first to be directed.
Simon Girty stands at the bow of his boat, grim, silent and deter-
mined, a cocked pistol in either hand. He now looks around hastily
to see that all is ready, fires his pistol as the signal for assault, and a
horrible, appalling, blood-curdling yell leaps from the throats of the
packed crowd of dusky and infuriate warriors, and the boats spring
forward to the attack.

Just at this critical moment, and as the two canoes were separating
so as to allow the ark — which had been kept too far back by the de-
signedly weak and irregular rowing of the four prisoners — to come
up abreast, the clatter of a falling, hinged board was heard on the
broadhorn's side, and at the same instant there belched forth the
flame and roar of a regular cannon — rare and terrible sound among
Indians — and a murderous cloud of grape, slugs, bullets, and what not,
came hurtling through the air, crushing and utterly breaking down
the two screens as if they had been so much paste-board, and killing
and wounding a number of astounded Indians.

Never were surprise and consternation so complete. It was like
thunder from a clear sky. The effect was simply prodigious. Those
Indians who were not knocked over by the first fire, were all huddled
together and completely exposed to this destroying hail. To add to
their dismay, a line of six or seven rifles appeared where this novel
embrasure had fallen down on its hinges and on both sides of the
cannon which had done all the mischief, and above all the horrible
din and confusion arose the hearty, ringing cheers of triumph, and
now came a volley from the rifles, until the Indians were in a fearfully
demoralized state, most of them jumping into the water and swim-
ming, like otters, to that side of the ark which was protected from this
scathing tempest of fire. The shaved heads of the redskins dotted
the water all about.

Above all the infernal racket and whooping could be heard the
hoarse, powerful voice of Girty, roaring out his orders, first in Dela-

104 SIMON GIRTY.

ware and then in Shawnee. In obedience to them, all the savages in
the water made for and climbed up on the side of the ark, on that
part which was protected from hostile bullets.

During the hottest fire, Brady and the rest of our party had retired
under cover. They had hurriedly consulted together, and had
promptly concluded not to attempt an escape at present, but to abide
by the ladies of their party, otherwise there would have been a fair
chance to have announced themselves as friends to those on the other
boat, and an escape would not have presented extraordinary risks.

As soon as Girty and the leading Indians had time to recover from
their surprise, and could compass the nature and strength of the oppo-
sition, they behaved with a great deal of craft and coolness. That
they were fairly whipped and beaten off, and that it would be mad-
ness for them to renew the conflict, was patent to them all. The
first thing was to effect a safe retreat. One of their canoes had upset,
and was put completely hors de combat. The other, led by Pipe, had
hurried around to the safe side of the ark, which it hugged with great
affection and tenacity.

Girty, who, begrimed with powder and vomiting forth volley after
volley of imprecations, had a handkerchief tied over an ugly wound
in his head, and one of whose arms hung dangling useless by his side,
had early reached the ark, and now ordered four of the most deter-
mined of the savages, each to cover a prisoner with his rifle. They
were driven out on the bow, and commanded in a savage, peremptory
manner, which would take no refusal, to seize the sweeps and turn the
ark towards the shore. To clinch the matter, Girty, who, as may be
supposed, was in his ugliest humor, stationed himself with a rifle
within the doorway, and swore death to the first man who flinched.

They had no wish to do so. Fortunately their character as prison-
ers had early been discovered from the other boat, and many invita-
tions shouted to them to attempt to escape, and they would be assisted.
It was, indeed, to this fact that Girty's party owed their exemption
from far more severe punishment. The cannon, although again loaded
to the muzzle, had only been fired once, and the riflemen had con-
tented themselves with delivering a few shots at the Indians in the
water or at those who exposed themselves while climbing into the ark.
They did not dare to wait until Girty and his baffled crew — who still
far outnumbered them — would recover for a fresh attack, but as soon
as they had beaten off their foes, they began to ply their oars, the
tall steersman shouting out with a voice like the blast of a bugle :
" If that cursed renegade, Simon Girty, leads this attack, our compli-
ments to him. We were told he was on the river, and so made ready.
May every tory plot have a like ending." They made rapid progress,
even once diverging somewhat from their course to pick up two badly
wounded Indians, whom they found in a most grievous plight in the
water. These were humanely put in a canoe, with a pair of paddles,
and sent adrift.

Sad and humiliating indeed was the return of Girty and his party
to the shore they had so lately quitted with such bright hopes and
positive assurance of victory. Scarce a warrior of them all but
had received some hurt, while at least ten of their number had been

A DESPERATE CONFLICT ON THE OHIO. I05

killed or badly wounded. The fact that no scalps had been taken,
was the only consolation they had had of this terrible disaster.

The four captives busily bent to their oars, conducting themselves
with as much quiet and meekness as possible. Whatever inward con-
tent they felt, they were careful to hide. The fierce, sullen looks
which they saw bent upon them from all sides, warned them that the
slightest indiscretion would have been immediately fatal. Even as it
was, some of the younger and more fiery of the "braves " made sev-
eral rushes at them, and it required all the arts and influence of
Girty, Pipe and Blackhoof to restrain them.

At one time, just as the shore was reached, and the prisoners were
marched off, each with a selected guard on either side, a party of five,
who, awaiting this chance, had concerted an attack in force, rushed
forward, one of them even going so far as to seize Larry by the throat,
and brandish a tomahawk over his head.

The Irishman, by a mighty effort, shook his assailant off, wrenched
the tomahawk from his grasp, seized the Indian's scalp-lock, and with
a "bedad, an' av I be'ent getting toired of this one-sided Injun
foolin'," was proceeding to bring down his hatchet, secujidet?i artem,
when he was held by the interference of both whites and reds. As it
was, he managed to give the scalp-lock such a tug that the ?Iuron, to
whom it was so much attached, fairly winced with pain, rolling up his
eyes like a dying dolphin.

Larry finished him with a powerful kick, adding, " Bad scran to ye,
ye spalpeen, an' av you've a thimble full uv brains, ye'll come to me
whin you're low-hearted, and I'll put a new kink in your sconce-
tail."

CHAPTER XXVL

CAPTAIN BRADY HAS A TRYING ORDEAL.

It is a stubborn fact that " nothing is so successful as success; " but
Girty now found, also, that the first blow of adversity sours tempers
and shortens memories. TY^q prestige gained by his former cunningly-
devised enterprise was completely obliterated by his late bloody and
costly failure. His influence was now greatly impaired, and on all
sides he had to encounter discontent, sullen looks and muttered
words ; but he had not yet sounded all the depths of the disaster.

Scarce had matters been set to rights on shore, before a canoe —
containing a single wounded Indian — was discovered creeping up to-
wards the creek. On being helped on shore, the Wyandott soon de-
livered his news. This, although kept secret from our party, we may
as well here state, was the total defeat of Bigfoot's expedition, and
the death of that noted Huron chief and four of his brothers, by the
two Poes and their neighbors. It will be remembered they went with
two canoes filled with warriors, in pursuit of Lydia Boggs, when she
made her gallant escape. This poor, wounded redskin was the only
one left.

The sad news soon spread. Little knots of Indians could be seen

Io6 SIMON GIRTY.

here and there, with downcast faces and bated breaths, mournfully
discussing the details of the conflict. The gigantic Bigfoot and his
huge brothers were the pride of the whole tribe.

A stormy consultation between Girty and his chief leaders was the
immediate result, and it was soon evident that preparations were
being made for a hasty retreat. First, every thing that could be of
use was carried back to the camps from the ark. Then followed the
evening meal of venison, fish, and provisions which they had found
in the boat. It was notable, also, that the disposition towards the
prisoners had also much changed for the worse. They encountered
nothing now but harsh words and lowering brows. Even the females
were bound and all placed together securely fastened.

All that the poor captives could gather was, that they had been
parcelled off among the different tribes ; that the females would be
allowed to ride the horses and would be adopted into Indian families,
but that all the males would be condemned to death and would soon
suffer torture. The whole expedition was to move up the Yellow
creek trail a few hours before daybreak, and would travel with the
utmost expedition so as to evade pursuit.

Our prisoners had very little opportunity of exchanging much con-
versation with the three remaining ladies of the party. These had
passed many very anxious hours, but had been permitted, so far, to re-
main together and converse freely. They heard the news of Girty's
disasters with quiet satisfaction ; and felt hopeful that Lydia would
reach Fort Henry that very evening, and that an effective pursuit
would be immediately organized.

As the shades of evening gathered around and descended like a
pall upon the dense forest, the Indian encampment presented a very
picturesque scene — one that an artist would have loved to transfer to
canvas. The huge fire, with its changing, flickering lights, illumining
the luxuriant foliage around and above ; the swarthy forms of the grim
warriors, as they gathered about the one fire, engaged in their wild,
weird dances, or sat in knots at the trunks of the huge trees, gravely
discussing the events of that very busy day, and then the hoppled
horses and the two circles of prisoners, the three ladies together on
one side, and the four male prisoners, with their arms securely bound
behind them, on another.

All at once a more splendid expanse of light pervaded the whole
woods from the direction of the creek, and lit up the entire western
sky. This glow grew brighter and brighter, and was accompanied by
the loud crackling of burning wood, and the yells of the excited In-
dians as they danced and whooped like mad, along the margin of the
creek, and in honor of the burning ark.

Finally the flames and shouts gradually subsided, and all again grew
black and silent. A brooding, solemn stillness now enwrapped the
wilderness, disturbed only by those many night sounds peculiar to the
vast and trackless American forests — the distant howl of the wolf or
the wild cry of the panther and catamount ; the doleful plaint of owl,
whippoorwill, and night-hawk, or the chirping and thrumming of
insects that enliven the otherwise cheerless watches of the night.

The Indians expected to make a long and early journey and had

CAPTAIN BRADY HAS A TRYING ORDEAL. 1 07

had a day crowded with fatigues and excitements ; hence they were
disposed to rest. A rude, barken bower, which was guarded by two
old and tried chiefs, had been hastily thrown up for the women cap-
tives, while the male prisoners were separated, and each bound and
laid on his back between two valiant warriors. The feet were left
free, but the barkskin thongs which bound the wrists behind the
back, had two long ends, one of which passed under the body of the
wary watcher on either side, so that the slightest movement of a pri-
soner would be felt by those who were responsible for his safe keeping.

How would our party have prized the privilege of sitting together
in free converse, and plotting an escape or discussing the chances
of a successful pursuit; but it was not to be, and each laid himself
down with the most gloomy and depressed feelings, uncertain whether,
even if it were possible, he should singly attempt an escape.

Captain Brady, especially, was racked and tortured with thick-
crowding doubts. Had not the one he loved dearest on earth been
lying near an unhappy prisoner, his duty would have appeared sim-
ple and his course plain. He had been a captive twice before, and
had managed to work himself free ; but now he could not decide
whether 'twere better to stay by the females under his protection and
rely upon the pursuit which would most probably ensue ; or whether
he should, did suitable opportunity offer^ attempt an escape, and make
that pursuit more direct and effective by his presence.

Ashe lay thus, tossing and fretting; working himself into a state
of nervousness, and stretching out one leg after the other, his toes
touched what he imagined must be a knife. He carefully felt with his
moccasined foot, and then was sure it was a scalping-knife. This de-
cided him. He now lay perfectly still, and feigned sleep, although
the great beads of perspiration stood thick upon his brow.

Both his Indians had at first been very wakeful — had laughed, chat-
ted and argued with each other, and had taunted Aim by turns. He
had tried to lull them into confidence by assuming a cheerful and con-
tented humor, and by yawning frequently, as if overpowered with
sleepiness.

As he lay thus perfectly quiet, he had the satisfaction of hearing a
distinct snore from the old Shawnee on his left. That was a hopeful
sign ; but the other and younger warrior was still wakeful. He turned
and twisted ; twice raised himself on his elbow to listen ; once rose
and went to the fire ; came back ; and, finally, he, too, commenced
to yawn.

Then, to test Brady's condition, he poked him slightly in the ribs,
telling him not to breathe so heavily. The scout's breathings be-
came still deeper and more regular, although his heart was beating like
a tilt-hammer, shaking his whole frame with emotion. He really
thought he would not be able much longer to stand this excitement,
the strain on his nervous system was so intense.

He had just concluded to give up the attempt altogether, when a
nervous jerk and twitching from the wakeful Indian showed he, too,
had succumbed. Brady lay immovable as a statue until both Indians
were fairly and soundly asleep and snoring. He then opened one
peeper and then the other. Now his foot went down after the knife.

Io8 SIMON GIRTY.

Still there. He clutched it with his toes, and slowly and cautiously
drew the glittering prize towards his breast. Now, by a quick, little
jerk it drops by his side ; now he works, as it were, over on to it ;
until, at last, it is in his hand, which was free from the wrist down.

How his heart did beat ! and how the great drops of sweat rolled
from his brow ! It was a very awkward, and even painful position to
work from, and many and many an attempt did he make before he
could get the edge to bear on the thongs which bound his wrists,
but he finally did. The first cut was a slip and a wrench of the thong
which tied him to his fellow on the right, who suddenly started,
yawned, and finally turned his brawny back towards him.

No log in those woods lay apparently deader than our scout ; but
had a hand then been laid under his hunting-smock, its tense, tumult-
uous thumping would have amazed — even alarmed. Fortunately, the
tired guards are drowsier than ever. At last, another quick cut, and
one arm is free. What a great sigh of relief ! The worst is over, and
a grateful rest of five minutes follows. It is comparatively easy now
to free the other arm, and then carefully to sever the straps on either
side which tied him to the two snorers.

Another critical pause. Both guards sunk in profound slumber.
Brady being on his back, and wedged in between the two bodies, had
to work very, very cautiously. He had no margin to go on, but must
rise to the perpendicular in one narrow direction only. Stretching
out his legs, a single effort puts him in a sitting posture. All right.
Not a stir from either of the sleeping beauties. Now, by bending his
legs, and then supporting himself on his arms and hands — which are
placed behind him, he works them forward, until one strong, dexter-
ous effort places him on his feet.

What was that? One of his custodians moves and mumbles some-
thing. Shall he bound over him, and risk the dark and the river?
Heavens ! how his heart did thump ! No, it's only an idle motion
of sleep, and all is still again.

Now, one stealthy, cat-like step forward and he has his bed-fellows
in the rear. Three more, and a huge chestnut lends him favoring
cover. He takes one long, free, joyous breath ; glides like a spectre
from tree to tree, and inclines his cautious steps to the creek on his
right. Here he expects to find the birch which will convey him
across the Ohio. He has not ventured to hunt out his trusty rifle,
feeling sure that his escape, once made good, he will come up with it
again in the near future.

CHAPTER XXVII.

A MOST MYSTERIOUS ENCOUNTER.

He has now but a few steps more to make, and he is safe. Ha !
what is that cracking, rustling noise he hears ? It sounds like some
animal — be it man, or bear, or panther — moving as cautiously as he
himself. Brady's heart is in his mouth. He leaps behind the nearest
tree, resolved, unarmed as he is, to grapple the unknown, whoever or

A MOST MYSTERIOUS ENCOUNTER. I09

whatever it may prove, rather than commit himself again to the ten-
der mercies of a lot of savages, exasperated at his escape.

Hist ! there's the noise again; and, by all that's good, the scout's
straining eyes now dimly perceive a shadowy form. Of what ?
Surely it must be a man approaching him; and now it glides behind
a tree, and not ten feet from him. Who or what can it be? Plainly
not a redskin in pursuit of him, for he comes from the wrong direc-
tion. Not an Indian lover, for this party of savages were on the war-
path, and are not cumbered with women.

And now it moves again, and as if it, too, were with stealthy, gin-
gerly step, trying to escape, rather than pursue. The mystery thick-
ens. This suspense is horrible. Can it be Rose, or Shepherd, or
even Larry, who has escaped and lost his way, or who, by mistake,
wanders back to camp. Looks like it.

Brady now makes a motion and a slight noise to try its effect on
his strange neighbor. He watches. All still. Gradually a form is
carefully thrust forward from the tree. He, she or it has evidently
been startled at the noise our scout has made.

Brady can stand it no longer. He resolves to challenge the stran-
ger, whom he is now almost certain is not an Indian. He therefore
says in a loud, anxious whisper :

"Who, in God's name, are you who thus cross my path? Is it
you, Rose, or Shepherd, or Larry? Answer quick! or, by the eter-
nal, I'll cut you down, if it were King George — "

"And who the dickens are yon,'''' was heard in another loud whis-
per, as the figure stepped boldly out from behind cover. "I reckon
I know; but blamed if these ain't too ticklish times for mistakes.
You're either Sara Brady or the devil. Spit it out, stranger !"

"I care not who knows,'' said our scout. "I a7n Brady, Captain
of the Scouts, from Fort Pitt."

"Tarnation, old Hickory! I conceited you mout be him," came
in a glad, but still low and cautious tone from the unknown, as he
advanced and extended his hand. "Gimme yer flipper, stranger.
There's none on this 'ere yarth that I've hankered arter so long to
clap eyes on. And I'm Andy Poe, the Virginia scout."

"What!" joyfully exclaimed Brady, as he tightly grasped and
warmly slnook the huge and horny hand so freely proffered, a great
load of suspense lifted from his heart. "Andrew Poe, the famous
hunter and Indian tracker, whose exploits are the talk of the border."

"Wal," answered Poe with becoming modesty, but evidently much
pleased at such a compliment from Brady, "I believe our folks do
talk some of my doings with the pesky yellow hides ; but, Lor' bless
you. Cap, I oughten't to be mentioned on the same day with you.
Besides, I put no store on killing Injuns. There's lots on us in 'Ginny
who've no other fun. I hate 'em, from moccasin to scalp-lock, and
would scrunch one soon's I would a painter or a rattler. No old
hunter's got more sport out of deer, bear, wolves and buffalo than jist
Andy Poe; but Injuns beats them all. Yes, Injuns beats them all.
You'll back t/iatup, Brady; but what mout you be arter in this neck
o' woods at this ghostly hour?"

"Escaping from Girty and going to the Poes; and you?"

no SIMON GIRTY.

"Oh, tracking Girty, and going for you and the gals," replied Poe,
with his quiet and peculiar laugh.

"What a lucky meet!" said Brady. "'Tis well, Poe, I hadn't
* Spit-fire' along, or things might be different; but, hush-h-h, let's
move off further. Do you know Girty's whole band's just over there?
Pipe, Black Hoof and all."

"No, not all, Cap; not jist all," replied Poe, with a'low, but not
unmusical chuckle. "Ye didn't sight Big Foot and his brothers there,
did ye?"

"True enough," quickly answered our scout, "and what of them?
I knew something had happened by Girty's sour looks and crabbed
words."

" Come ! let's joggle ahead. It's too long a story to tell right here,"
answered Poe, as he led rapidly away to the mouth of the creek;
" but I guess Adam and me did up that bizzness tol'ble neat and
purty. 'Twas the toughest, tightest, all-firedest scrimmidge we ever
had ; but we fought her through. Cap : yes, we fought her through,
inch for inch, man for man. I'll only say, jist here and now, that if
ye're arter tlie Wyandott brothers, ye'U never wrastle them."

"And who's Adam?" queried -Brady.

"Lor' bless you, man, why don't ye know Adam Poe, my brother?
There's them that do say he's the best of the breed ; but I'm naterally
silent on that pint. I allow every man to opinyun for himself. You'll
see them right down here, and larn the whul — "

"See them! see who, and where?"

" Why, Cap, old Girty must have flusticated you summat. How
d'ye think I cum across! flew or swum, and me so badly wounded?
Why, my canoe's right at the mouth of Big Yellow, and Adam, and
Jake Leffler, and old Bill Kennedy, and uncle Josh are in it, waiting
my come — four as tried hearts as ever drew a bead on a tanned hide,
and there's more back of them down our way, and still more sent for.
Oh, if we could just wait a spell or so, we'd have all West Virginia up
and after Girty and his thieving, scalping tribe."

" Come, let's hasten, Poe," said Brady, his heart almost too full for
words, " You tell me glorious news. I'll be with you from the very
jump. We'll start to-morrow, early ; but, do you know all?"

" Yes, I kalkerlate, Cap, even more'n ye do yerself; quite likely,
too, seeing's ye were under Girty's evil eye all day. The sun was
about overhead to-day when, as Adam and me and some of the boys
' were sitting afore our cabin, spekelating about the firing up river,
and getting ready for a sarch that-a-way, who should come streaking
along, mounted, man-fashion, on a black racer, wet as a sponge, and
her hair streaming behind like a mermaid's, but Captain Boggs' purty
little darter. Je-ru-sa-lem, Cap, but she's a clip, now — I — tell — you;
rides like a jockey, shoots like Dan'el Boone; has an eye like a fawn,
and pooty ! oh, pshaw, Brady, that's no word for it ; but you know
her. She's made of rale good stuff — hickory all through, and mighty
high strung, too."

" Why, Poe, how you run on ! Lydia must have struck you some-
where under the west-coat."

" Wal, she did, and no mistake. She reinei up, and told us the

THE POE S GREAT FIGHT WITH "BIG FOOT. Ill

whul fight ; who you were, where you was going, and what we must
do. She stormed and coaxed, and scolded and wheedled by turns ;
wished she were a man for only a day, and wanted to gallop right on,
and in all her wet duds, straight for Fort Henry. This we wouldn't
allow; but tricked her out in a dry dress of Sis Riah's, and off she
went, like a streak. Oh, but isn't she the beauty, though? As full
of fun as a kitten ; as fiery as a riled catamount, and as springy as a
young fawn. Blamed if we all — old and young — didn't go right off
and do just eggzactly what that sassy little chit ordered. Oh, Lor-^.?^,
but she has the drivingest ways about her !"

Brady laughed at the rough hunter's enthusiasm, and said :

" But what of the broadhorn which served us such a good turn this
afternoon ? Did you see it pass, and do you know who commanded ?
A splendid fellow, whoever he was, and dreadful hard on Girty and
his band."

"Oh, didn't he pepper them, though?" chuckled the Virginian.
" He told Adam all about it. We heard his big cannon, and were
ready for him when he passed. 'Twas jist after our long tussle with
Bigfoot; and, to tell the truth, I wasn't very spry on my pins, but
Adam boarded the boat with his dug-out, and told all he know'd,
and got all Captain Logan know'd. Logan was the steersman, and
one of Boone's right-handers. He was hurrying down to Boones-
boro, Kantuck, with arms, powder and a cannon. They heard Girty
was on the river, and got up a leetle surprise for him. Adam wanted
Logan, and McGary, his chief man, to stay and jine forces against
Girty; but he said he could not possibly, as the Kantuck settlements
were threatened with a big Indian scalping, and he feared he would,
even as it was, be too late. He promised, though, to stop at Fort
Henry and give the latest news."

"And now tell us of the fight with Bigfoot."

"Too long a story, Brady, I'm afeard. The fight's too fresh too,
to remember all the pints. I feel it in this hand and in my shoulder,
and Bigfoot's hug's not a woman's, no how. No, sir, I can swear it ;
but here we are jist at the pint of the creek, and right down there's
the canoe," and here Poe gave out the hoot of an owl as the signal.
It was immediately answered from below ; and, with a — " This-a-way,
Cap. This bank's outragus steep and bushy, and you'd better nose
my trail," the two cautiously descended to the beach.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE POE's great FIGHT WITH "BIG FOOT."

Adam Poe and his canoe party received Brady with a few whispered
words of welcome. Whatever surprise and satisfaction they may have
felt at the sudden presence of the famous scout, was concealed under
that cool and quiet demeanor which trained hunters generally acquire.

The habitual, solitary roamer of the woods, obliged to preserve
constant silence and caution^ and to employ all his wits and arts to

112 SIMON GIRTY.

circumvent the wild game which snuffs danger in every passing breeze,
or to track the native savage, far more wily than any wary old buck
of ten prongs, must needs become watchful and taciturn. Even a
whisper; the rustle of a leaf; the crackling of a twig, may betray his
presence to a lurking foe, whose bullet brings death.

He must be ready to thrid his way through trackless forests, with
the stealthy footfall of the panther or the noiseless gliding of the ser-
pent; making scarcely more sound than that of a humming-bird
through the air: having eyes, as it were, in all parts of the head;
and, sometimes, when on an Indian trail, passing whole days without
fire, to betray by its smoke, and almost without food, save a little jerk
and ground corn.

Such were the old border hunters ; carrying their lives in their hands,
and icady to find each tree a possible cover for a deadly foe. They
were a peculiar people — grim, gaunt, silent and reckless. Men of few
words, and those, too, quaint and uncouth, but pregnant with meaning ;
abounding in apt but homely phrases and comparisons drawn from their
own free wilderness life. Indian tracking became a most absorbing
passion with many, and it is an undisputed fact of the old frontier
times, that no savage of the western wilds, no matter how renowned
for courage or war-craft, could cope with such tried and scarred vete-
rans as Boone, Kenton, Brady, the Poes or the Wetzells.

In reckless daring, desperate fighting, cool contempt of death, and
that knowledge of wood-craft which enabled them to circumvent the
cunning, crafty red skin — whose whole life was a training for war by
artful ambushes and devilish tricks — they had no equals. It was no
uncommon thing for Indians, when such a man was slain or tortured,
to cut out and consume his heart, as they did that of Major Sam Mc-
Colloch, in order, as they boasted, that their hearts might grow as big
and brave as that of their victim.

These restless scouts, either from a desire for revenge or from pure
passion for the dangerous sport, would frequently plunge all alone into
the vast, pathless forests ; penetrate their deepest and most hostile re-
cesses; remain away for weeks and then return to the settlements as
quietly and unconcernedly as they passed out, with perhaps a prisoner
or two tagging behind, or one or more fresh scalps attached to their
girdles.

The remark, therefore, which in last chapter we put into Andrew
Poe's mouth, that no hunter had gotten more sport out of four-footed
game than himself, but that "Injuns beats them all," was not only a
natural one, which Brady, having the same tastes and experience,
could heartily endorse, but was one which Poe, in his old age, actually
did make to a friend.

The canoe was now headed down stream, and under the strong,
measured beat of the skilled paddles, bounded along in the face of a
fresh, cooling breeze, which — redolent with the many woody odors of
the night — brushed up before it the white-capped wavelets.

Soon a landing was made in a little sheltered cove near the Poe
cabin, and all wended their way up the bank to the firelight, where
were found assembled several other crack riflemen. Many were now
the covert and curious glances cast at the new comer; but the free

THE POE'S GREAT FIGHT WITH THE ENEMY. II3

Stride; lithe, stalwart figure, and cool, resolute look of Brady, imme-
diately answered all demands. They took his measure in a trice;
and without a word being spoken, all at once recognized him as a
leader,

A long, heavy rifle was now taken down by Adam Poe from the
buck's antlers which hung over the huge fire-place, and quietly handed
the scout, with the simple remark :

"A tried wee-pon, Captain — true bore; and, in your hands, sure
pop every time, at a hundred and a half. I unly take her down on
big hunts, and when yaller-hides is meant. We all feel ye'll not dis-
credit it — and now, men, to bizzness."

Brady took the loaded rifle and glanced along its plain, black barrel ;
looked carefully to the priming; then brought it to his side, and,
leaning gracefully upon it, said smilingly: —

"I accept the loan, Adam, until I catch up with my own. I hope
I'll do as much justice to the piece as I hear you and Andy did yester-
day in your fight with Big Foot and his brothers. I don't know the
particulars yet; but one thing I'll swear to. I saw them all go out re-
joicing, but saw no one of theni come back. Girty was as mad as a she-
painter; but tell us how it all occurred."

"Yes, yes," broke in several others. "Some of us have lately come,
and have had to catch the story second-hand. Adam was so mad
he wouldn't speak, and Andy was so hurt, he couldn't."

"Let Andy talk it, then," said Adam; "he's a glibber tongue nor
me, and bore the brunt of the scrimmage. I came up at the heel of
the hunt, and was only in at the death."

"Wal," at last said Andy, lighting his corn-cob pipe, giving his leg-
gins a hitch, and taking his seat oa one of those rude, oaken settles
so universal in all log cabins of that day, "I mislike tooting my own
horn, but seeing as the fight was fout all unbeknownst to any other,
I'll jist tell the story from the word — go.

" Yer know v/ell, boys, when Captain Boggs' gallus darter came
sweeping up on the black thoroughbred — as fleet a mare as ever
crooked a pastern — what a flurry and kerflummix we were all in ; and
how the purty, sassy little jade railed at us for blinking around like
bats instead of running to the rescue of the other gals; and how we
rigged her out in 'Riah's toggery, a world too big for her; and how
she, a blushing like a piney, and her eyes as clear and soft as a kitten's,
dashed down the road, looking, in 'Riah's loose-flowing duds, like a
clothes line in a stiff up-river breeze."

"Wal, yas, Andy, we know all that," laughed the more sedate
Adam; "and how you stood a staring and a gaping at the poor gal,
all sheep's eyes, as if she was a suthin' good to eat, until she turned
on you all to wunst with a flash in her eye and a tartness in her tones,
and asked you if you'd never seen a purty young gal afore, and, if not,
to take a good look at her, and then to bizzness."

"It's true, boys; afore ye all, it's true," answered Andrew, getting
very red in the face. " I've heerd so much of Lydia Boggs' purtiness,
and her odd, bold doings, that when she sat there afore me, in her
natty moccasins and leggins, her face all alive and speaking from every
feature, and her telling us jist Avhat to do and how to do it, that I was
8

114 SIMON GIRTY.

rale kerflummixed, I was. My voice stuck ia my jaws, and I couldn't
histe a word to throw at a dog.

" Jist to think ! A burly giant like Big Foot couldn't start me a hate,
and when I font him I was calm and cool as a summer's morning ; but
this little spry mite of a gal comes flirting along, and big Andy Poe,
who won't turn his broad back to any on this border for downright
size and strength, gets all streaked and flustered like, so that he looked
and acted like a blessed fool. I tell ye, boys, it beats me hollow :
blamed if I kin bottom it, nohow. A little pink and white trifle of a
gal, scarce bigger nor a skeeter, to — "

"Time, Andy," interrupted Jake Leffler; " ef ye hadn't moved
spryer in yer late fight than yer doing in yer talk, Big Foot would have
had yer har drying at his belt. Don't believe ye ever saw more'n ten
wimmin— besides squaws — since ye've been growed up, and they're
not to be spoke the same day with Boggs' gal."

"That's a solium fact, Jake," answered Poe, pensively and doubt-
ingly. "And be he a fellow as big as Goliath and strong as Samps-^«
he's just nowhere along one of those peert and purty little minxes,
who'd fright at a mouse, yet who's larned the trick of blushing and
looking soft and melting like out o' her eyes whenever she wants to
bamboozle a feller.

" Wal, soon's the mare had racketed down the fort trail, and was
fairly out o' earshot, I gathered up my bothered wits again, and
Adam and me got some six of the lads together to go up to Big
Yellow and see what Girty was about, when who should come clutter-
ing along, balling and screeching, from Raccoon Hollow, but little
Davy Jackson, who said some great big Indians were down thar, rob-
bing and scalping, and had been and taken his dad prisoner.

" Dod rot the thing j we were all live enough then I'll be bound,
from moccasin straight up, and our har roughed on us quicker' n a
wink. We snatched our shooters and streaked it down stream to catch
the varmints afore they could cross the river; for, ef you'll believe me,
while we were gaping and jawing with that Wheeling beauty, blamed
ef the canoes of the pesky varmints hadn't slipped right by our cabin.
We suspicioned 'twas Big Foot and his brothers, for Boggs' gal told
us they were with Girty, and she was sure it was them who were a fol-
ler'n her. Adam and the rest went by Raccoon Hollow, while I kept
right down current.

"I had got down near Tomlinson's run; and, with nose in air and
eves everywhere, was sneaking along on the river bluff among some
paw-paw and checkerberry bushes, peaking about for Injun signs, when
I thought I heerd a low hum of voices on the beach below. My heart
was in my mouth in a jiffey; but I cocked up my ears and snaked along
on padded toes and quiet as a moth, till I got to the bulge of the bluff,
and, peering down, I sees two canoes, heads on the shingle.

" I now laid low and kept dark, and heerd the sounds agin right
below me. Crawling up soft as a rattler, I pushed aside a partridge-
berry bush and glinted down. Jehoshaphat ! there lay the great
Big Foot and another little reddy, chatting and laughing away, cozy
as two muskrats. The big Huron's mutterings were like low thunder,
aside the other's, whose voice was thin and reedy as a robins, and

THE POE S GREAT FIGHT WITH THE ENEMY.

who piped and chirped away jist as ef he warn't the peskiest rascal that
ever raised a human's har.

"Big Foot and his brothers had for a long spell been prowling and
skelpin' on our border, and had sent us many an owdacious defy. I'd
long hankered to be a fingering his scalp-lock, and now there it stood,
stiff and wavy, tricked off with an eagle's plume, right below me; and
I looked drefful wishful at it. He was a pretty tol'rable decent Injun,
too, as Injuns go : was, like all the Hurons, dead agin torture at the
stake, and had been kind to "Big-Knife" captives; but. Lor bless
you, fellers, it was either him or me. I know'd that at once from the
thumping of my heart.

'' I now fresh primed my gun, drew a dead bead on Big Foot, and
pulled trigger. Boys! the cussed thing just fluked — flaslied in pan
for the fust time in its life, and the very time I wanted it to do its poo-
tiest. You never see'd two skeerder fellows than them Injuns. They
jist hopped up as ef built on wire springs. Arter a little spell our eyes
met, and there we stood a goggling at each other like so many tarnal
ninnies — but not for long.

" I couldn't well go back, and so had to go forrard. With a yell
that almost skeered m3^self, I lept down right aginst Big Foot's broad
breast, at the same time throwing a wing about the little fellow's throt-
tle. Wall, now, boys, star at me ! You know I'm no feather-weight;
and when I lite on any one, it's either break or bend. Big Foot and
his chum chose to bend, and came tumbling to the ground. The old
fellow was drefful shuk up, and blowed and turned up his whites like
a big catfish stranded on a sand-bar.

*' Jist then I heerd firing on the bluff above, and I knew Adam and
Jake here, and the whul kit of them were busy with the skelpers. /
was orful bizzy, too — never more so. Big Foot was game all through,
and cat-gut all over; and soon's he caught his wind, he throw'd his
arm about me and hugged me up to his shaggy breast with a ten bear
power.

" Je-ru-sa-lem ! fellers ! but that was a hug ! My eyes jist closed ;
my jaws went together like a steel trap; my bones seemed to be all
cracking and scrunching down to the marrow, and I begun to cast up
my sins and think of kingdom cum. A boa-constructor was a baby to
Big Foot.

" When I cum to, the little Injun, who had somehow got loose from
me, was grinning and flirting his shiny tomahawk all about my head,
Big Foot telling him where to strike. 'Twas high time I was doing
suthing, so I squirmed and wriggled and dodged about like a dipper
in a hail-storm. At last Injun No. 2 was so cussed by Big Foot for his
clumsiness that he flirted in and let fly one at my pate. I throw'd out
my leg powerful strong, I tell you, and struck the fellow in the bread-
basket, causing him to drop his hatchet; double up like a jack-knife,
and scream like a cotched blue-jay.

"I hadn't wind enough for a holler, and was in too scrimptious a
fix to laugh ; but I felt less tight about the heart now, and began to
beat a fist-tattoo on my big lover's drum-head. It was nip and tuck
atween us, to be sure, for quite a spell — now Big Foot was atop, and
now Andy. Yer oughter heerd him cuss the little one jist then. I'm

Il6 SIMON GIRTY.

not much on Wyandott ; but I'd swear the big words he jerked out
with such wicked snaps and snarls and bellowings, were no honey
love-notes. I could hear his yellow tusks clashing like a wolf's. The
foam rose to his mouth like the yeasty froth in a churn, hor-dy but
he was mad ! The chinks of fira fairly flew from his eyes.

'* The little one now cum up agin with his Thomashawk, and I was
put to my shifts, and had to dance around like a hen on a hot griddle,
with my eyes looking seven ways for Sunday. At last the lick cum ;
but, by a big lurch, I snaked it so's to git it only bad on this arm,
that you see bound up. The red spurted out quite lively ; but I was
now riled clar down to the bottom, and would have fit the whul breed.

" I had noticed that Big Foot had a hand tied up, too, and that he
was kind of precious tender of it. Watching the chance, I caught
this under my left arm, and I, too, tried the squeezing and crunching
name. Big Foot winced and howled and — "

"Oh, /know what lamed that hand," laughingly interrupted Brady.
"A wild Irishman that we had on board the ark had a terrible tussle
with the big Huron, and drew a scalping knife through his fingers."

**Wal, I'm obleeged to him, whoever he was," continued Poe,
rising from his seat, and becoming more and more excited, '•' for it
was jist the pivot-point of the game. When I saw Big Foot roaring
with the pain — and sartain sure I ground his hand honest — I made a
terrific struggle, and at last broke loose from him.

" Snatching up the first rifle I saw, I shot the little fellow right
through the heart. He dropped like a buck, right dead in his tracks
— yes, st'r, very dead ; but — "

"Yaas," interrupted Adam, "and I've never been able to make
out why you didn't instead turn your piece on the big Indian. The
other one was mere child's play."

*T thought you mout be asking that," answered Andrew. "I've
asked myself the same a baker's dozen times since, and have as often
called myself a fool ; but, someljow, I was desp'rit mad at the little
fellow for spiling sport and giving me such a vishyus cut, and, be-
sides, I had long hankered arter Big Foot's top-knot, and wanted to
thrash him in a fair, stand-up fight. How'sumdever, whether right or
wrong, I didn't shoot Big Foot, as I soon found out, for he riz up like
a giant ; and, gripping me by the shoulder with one huge paw, and
by the leg with the other, he gave me a mighty heave, and hurled me
to the yarth. Yas, he made me chaw right smart o' sand.

" The trifling one now being out of the way, I allowed I'd turn my
whole mind to my big foe. Boys, you all know I'm a hard one to
wrastle, and have a powerful clinch of my own, and am pretty handy,
too, in flinging about my two gospels ; and it made my blood fairly
boil and hiss to be knocked about as a bear cuff's around a yawping
puppy, so I pitched in with all my strength, and rained down the
best licks I could. I had Big Foot, then, and he know'd it right well.
He couldn't send back one rap to my three, and was no whar in fend-
ing off"; so the handy old chief closed in again, and rolled me on the
sand handsomely, I must allow.

"I now sprung a new dodge on him, and wouldn't stay put; but,
clinching him tight, I rolled over and over with him down the beach

ADAM POE FINISHES THE STORY. II 7

and into the river, and we both tried the drowning game. My hair
was short, and my upper half slippery with blood, and I knowed it.
After chasseing around, and up and down the middle for a considera-
ble spell, I watched my eye, and nipped old Injy by his scalp-lock,
and bobbing his head up and down, I at last chucked it under water.
I held him under so long, boys, that blamed ef I didn't begin to pity
the fellow, Injun as he was; and, allowing he must be near dead, I
let go and .made a stagger to get out my knife.

" Would you believe it, fellers, that big Injun was only ' playing
possum.' He bobbed up again, not eggsactly fresh as a daisy, but
with a blow like a porpose, and made straight at me, vishyus like.
Oh, I swan to Moses, he was a game one to the last, and looked wick-
eier'n a mad bull. He snared me by the cocynut, and, almost afore
I know'd it, he had me under, until my /^^<2<^swam if my body didn't.

"By this time we had both worked out into deep water, each of us
panting and blowing like a broken-winded bellers. We now had to
scramble for it, and both struck out for shore at the same time, the
empty rifles which were to end the scuffle being in full view. My
wing was so crippled that I soon found I would be dead beat; so I
turned out agin, allowing I would dive like a dipper at the shot, and
so get off at last.

"As good luck would have it, Adam and the rest having rounded
off their little job with Big Foot's brothers, by losing three men, now
appeared on the bank ; and Uncle Josh, there, seeing me out in the
stream, and all reddened with blood, fired at me for an Injun, and
gin me this favor," pointing to his shoulder, which was bound up
from a deep and serious wound.

" That's a fac, men ; it's true as Scripter, and I darsn't deny it,"
said the old hunter who was called Uncle Josh, with humbled face,
and looking around upon the listening circle deprecatingly. " 'Twas
the meanest and unhandiest shot I ever venter'd ; but I've told Poe
the whul truth on it, and, like the big man he is, he's forgiven me.
Haven't ye, Andy? Say it again, boy!"

"I have, for sure and sartain, Uncle Josh," laughed Boe. "Ye
made a clean breast of it. The unly thing that sticks in my craw.
Josh, wus yer taking me for a pesky yaller hide ; ye might as well
spit in my face, and call me hoss ; but, to go on — or, now that Adam's
mixed up in the scrimmage, let him put the tail end to it."

CHAPTER XXIX.

ADAM POE FINISHES THE STORY.

"Wal," says Adam, "to begin where Andy left off: he hollered to
me to 'pepper the Indian upon the shore;' but my rifle was shot
clean, and Big Foot had also an empty gun, so it was nip and tuck
atween us who should beat loading. Big Foot crying out: "Who load
first — shoot first.' Be sure I lost no time ; but the chief, being some-
what narvous and flustified, got into a great splutter, and jerking out

115 SIMON GIRTY.

his rammer too suddint from its socket, it slipped through his fingers
and fell into the river.

" Now, I must allow that from that hitch, Big Foot behaved very
perlite and amiable-like ; seeing his chance was gone, he bared his
big breast, walked boldly towards me, and invited me to shoot. I
studied a spell ; but, seeing Andy all bloody, and thinking Big Foot
had on a good ready for the 'happy hunting grounds,' I jined in with
the invite, and throw'd him the lead in the very spot he wanted.

"Andy, then, being in a pretty bad fix out in the river, I was
swimming to his help, when he hollered me to let him alone and scalp
the big chief, who was rolling himself into the water in hopes of
saving his har. And jist bekase I'd rather save my brother than a
greasy scalp, Andy's been rily and pouting at me ever since ; for sure
'nuff, the gritty old Indian broke for deep water, and made it, too,
and was carried off, har-whole, with a shout in his throttle. And this
is the whul fight. And now let's fall to, men ; here's plenty of Johnny
cake and bacon, and right thar's the corn-juice jug. Keep her spin-
ning, spry and frisky, boys, while we argefy our plans. Girty's no
slouch, ye may take yer Scripter oath on't — no, nor doesn't wait for
any man's ready; and, ef it's tracking we're arter, we'd best soon be
nosing up our fox."

" Wal," here mumbled out old Uncle Josh, his jaws munching
away vigorously at the Johnny cake, " I've counted noses ; and, soon's
Dutch Abe gets here, I reckon on nine as tough and gnarly old lea-
ther-stockings as iver draw'd bead or forced a trail ; ef we only could
make the ten with the 'Harmit of the Big Yaller,' I wouldn't give a
weasel-skin for Girty's chances — that crazy fellow's rank pizen on all
Injuns. When he hits, he hits hard, I swow."

" That air's a solium fac. Josh," put in Andy Poe, with a grave
face. "The 'Harmit,' whosomdever he is, wastes no brimstone.
I've cum acrost a right smart sight of his handy-work over on the
creek-trail; he shoots to kill, and don't bother with the har."

"And who is this mysterious person you call the ' Hermit?' " said
Brady.

"Yaas, who is he?" quickly replied Andrew. "That's jist what
we'd like you to tell us — some of us conceit he's the devil. He's got
no split-hoof, too, I ken take my Bible swar on it, for I've cum acrost
his tracks severiel times, and his moccasin print's small and slim's a
woman's. One thing's sartin. When he's out, there's Injuns around,
and one or more of em's bound to chaw dirt. Three times I've found
a cold and stiff Injun lying away down in some deep, black hollow —
a leetle off from the reg'lar trail — and with a hole bored in his skull
right over the eyes. The har is left jist where it rooted, which argu-
fys it's not scalps or shin-plasters he' s arter. There's one mark by
which ye may allers know the ' Harmit's ' work. Every yaller-hide
of his killing has the right ear off." '

*' Why^ this is all very singular," exclaimed Brady, deeply inter-
ested. "Girty told me this very afternoon that he had lost one of
his best hunters last night, and struck precisely in the way you de-
scribe. He says that the Big Yellow trail has been infested for over
two years back with some mysterious Indian-slayer, and that the tribes

ADAM POF, FINISHES THE STORY. II9'/

are getting superstitious about it, believing it's no white man, because\
the scalp is always left, and that it must be an evil spirit sent to pun-|
ish them for allowing the whites to take their land ; but did none of
you ever see this 'Hermit,' as you call him?"

All looked at the younger Poe, Adam saying :

" Ask Andy, there; he spends most of his time nosing about tother'
side, and has some yarn to spia about a wild, hairy devil he met in
the woods."

" Wal, devil or no devil," said Andy, solemnly, " I seed him sure,
about a moon since. I had been arter bar over on Wolf Ridge, 'bout
three mile or so back on Yellow; and, having bagged nothing, had
jist gone down into the hollow of Falling Spring to see ef I couldn't
chance a doe, or even a wild turkey. 'Twas nigh to'ards evening,
and things were looking tol'ble dark and lunsome like under the thick
trees, when, as I was trailing softly along, kind o' sad and low-hearted,
I heerd the sharp crack o' a rifle down about the forks of Brush Creek.

"I cocked up my head-flippers, and was stiff as a rammer afore ye
could say 'Andy Poe !' for powder scorched over that-a-way means In-
juns, sure's you live. I now crept along very keerful, and as quiet as
a 'painter' 'bout a deer lick; when, jist as I'd sighted the 'Forks,' I
hears a sort o' singing — not a free, hearty, ringing tune, sich as Ike
Ingles, our singing marster, throws off, but a low, mournsome, croon-
ing sort o' sound, atwixt crying and whining.

"I creeps up and up; and, arter a little spell, I actooaly sighted the
wildest and strangest looking figger I'd ever sot eyes on. He was a
lank, gaunt, long-drawn-out feller, thin as a hickory saplin', and 'thout
more flesh on him than Eph Barker there. He was leaning on his
heavy rifle, and looking down kind o' savage at suthing, while singing
some kind o' gibberish I couldn't make out. His har and beard were
long and ragged, and kind o' bleached out and matted all together.

" The strangest, darndest bein' I ever see, dod rot him, and my har
jist lifted straight yup ; for, hang me up for bar meat, ef I could say
efhe was white or Injun, and whether 'twas fight or shake flippers.
He was dressed all in skins, and had on a wolf skin cap with tail hang-
ing behind.

" I stood with sasser eyes, and mouth wide open as a varmint trap,
till the drops o' sweat began to chase each other down my phiz: then
I could stand it no longer, but with ' Long Tom' at my peeper, I gave
a suddint shout.

" Yer oughter seen that strange critter jump ! 'Twas like the first
spring of a buck when a feller has crept up all unbeknownst, and plumps
him afore he smells what's arter him. For jist a jiffy he turned his
hairy face to'ards me, and then I saw he wasn't a yaller-hide. He
looked stunned and dazed like, and his eyes had a wild, glary, hank-
ering gaze about them. Jist as I was stepping out, away he started
with a quick, suddint snort like, and bounded off into the woods. I
hurried up to whar he was standing and there, sure's coons is coons, lay
a dead Injun, with a hole in his skull, and his right ear off.

"Why didn't I foller him, stranger? Ye might as well have follered
a streak o' moonshine, or a Jack-o-lantern. He was off like a flash,
and I arter him, hot and streaked. The last I seed o' him was gliding

120 SIMON GIRTY.

like a ghost along the rocks at the mouth of the Brush fork of Big
Yellow. Now he skulks somewhere up there, dead sartain. All his
tracks pint that-a-way, I've heerd of some strange, wild man o' the
woods, too, bringing in pelts to Fort Mcintosh. He says nuthin to
nobody, but throws down his skins and takes off his lead and powderr
That's himy

"Well," said Brady, "as our trail leads right past Brush Creek, lets
hunt him up. What you and Girty have said about this strange being,
makes me wish to know more of him. If he hates and hunts redskins,
he's the kind we want; but now isn't it time to be moving? I hear
the three o'clock owl hooting over there, and it will soon be light
enough to trail."

The hunters now passed some time in earnest conversation, debating
the probabilities of Girty's course : whether his party — as was usual
with Indians of mixed tribes after a successful raid — would divide the
captives and disperse in small groups to their respective towns ; and if
not, whether 'twere better to get on the trail immediately, or wait a
day till such men as had been sent for would arrive.

Brady, as would be natural with any ardent and impatient lover, was
for instant pursuit. He had noted (what we have already stated) that,
at the late Indian council held to discuss the effect of Lydia's escape,
and when every consideration of prudence would seem to urge a hasty
retreat, the chiefs dispersed, apparently at ease as to the situation, and
resolved on delay.

This, he said, indicated to him that the party which Girty knew
would be sent west from Fort Henry to the Muskingum to intercept
them, was to be deceived by Girty's abandoning the " Big Yellow
trail," taking probably a more northern route to the Sandusky towns,
and probably detaching a small party on the old trail as a decoy.
Besides, he had gathered from Girty himself that the girls were to
mount the horses, so that the journey would be a swift one.

He would therefore advise that a runner should start instantly for
Fort Henry to explain the situation, and to assure the force there that
it was probable Girty would drive his captives northward to Upper
Sandusky; and that a party of ten would follow hard on his trail ; and
asking that their party should meet them at the burnt Moravian town
of Gnadenhutten, providing neither party brought Girty to bay sooner.

This view of the situation was finally adopted. A fleet horseman
was at once dispatched to Fort Henry, and all now busied themselves
in inspecting rifles, and laying in a stock of balls, patches, powder and
jerk, for what might be a week's hard trail.

CHAPTER XXX.

THE POE PARTY TAKE GIRTY's TRAIL.

Before the first streak of dawn, the whole party of nine true and tried
hunters, quietly filed down the bank and took places in Big Foot's canoe.
The paddles were plied with caution, and the light vessel soon entered

THE POE PARTY TAKE GIRTY S TRAIL. 121

the mouth of Big Yellow. Here all silently debarked, and, with Brady
and the younger Poe at the head, stealthily advanced towards Girty's
camp.

As expected, all was found completely deserted. Some litter, and
a few smoldering embers alone marked the late bustling encampment.
After throwing out a scout in advance, to guard against treachery, the
party, designing to await the full light of day, busied themselves in
carefully scrutinizing every minutest sign which might give any — even
the slightest — clue to Girty's plans. This work was done most thor-
oughly and with practiced eyes. Nothing of any significance whatever
was discovered.

Brady was deeply disappointed. As he sat moodily resting his head
on his hands, the thought suddenly struck him — where so likely to find
tidings of the captive girls as in the bower of last night? Up, on the
instant, to his feet ! he hastily stepped toward it, and made a most
thorough search. All in vain. Altogether baffled, he was just about
to move from the spot, when he discovered something white protru-
ding from the narrow cleft in the sapling which had formed one of
the supports.

Drawing it forth in great trepidation, he found it to be a small leaf
from the pocket-bible which the good Drusilla Swearingen ever carried
with her, and these words hurriedly scrawled upon it : —

Girty's Camp, about 2 A. M.

To Capt. Brady — I write this in hopes it may reach your eye.
Girty and chiefs very angry and excited at your escape. The rest of
us thankful — none more so than D. S. All very anxious, not knowing
where we go or what may happen. Don't give us up, my friend, but
haste! haste! The four horses ready, but Shepherd's still very lame.
The Major, Shepherd and Larry do all possible to cheer us up, and the
last is on the best terms with the Indians. If possible, we'll mark our
trail. Farewell ; I hear Girty's hateful voice. Think of Drusilla.

Although this missive gave but little information, yet it must have
been deemed very precious in Brady's eyes, since the grim and solitary
scout often pressed it to his lips with fervor. After a month's assidu-
ous devotion to Drusilla, if not altogether assured of her preference, he
had, at least, gathered that he was by no means indifferent to her, and
now here were the first lines of her tracing, and she for whose love he
was willing to peril so much, was a captive among ferocious savage?,
and carried he knew not whither. "'Don't give us up,' " he mur-
mured passionately. " How could she think that of me? 'Think of
Drusilla,' and when don't I think of her? but come, the day has opened
at last. We must be off."

Joining the rest, who were quietly seated beneath an old oak, and
hard by a spring of clear, cool water, munching away at what was in-
tended for the morning meal, Brady cried out impatiently: —

" Here's a short note I've just found from Miss — from one of the
captives. We are urged to hasten. The four females go on horses,
and will travel fast. They promise to mark the trail, but that won't
be necessary. It's now light : hadn't we better be moving on the
path?"

122 SIMON GIRTY.

" Oh, no hurry," drawled Andy; "Girty's only a couple o* hours
the start, and ye ain't a sniffling luvyer to be butting yer head agin
him afore the time. We can't do much with the reddies he's got afore
dark. We'll hev to be plagy keerful, too, that, instead of trapping
Girty, the old fox don't git us. Forty agin nine isn't eggsactly the
square figger, but the night'll make all even."

"Besides," put in Adam, " I allers likes to stow away a good padding
into my innards afore opening on a far trail. They say a starn chase's
a long chase, and dog my cats if it ain't a fac; and we'll cross no
taverns, with juicy buffalo broils, on our way, sure's your thar. Best
squat down with us, Brady, and line yer basket well ; and then, too,
haven't we all kinder pinted this time for tracking Andy's Harmit to
his hole. Hunker down there, man, and fall to ; the day's young yet,
and the shank uv it's afore us."

Brady saw they were right, and, concealing his impatience, sat to
his meal with the rest, and discussed the business of the day. After a
sociable pipe all round, the party rose and took the trail, Brady and
the two Poes in front. Girty had made no attempt at concealment
and the progress, therefore, was swift.

Their course along the Yellow was enough to excite the wonder and
admiration of persons far less impressible than our rude scouts. Ac-
customed as they all were to constant familiarity with the vast and
solemn wilderness, with all its shifting scenes and varied charms, they
could not now withhold expressions of pleasure as each turn of the wild
and picturesque stream revealed new and strange beauties to their rav-
ished eyes. The swift and rapid current, which was running bank-
full; the wildness of the pine-crowned and vine-clad cliffs on either
side, and the wonderful freshness of all the exuberant leafage and un-
dergrowth, then putting on the bright, gay livery of spring; it all
made their hearts glad; gave an unwonted elasticity to their quick but
cautious steps, while the stimulus which their perilous enterprise afford-
ed them, kept all their wits and senses on the alert.

After about an hour's steady trarap, they crossed a rapid fork of
Big Yellow, and were now approaching the mouth of Brush Creek.
It was near here where Andy Poe, a month previous, had suddenly
come on the " Hermit." Andy had now taken the lead, and a hush-h-h
from him put the whole party on their guard. Each man of them was
on the tip-toe of expectation, and each foot fell softly and noiselessly.

They had agreed that in case of another sight of the mysterious her-
mit, the utmost care should be taken to first surround him, and then
capture him ; or, if that failed, to trail him rapidly to his home, which
Andy felt sure was somewhere up on Brush Creek. In case they could
not see him, they were to turn off the main trail for a couple of hours,
and scout up that creek in hopes of coming on his refuge.

It would be foolish to give, as the only motive for this digression,
the wish to secure another skilled Indian slayer to their too weak
numbers ; added to this, there was that feeling of curiosity and su-
perstitious fascination which would, among rude and uncultured
borderers, attach to a solitary and mysterious roamer of the forest,
who did his killing in so lonely and singular a manner, and who
studiously kept aloof from the few settlers of that neighborhood.

THE POE PARTY TAKE GIRTY S TRAIL. I23

The trail now lay along a densely shaded and gloomy valley. The
file of grim and silent hunters moved forward like spectres. Right
before them lay the mouth of Brush Creek, that swift and abounding
stream sweeping into the "Yellow" by a great bend.* Andrew had
scarce passed the protruding cliff which marked the mouth, and cast
his eyes up Brush Creek, when he made a hasty, backward step, grip-
ping Brady tightly by the arm, and hissing out in great excitement : —

" By the tarnal, lads, that's the strange critter, and at his same old
work, as I'm a living sinner !"

This sharp and sudden remark had a far more startling effect on
most of the rough borderers present than if Andy had announced the
whole of Girty's band coming directly at them. Brady and Adam
Poe crept up at once, but the rest advanced and gazed with awe on
their faces and a bewildered look in their eyes. Two or three were
quite unnerved.

It was a strangely odd and impressive tableau, that curious group
of stern and stalwart frontiersmen, closely huddled together and in-
tently peering over each other's shoulders. Not fifty yards up Brush
Creek, the rapid stream on one side, and a wall of rock half hidden
by foliage on the other, lay a huge moss-covered log, on which leaned,
on his long black rifle, the mysterious hermit, looking earnestly down
on a human form at his feet. The dark, funereal pines, each branch
tipped with the green new growth of spring, hung overhead, a most
appropriate accompaniment to this lonely scene of violent death.

And now the mysterious stranger — startled perhaps at a plash in the
water, or a rolling pebble loosened from the rocks above— turned his
face toward them. A sad, wild, gloomy countenance, surrounded
with long, disordered hair ; a bushy, iron-grey beard flowing over the
breast, and his head crowned with a rough cap of skin. His figure
was long, gaunt and angular.

And now the rifle is laid against the big log; a glittering knife —
clearly visible to the on-looking group of staring hunters — is drawn,
and the " hermit " stoops over his victim, while Andrew whispers
shudderingly : — ■

" Another of Girty's pets gone ; most like a straggler. He's dead
as a mackerel, by the living jingo — and there ! off goes his head-flap!
And now, fellers, mebbe Adam and you'll say agin that's Andy Poe's
Harmit. By thunder, he's everybody s harmit, and ef yer a hankering
arter driving him to hole, ye'd best throw away no time. Don't well
see, ayther, how we ken git 'jound him ; but three or four o* you
cross the Brush branch, and some more take to the hill back uv him,
whiles Adam, Brady, and me'll tackle him in front."

The hunters, as agreed, stealthily slunk away to try and surround
the stranger, so as to watch his course and prevent escape. The three

* Brush Creek, to this day, is one of the most lonely and sequestered streams in
Eastern Ohio. Long after the events of our story, its secluded and gloomy valleys
became the resort of a desperate gang of robbers and horse -thieves. Hiding among
its fastnesses and gloomy caverns, they for a long time defied arrest. It is, at some
distance from its mouth, but a succession of bold hills, deep ravines and rocky cliffs,
honey-combed with caves. Readers can imagine what it must have been in the last
century, when but a savage wild, covered with the dense, primeval forest.

124 SIMON GIRTY.

who were left, now kept the utmost silence, but never took their eyes
off their man. He was now seated quietly on the log, apparently
muttering or crooning something to himself. Before the out-men had
gotten position, however, they saw him all at once spring to his feet,
clutch his rifle, and gaze most fixedly at some object across the stream
It was one of the men Andy had sent to the other side, and who had
incautiously uncovered him.self. The " hermit " now cast a glance,
quick as lightning, down the creek, and, catching sight of the three
scouts, who had not time to step back behind cover, he bounded
nimbly off up the creek.

No use of further caution. Our hunters gave a ringing shout to
apprise their ppirty that the game was off, and sprang forward in pur-
suit. They soon came up to the dead savage, whom Brady immediately
recognized as a young Shawnee of Girty's band — the very warrior
who had made such a fierce attack on Larry as he was coming off the
ark after its repulse. A strong rum fragrance about him afforded the
probable reason for his unlucky straggling so far behind his fellows.
He was shot in the head, and the right ear had been freshly cut off.

This poor fellow detained them but a few minutes. The pursuit
was continued, Brady's lean and sinewy form, with no ounce of su-
perfluous flesh, soon enabling him to outstrip his more burly competi-
tors. The stranger was now entirely out of sight, but the print of his
moccasins, wherever the ground was somewhat moist or yielding, ena-
bled his pursurers to keep track of him. All at once the trail was
totally lost. To be sure, the place was rocky, but even beyond the
rocks, it could not be recovered, although three of the best pairs of
trained eyes on the border were most carefully hunting it.

CHAPTER XXXI.

THE "HERMIT OF THE BIG YELLOW."

The unknown could not have crossed the creek, for he would at
once have been discovered from one side or the other. It appeared
equally improbable that he could have scaled the rocky heights on
their side, for these were both high and steep, with no seeming break
or depression capable of shielding a man.

As Brady walked back and forth, carefully scrutinizing the face of
the craggy cliff for some clue out of the puzzle, his eye glanced on a
sort of shallow rift or cleavage of the rocks, which led slantingly and
with ragged projections up to a narrow ledge. Ascending this, more
because he scarce knew what else to do, than because he had any very
strong suspicions of its ever having been used as a regular path, Brady
mounted to the ledge, following which he came to another shallow
depression, so winding as to be concealed from the valley below.
This led to a second ledge, which, in turn, terminated at a spot where
the rock receded to an easy slope.

Here Brady saw plain traces of footsteps. So encouraged, he
mounted on and on, until he stood on still another ledge full a hun-

THE "HERMIT OF THE BIG YELLOW. I25

dred feet above the creek below. Looking along this, he noted that
fifty feet or so further on, it aproned out into a kind of platform, and
that directly above this rocky flange there appeared an opening in the
wall. Treading carefully along this last ledge, Brady, much to his
surprise, found himself in front of a cave, which, owing to the pro-
jecting rock alluded to, was completely hidden from below.

Pausing but for one moment, to brace himself up, as it were, for
the task before him, the hardy and intrepid scout, stooping his head,
and with his trusty rifle at z. parte, boldly advanced within and stood
erect. Before his eyes had become accustomed to the sudden gloom,
he heard the click of a rifle, immediately followed by a deep and
resolute voice :

** Hold ! rash intruder ! one step more and you're a dead man !
Why do you and your fellows hunt and hound me as you would a
panther to its lair. This is my home, not yours. I harmed none ;
want no man's society, and 1 demand to be left alone."

At the first word of this totally unexpected speech, Brady made
ready his rifle and moved a step backward. His eyes, having at its
close, become somewhat accustomed to the sombre light, he saw there
before him the gaunt, meagre figure of the mysterious " hermit." His
face, though thin and haggard was yet finely featured, and with an
unmistakable air of gentility about it ; while his brilliant but cavernous
eyes, gleamed with a sort of fierce and feverish light ; not so much
the fixed and sullen glare of insanity, as the burning glow of some
intense and o'ermastering passion. His long, unkempt hair, and
matted, flowing beard, imparted a strangely wild look to his whole
person ; and, although Brady, who so closely confronted him, was a
stranger to fear, yet, even he stood irresolute and embarrassed. Con-
cluding, however, that the stranger was nearer right than himself, and
that curiosity and the over-colored accounts of JPoe, had placed him
in a rather false position, he simply remarked : —

" You speak truth, sir. I have no business, here. I was misin-
formed, and hope you will pardon the intrusion."

The hermit, now equally surprised in his turn at the moderation of
Brady's tones, lowered his weapon and advanced close to Brady.
Looking at him with earnest gaze, he said —

"You talk civil, and appear to be well disposed, sir, and no doubt
acknowledge that a ' man's house is his castle.' " And then, adding
more excitedly, and with a sort of sneering laugh : "This is my house,
rude as you may think it, but it suits me exactly. I suppose the ig
norant hunter whom I chose to run from a few weeks since, thinks me
a lunatic or some wild man of the woods, and so to be hunted down
and caged."

" Who and what, then, in God's name are you, and why such a
lonely, desolate life?'' answered Brady, looking curiously around the
cave, which merits from us a brief description.

It furnished, indeed, a neat and comfortable home, as well as a se-
cure hiding-place. The mouth of it was somewhat contracted, and
only about five feet high. But it soon enlarged as one entered so as
to form quite a roomy, egg shaped chamber of pure rock. Near the
entrance there gushed forth a spring of clear water. In one corner a

126 SIMON GIRTY.

Stream of light came from above through a funnel-shaped chimney of
bark, which served also in cold weather, or when any cooking was
done, to conduct away the smoke of the fire. In another corner was
a sort of bunk, filled with mosses and leaves, and partially covered
with a bear-skin, serving, of course, as a couch. A deep recess in the
rock held a few books. A pile of skins ; some self-made torches of
fat woods, and traps for animals ; some flour, meal and bags, contain-
ing, probably, provisions, powder, &c., comprised all the furniture
that was visible.

Simple and primitive enough, to be sure, and yet many an anchorite
has been far worse lodged.

When Brady put his last question, the countenance of the recluse,
or whatever he might be termed, saddened. The intense, almost
fierce gleam of his eye softened, and he made answer:

" Lonely and desolate enough, and yet chosen deliberately. I want
no other. Life has lost its charms for me. My heart has been turned
to gall and bitterness — yes to its very core — and my sole business is
revenge. I will not tell you who I am. What good would it do ?
Enough that, like many another on the western border, my family
has been ruthlessly killed by savages."

Here came back the fierce blaze in his eyes. His hands were tightly
clenched, and his face worked so convulsively that it was painful to
watch him. After a little he hissed out with most intense passion:

" I hate the whole hell-brood of them. Oh, how dearly and ten-
derly I loved my family, and how anxious to make a new and com-
fortable home for them, and yet all, all swept away at one blow ; my
wife tortured to death by fire and all my children brained and
scalped."

" Why this is horrible," answered Brady. "Have you not — could
there not be some mistake? some "

" None whatever, I tell you," almost shouted the poor man in
agonized tones. ** I heard it from a white man who witnessed the
whole damnable atrocity, and had the story afterwards confirmed by a
red man. It broke my spirit, crazed my brain, turned my heart to
stone, and I swore a solemn oath I'd have revenge. I've had it," and
here his face lit up with a fierce and savage joy, almost like a devilish
leer, " I have killed many, and there," pointing to a weasel skin sus-
pended over his couch, " are the witnesses."

"And how long," said Brady, receding almost in horror at the
pitiless and inhuman tones and the significant gesture, " how long
have you lived here ?"

"What matters it to you?" he quickly replied. " Long enough to
redden the Big Yellow trail. I squatted first on the Chillicothe trail
till it became deserted. Then I moved on the old Mingo town trail,
not far below, and now I stay here, just off the Tuscarawas path, till
I glut my revenge."

" But," remonstrated Brady, " I, too, am an Indian tracker. 'Tis
true I fight fair and open, and don't mutilate ."

" No, oh no, you only strip them of scalps, worth so much a piece
in the market," mockingly interrupted the hermit ; " now I don't
want money, but blood — lives for lives. I don't even torture the

THE "HERMIT OF THE BIG YELLOW. T27

miscreants, but kill them quick and sure. Lives, lives are what I
want, not hair to sell or wounds to torture. Ah, you never had a
wife and dear children."

" Why not," asked Brady, " come with us then, and you may have
lives. We want aid badly, and are now on the trail after Girty and
his band — Capt. Pipe, Black Hoof ."

"Who! w/r(? did you say ?" almost shrieked the stranger, starting
forward and vehemently clutching Brady's arm until he fairly winced
under t!ie grasp. " Black Hoof? Say it again, please ! He's the in-
fernal ruffian who murdered my children. I've hunted him for years,
but he has never and will never cross my path. Tell me true !" gaz-
ing appealingly into his companion's eyes, "is that inhuman monster
within striking distance ? Oh ! tell me as you yourself hope for
mercy."

" He's not three hours gone, I pledge you my word and honor.
We are now — "

" No word more," he fiercely hissed, " I go with you for this day"
and then hesitating a little, he added: ^^ provided you all ask me no
questions ; allow me to attack as I please and afterwards let me alone
without further notice. Will you do it? If not, will you leave me?"

"You are a strange being," replied Brady, much relieved, "but
we want all the rifles we can muster, and I pledge both myself and
companions to respect your wishes."

" Enough !" said the hermit, hurriedly seizing his rifle, his pouches
and some jerk. " I'd much rather scout alone, but I've said it and
I'll do it. Lead on, if you're ready ! You somehow found your way
up; you can down. Well for you I coveted no white man's blood."

By this time the rest below had become somewhat alarmed about
Brady's prolonged absence, and were busily but quietly wandering
back and forth in search of him. He had been so deeply interested
in the interview with his singular companion, that he had neglected to
warn them of his whereabouts. When, therefore, they saw him nim-
bly clambering down the face of the rocks, and followed, too, by the
mysterious " Hermit of the Big Yellow," they were no little amazed,
and stood, with rifles all ready, huddled together in a wondering
group.

Reserving all explanation for a future occasion, and privately signal-
ing to the band, Brady simply said : "I have found the 'hermit,'
and have finally persuaded him that it would be better for him to join
us for this hunt. Fall in men and ask him no questions ! we've lost
some time and must at once take up the trail again."

The strange hunter now so singularly secured, merely nodded va-
cantly as he was thus introduced ; fell into place directly behind
Brady, and all silently filed back out of the narrow Brush Creek into
the much broader valley of the Big Yellow.

128 SIMON GIRTY.

CHAPTER XXXII

A QUARTETTE OF FAMOUS SCOUTS.

Let us now turn our attention to a more distant field of action.
Never did shades of evening gather over a lovelier or more diversified
panorama than that seen about Fort Henry at the close of the day
whose eventful deeds we have been describing.

This strong old fort was situate on a commanding bluff, a short half
mile above Wheeling Creek. Right at its base swept the majestic
Ohio, whose broad, rapid current was here divided by a large and
heavily-wooded island, called after the original and most prominent
resident, Col. Ebenezer Zane.

Right behind the Fort ran a ridge of bold, lofty hills, wooded from
base to summit, with one universal mass of fresh green foliage. On
the other side of the Ohio, another range of steep, wooded hills cor-
responded, broken up here and there by broad valleys or deep rifts,
and their bases occasionally spreading out into broad and fertile
plains.

The line of Wheeling Creek, with its singular break through the
hills in its rear, and its subsequent circular sweep ; on one side a wall
of rock or steep hill-side ; on the other, a rich alluvium of fertile
meadow, was distinctly to be seen in all its tortuous windings.

Between the creek and the Fort lay a broad and exceedingly rich
expanse of "bottom" lands, now the lower part of the busy and
thriving city of Wheeling. At the time we write, most of the woods
had been cut away, and the extensive flat had just been plowed up
and planted to corn.

It was no wonder that when, in June 1770, Ebenezer Zane, at the
early age of twenty-three, first stood on this bluff, and took in the
out-spread and beauteous landscape of hills, river, island, and rich
wooded plains, his eyes were enraptured at the magnificent vision.
He saw all the varied charms, as well as the manifest advantages of
the spot, and resolved there to make his home. With no friend but
his faithful dog, and no companions but his knife and gun, this in-
trepid adventurer had left his pleasant home and all the comforts of a
settled community in Berkely county, Virginia, and had struck out
into the untrodden western wilderness in search of adventure and a
future.

Throwing up his rude little cabin, here he remained, hunting and
exploring, for one full season, and then returned for his family, to
relate what he had seen and done. A select band of choice and reso-
lute spirits like himself soon resolved to go back with him. In 1772,
leaving his family at old Redstone, on the Monongahela, he, in com-
pany with his brothers Silas and Jonathan, proceeded to take pos-
session.

At that time there was not a single settlement, .save Fort Pitt, on
the Ohio, from mouth to source. This little band stood absolutely

A QUARTETTE OF FAMOUS SCOUTS. 1 29

alone. A clearing was soon opened in the dense forest, letting in
the blessed sunshine, and fertilizing the teeming soil. The cabins
gradually increased around him ; settlers steadily set in, among the
earliest being Bennett, Wetzel, Shepherd and others, and thus was
laid the foundation of the present city of Wheeling.

Fort Henry, first called Fort Fincastle, was erected in 1774, and is
said to have been planned by no less a personage than General George
Rogers Clarke, one of the best military heads then in the country.
It was one of the most substantial structures of the kind in the west,
having heavy oaken stockades, four strong bastions, and, what was
very unusual at the time, the commandant's house was built high like
a tower, and mounted a real cannon. No regular garrison was ever
maintained there ; but it was always well defended by the brave set-
tlers around, it having successfully stood two obstinate sieges. We
shall have somewhat to say of it hereafter.

On this particular evening there was considerable bustle about Fort
Henry. A crowd of stalwart hunters were gathered just outside that
end of the fort looking toward Wheeling Creek and the intervening
flat. Another lot of men, women and children lined the fort ram-
parts, while a little outside of the exterior knots of people, stood four
riflemen, clad in the convenient scouting costume of the day, half
hunter, half Indian.

The first of these was Jonathan Zane, one of the best shots and
bravest scouts on the frontier — a man of remarkable daring, energy
and restless activity ; so skilled in wood-craft, and so universally ap-
proved in all his actions with the savages, that he was a few days
afterwards chosen chief pilot for the celebrated Crawford-Williamson
expedition to Sandusky.

It is related of him that once when returning to Fort Henry from
one of his expeditions, he saw five Indians jump into the river and
swim for Zane's Island. He fired at once, and one of them sank to
rise no more. Rapidly loading up, he fired three times more, each
shot killing a savage. The fifth and last, seeing the fate of his com-
panions, concealed himself behind a "sawyer," or log, sticking end
out of the water.

After several ineffectual attempts to dislodge him, Zane was about
to give up further trial ; when, seeing a portion of the redskin's body
protruding from the log, he took a careful aim at the exposed part,
and the last of the five rolled into the stream.

Next him stood the far-famed Major Sam McColloch, then on a
visit to Fort Henry from the neighboring settlement of Short Creek.
Another celebrated scout and Indian hunter, a man who never knew
fear, and who headed many an expedition against the savages. His
sister Elizabeth, was the wife of Colonel Ebenezer Zane.

It was the Major's heart, as we have already stated, which was years
after cut out and eaten by his pitiless slayers, that they might, by this
act of cannibalism, become as brave as he was. He is noted as the hero
of the far-famed " McColloch's leap," which took place in 1777 — the
"bloody year of the three sevens," as it was for a long time called
along the Virginia border. Towards the close of the memorable siege
of Fort Henry of that year, he led forty mounted men from Short
9

130 SIMON GIRTY.

Creek to its rescue, all of whom succeeded in entering the fort but
himself.

By a sudden rush of the foe he was cut off and surrounded. Dash-
ing his horse through the encircling savages, he rode it at full speed
for the high hills back of the fort, pursued by a yelling throng of ex-
ultant savages. His gallant steed was pushed to the utmost, with the
design of reaching the summit and thence escaping along its brow to
Van Metre's Fort. As ill luck would have it, he had scarcely gained
the height, when he came full tilt against another body of savages, re-
turning from a plundering expedition.

Not one moment for hesitation ! Escape seemed utterly out of the
question. A fierce and cruel foe completely hemmed him in. Pre-
fisrring death among rocks to the savage knife and fagot, he took the
only course left him, and spurred his foaming steed directly at the
precipice before him. Fixing himself firmly in the saddle, the bridle
in one hand, his rifle in the other, he closed his eyes, and uttered a
shout of triumph.

His noble animal paused shudderingly on the brink. Another
shout and a sudden spur pushed him over, and down the steep incline
both plunged, amid crashing timber and tumbling rocks. Down ! still
down ! went horse and rider, until Wheeling Creek was reached, just
at the extreme point of that most remarkable circle enclosing what is
called "the peninsula."

Across the creek and over this peninsula " bottom " rushed the
white horse and its unrecking rider, the amazed savages standing
stupidly on the edge of the bluff, far, far above. Their prey had
miraculously escaped them, and they returned the way they came,
baffled and crest-fallen.

Next came the renowned Simon Kenton — then known by the name
of Simon Butler, A tall, sinewy, powerful scout, with a free, careless
manner, a soft, tremulous voice and laughing grey eyes, all of which
won him friends wherever he went. When excited to wrath, however,
those same soft-beaming eyes would become so fierce and terrible as
almost to curdle the blood of his foes. No Indian hunter of the west
• — scarcely even excepting his warm personal friend, Daniel Boone — had
had a life of more varied or thrilling adventures. Possessing a reck-
less courage that never quailed at danger, and a love for deeds of des-
perate valor, he was ever on the move, and never so content as when
environed with perils sufficient to appal an ordinary man.

In 1778 — ^just four years previous — after sustaining two sieges at
Boonsboro, he had been captured by Indians, and became the hero in
a wonderful series of perils. He was eight times exposed to the
gauntlet; thrice was he tied to the stake — thrice had been saved
through the efforts of Simon Girty, with whom he had served as a
scout during the Dunmore war of 1774 — and was often on the very
eve of a most horrible death. All the sentences passed on him seemed
to have only been pronounced in one Indian council to be reversed
by another, and every friend that rose up in his favor was immediate-
ly followed by some enemy, who plunged him into deeper danger
than before.

For three weeks he was thus the sport of circumstances, and kept

LYDIA BOGGS MAKES A NEW SENSATION. I3I

see-sawing between life and death. He, however, had finally escaped
from Detroit, and undismayed by the past, had immediately embarked
in new and quite as perilous enterprises. He had lately scouted up
from Kentucky, as far as Fort Henry, where he had been received
with all the warmth and favor due to his reputation.

And now, last of the group, came the young and dauntless Louis
Wetzel], but just then acquiring a fame as a daring and reckless bor-
derer, and long afterwards known as the "Boone of Western Virgi-
nia," and the right arm of its defence. His personal appearance was
very remarkable ; a rude, blunt, half-savage, he was five feet ten in
height ; very straight and erect ; broad across the shoulders ; a breast
like that of a buffalo, and limbs slightly bowed, denoting great muscu-
lar strength ; his face was somewhat pitted by the small-pox ; com-
plexion very dark, and his eyes were of the most intense blackness —
wild and piercing — and emitting when excited such fierce and fiery
glances as to quail the stoutest adversary.

But his most peculiar feature was his long curly hair, which was
black as the raven's wing, and so very thick and luxuriant as to reach,
when combed out, nearly to his knees — a much prized scalp to many
a noted warrior, and one for which a dozen of " braves" would have
been considered a cheap exchange.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

LYDIA BOGGS MAKES A NEW SENSATION.

Truly this was a noble quartette of border worthies, and their pre-
sence just at this time at Fort Henry was a fortunate happening. Du-
ring the day we now see them together, they had all — the two strangers
pitted against the two residents — been engaged in a friendly contest
of "barking squarrels" — that is, killing those animals, not by direct
shot, but by aiming at and hitting the bark right under them, which
would so stun and toss them that they would fall to the ground. If
any skin was touched by the lead, it was counted out. This was a
favorite sport of Boone, Kenton, Wetzel, and in fact all the old fron-
tier hunters who pretended to any excellence as marksmen.

The winners had afterwards been challenged by the losers, (Kenton
and McCulloch,) to "heading the nail," which was to be succeeded
by "snuffing the candle" — both rifle trials as well known in those
days as shooting for the Christmas turkey is now, throughout the
country. In the first instance a nail was driven half way into a tree
or target, the business of the rival marksmen being to drive it into the
head by fair, plump shots with the bullet and at a distance from sixty
to eighty yards.

The second trial — "snuffing the candle" — always took place by
night, and generally in the woods, and was, to a stranger, one of the
most peculiar and weird-like scenes of far-western hunter life. The
sombre forest, the dim dips — seeming only to make, as it were, the
darkness more visible — obscurely lighting up the knot of gaunt

I 2 SIMON GIRTY.

foresters in their picturesque garbs ; the feeble candle flame placed at
a distance of some sixty yards from the marksmen, and the spectral
figure, imperfectly revealed by its beams, who was there stationed to
mark the shots and to replace and relight the candle if disturbed by
the swift leaden messenger.

To mutilate or extinguish the candle was held clumsy work, but to
cleverly snuff it with the unerring bullet as neatly and precisely as
with a pair of snuffers, this was the highest mark of excellence, and
one, too, frequently attained by hunters with whom the beloved rifle
was the constant companion from early youth to old age.

The trial by candle, however, in this instance, never took place.
The shooting at the nail had been very close, and while the four rifle-
men, with their special friends, were earnestly engaged about the
target measuring and comparing shots, some excitement was observa-
ble among those mounted on the fort's ramparts.

A mounted horse was first described by the look-outs dashing at
full speed along the trail which led from the up-river settlements.

On, on, it came, the regular beat of its clattering hoofs drawing
rapidly nearer and nearer. And now all noise and sport ceased, and
speculation was busy as to who the stranger could be, and what the
occasion of the rapid pace. Those on the walls, and those in Zane's
cabin and the other log houses which skirted it, rushed out on the
plateau surrounding the fort.

The horse was unknown, and the rider in his or her flowing gar-
ments, equally so. At last the swift steed had passed the first of the
cabins, when Captain Boggs, who had returned by the Catfish trail
the day before, and was standing on the brow of the bluff with Col,
Zane, exclaimed in great surprise :

•'Good Heavens! Col., it's my gal Liddy, and on Major Rose's
blood mare, too ! What in the name of all that's good does it mean ?
And look at her queer dress, too ! What ! the devil ! Liddy, is it
you, and what's the matter and where's the rest ?"

A ringing shout went up from the assembled crowd.

This the spirited young girl — and surely at no time in her life did
she look more bewitching, in spite, too, of her home-spun and ill-
fitting garments — acknowledged by a quick, graceful bow, and then
leaped down into the arms of her astonished father, exclaiming :

" Oh, father ! father ! all our party are taken. Mo. Shepherd, Betty
Zane, Silla Swearingen, Brady, Rose and all. I only have escaped."

" 'Taint hard to guess," laughingly whispered Simon Butler to
Major McColloch, "which way that nimble young gal's heart's a
jumping, when she puts Shepherd afore all. Wal, he's a lucky fellow,
for she's the takenest and killingest little lass that ever gladdened a
hunter's eyes," while Capt. Boggs broke out with:

" What's that, gal, all taken ? Where and who by ? Not by In-
juns, Liddy?"

" Yes, by Indians, father, and led on by Simon Girty. They at-
tacked our boat this very morning, at Big Yellow, and after a hot
fight, took it and all on board — men, women, horses, goods — every-
thing. I believe I'd been here an hour since if 'Riah Poe's fluttering
clothes hadn't held me back like a balloon."

LYDIA BOGGS MAKES A NEW SENSATION, 1 33

** Simon — Girty — and — 'Riah — Poe's — clothes," slowly repeated her
father, a heavy, square-built, herculean-chested man. " Why, d — n
it, child, you're fooling with us ! How came my daughter in 'Riah's
clothes, and on Major Rose's horse, too? Out with it, gal ! don't
you see the whole settlement around you !"

"Well, father," poutingly answered Lydia, "I've ridden hard to
bring you the news, and havn't breath to tell all in a second. It's
just as I said. With Major Rose's permission I took his blood mare,
swam the Ohio river, started the Poes on the trail, changed my wet
clothes for dry, and never drew rein till now. Here I stand to answer
all questions."

These were now put at her, quick and plenty, from all sides and
from almost every person. Colonels Zane and David Shepherd, father
of Moses, leading. As soon as the whole story, in all its details was
thoroughly mastered, the rough and blunt-spoken Captain Boggs
stepped up and gave Lydia a warm kiss and embrace, saying :

" Forgive your father, gal, he was somewhat flustered and feared
something amiss. Ye've done a brave, noble act, Liddy, and I'm
proud of you from my heart, and so, I'm sure will all be here, and now
run along, for I see your mother coming out of the fort. You've
brought us all big news."

" Three cheers, men, and hearty ones, too," impetuously cried out
the young Wetzel, " for Liddy Boggs, the pootiest and pluckiest gal
on our border," and three strong, ringing cheers accordingly went
up from the throats of all present.

The proud young girl blushed and bowed in some embarrassment,
then hastily tripped off to the fort, followed by several of her ad-
mirers, and threw her arms about the neck of her mother, who was
standing at the huge gate waiting to receive her.*

Lydia's gallant exploit was in everybody's mouth, and it was some
considerable time before the buzz and hum settled down so as to allow
of a discussion among the hunters as to the best course to adopt.
Lydia had told all she knew, and a gallant band of twenty skilled

* We have, from Lydia Boggs' own relatives, at Wheeling, an incident happening
about this time, which it may be well to mention en passant. When Captain Boggs
was not present at Fort Henry by reason of Indian hostilities, he lived at the mouth
of Boggs' Run, right opposite an island of the same name, situated about two miles
below Wheeling. This island was used as the family garden and pasture. One day
Lydia had, all alone, canoed herself over there to pick some fresh vegetables. She
had gathered her frock (which, by the way, was of deer skin) full, and was about
stepping into her canoe, when all at once an Indian ''brave" in full war rig, and face
liideous with paint, sprang fiercely out upon her from the bushes along the shore.
He brandished his tomahawk, so frightening the poor girl that she dropped her vege-
tables, clasped her hands and was about appealing to the red man for mercy, when
she was utterly dumbfounded at the following direct question in good English : " Is
that you Lydia Boggs?" "That is my name," she answered, much reheved; "And
pray sir, who are you?" ''W.il, I'm Lew Wetzel. I've long heerd you were the
purtiest girl in all these parts, and being out on a scout, I was determined to have a
good sight of you. I've been long waiting you, and thar's my canoe behind that
clump of beech willows." It may be imagined this ''purtiest girl" was much re-
lieved at such a denouement, and could easily afford to overlook the fright given her
by her impudent admirer, especially, since it conveyed such a marked compliment to
her beauty.. Their chat ended in an invitation to dinner and a better acquaintance.

134

SIMON GIRTY.

scouts volunteered pursuit on the spot, since it was supposed Lydia's
escape would lead to an immediate retreat of Girty's band.

As before stated, Yellow creek and Fort Henry were north and
south points and equidistant from the Indian towns which it was
argued Girty would make for. The party was to start at the first
streak of dawn, and be led by Zane, Butler, McColloch and Wetzel,
and all had little doubt but what the exulting captors would be easily
overtaken.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

SIMON GIRTY.

" The outlawed white man, by Ohio's flood,

Whose vengeance shanried the Indian's thirst for blood ;

Whose hellish arts surpassed the redman's far ;

Whose hate enkindled many a border war.

Of which each aged grandame hath a tale

At which man's bosom burns, and childhood's cheek grows pale."

Leaving a party of trained scouts, both at Yellow Creek and Fort
Henry, ready to take Girty's trail, let us now go back somewhat and
attend that desperado and his remaining captives.

And here, perhaps, would be the most proper place to give a brief
sketch of the Renegade, from birth down to the time when we now
present him. A large part of his history, it is true, lay in the future,
but even now he had become famous, or, to speak more nicely, infa-
mous for his hate and his savagery.

Simon Girty, Sr., was an Indian trader, regularly licensed by the
colony of Pennsylvania, and plying his perilous and vagabondish vo-
cation among the Western savages. He was a vulgar, violent old
curmudgeon of an Irishman, and said to have been so besotted with
liquor as to have turned his wife's love to hate, and to have been
killed by her paramour.

He left four boys : Thomas, Simon, George and James. Some time
during Braddock's war in 1755, the last three were made captive by
the Indians ; but Thomas was the best and most respectable of the
brood, always remained quietly at home, on a little run emptying into
the Allegheny, near Fort Pitt, and called to this day " Girty's Run."

Simon was adopted by the Indians under the name of Katepacomen,
and became in dress, language and habits, a thorough Indian, and
was ever after much enamored of their free, wilderness life, with all
its unshackled liberties and absence of restraints. George was adopted
by the Delawares ; became a fierce and ferocious savage, and is said,
after a long career of outrageous cruelties, to have been cut off in a
drunken broil. James was adopted into the Shawnee tribe ; soon grew
depraved, and became a cruel and blood-thirsty raider on the Ken-
tucky border, sparing not even women and children from the horrid
torture.

In October, 1764, Col. Henry Bouquet forced the Ohio tribes to a
peace, the main condition of which was the return of every white cap-

SIMON GIRTY.

f35

tive in their hands. Men, women and children, to the number of two
hundred and six were reluctantly and tearfully given up, young Girty
among the number. Still another hundred remained with the Shaw-
nees, to be surrendered the next spring.

It was an old and true border saying that you could never make a
white man out of an Indian, but could very easily an Indian out of a
white man. There is something in the unsettled, free-and-easy
life of the wild woods which possesses very strong and almost irresisti-
ble fascinations, and it is a matter of history that many of these white
captives — even women and children — refused to leave their Indian
relatives. When compelled, however, to return to their own homes,
they parted amid the most touching tears and sobbings, many after-
wards escaping back to those who had so tenderly adopted and
cared for them. Of this number was young Simon, but being forcibly
returned to the settlement, he took up his home near Fort Pitt.

We hear no more of him until Dunmore's bloody war of 1774,
brought about by the wanton and cowardly murder of Logan's rela-
tives at the mouth of Yellow Creek. In this campaign, in company
with Simon Kenton, he served as hunter and scout, and subsequently
acted as Indian agent. Like the famous Frenchman, Joncaire, he
never felt so much at home as in the woods, and among the wigwams
or council fires of Indians, where he could harangue the assembled
warriors of different tribes.

At the outbreak of the Revolution he was a commissioned officer of
militia at Pittsburgh, espousing the Patriot cause with zeal and serving
it with fidelity until his desertion to the Indians from Fort Pitt, in
March, 1778, with the notorious Matthew Elliott, Alexander McKee,
and a squad of twelve soldiers. This tory defection just at that un-
favorable juncture, caused the greatest alarm on the border. From
the well-known influence of these renegades and their loyalty to the
British, the very worst results were apprehended ; and, sure enough,
they made their way quickly to the Delawares — living near what is
now Coshocton, Ohio — with their mouths filled with all manner of
evil and lying ; asserting that Washington had been killed ; that his
armies were cut to pieces by the British ; that Congress had been dis-
persed ; that the whole East was in possession of the enemy, and that
the force at Fort Pitt had nothing left but to possess the Indian lands,
killing men, women and children.

The effect of these false and malicious stories, just at a time when
Captain Pipe had been long working to win over the Delaware tribe
to take open sides with the British, and to make a combined maraud
against the border, was prodigious. Captain White Eyes, Killbuck
and Big Cat, however, stood firm, and did all they could to allay the
excitement.

A grand council of the nation was called to discuss Pipe's earnest
advice that arms should be immediately taken up against the Ameri-
cans. White Eyes, a noble and influential old chief, made a most
spirited and vehement address to all the hot-blooded young warriors ;
denounced Girty and his confreres as liars, and begged just for ten
days, and then, if no news came to disprove what had been told them
by these deserters, he would not only favor immediate hostilities, but

136 SIMON GIRTY.

would himself lead them on : " Not like the bear-hunter," he sar-
castically concluded, " who sets the dog on the animal to be beaten
about with his paws, while he keeps at a safe distance. No, he would
lead them on in person ; place himself in the front; and be the first
to fall."

The ten days were at length decreed. It was a most anxious and
critical time. As day after day passed without further news from Fort
Pitt, those Indians who desired peace wavered, and, finally, were so
despondent and hopeless that they no longer made opposition to Pipe
and his war-tribe of Delawares, but the fiery young zealots of both
tribes commenced sounding the war drum ; shaving their heads, laying
on the scalp-plume, and otherwise preparing to set off on a bloody
raid against the white settlements.

But God did not so will it. Just in the very nick of time, the
young Moravian John Heckewelder, had arrived from the East at Fort
Pitt, and, hearing of the late defection, set off without one instant's
delay to the Moravian towns. Here he found everything in the direst
confusion. The last day of the ten was at hand, and the whole fight-
ing strength of the Delawares, together with a large force of Wyan-
dotts from Sandusky, was to start off early next morning on the
war path.

Not one moment to be lost ! Spent and jaded as he was, Hecke-
welder soon mounted a fresh horse, and rode thirty miles farther to
Goschochking (Coshocton), the chief Delaware town, which he found
in great commotion, all the braves, being decked out for war.

His reception was discouraging. Even Captain White Eyes and
the other chiefs who had always befriended the Moravians, drew back
in the coldest and most haughty manner when the hand was extended.
At length the great chief. White Eyes, boldly stepped forward and
said that if what Girty and his party had asserted was so — the Dela-
wares no longer had a friend among the Americans. &c., &c., and
wanted to know the exact truth. He then asked: "Is Washington
killed? Are the American armies cut to pieces? Is there no longer
a Congress ? and are the few thousands who escaped the British
armies, embodying themselves at Ft. Pitt to take the Indian's country,
slaughtering even our women and children ?"

Heckewelder then stood up, his honest face and truthful manner
carrying conviction with every word, and denounced all Girty's stories
as utter fabrications ; but asserting, on the contrary, that Burgoyne's
whole army had just surrendered, and that he (Heckewelder) was the
bearer of the most friendly messages from Gen. Hand and Col. Gib-
son, at Fort Pitt, advising them to continue neutral.

In proof of his statement, Heckewelder put a newspaper in White
Eyes' hands, containing the account of the battle of Saratoga and the
surrender of Burgoyne, which the glad old chief, now completely re-
assured, held up before his people, saying : " See, my friends and
relatives I this document containeth great events — not the song of a
bird, but the truth !" Then, stepping up to Heckewelder, he joyfully
said : " You are welcome with us. Brother."

Thus for the time, did all Pipe's machinations and ambitious
schemes come to naught. His mortified spies slunk back to their own

SIMON GIRTY. I37

Wolf tribe, while Capt. White Eyes, knowing that Girty, Elliott and
McKee had gone on to the Shawnee towns on the Scioto with the
same fabrications, immediately dispatched fleet runners thither with
the following message: "Grandchildren ! Ye Shawneese, some days
ago, a flock of birds, that had come on from the East, lit at Go-
schochking, imposing a song of theirs upon us, which song had nigh
proved our ruin. Should these birds, which, on leaving us, took their
flight towards Scioto, endeavor to impose a song on you likewise, do
not listen to them, for they lie."

Why did Girty, an ofScer in the American service, desert to the
British ? Most of the histories of the day say it was because he failed
to get promoted to the regular army, or was mortified because one
younger than he, and whom he thought not so deserving as himself,
was advanced before him. From all the most reliable sources, we
gather the true reason was that Girty found himself looked upon at
Fort Pitt with suspicion because he was known to be a tory at heart,
and under the influence of the mischievous and notorious Dr. Connel-
ly, of Virginia, who had not only laid claim to all South-western Penn-
sylvania as a part of Virginia, but had enforced said claims by a series
of violent and outrageous proceedings, rending the whole section into
warring factions, and even seizing and occupying Fort Pitt itself.

Be this as it may — and it is not at this late day of prime importance
— Girty now headed his course for Detroit, but was captured by the
Wyandotts, and claimed by the Senecas as their prisoner, because he
had once been adopted into their tribe. This claim, Leather Lips, a
prominent and truculent old Huron chief, stoutly resisted, and the
Mingoes were obliged to yield their point. •

On Girty's affirming that he had been badly treated at Fort Pitt
because he was true to the King, and that being forced to leave the
fort, he was now on his way to Detroit to join the British, he was re-
leased, and was soon after welcomed by the cruel and treacherous
Governor Hamilton, generally known along the American border on
account of his scalp bounties and constant employment of Indian
allies, as the "British Hair Buyer."

Girty was now just in his element. Talking several Indian lan-
guages, and employed by Hamilton in the Indian department, he was
sent back to Sandusky to assist the savages in their harassing marauds
against our border, and soon arose to a very bad eminence among
them. He had never lost his relish for the free, untamed life of the
forest. He was a true Indian in all his habits, longings and ambi-
tions, and, like all apostates on whom the door of return is forever
closed, soon became noted for his hate and desperate activity.

He outdid the redskins themselves in the fierceness and cruelty of
his wrath. When not ruthlessly worrying and harassing the frontier
by his sudden forays and scalpings and torturings, he was ever busy
with diabolical hate and activity in planning the destruction of the
Moravians. He was their inveterate foe, and finally made Pomoacan,
the Half-King of the Hurons, the instrument of their forced abandon-
ment of their three peaceful and flourishing towns on the Muskingum,
and their removal, just on the eve of the winter of 1781, to the inhos-
pitable wilds and laarrens about Sandusky.

138 SIMON GIRTY.

We have already stated, however, that Girty was not all, or always
bad. Many of the atrocities committed by his brothers George and
James were falsely blamed on him. He was a savage by taste and
education, and conformed to Indian usages, but it is known that he
was his own worst enemy. Unfortunately inheriting a love for rum,
it became his master. At such times he was cruel, vindictive and re-
lentless.. When sober, he was a far better and kinder man.

We have mentioned his services in rescuing his friend Kenton from
the stake. Through his importunities many prisoners were saved from
torture and death. He was reported honest, and was careful to fulfil
all his engagements. It was said of him that he once sold his horse
rather than incur the odium of violating his promise. He was brave and
determined, and it was his dearest wish that he might die in battle.

Jonathan Alder, who was for many years a captive among the In-
dians, and had occasion to know the renegade well, said that Girty
was a warm friend to many prisoners, and that he had known him to
purchase, at his own expense, several boys who were prisoners, and
take them to the British to be educated.

Lyon, in his narrative of captivity, when a half-grown boy, says
Girty was very kind to him, taking him on his knee, and promising to
have him well cared for.

Mrs. Thomas Cunningham, of West Virginia, after seeing her old-
est boy tomahawked and scalped, and the brains of her little daughter
dashed out against a tree, all in her very presence, was carried into
captivity. She suffered untold agonies during her long march to the
Indian town, her only nourishment for ten days being the head of a
wild turkey and a few paw-paws; but, after a long absence, she was
returned to her husband through the intercession of Simon Girty, who
happening to pass her way, ransomed and sent her home.

And finally, as Col. Thomas Marshall was floating down the Ohio
in an ark, he was hailed by a man who said he was James Girty, and
that he had been stationed there by his brother Simon to warn all
boats of the danger from decoys. The Indians, he said, had become
jealous of Simon, who deeply regretted the injury which he had in-
flicted upon his countrymen, and who wished to be restored to their
society. Every effort would be made by white men and children to
entice boats ashore ; but they must keep the middle of the river, and
steel their hearts against every attempt. This warning, by whatever
motive, was of service to many families.

Thus much of Simon Girty, and some things to his credit, showing
that he was not always the inhuman monster which old histories and
traditions have painted him. And now to resume the thread of our
story.

CHAPTER XXXV.

A CURIOUS CONFESSION BY GIRTY.

We have said that Girty's late repulse by Logan's armed boat, toge-
ther with the changed behaviour of his own band, left him in a very

A CURIOUS CONFESSION BY GIRTY. I39

sulky humor. This was increased to a towering rage by the news of
the Big Foot disaster. An early retreat was reluctantly determined,
and the treatment of the prisoners — who were all ordered to be se-
curely bound — grew more harsh and rigorous.

Girty was perfectly sober now, and the evening meal, followed by
a comforting pipe, had so composed his troubled spirits, that he sent
an Indian to the captives' bower to bring Mrs. Malott to him where
he sat under a broad-spreading Basswood, a little removed from the
fire-light and the rest of his band.

As the unhappy prisoner, with soft step and modest mien, ap-
proached, she looked reproachfully at him, and silently held up to
view her delicate hands, securely fastened with deer thongs. Girty at
once sprang up in much anger and confusion, and, tossing off a hasty
oath — which came to his tongue's end as easily as honied words do to
a lover's — he hurriedly cut the thongs, stammering out: —

"Excuse me, ma'am, I didn't mean that^ 'pon my honor."

"I was told," replied Mrs. Malott, somewhat testily, "that it was
by your express orders. It so shocked me that I asked again, and for
an answer was double knotted, as you see."

"Curse 'em all," growled Girty, an ugly glare lighting up his eyes.
"They knew bravely I didn't mean ji^<?«, but they're mad as hornets at
me, and did it for spite. By heavens ! I'll soon be even with them,
though. But why, woman, didn't you come to me afore, when I told
you to-day I had some news for you?"

Mrs. Malott's lip curled, and her eyes flashed, but restraining her-
self, she said, sadly :

" You knew, Captain Girty, how anxious I would be, after so long
an absence ; and, were you the friend you profess, it was your place to
have sought me. But I did seek an interview, and how did I find
you? You were balancing on a keg of powder, insanely flourishing a
firebrand, and driving even drunken Indians to cover."

Girty had a special purpose to gain by this interview, and his eyes
dropped, therefore, in some confusion ; and had there been a trifle
more light, Mrs. Malott might have seen a trace of color even on that
leathern, weather-beaten face. It was but a momentary weakness.
To hide his embarrassment, he threw off a hoarse guflaw, which, how-
ever, was only throttle deep, and made answer :

" Ha ! ha ! ha ! I swear I never saw you, ma'm ; but didn't I stump
old Black Hoof, though? He treed like a wild cat, and leaped like
a hit stag. The old mud-turtle's been glowering at me ever since,
and's sour as a crab, and as cross as a bear with a sore head. If he
blows and blusters about me again, I'll vi^x-i^tx powder ! Ha ! ha ! ha !
But come ! Mrs. Malott, sit right down on that mossy root there. It's
as soft and easy as a Philadelfy sofy, and let's to bizzness. I've
really something big to tell you."

" Oh, Mr. Girty," said the poor woman, nervously seating herself,
and at once growing anxious and restless, "what is it? Please tell
me, quick ! I feel it's about those two children."

"What two children?" promptly answered Girty, in great surprise.
" I know nothing about any children."

" Why, the two children with Mrs. Dorman," answered Mrs. Malott,

I40 SIMON GIRTY.

at once, greatly disappointed. " I've had the strangest talk with her,
and I sometimes think they must be my Nelly and Franky. I do wish
I had only seen them near. Where are they now ? That's what I
went to see you about this afternoon when I found you so — "

Here Mrs. Malott paused confusedly.

"Oh, tail it out, and say drunk," sneered Girty, with a grating
laugh. " I don't get that way now near as much as I used to, but I've
had so much bother managing these snarling, fighting devils from so
many different tribes — curse 'em — that if I was as drunk as David's
Sow, I oughten't to be faulted. But what d'ye mean by Mrs. Dorman's
children? I never saw them till three days since ; but I knew they
were not hers, and, am sure they cannot be yours. They're too big
for your children; don't talk English at all, and ain't dressed as you
told me yours were ; besides, we got them from a Cherokee party liv-
ing away down on the Tennessee below Kentucky."

"I know all that, Girty," persisted his companion ; "and at first,
thinking them Mrs. Dorman's, I took no interest in them myself, but,
you must remember, it is three years since my children were taken ;
they have many points of resemblance ; their clothes might have been
borrowed from some other captive white children, and wouldn't the
very fact that they came from the far-off Cherokee country account
for your strange inability to learn something of them among all the
tribes you visited for my sake, and at my earnest prayers? Say!
Girty," earnestly and appealingly, as she saw him looking off abstrac-
tedly, " wouldn't it, I say !"

Girty had been thinking deeply of what was said, and now brought
down his brawny hand upon his buck-skinned thigh with a loud, em-
phatic slap, saying: —

" By Jehosaphat, woman, there might be something in this. Come,
tell us the whole of Mrs. Dorman's story ! and go over all you know
about the dress and looks of the children. If there's any chance in it,
you know, Mrs. Malott, none will be prouder or gladder than just
Simon Girty, who has been huntin' them so long for you and with
you."

And the hopeful mother poured into his listening ears all she had
heard, all she knew, and all she hoped. Girty soon became deeply
interested ; then greatly excited, and, at last, almost as hopeful as the
mother herself, and said briskly : —

"Stranger things have come to pass, ma'm. I always argyfied
with you that your children wer'n't dead, or I'd a heerd of it some-
how. However, they're within easy reach, and we go for'rard in a
few hours; but " — looking shyly at his vis-a-vis, his whole face chang-
ing and softening in expression — " now, since you know my news was
;?(7/ about your children — at least them two — why don't you ask me
who it is about. Have you no other — "

Here Mrs. Malott sprang to her feet, her face pale and anxious, and
a startled look in her eyes. Her mind had been so full of those two
darlings of whom she thought she had found trace, that Girty's news
and her other children found no place there, but his last remark had
at once awakened her with a rude shock ; and, witli a troubled but
steadfast gaze right into her companion's eyes, she gasped out : —

A CURIOUS CONFESSION BY GIRTY. 141

"What mean you, Girty? For God's sake, don't trifle with a sore-
ly stricken mother ! Have you yet news for me? Have you seen
Harry or my poor daughter, Catharine? Tell me, quick! And oh,
man, as you hope for mercy, don't longer torture this almost broken
heart."

Girty could not long encounter that earnest, burning, appealing
look, in which appeared to be gathered all a woman's heart and all a
mother's love, but growing somewhat embarrassed, and averting his
face, he muttered to himself, " Blamed if I don't make a clean breast
of it, and tell her all." Then, with a broad smirk, intended for an
assuring smile, he said: " Do you think, ma'am, that you could stand
some mighty big news?"

" Oh yes, Girty; if it's goodj but, God help me, if it's more bad news.
What is it?"

"Well, I thought once," meditatively answered the captain, "I'd
keep it all from you, and that's why I first told you I had no news,
and then said I had. Ye see, ye come on me too suddent. I hadn't
time to think ; and, when the devil gets in the first clip at me, Girty
has to stand aside for a spell, but he gin'rally comes all right agin if he
has time and's away from the liquor. Well, now, Mrs. Malott, brace
yourself up, and don't take on hard, but — I've seen Catharine. She's
alive and well, and a deuced pretty girl."

"What! Cath— Catharine Malott ! my Kate !" cried Mrs. Malott,
in touching tones, her eyes filling with tears, and throwing herself on
her knees before Girty. " Oh, thank God, and thank j^;^, my best of
friends, for those blessed words. My dear, dear, Kate I Oh, where
is she ? how does she look ? what does she say ? and does she re-
member her mother? Tell me, Girty, quick! quick !" and then,
darting a keen, suspicious look, full of alarm, and clutching him
tremblmglyby the sleeve, she added : " It's true isn't it ? You've seen
her? God forgive you if you would trifle with a mother's — but no,
you could not do such a cruel, dastardly thing. You're no monster,
but my kind friend, Girty," looking most beseechingly into his face
with tears and sobs, " say it again !"

" Mrs. Malott," answered Girty, solemnly, " I saw her less than a
month ago, sure as you see the stars through them broad leaves above
you," and then smilingly, " but I could never answer more than
two questions to once."

" My Kate alive and well !" murmured the poor mother to herself,
an expression of thankful happiness taking entire possession of those
wan, wasted features, and fairly illumining them as with a glory, —
"and why did you not say so before?"

" Well, ma'am," replied he, in an awkward, constrained manner,
"I've thought to make a clean breast of it, and the sooner it plumps
out the better for all consarned ; so here goes. I love your darter and
I wanted her for my wife, and you see that — "

"Love — my — Kate — and — want — her — for — wife !" slowly repeated
the bewildered woman. " Girty, you're raving mad — what's worse,
you're trifling — God forgive you — with a poor, weak mother's
fears."

" True as shooting, ma'am ! Hang me ef it ain't a kur'ous fact, and

142 SIMON GIRTY.

when I first saw you coming off the ark, it just flashed on me like a
streak that if the girl was agin me and her mother was agin me, both
to once, I'd have no more show than a cub bear up a bee-tree. So it
'peared to me I'd best keep dark, and risk my chances with Kate on a
lone hunt ; but, they say, second thoughts are best, and then it struck
me that when I'd argyfied your girl's fix with you, you might see as I
do, and come to look on Simon Girty as your son," and here an ex-
pression of pleasure at the novel thought struggled with the embar-
rassed look which had before o'erspread his face.

'' Girty," at length slowly said the mother, after a painful pause, in
which she endeavored to school her tumultuous thoughts, and to
wisely conclude as to her duty and policy, " you look and talk like a
true and sincere man, but I can say nothing — promise nothing, till I
learn more. You know my anxiety. Oh, take pity, and tell me about
my long-lost daughter."

CHAPTER XXXVI.

GIRTY IN LOVE WITH KATE MALOTT.

" Well, Mrs. Malott, I'll reel it off fast and light, and we can fill up
the chinks arterwards. You know I'd made long search through all
the tribes for your children, and had about given them up for lost
chickens, when, happening last month to visit the Mack-a-Chack towns
on Mad River to push the Shawnees on the war-path, I reached Wap-
patomica. The same evening, having been bothered by some jealous
chiefs in council, I was strolling along the river, when I sighted a
number of Indian girls, some paddling canoes and the rest in a maple
grove, beading moccasins, and laughing and chatting together like a
lot of jays in pairing time.

" One pretty, shapely, high-stepping girl struck me at once, on ac-
count of her fair face and wavy yellow hair. On looking closer I saw
she had soft blue eyes, and then I made sure she was no Indian. I
looked and looked and looked, until the girl seemed frightened at my
staring, and made off with such a shy, modest air, and such blushing
cheeks that I wanted to know more, so I asked the head chief, Molun-
ctha, that night, and he confessed at once, that she was a white cap-
tive, and was called 0-wa-ta-wa, or * White-pigeon.' He said she had
been brought to their town a few months before by a Miami 'brave,'
who wanted to dispose of her, stating that his wife had been killed by
some Kantuck scouts, and that he was poor and was going on a long
war-path. The sister of the famous Cornstalk, generally known as the
Grenadier Squaw, took a great fancy to the girl and agreed to adopt
her. I found, further, that she'd been taken by the Miamis some years
before, somewhere on the Ohio, with two or three families, and when
the lots were cast had fallen to this warrior, who lived near the mouth
of the ' Hockhocking.' "

" Oh, it nmsi have been my Catharine !" earnestly interrupted Mrs.
Malott, " and that's why you never found her."

" Well, ma'm, that's just what hit me, and so I managed to make

GIRTY IN LOVE WITH KATE MALOTT.

her acquaintance, and to ask her name and belongings ; and, although
she had grown pretty rusty in her English, she up and told me her name
was ' Kate,' and afterwards, ' Kate Malott.' I was so tickled, ma'am,
that I een-amost jumped for joy, and cut around like mad, which so
flustered the gal that she ran like a frightened fawn,

" I soon come up with her agin, though ; told her who I was ; that
I had seen you, and had long been hunting for her and the rest, when
the contrary little minx fell to crying and sobbing and then to laugh-
ing and carrying on so that I scarce knew what to make of her. But
direc'ly she all come 'round, and was happy and merry as a cat-bird
in nesting time, and she clung to me as if I'd a known her from a
baby."

"Poor, lone girl!" cried the agitated mother, in a gush of happy
tears; "and did she remember and speak oi ine? "

" Indeed she did, ma'am, often and often, and — after all the past
had come back to her — of her poor father and sister, and said with the
tears filling her mild, blue eyes, that she'd go through anything and
everything to see her two little brothers. She frequently said she'd
risk everything to be with you again ; and I tell you, Mrs. Malott, that
I couldn't look long into Kate's winsome eyes without promising to
do everything ; but to get her away to Detroit, that was the puzzle.

"I tried all I could to buy her off, but they were desp'rate fond of
her, and wouldn't give her up. I offered horses, blankets, wampum,
all kinds of redskin gimcracks, but no use ! no use! They scouted
and flouted at everything. I tell you, ma'am, you'll be awful proud of
her. I had many talks with the beautiful girl, and lingered and
lingered long after I ought to have been on the 'Ginny border.

" I then allowed I'd steal her away to Detroit, when all to onct, an
idee struck me;" and here Girty began to fidget a little, and grew
somewhat confused. " I first told her of all my failures to free her;
showed her the risk in staying, and explained that, despairing of ever
finding her and the rest, you had gone back over the mountains. I
then said there was one chance left ; that I had taken a desp'rate
fancy for her, and would make her a true and loving husband. Would
you believe it, ma'am, at this she fell a weeping, and didn't, or wouldn't
understand me. But I crowded the matter on her, when, amid tears
and little trembles — "

" You did very wrong, Girty," broke in the alarmed mother. "You
should not have so taken advantage of her defenceless situation. I'm
sorry that — ■"

"Well, but, Mrs. Malott," cried Girty, with exceeding warmth, "I
tell you I hearted her better than any woman I ever saw, and 'twas the
only way to get her off. It's easy to talk, but I'm in dead earnest in this
bizzness. I'm a head chief, and, although out of the gristle, am only a
little over thirty, can well keep a wife, and I conceited that — that I —
that she — "

" That she would be glad to have so great a man on a few days*
notice. Well, you've made a mistake. You don't understand
women, and have gone about the matter in the wrong way ; but what
did the poor, deserted child say?"

"Well, to tell the sober, honest truth," despondently answered

144 SIMON GIRTY.

Girty, "she didn't see the affair exactly as I did, but faltered out she
was too young ; and, although I had been very good to her, she would
like to have more time to think. She then said she was all alone in the
world, and didn't know what would become of her, and burst right out
into a flood of tears. Now, if there's anything I hate and can't stand,
it's a woman's tears. Cruel and stony-hearted as Simon Girty is called,
blamed if I didn't almost whine and whimper out myself like a whipped
hound. I was ashamed of myself, and then blurted out that I liked
her desp'rate — and, wife or no wife, I'd get her off and see her safe
to you."

"And there you did rightly, my friend," said Mrs. Malott,
smiling through her tears ; "and it makes me think far more of you
and your sincerity. Well, what more?"

" JVo/king- more — worth speaking about. I promised to come back
after this trip, and she then looked kinder and spryer like, and I con-
ceited she was a bit sorry for what she had said, and so I ups and tells
her that if, after studying for a spell on what I'd offered, she might alter
her mind, I'd make her a true and loving husband and would take her
to you, no matter where you were or how hard to reach, and so I left
her, half smiles, half tears.

" And now, my dear Mrs. Malott," concluded Girty, as he suddenly
took both her hands in his own, "I want you bad to range yourself on
my side. I never saw woman yet like your Kate, and if you'd only
back me, I'm ready to swear I'd get her away from the Shawnese — but,
what am I palaverin' about! Why not go with me, straight to her?
You're no prisoner of mine, and are free to go or stay, as you will."

"Thank you, Girty," replied the happy mother, with decision, and
beginning to look upon him as the only possible saviour of her daughter.
"I go with you. I cannot hesitate, for my sole object in life, as you
well know, is to find my family. In this you have ever been kind to
me, and I feel it deeply. I'll say more, that if you sincerely love my
darling daughter, and can bring her back to me, she's your's, if you
can win her. ' '

"I'm mightily obleeged to you, ma'am," cried Girty, joyfully. "I
can ask no more ; and now ask me anything about her you wish to
know."

The conversation that ensued was long and confidential, Girty telling
the fond mother All he knew, even to the smallest detail, of looks,
dress, speech and manner.

While thus occupied, Mrs. Malott suddenly clutched Girty's arm,
uttered a slight scream as she happened to look up and saw the gleam-
ing, inquisitive eyes of a grim and swarthy savage peering upon them.
Girty jumped to his feet, but saw it was only one of the chosen warriors
who had had special charge of Brady, and who came to announce that
scout's unaccountable escape.

Girty's face, at this new disaster, hardened again in a moment.
Restraining himself, however, until Mrs. Malott was back in her barken
bower, he then gave full vent to his rage and chagrin. Half his force
was roused up and sent in all directions after the fugitive, while he
himself, taking his rifle, crept cautiously down the creek, and followed
it to its very mouth.

CONFIDENTIAL CHAT BETWEEN FRIENDS,

145

After an hour's fruitless search, he returned to camp, sullen and
dejected, and upon hearing like reports from those sent out, he ordered
the horses to be unhoppled and brought in, and preparations made for
an early start.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

CONFIDENTIAL CHAT BETWEEN FRIENDS.

Up to the time of Mrs. Malott's interview with Girty, her compan-
ions, Drusilla Swearingen and Betty Zane, were disconsolate enough.
Securely bound, and surrounded by a band of fierce and baffled red-
skins, led by a man whom all the border reports of that day represented
as cruel and implacable, and unable to confer with their male protectors,
who could best defend them from insult or buoy up their desponding
hearts, they were sad and drooping. The thought of Lydia's escape
would occasionally bring hope and a momentary cheerfulness ; but it
was soon followed again by doubts and fears, and they could only press
close together, and endeavor to pass the trying night as best they could.

Mrs. Malott's summons from Girty, however, awakened them from
their brooding quiet to an earnest speculation as to its motive and proba-
ble result. As two sleepless sentinels sat immediately in front of the hut's
opening, occasionally casting towards them their searching and baleful
glances, they were compelled to speak very cautiously. We repeat only
a brief portion of their confidential conversation. It was Betty's
opinion that Mrs. Malott was to be used by Girty to get information of
the strength at Fort Pitt, and of the object of Major Rose's visit to
Fort Henry, and that, to this end, he would operate on her mother's
fears or hopes, by trumping up some false news for her about her
children. To this Drusilla made answer: —

"Oh, no, indeed, Betty ! I rather think Girty has some real news for
her. Mrs. Malott told me this very evening the whole of her interview
with Mrs. Dorman ; of her belief that those two little decoys might
turn out her Frank and Nell, and I can't help sharing these hopes.
Poor, dear heart ! she has had such years of suspense and misery, and
who knows but she may soon be relieved and made happy. God grant
it, Betty. As for her telling Girty anything she ought not, I don't fear
it, unless it be extorted by craft. I have studied Mrs. Malott closely,
and have had much talk with her, and believe her to be a gentle and
refined, though a most unhappy lady."

" Well, but Drusilla, if that hardened wretch cared anything for her
or her lost family, why did he have her hands bound ? and why does
he treat her as a captive just like ourselves?"

"Well, Betty," said Drusilla, "I do not pretend to answer that.
Girty has been drinking deeply, and was very much harassed all day,
and may not have known. Mrs. Malott has given me so many instances
of his goodness to her, that I'm sure he must have a much kinder heart
than he gets credit for. Oh, what a trying, wretched day it has been
for all of us ! and how long and dreary is this night ! What, I wonder,
will be the end of it all ! "

146 SIMON GIRTY.

"Why, if Liddy gets safe off to Fort Henry," answered the bold
and sanguine girl, "I have hope of a speedy rescue. What a contrast
to our late Quaker school life, Drusilla! Who'd have thought, on
leaving Philadelphia so short a time since, that we'd be captives among
horrid Indians, and, of all bad men in the world, led, too, by the
cruel and perfidious Girty? I only wish I could speak with Shepherd a
little, and find out what he thinks of the situation."

"And why Shepherd rather than Rose?" quickly answered Drusilla,
with a sharp and searching glance at her companion's face. "The
Major is older and more experienced; is a brave and gallant officer,
and has scarcely been out of your company since we left Fort Pitt.
Judging from his close attentions and tender glances, I supposed he
had inspired you with the greatest confidence in him."

"And so he has," answered Betty, in some confusion. "I like and
esteem him very much, and believe him to be all that's brave and hon-
orable, though by your meaning glances, you would seem to hint that
my feeling for him is a mgre tender one. If you do, you're greatly
mistaken, Drusilla. I never — "

"Well, then, I am mistaken, and you are a strange girl, Betty. I
never pretended to understand you altogether, but I have seen very
plainly that Major Rose is greatly pleased with you; and I surely
thought by your manner you were equally so with him. Take care,
my girl, that you fully understand your own feelings, or you may find
yourself gone before you are aware, or what is worse, that the Major
is gone, and you're doing nothing to warn him."

This was said pleasantly by Drusilla, but with the object to put her
young and more thoughtless friend on her guard, for she had rather
suspected that Betty was receiving and favoring the Major's devoted
attentions without any corresponding feeling of her own, and she so
esteemed Major Rose, and was so convinced of the rapid growth of his
affection for Miss Zane, that she wished to save him any unpleasant
denouement. Betty seemed somewhat nettled at first with her friend's
remark, but, jauntily tossing her shapely head, she, after a moment's
reflection, carelessly answered : —

"Oh, I don't think the Major's very badly damaged as yet, Silla.
He does seem to affect my society somewhat, and to be pleased at my
sauciness and pert speeches, but I often think it's only seeming, for
there are times when I can't altogether fathom him. He has spells of
gloom and abstraction, and when in these moody fits, I can't rouse
him, try all I can do. I tell you what / think, Drusilla; Major Rose
has either some unfortunate affair of the heart in his own country,
wherever that is, or there is something weighing heavily on his mind.
Now don't tell w<r."

"Nonsense, Betty, those fits of moodiness, as you call them, are,
you know, the truest symptoms of a heart malady, and, if it isn't you
who are disturbing that heart, then I read all signs wrong. Tve noticed
in him something of the gloom you speak of, and I warn you he's in
dead earnest. You'd better take care of yourself, or — of him."

"All very flattering to me, no doubt," replied Miss Zane, somewhat
poutingly, "but you havn't watched the Major as keenly as I hav«. I
at times grow quite jealous of this abstraction of his. Sometimes while

CONFIDENTIAL CHAT BETWEEN FRIENDS. 1 47

laughing and chatting as pleasantly as I know how, I will be looking
straight at him, when, all at once, I see his brow knit and his eyes lose
all speculation. He answers _y<'j or no, or ah, and indeed oftener wrong
than right, and I soon see that all his wits are gone wool-gathering.
Now, Drusilla, you know a woman don't like to be doing her very best,
and to be imagining she is making a decided impression, and then see
all at once her companion's face grow blank as a sheet of paper, his
eyes lack-lustreless, and all his thoughts gone after some absent rival.
I don't like it a bit, neither would you, my lady, so that although this
is no time for soft confessions, I don't mind telling jv^?^ that the Major
is not as much to me this day as he was one week ago."

"Well, Betty Zane!" replied her sincere and honest-speaking
friend, "and I don't mind telling j^^z^; that the very abstraction and
moodiness which you condemn in the Major I have noted in you,
whenever Lyddy is off laughing and chatting with a certain tall young
scout I could mention. Take care ! take care ! my friend."

At this home-thrust Betty started and colored deeply. It seemed as
if her inmost thoughts — so secret that she had not dared to confess
them to herself — were now laid bare and made matter of note by a
friend, and she felt nettled and annoyed ; so she made answer sharply
and somewhat pettishly : —

"Am very much obliged, Miss Swearingen, for your motherly care
of me, but that certain tall young scout is not, at all events, Captain
Brady, in whom you appear to have such a monopoly that neither
Lyddy nor I can ever get a word in edgeways. You seem to keep all
his smiles, his words and his tender glances entirely to yourself.
Come, now ! you've been confessing me; down on your knees, and go
to it yourself."

" Nay, now, my dear Betty, you're vexed and angry at me. I
meant no offence; indeed, indeed," said the gentle Drusilla, blushing
rosy red in her turn, and twining her arms about her companion's
neck. " Better let's turn the talk. This surely is no time for any
feeling between old schoolmates."

"Agreed," said Betty, smiling significantly; "although I can't help
but admire, Drusilla, the adroit way you change the subject when your
feelings are to be exposed and commented on. Just please remember,
my lady, that / have eyes and a reflecting mind as well as you, and
that when I see another certain tall young scout — more noted for his
hard struggles with men than for his tender dalliance with women ;
when I see such a stern hero sighing like a furnace, and ogling and
talking sentiment and quoting poetry to a certain young lady who
thinks all such nonsense just the very perfection of sense, why, I put
this and that together, and draw my own — "

" Hush-h-h, Betty!" interrupted the blushing girl, while softly
putting her hand over her companion's mouth. "There, now! say
no more, please; we're surely even now. Have you seen Larry lately,
and how the ridiculous fellow hob-nobs with the redskins. He takes
to them as naturally as a duck to water. Shouldn't wonder if they
made him a chief yet."

" Oh, Larry's a pretty deep one," answered Betty, as anxious as her
friend to change the subject, "and has more policy than we give him

148 SIMON GIRTY.

credit for. So best, for those who can laugh and joke with their
captors. Poor Killbuck is just the reverse — what a grim and defiant
old stoic he is, Drusilla !"

"It's wonderful, Betty, and so patient, too. Ever since the late
attack he's been suffering torture from his wounds, and is only getting
well by skillful Indian doctoring, that he may suffer tortures in another
way."

"Why, Drusilla," said Betty, an expression of genuine sympathy
flitting over her beautiful face, "you don't really think that his own
nation would put the brave and noble old chief to the torture ?' '

"That's what they threaten, and will undoubtedly do, and that's
what he fully expects and courts. You see Killbuck is looked upon by
the Delawares as a traitor to his tribe. Captain Brady told me all
about his history. You know the great and good Captain White Eyes
was the powerful peace chieftain at the head of the Turtle tribe of the
Delawares, while Capt. Pipe is the war-chief at the head of the Wolf
tribe. For many years Pipe did all he possibly could to win over the
Delawares to war against our settlements; but such was his great
adversary's power and beneficent influence that the ambitious schemer
was baffled at every point, and the Moravians say that so profound
was White Eyes' conviction of the Gospel truth, and so anxious was
he to have his nation prosper like them that, had he lived, he would
undoubtedly have brought his whole tribe over to Christianity."

" He was a man of great wisdom and enlarged views, and his
opinions — based on the prosperity of the Moravian towns — were, that,
unless Indians came to cultivate their lands like the Moravians, they
would soon be swept away before the whites, and utterly destroyed.
His death two or three years ago was a great misfortune to his nation ;
and, although his plotting and restless opponent, Captain Pipe,
asserted that the Great Spirit had probably put him out of the way in
order that the nation might be saved, this untimely death was not so
regarded, but was universally lamented by the Ohio tribes, even the
Cherokees sending an embassy of condolence.

"Captain White Eyes' successor being yet young, Killbuck and Big
Cat were chosen in his stead, but had to take refuge under the guns of
Fort Pitt, establishing themselves on Smoky Island. These peaceable
and friendly Delawares were set upon last month by the scoundrels who
returned from the Moravian massacre. The young chief, with the
other friendly Indians, were killed, and Killbuck obliged to fly to Fort
Pitt itself.

"Now that he is in the hands of Pipe, I fear it will go very hard
with him, but here comes Mrs. Malott, and seemingly in great agita-
tion. Good heavens! my dear madame, what can be the matter?"

"Matter? Matter enough, dear friends. I've found my long lost
daughter Kate, and Captain Brady has escaped."

This was great news, indeed, and affected each auditor differently.
At any other time, Drusilla, who was an affectionate and sympathizing
friend, would have been all attention to the poor mother's glad story,
but now she was most anxious to hear of Brady's escape and where-
abouts, but at last the two girls were in possession of all Mrs. Malott
knew, and the three sat for some time discussing quietly but earnestly

LARRY BECOMES A " BIG MEDICINE. I49

the changed aspect of affairs. Soon the word came from Girty to get
ready for the march, and then it was that Drusilla bethought herself of
writing and hiding the Httle note which was afterwards so opportunely
found by her lover in the way we have described.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

, LARRY BECOMES A "BIG MEDICINE."

On none did captivity seem to sit more lightly than on Larry Don-
ohue. He was one of those rollicksome, sunny-natured, happy-go-
lucky wights who never "borrow trouble," but readily accommodate
themselves to their surroundings. No blither or more careless heart
ever beat under a Paddy's jerkin, and he was just the very lad to act on
Brady's advice of humoring rather than angering his captors.

They admired him for his rough and ready courage, and liked him
for his good-humored, easy familiarity; for they saw him ever ready to
drink, dance, joke or fight with them. An odd, droll character that
made him many friends with the savages, and which at once procured
him his freedom from bonds.

That very evening he had squatted with the swarthy savages about
the camp-fire; had jostled them for a good place, and — perfectly at
home and amid many funny jokes and grimaces — had turned and
toasted his own game on the little pointed sticks so universally used by
Indians. He had afterwards eaten his meal Indian fashion, and then,
reclining on the grass, with heels cocked up against a hickory, had so
familiarly smoked and laughed, that not a redskin there but would
have delighted to adopt him into his own family.

Encouraged by Larry's easy manners, some of his companions would
occasionally and admiringly finger his bushy shock of red hair. Presently
one of them seemed to have made a discovery, which caused others to
stoop down and oiamine his head more closely. Some earnest whisper-
ing followed, and then more of the gang would follow suit. Mistaking alto-
gather the true reason, Larry first became annoyed and then very
much nettled ; and, when one ferocious-looking old fellow begun to
bunch up his hair and draw figures on the back of his head with the
dull edge of his scalping-knife, he could stand it no longer, but testily
cried out:

" Howly Joseph, an' phats the matter now, ye divil's own spawn ye !
Troth an' 'twould be a dale more becominer uv ye to be hunting up
the lush for a lorn and dissolute (desolate) cap-tyve, an' him as dry as
powther, an' wid not enough uv the crayture to moist a midge's
wing. An' phat d'ye sight amiss wid me poll, ye screeching gallow's
pets ? Is't the rich sunset color ye misloike, or did ye, mayhap, suspi-
cion that the Scotch Greys, or inny other small deer are running
thro' it ? By the powders uv war, ye must spake yer spake now, or
belikes howld yer clack, an' bad scran to ye fur a set uv ill-mannered
blackguards !"

** Painted hair have heap much scalp," admiringly replied a re-

[50

SIMON GIRTY.

markable pussy, and minor chief by the name of ''The Fat Bear,"
waddling solemnly up and putting a finger each on the two crowns
which Larry happened to have to his hair. " Dey make two scalp :
same as kill two * pale face.' Dey buy much wampum, powder and
baccy;" and then, looking longingly at the hair he added, "Injun
much poor. See him now?"

Never having heard that it was a shrewd Indian trick to make two
scalps out of a poll-skin which had what is known as a " double crown,"
and so get two bounties, Larry was for some time fairly non-plussed,
and then, as the horrid meaning of the savages broke in on hirn^ he
stood aghast and speechless, the big drops standing on his brow. At
last, as he became painfully aware how this unfortunate possession of
his might cause a strong hankering after his hair, he besought him how
necessary it was to give the Indians wholesome fear for him, and he
diligently cast about for the best means.

At length it struck him that, as their ignorant, superstitious minds
were easily deceived and imposed on by anything which had a super-
natural look, it would be well if he could fully impress them with the
idea that he was what they called a " Big Medicine," and so be safe
from hostility. Larry was well acquainted with a number of simple
sleight of-hand tricks, with which the traveling magician has easily
deceived persons far more astute and experienced than the wild Indians
of that day and region. Had he possessed the apparatus at hand, he
could have performed many apparent miracles which have fairly stag-
gered the very wisest and shrewdest of them all, but having nothing
of this kind to draw on, he must fain content himself with a few
simple facts, depending for their success on quickness and bold-
ness.

So concealing his horror at the late " double crown " turn, he gra-
dually overspread his countenance with a broad grin, and then laughed
out, though it must be confessed nervously and artificially: —

**Ha, ha ! he, he ! ho, ho ! my merry Injuns, but, on my faix, that
bates Bannaher, an' so it does. You have the foreway uv Ould Hornie
hisself in yer broad foon and yer nate and canty jokings ; an' it's the
proud an' happy man Larry Donohue is this blessed day, to till ye what,
by me sowks, ye niver know'd afore, that whin a ' pale-face' Patlander
has two crowns to his sacred head, it's a grate an' moighty magichyun
an' Big Medicine he is — far better than being the sivinth son uv a
sivinth son. May ivery hair on your own heads be a mould candle to
light yer sowls into glory if it beint the priest's truth.

As Larry saw this pro re nafa speech of his received with a look of
blank stolidity, he began to doubt the prosperity of his new dodge, but
he was in for it now, and his best chance of success lay in an increased
boldness and confidence.

"An' can't ye fathom the pure, onadilterated English uv yer
own King George ? or don't ye know B from a buthercup, ye haythen
and scudders o' the wild wuds. I'll soon larn ye that I'm a * Big
Medicine,' an', by the powers, av ye've the Donohue on yer soide,
sorra the one will dare look crooked at ye, an' divil the mouth shall be
friends with drouth. They'll niver come to ill that have my blissing,
an' niver do good that git my curse ;" and here Larry took a ramrod

LARRY BECOMES A " BIG MEDICINE." igi

from one of the gaping crowd, and drew on the earth sundry mystical
circles and cabalistic figures, repeating in a low crooning tone some
few sentences in his wild, native Irish.

" If * Painted-Hair ' be * Big Medicine,' let his brudder see how him
work," said Black Hoof, who had been attracted to the spot. "He
no do potting, we no believe notting."

" An' plaze God that will I, chafe, since I see the needcessity fur it ;
so sit ye down, ivery mother's son uv you, in a circle, an' by the same
token I'll scather away yer misdoubts clane as a whip."

And so, when all the dusky, brawny forms were crouched about in
an anxious, expectant ring, Larry cut his magic circles, and stooped
down to kiss the earth, and made a confidant of a neighboring tree,
and did every imposing thing he could think of to impress the staring,
superstitious onlookers of his magical powers.

We need not dwell on the Irishman's sayings and doings. He had
evidently had much practice in this ro/e before. Commencing with
one or two simple deceptions, well-known to every-school boy of our
day, he then tried the "Little Joker," and was much encouraged by
seeing every glittering eye riveted upon him, and much amazed at his
proceedings.

Larry now borrowed five scalping-knives, and commenced tossing
them aloft one after the other ; catching each by its handle as it de-
scended, until he had the whole five revolving in the air at once. He
then threw them under his arm and leg, and kept them going faster
and faster, until a great commotion was visible among the spectators,
their faces taking on an expression of awe and bewilderment.

Made more confident by success, Larry now took one of the knives,
and, after the manner of experts, made some odd speeches and gestures
to distract attention, and then dexterously slipping the blade up his
sleeve, he threw back his head and opened wide his mouth, and looked
exactly as if he was swallowing the instrument.

He gulped and winked his eyes; made wry faces, rubbed his throat,
stroked his body, and then, giving a final gulp and shutting his eyes
as the knife was supposed to have reached its destination, he, after a
slight pause, and while holding up his empty hands, said : —

'*Tunder-an-turf, my vagabones, but sure that wint agin the breath
wid me. 'Twas as dry mate as iver went down the red lane. 'Twas
a dale stronger nor new milk inny day, an' av ye want it back agin,
my sun-kissed friends, ye moost guv me a tickler to smoother its
coorse."

" If * Painted Hair ' say he bring back de knife," remarked Black
Hoof, *'here some good ' fire-water,' but he must drink only leetle bit.
No much left."

" Av coorse I will, chafe, an' here goes til you. Bedad, a prog uv
a bagnet is bad enough outside; and, be my song, childre, it's dry
talking wid a skelping-knife in one's innards loike a skiver in a
Michaelmas goose. And now another wee dhrap to swaten the dis-
coorse ; " and then Larry proceeded to make the same gulpings, strok-
ings and contortions, and, watching his chance, seemed by a final
spasm to take the blade out again from his mouth, and, with a polite
bow, handed it back to its owner. The dazed savage took the point

152 SIMON GIRTY.

cautiously between his thumb and finger, with a look of horror on his
face, and it was handed around the clamorous ring amid the most in-
tense interest.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

LARRY AS AN ORATOR AND WIZARD.

This feat was a decided success, and Larry was in high feather, and
now announced that, with their permission, he would first take a little
more tipple to ensure the success of the miracle against accidents —
" joost enough," as he expressed it, " as wud fill a mite's eye " — and
then he would squeeze some pure whisky out of the end of a knife.

This assertion created a most prodigious commotion. What ! make
one of their own scalping-knives drop "fire-water" ! None of their
" Big Medicines " had ever approached that, although they could drop
it inwardly in a perfect stream. It was an old but a good trick, and
Larry stood calm and confident, a score of pairs of gleaming, glitter-
ing eyes watching every movement.

When taking his last swig, he had artfully contrived to saturate a
small rag that he fished from his pocket, and which he then managed
to conceal deftly somewhere about his person. He now approached
each curious and gaping red-skin, and showed his hand perfectly free
from any moisture, and then distracting their attention by the usual
palaver and mummeries, he dexterously squeezed the rag and laid hold
of the knife-handle, which he held up and pressed amid many writh-
ings and contortions, as if he were throwing into his arm the whole
force of a cider-press.

After this Herculean effort he again approached the crowd and made
Black Hoof open the magic hand, and, sure enough, it was all dripping
and fragrant with the whisky. The awe-stricken simpletons first
stupidly stared and sniffed and sniffed, and then looked at each other
in blank amazement. Never was there anything like this miracle in
all their wilderness experience. Some of the shrewder and more
thirsty souls wanted Larry at once to be the " Big Medicine" of their
tribe, and urged him to keep right on with this wonderful miracle,
and produce the "fire-water" in large quantities; but Larry, completely
triumphant at every point, and fully feeling his importance, at once
took on a more commanding air and struck a tragic attitude, boldly ex-
claimed : —

"Be quit wid yer nonsense, ye Devil's own clutch. Ye wor niver
good, egg nor chick, and what fur wud ye be bating the air wid yer
fiery proboskises, and me yit to deminstrate the moightiest wonder o'
thim all. Arrah, sure, a thirsty gullet has no conscience at all, at all ;
and would ye keep me here to the skriek o' day, an' widout enough
uv the crayture to smother a kitten. Don't harrish me, I tell ye, for
fraid — ' '

"If 'Painted Hair' want more 'firewater,'" here broke in the
shrewd and suspicious old "Black Hoof," " why not squeeze him out,
plenty enough?"

LARRY AS AN ORATOR AND WIZARD, 153

Larry's fondness for drink had made him imprudent. He did not
expect this untimely back-set, and for a moment could only glare
viciously at the wary old chief while he gathered up his wits ; but,
concluding that the bold course was, after all, the only one left to him,
he continued: —

" Whist ! whist ! ye ould baggage, ye, and don't be mulfatherin a
'Big Medicine ' afther that mismannerly fashion. I know my own
know, an' it isn't fur the loikes o' ye to be swashing and slewsthering
around in the whisky up to yer moccasin latches. Be me sowks, but
I belave ye wud brake into a stone fur the marrow. Father and Ave,
but I'd be slapping the very gates o' Heaven in my own face av I let
innything come atwixt me an' the 'charmed rifle,' which I am now
about to explikkate. Whin I'm in your town I'll make whisky as
plinty as ditch-wather. The crowning uv a king wud be a fool to it.
And now, chafe, will ye lend me a rifle?" and here Larry stepped for-
ward and took a rifle from Black Hoof's unwilling hands and emptied
it in the air.

Larry had all along expected this last wonder to be the coup de grace
of his exhibitions. He had kept it in view, and carefully prepared for
it. Taking the rifle and sounding it with the ramrod to show there
was no load in it, he asked Black Hoof to charge it with powder and
then hand him a bullet. This done, Larry carefully notched the bul-
let and showed it to all who cared to examine it, so they would easily
know it again.

Stepping back a little, and holding the bullet between his thumb
and finger, he kissed it and crossed it, then murmured over it some
absurd rigmarole of words, and addressed the awe-stricken circle of
swarthy-visaged savages in his most solemn and dignified manner,
thus : —

" O, yes ! O, yes ! O, yes ! Hear till me now, all ye painted and
slippery! vagabones — chafes and warriors, old and young ; big and
little ; fat and lean ; gentle and simple ; and, be me sowl, ye'd better
howld yer whist so ye may lose nothing of what I'm telling yiz. Whin
ye cotched Larry Donahue, bedad it wor little ye consaited that ye
had trapped a rigular Tartar — a Paddy uv the ould est Irish stock, de-
scended in a straight line from the great St. Pathrick hisself.

'* By the mortial^ av ye don't trate me dacint and make a high cock-
alorum uv me, ye' 11 sup sorra wid the spoon of grafe. Moind ye
that, now ! Whin an Injun casts his hatchet, it cuts ; when he draws
about his skelping-knife, he has the hide — and may the curse of
the crows be on the skelper — and whin he shoots, his ball pinne-
thrates from skin to skin ; but not so with Larry Donohue. He is a
*Big Medicine,' bejabers, an' nayther lead, nor hatchet, nor skelp-
ing-blade can harm him.

" Ye saw — an' it's best not to deny it here, ye spalpeens — howl bate
Big Foot wid my own two gospils, an' there's one afore me," looking
directly at Black Hoof, " who knows what I can do widout a shillelah,
but I'll now show that Injun's lead cannot hurt the Donohue. If Black
Hoof will shoot his ball at ayther head or heart, it wull bounce off,
an' be found betwixt my teeth. It wull, by the great rock uv Cashel."

HereLarry took a greased patch from the chief's pouch ; held it on

154 SIMON GIRTY.

the top of the rifle muzzle, and then lifting up the marked bullet,
placed it in position ready to " drive home." With the other hand, he
pointed to a neighboring oak, and showed where and how he would
stand, and while the attention of all was thus diverted, he very
adroitly substituted a bullet made from a brittle, grayish ember which
he had picked from the camp-fire, and had been for some time back
preparing. It looked exactly like the leaden bullet, and was concealed
in the palm of the hand which was kept on the rifle muzzle. It was
an easy thing to work up the false bullet and let the real bullet slide
down into its place.

In the near presence of all, Larry now rammed down his charcoal
bullet, taking care to grind it with the rammer to fine powder. Hand-
ing the rifle to Black Hoof, he walked, slowly and solemnly, to his tree,
humming a little Irish love song ; turned about with dignity, looked
straight at the old chief, and politely requested him to shoot.

But, instead of that, the cautious old Indian said :

*' Me hear my brudder sing death-chant. Pale-face captive some-
time too much sharp. When Indian burn and torture dey often want
'em to shoot 'em. Sometime dey get gun or tomahawk and try kill
deirselves. We no want to kill 'Painted-Hair.' If he once dead, he
no good for stake ; he no run gauntlet, and Indian no play at throw-
ing hatchet at him."

A universal ugh and general movement of approval followed this
double-shotted little speech.

At this astounding and entirely unexpected demurrer, Larry stood
aghast. He foresaw the utter failure of his crowning exploit. He had
been too literal, and now found that they believed he was seeking a
prompt and easy death at their hands, and his death they did not
want. At last the Irishman managed to emit a hollow, sepulchral sort
of a laugh, and said :

** An' div ye think. Black Hoof, that I'd commit a mane shoeaside?
Did ye iver, in all yer born days, hear uv an Irishman doing that fool
thing? It's foreninst my religion an' my iddecation. It is, be jabers.
The Great Spirit would be moighty angry at it, and would shut agin
me the ' happy hunting grounds.* Fie ! for shame, chafe ! I tells ye
I'se charmed the bullet so it can't hurt ; an' I'll tell ye anuther thing,
chafe: little do I fear yer haythen tortures, even if ye wanted to do
them to me, but ye don't, for I'm thinking uv turning Indian, all out
and out, an' may become a chafe sometime like yerself, and have a
red-skin squaw. So shoot ahead, chafe. You'll shurely do me no
harm. I'll take all chances."

When this bold speech was fully explained to the anxiously attentive
group, there was much excitement and discussion ; but at last it was
decided that Black Hoof should try a shot.

Larry now smiled his blandest, straightened himself up stiffly, eyes
to the front, and took occasion to raise his hand to his head and
slip the marked bullet into his mouth. The old chief elevated his
rifle, but could not conclude to shoot ; but Larry smiled so brightly,
and gestured to him to go on with so much easy confidence, that
crack ! went the rifle, and there was a general shout and rush to the
. tree.

LARRY OFFERED A FATHER AND A WIFE. 155

But there stood Larry, calm, smiling and unruffled, with the marked
rifle ball clenched tightly between his teeth.

This was the .grandest success of all. The bullet was reverently
handed around amid the most breathless and open-eyed astonishment,
The credulous redskins blinked their eyes and nodded their stupid old
heads over it with owlish gravity. There was, fortunately, but little
whisky left, but of what there was, assuredly the lion's share went to
the mighty magician. He guzzled, sang his songs, and cracked his
jokes until the "wee sma' hours ayont the twal." He was fairly a
King among the reddies ; but, as in Tam O'Shanter,

" Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious.
O'er a' the ills o' life yictorious."

And he finally sank to rest on his grassy couch, with a mossy root as
a pillow, and slept the sleep of the just. Poor Larry ! He was soon
to have a rude awakening from all his sweet dreams.

CHAPTER XL.

LARRY OFFERED A FATHER AND A WIFE.

Behold, now, Girty's band fairly on their backward way ! It was'
just at the earliest dawn, when the vast, virgin forest was at its very
freshest. Now that the spring had awakened the woods again to the
mystery of a renewed life and energy, the whole air seemed redolent
with the aromas wafted like morning incense — not alone from the
dewy mould and earth-clinging mosses, but from grass, shrub, vine and
flower. Every bough and fern and modest herb, seemed a fragrant
censer for Nature's night-distilled perfumes.

To the native red men — those untutored children of the wilderness —
whose whole lives were passed amid the boundless woods, such sylvan
Experiences were a matter of daily habit and failed to impress. They
fell, therefore, silently and stealthily into " single file," and with eyes
cast straight in front, and moccasined feet planted softly and cautiously
one directly before the other, after their invariable fashion — they took
up their dogged march.

But to our captives, it was widely different. Unpleasant as was
their situation, the peculiar sights, sounds and fragrances of the wild
woods, as well as the picturesque and ever-shifting beauties of the fresh
and joyous stream on whose margin they were now journeying, de-
lighted their senses.

Drusilla, especially, possessing one of those refiired and aesthetic
organizations sensitively alive to every minutest one of Nature's
charms and graces, seemed to be particularly enraptured.

There are vast numbers to each of whom " A primrose on a river's
brim, a yellow primrose is to him, and it is nothing more ;" but Dru-
silla rather belonged to that very select but highly cultured class who
could feel with Shelley that " Heard melodies are sweet, but those un-

156 SIMON GIRTY.

heard are sweeter;" and who could add with him, "Therefore, ye
soft pipes, play on ! sweet ditties of no tone." Every quiver of the
leaf in the fresh woodland breeze ; every sparkle or murmur of the
water under the bright, blessed sunshine ; every blending or shifting of
light and shadow on the sun-flecked grass or fern-broidered rock, was
music to her poetic nature, and seemed to give her a most exquisite
joy.

The order of the march was as follows: First went Girty, Capt.
Pipe and twenty savages, immediately followed by Drusilla, Betty and
Mrs. Malott on horseback. Next in "Indian file," Shepherd, Rose
and Killbuck, each on foot, their arms securely bound behind them,
and with an Indian between every two to prevent conversation. Next
went the rest of the band, to the number of about twenty, led by Black-
Hoof, while Shepherd's wounded horse, heavily packed with stuffs and
ammunition from the captured ark, with Larry and "The Fat Bear,"
brought up the rear.

" The Fat Bear" was a Miami chief, having a small village near Old
Chillicothe, on the Scioto, and so called because he was a great, fat,
good-natured lout of a fellow. Fortunately for Larry, the chief had
full faith in and had taken an extravagant fancy for him. Of all the
on-lookers who had been present the night before, he had been the
most superstitious, and the most affected by the Irishman's magical
performances.

As stated, it was Girty's design to mislead the two parties which he
knew would be on his trail, by detaching a small force due west in the
direction of the Chillicothe towns, while he, with the main force and
all the important prisoners and plunder, would pursue a more northerly
course to the Sandusky towns.

The Fat Bear's party was the small force so selected, and Larry was
horrified to learn that he was soon to part company with all his fellow
captives, and to go with the burly chief. He became quite depressed,
and was utterly deaf to all the Fat Bear's blandishments and friendly
attentions; but when the pussy old chief told him with grinning con-
descension, that he would make him the Big Medicine of his town ;
would adopt him as his own son, and marry him to the squaw of " Lean
Wolf," a brother chief, who had lately been gored to death by a buf-
falo, Larry did some heavy internal swearing, and determined he would
escape back to the Poes as soon as he possibly could.

They were now advanced three hours on their course, and there had
commenced a struggle with Larry between policy and disgustful wrath,
but after turning the matter over and over in his mind, he concluded
on an immediate course of action ; so, forcing to his face a beaming
expression of easy confidence and satisfaction, he pleasantly re-
marked :

"An' so, Fafe Bear, it's yer own dear son you'd be making uv me?
An' faith, honey, ye moight go furder an' fare far worser nor that, for
it's a iiate an' handy gossoon I am to have about a shanty; an' sure
it's unrasonably fat an' chubby, not to say obeese, that yersilfs getting
to be. Div ye know, mon, phat we'd call ye in English ? — or in Irish,
which is joost the same thing, only the last is the oulder and more
respektabler lingo."

LARRY OFFERED A FATHER AND A WIFE. I57

" Me no much understan' ' pale-face ' talk, but me heap like the big,
roun' words."

*' Aye, foith, an' here's till you, thin. They'd say ye were a puffy,
drop-sickle, corpulint mornstrorsity, an' it ud be no whit beyant yer
desarving, my vinerable saddle-bags, for yer face is roun' as a Limerick
chaze ; yer cheeks are full-blown as inny bag-poiper's, an' yer figure's
as supple an' lissome as a molassus barrel."

"Yes, me think so, too, pretty much. Big Injin me !" laughed out
the simple and jolly old chief, grinning from ear to ear, and his fat,
round face crumpling and creasing up into broad wrinkles of self com-
placent merriment.

" Be jabers, an' ye moight take yer book-sware till it. Av phat the
praste be allers telling us iz so, that ' all flesh be grass,' bedad but it's
a whole hay-stack ye moost be, — consuming the bit less. Match me
wid ye in girth, an' sure I'm thin as pasteboard, as long as a lamprey,
an' as skinny an' leggy as a grasshopper, but phat, my jewel, have ye
to say uv the 'Lean Wolf's ' copper colored, widder that's to be Mis-
thress Donohue? As purty a Colleen bawn and deludher, I'll go bail,
as ye'd mate at the Donnybrook fair. Och, mudher uv Moses, but I'd
loike to be on wid me pumps an' be wagging toes wid her this very
noight on the flure about the skelping-pole. An' how div ye call her;
how ould's she, an' phat's her pints?"

*'0h, 'The Possom-That-Scratches' have no points," guffawed the
chief, "She almos fat and smoove as Fat Bear, and have many,
several — yes, ten scalps at her lodge. Her Injun kill out one eye wid
tomahawk, cause she no do wat he say and scalp him ; but she know a
much heap. More dan forty snows pass over her head."

"The ould swivel-eyed divil," muttered Larry to himself, looking
aghast, and then, softly and smilingly to his companion: ''The shy,
schwate an' timersome crayture. Sure she's frisky as a mair-maid,
an' is a beautifool phaynix all out an' out, thrue's my name's Larry.
The soft end uv a honeycomb would be a fool to her, an' whiniver she
becomes Misthress Donohue — and" (aside) "may the mother uv all
saints forbid the banns — she'll be the makins uv a rale leddy ; but,
come, come, chafe, I'm dhry as one uv Pharo's mummies, an' as toired
an' droughty as a blind beggar's cur. By my troth, Injun, but it's a
■down-cast day wid me, an', loike yerself, my clapper wor niver hung
dhry, an' so I hanker for a wee dhrap under my tooth. Let us squat
anunder this umbragyius oak, an' out wid the lush, mon alive, if ye
have inny about ye."

" Me have no ' fire-water,' " dolefully grumbled the thirsty redskin,
who was even more fond of it than Larry himself. "All gone. Why
'Painted-hair ' squeeze him no more out ? "

A bright thought suddenly flashed across Larry's mind. He had
purposely loitered and chatted on the trail, but without any definite
plan, until now he, the chief and the led horse were about a quarter
of a mite in the rear. Without a weapon, and his arms securely
bound, he had cudgeled his brains to devise an escape ; but now obey-
ing the new cue, he answered snappishly,

" By the mortal, ye nataral, but it chafes me all out an' out to dale
wid the loikes o' you. How div ye consate I cud make the whisky to

158 SIMON GIRTY.

come an' me wid my wings tied thegither loike a trussed goose. Bad
cess to ye, but 'twull be a moighty long time, I'm thinking, afore ye
sniff the rale stuff."

"If 'Painted-hair' sware he no run away, and make more whisky,
me cut him loose."

" By the contints uv Moll Kelly's primer, chafe, but I'll do more
nor that, and 'uU tache ye to dhrop the potheen loike ' mountain
dew,' an' thin ye'U be a bigger cock-a-hoop than Girty hisself. Av
you'll but collogue wid the Donohue, an' make him yer grand
vizyur and Big Medicine, shure Pipe wouldn't be able to hould a
candle till ye."

Larry's words and honest air completely deceived his too credulous
companion, besides firing his ambition ; so he whipped out his knife,
and Larry stood free and unshackled.

" It's a moighty fine thing, chafe, this making uv sthrong drink.
Thim that larned it to me kept me one whul hour afore a dhrap wud
come, an' even thin it wor. no stiffer nor stouter than heifer's milk.
Begorra, there's a dale quicker way, tho, av the knife be tied firm be-
twuxt the teeth. It's all one to me, chafe, av you've plinty uv time
to wasthe, which way ye choose. "

" Quickest way best way, and den I lose no drop dataway."

"Thrue for you, chafe; an' now ye moost sware ye'll niver revale
the sacret to any other Big Medicine, an' do jist as I tells you. No
sware, begorra, no whisky."

This, the oleaginous old chief, convinced that he was coming into
possession of an invaluable secret, solemnly did. Larry now bid him
take out his flint and steel and light his pipe, while he went into the
woods for a minute to hunt some " medicine " herbs.

" You no play Injun a trick and run away," suddenly said Fat Bear,
darting at Larry a suspicious look, and suggestively fingering the lock
of his gun.

"By me showl, chafe," replied Larry, calmly and as if hurt, "av
you've the laste doubt in the wur-r-ld uv him you're to make your
own son, betther sthop right here an' now. I'm jist off a minute to
gather pinnyroyal, catnip an' pippermint to mix wid the baccy. Sit
ye at the fut uv that sapling while's I'se gone," and Larry strolled a
little off the trail, as if perfectly unconscious that the chief had his
rifle cocked, and his eager eyes watching each step.

He returned quickly and unconcernedly, with his hands full of
several varieties, evidently much to the reassurance of his companion.
While absent, however, he had managed to make and conceal under
his jacket a slip-noose in a deer thong, which he had before taken from
the horse.

"How now, Injun? Faix, an' av you mane * fire-wather ', ye
moost hasthen ; an' now take hold uv the skelper," and Larry inserted
the knife in Fat Bear's jaws, tied it firmly with a thong, passed around
neck and head ; stood him, back up to the sapling, and leaned the
loaded rifle against him. This last act seemed to disarm all further
suspicion.

The Irishman took the lighted pipe, put some of the freshlj'-gathered
leaves upon the bowl, and commenced smoking, at the same time

LARRY OFFERED A FATHER AND A WIFE. I59.'

walking solemnly around in a circle, and repeating over some Irish
gibberish. The Indian never took his eyes off him for a single
instant.

Larry now confronted his dupe, and said, in deep and solemn
tones : —

" Och, blissed Angels and howly marthyrs presarve us ! Pether and
Paul, Joseph, Ezekiel and St. Dominick and the other appossles be about
us. The awful time's forninst ye, chafe. I'm now to work in sacret.
Stritch out both your arms behind ye an' around the wee bit sapling ;"
and now walking behind him, "hould open both yer hands. In each
I'll put ' medicine ' ashes from the poipe. Soon as ye feel thim take a
toight grip o' the sticker betwuxt yer jaws, and squaze hard, and whin-
iver ye parcaive the laste taste in loife o' the whisky, tell it til me, be
jabers, an' I'll come round and jine ye."

"Are viz all ready, chafe? Vis — well, thin, by me troth, so am I,
an' here goes ! " and Larry suddenly slipped the noose he had whipped
out from under his jacket over the two wrists, and quickly drew them
tightly together. Now walking around gravely to the front, he gazed
pleasantly, but not exultingly, at his stupefied victim. The puffy,
round face of Fat Bear was a rich study. It presented, as it were, a
series of rapidly shifting illustrations — amazement, horror, chagrin,
dread, disgust and wrathful indignation, and then a blending of all
these passions together.

"The tip o' the morning til ye, my fat and oily father. Ye've
trated me rale dacent, and I'se done that same til ye, for I was feared
we'd have a bluddy scrimmage for the horse and gun. Now, don't,"
waving his hand blandly, as he saw the chief rolling his eyes like a
dying dolphin, and trying to snort and sputter out something ;
".don't harrish yerself to spake for fraid ye'll swallow the knife, and
I'se not larned ye that thrick yit."

Larry now coolly proceeded to unloose from the chief's person —
grinning sweetly into his face all the while — the powder-horn, bullet
and jerk pouches. Then picking up the rifle and taking hold of the
horse's bridle, he turned once more to take leave, saying :

" Upon my sacred faix, Injun, but it's the hoight uv jolly company
you be, and from my heart out I misloike parting from ye and the
home-brewed whisky ye're fast pumping up. Shure ye show yer good
keep innyhow, an' one would niver famish wid you. But I see music
in yer eye, and, axing pardon uv ye, and ne'er misdoubting ye've a
heart under yer -buckskin as big as Goliah's, I'll jist stale aff like the
mists o' the mountain. There ! there ! now, my pussy papa, downt
be afther getting into a mismannerly passion, an' spluthering out yer
regrits. I tells ye I can nayther take bit nor sup more wid ye ; an'
now bye-bye, jewel avourneen. Shure ye can't starve, innyhow, while's
ye carry about ye full five stun o' tallow to come an' go on, an' can
make whisky galore to float a wherry. God kape ye kindly, my tal-
low-faced father, an' may ye at last die in yer pumps, and wid a caper
in yer heels."

l6o SIMON GIRTY.

CHAPTER XLI.
Larry's lone scout and its results.

So saying, and whistling Garryowen softly to himself, Larry led the
horse a little bit off the trail into the thick undergrowth ; rid him of
his huge pack by cutting the thongs which fastened it, and then
mounting, managed, lame as the poor beast was, to excite him into an
awkward lope.

He had scarce, however, gone back more than three or four miles on
his course, before Shepherd's unfortunate nag went dead lame. As
Larry had ridden him all the way from Philadelphia, and had not the
heart to abandon him in the wild woods, he cast about for some place
of rest and concealment.

Seeing a small run just before him, and remembering some of the
many dodges which Brady told him the Indians employed to defy or
mislead pursuit, Larry scratched his poll for a minute, and then with
a " bedad, an' I'se got it — it's an Injun saying that wather laves no
trail," he rode his horse along the soft margin of the run till he
reached the Big Yellow, and then entering the latter stream as if he
intended crossing, he had not gotten out knee-deep before he turned
the horse straight around, and made him enter and keep along the
centre of the little run for a full half-mile.

Emerging now from the stream at a point where the flat rocks would
take no impression of hoofs, Larry urged his jaded horse a little fur-
ther, until he happened on a bright little mead of sweet young grass —
a gushing spring of cool, sparkling water serving to keep it ever fresh
and verdant — under a grove of majestic sugar-maples, and surrounded
on all sides by dense thickets of plum, hazel, spice-bush, wild grape,
and other undergrowth. This little oasis in the rough and tangled
wilderness was fairly enamelled with wild flowers, and altogether
looked so pleasant and inviting, that Larry came at once to a halt,
gave his poor beast liberty to crop the tender herbage, and leaning
his rifle against one of the trees, he sat himself down near the spring
and at the foot of an old moss-covered, vine-entwined maple.

Our Irishman had been very much elated at the artful manner in
which he had escaped and deceived the crafty redmen — beating them,
as it were, at their own best game. He had kept up a running fire of
chuckles and self-complacent soliloquizings, and seemed so much de-
lighted with his cuteness that he wanted to shake hands with himself
at every hundred yards, and may be said to have laughed all over.
He took out his jerk again, at which he had all along been munching,
chewed it awhile, chuckled, took a long draught from the spring,
talked to himself and then to his horse, chuckled again long and
heartily; and, finally, his frugal meal consumed, contrived, by flint
and steel, to strike a light for his pipe.

He felt perfectly secure, and intended, after his smoke, to take a
long sleep while his horse was recovering, and make the Ohio, across
from Poe's house, before evening. As the fragrant clouds of tobacco-
smoke commenced to wreathe about his nose, he leaned head and

Larry's lone scout and its results. i6i

body lazily against the mossy trunk, and stretched out his nether
limbs at their ease ; a look of supreme contempt and self-satisfaction
gathered over his good-humored phiz ; his eyes closed in a sort of
blissful dreaminess, and between the whiffs of his pipe, he fell into the
following train of modest self-congratulation :

" By me song, Larry, ye omadhown, but ye ha' bate the Trojans all
out an' out, (puff, puff.) Ye've left thim ondacent, fungaleering
thaves o' the wur-r-ld a trail that'll take a des' prate sharp nose to fol-
ler. Musha ! musha ! but it's a thramping, sthreeling, gipsying
vagabone that ye' re getting to be, (puff, puff.) Phat, ye rap o' the
divil, ye, wud yer last deludher, Judy O'Flaherty, uv Kilbeggan, (wid
her snooded yallow tresses an' her eye as blue as a kitten's) say av she
seed ye this blissed minnit taking a free an' aisy shough o' yer du-
dheen in an American desart, an' you that's as much as promised her
on the buke, (puff, puff.) Shure it's a grate Injun scout I'm laming
to be. Talk uv Poe an' Boone an' Brady; whinever did enny uv
thim throw a pack of bloodhounds on a false scent as I've done the
day? (puff, puff.) An' surrounded an' captured a big chafe, too,
(puff.) I'm blissed av it won't be put down in big print in all the
history books ; and I'se gotten away my baste, too. 'Twas much as
Brady could do to sneak aff manely all alone, misellanously by hisself
in the dark, (puff, puff.) By the powders o' war, Larry, I'se tell ye
what ye moost do, to oncet. Put yerself at the fore uv the Poes an'
the Bradys, an' fairly drive these red divils out o' the woods at — "

Larry's sentence was never finished, for just at this moment his two
arms were pinioned tight to his side and himself held firmly down.
He could neither stir hand nor foot. His jaws at once closed like a
trap. His pipe fell to the ground. A paleness began to creep over
his visage. He appeared fairly sick and faint with disgust and cha-
grin, and the ludicrous change which occurred in his look and manner
as his eyes furtively rolled up to meet those of the grinning Indian in
front who had seized his unguarded rifle, was enough almost to make
his own horse laugh.

Larry now managed to turn his eyes first on one and then on the
other grinning Indian, who stood on each side, securely tying his
arms, and the secret of his capture was out. He had wit enough left
to at once accept the situation, simply saying in an humbled and me-
lancholy voice, which offered a most absurd contrast to the exultant,
triumphant strain of a few moments before: —

" By me showl, Injuns, ye may well stan' there grinning loike ony
stroiped hyenas. But three uv ye, all towld ; an' me that wor the
handiest gossoon at a shellelah at last Donnybrook, wid a loaded rifle
out uv raich. Bedad, it's sick at the stumach I feel. I could wallop
the three to oncet wid a nate slip o' black-thorn, yet here I be as
meek and doless as a shape at sheering. Begorra, av it's the next
thing to a fool ye tak' me to be, faix, I'll say nothing forninst it, fur
it's my own privut opinyun that that's about the scriptur truth on't.
An' now, my gossoons, let me respictfully be afther axing ye a brace
o' questions ; an', first an' foremost, the wun that most dapely consarns
me. Where's Fat Bear ? "

A grin was here exchanged between two of the Indians, while the
II

1 62 SIMON GIRTY.

third could scarce restrain a snort of laughter, evidently incited by the
memory of the ludicrous plight in which they found the fat old
chief. At last, the only one of the party who could talk English made
answer : —

** Black Hoof see ' Painted Hair ' no keep up, an' heap miss his
friend. He fraid of Big Medicine trick, and send us back on trail.
We find Fat Bear much tired eating knife. He no make ' fire-water '
come, but make 'Painted Hair'^.?. He a heap fat Injun — too big to
run. He stay at tree wid pack, and vely, vely mad."

" Mad is it, is he ?" softly and meditatively said Larry. " Be jabers
I don't parcaive what /le should be mad about. Shure it's me should be
mad, an' as a bag full uv badgers at being kotched an' knocked spach-
less in the way I wor : but nixt — How did ye nose me out an' me so
heedful to cast ye aff the thrack. Say it wor but a random chance,
loike, an' by the Piper that played afore Moses, av I don t furgive

At this sally, the reddy grinned almost audibly, saying, as he patro-
nizingly tapped Larry on his fiery sconce, " My pale-face brudder
grow too much sunny hair ; it hurt him head ; make him chatter like
jay, but no wise like serpint. He make trail to Big Yellow same as
buffalo. Me swim over creek ; see no tracks up, down, all around ; den
tink horse go up de little, little creek. Me cross over, find it jist
so."

" Och, ye lie — saving ye'r worshipful prisence — ye carcumvintin'
gommoch, ye," burst out Larry, growing very indignant at the provok-
ing air of superiority in the other's words and manner. " There's jist
the rub, be jabers. Now how in the woide wur-r-rild cud ye speer tAaf
out, ye blatherskite, whin wather laves no trail ? Answer me that, now,
ye desateful blackguard, or forevir afther be howlding yer pace," and
Larry chuckled triumphantly.

" Me know not de big English words," gravely answered his compa-
nion," but me like not much pris'ner's loud talk, talk. If he grow mad, we
beat him wid switches same as squaw or papoose. I tell you two, tree,
sev'ral times we tink you go up little, little creek. One Injun go one
side; one go 'tother. When we come where water be still, and just
over moccasin-deep, stoop down, an' look, look vely close till we tink
see horse's feet ; but no sure yet. No ; water too deep an' muddy.

" When we come to de long Island where water run dis-a-way, dat-a-
way, bofe sides, we bring mud an' stone, and make little dam. Water
den run on t'other side, an' run away from dis side, and den we see
horse's tracks vely, vely plain. We know it right horse cause he lame
in front foot, and dat foot alway come down so light an' easy. Den
we come to rocky place, an' see all much wet, and we sure and sartain
now dat you bof go dat-a-way. We creep up, and find you smoking
and talking in sleep. See him now, my brudder? an' see dis?" and
the Indian threw on Larry his glittering eyes, as he held up to his
astounded view a piece of the jerk which the fugitive had been eating
as he rode along, carelessly throwing into the run the skinny remnant,
which, floating down, had helped to betray him.

Larry cast down his shamed eyes, and bowed his head in the deepest
chagrin and dejection, only muttering dolefully to himself — " Och,

ANOTHER MAZEPPA FATE OF FAT BEAR. 1 63

wirra, wirra, Larry, but yer clane bate intirely, and they're the Divil's
own clutch, all out an' out ; an av ye wull tackle an' wrassle Ould
Horny hisself, troth an' it's a sore fall je may iver expict. Blessed
Saints be about me, but my heart's black wid grafe, and I'm the thrue
sorra's pet."

Larry was rudely startled out of his gloomy meditations by the fol-
lowing abrupt query, which might be styled in law, '*a leading ques-
tion:"

" What for you steal Injun's horse for, eh ?"

'' Injun' s hors/; /" softly and sadly repeated to himself the subdued
and mortified Irishman, " and phat for did I stale it, and mesilf that
seed Shepherd's goold tould down for it at Philamadelfy, and that backed
and fed and groomed it all the way acrost the mountains; but go 'long
wid yer jokin,' Injun ! dawmed av your imperdence isn't sooblime;
its, its, tare hiffic, and, and, excrushiaton. It bangs the breath out o'
me body intirely, an' so it does ;" and then turning towards his inter-
rogator, he waved his hand majestically, and answered with dignity,
" May it plaze the hon'r'ble coort ; I'm guilty. I stoled the horse, and,
faix and phat's more, I'll repate the offinse. Take me to prison im-
madyutly."

CHAPTER XLII.

ANOTHER MAZEPPA — FATE OF FAT BEAR.

An earnest consultation now took place among the three Indians.
He who had done all the talking, and seemed to be leader, pointed to
the horse, and suggested something to his fellows, which seemed to be
highly relished, and was received with laughing alacrity. As Larry's
arms were firmly tied, the blanketed horse was led up to a fallen tree-
trunk, just at the edge of the mott of maple timber, and the captive
politely requested to mount, the leader saying :

" Injun horse-tief no much walker — we let him ride ; so we go back
more quicker."

Larry forgave the insult of the first words, for the unexpected
benevolence conveyed in the whole, which both surprised and gratified
him, so he mounted quickly, while saying :

" God thank ye kindly, myginerous frinds. This was more nor I
deserved. Shure it's the good heart one can mate iverywhere, be the
skin white or black, or rid. Whiniver" —

Just at this moment, the two Indians behind, standing the one at
either flank of the horse, jerked Larry backwards, so that his head
rested directly on the horse's crupper and, of course, each leg was
thrown forward on the animal's neck. In this Mazeppa-fashion, and
lying on the broad of his back, poor Larry was securely bound with
thongs. Such was his surprise and disgust at this base treachery, as
he thought it, that he was silent and patient, uttering no complaint,
and this, too, although he saw one Indian leading the horse at the
bridle, and the other two standing on either side, peeling the leaves
from some thorny locusts. He now discerned the mischievous purpose

l64 SIMON GIRTY.

of his torturers, but knew that any rebuking or begging words would be
but breath spent in vain. For the first time in our story, whether
from policy or from pride, Larry's tongue was idle.

Now commenced a yelling and a belaboring of the poor lame beast
with the thorny switches, until he was forced into a gallop, the bridle
Indian leading it in among the matted thickets of briars and brambles;
among drooping vines and saplings, and under low branches of
the trees, until the helpless rider was terribly thumped and worried,
and tormented. Well for him the horse was so lame, else he would
have been dreadfully battered. As it was, he bore all his sufferings
with such stoicism and exemplary patience, that when about a mile
was thus gone over in this barbarous fashion, his tormentors, either
tired or feeling ashamed of their cruel sport, allowed, first, the horse to
fall into a walk, and, next, Larry to regain his upright position.

When the near approach of the party was made known to Fat Bear
by a series of significant yells, Larry was on the look-out for a new
and more violent outbreak, and, sure enough, they had scarcely come
within sight of the big pack on which the irate and pussy old chief
was sitting — doubtless "clothed with curses, as with a garment," and
trying to " nurse his wrath to keep it warm.," — than with a shrill yell,
he made a headlong rush at Larry, trying to strike him down with his
keen tomahawk.

This, his laughing companions, knowing how much the captive was
needed to carry out Girty's purposes, essayed to prevent, but with
great difficulty. Larry, helpless as he was, could only look at his cor-
pulent father — that was to be — with disdain and defiance, crying,
*' och, be afif wid ye, ye mountain of blubber — ye butthery, drop-sik-
kle mornstrosity. Shure an' weren't ye jist made to show how far an
Injun's hide wud stritch afore it wud burst. Av it but once cracked,
it's a whole acre, be jabers, that would be fattened wid de lard and
taller. Kape aff, I tells ye, an' nurse yer wind. Faix, an' ye'll need
it all."

Right in the very midst of this noisy and ludicrous squabble, and
while the big chief had lifted his tomahawk to strike, rang out
the sharp, clear cracks of several rifles, immediately followed by a
hearty, ringing cheer. The shots were evidently distant ones, but,
the bullets being sped by unerring marksmen, failed not of execution.
Fat Bear, mortally struck, fell heavily to the ground. Another Indian,
apparently grievously wounded, darted aside with a yell into the dense
forest, while the remaining two, one at the bridle and the other be-
laboring the horse with the thorny stick, again forced him into a
sharp gallop, and made good their retreat for the present.

There need be little surmising from whom the shots proceeded, for
the noise had scarce died away, before "The Hermit " bounded out
into full view, followed, with long, rapid strides, by Brady and the
two Poes. "The Hermit" immediately ran up to the dead chief,
who was shot directly through the head, and whipping out his knife,
secured his peculiar trophy, while Brady promptly sprang off into the
woods in pursuit of the wounded leader.

The three whites who were left, spent with rapid running, now
gathered about the pack, which' had fairly fallen a prize to them. A

ANOTHER MAZEPPA FATE OF FAT BEAR. 1 65

brief and hurried consultation ensued, and it was wisely concluded,
from fear lest Larry might be ruthlessly sacrificed in case of an imme-
diate pursuit, to abandon for the present the chase of the horse
party.

The four scouts who had thus so opportunely made their appear-
ance, had been traveling a quarter of a mile in advance of their com-
panions, and, hearing from afar the yells of the Indians, and afterwards
th-; noise of the struggle about the horse, hastily ran up just in time,
as they then thought, to save Larry from destruction. This was the
reason they had fired at such long range. Had they better known the
exact state of the case, they might have awaited the rest of their party
and executed a more complete vengeance, besides rescuing Larry and
securing the horse.

The result of this lively little affair, showed that it was a very dan-
gerous thing for any of Girty's party to lag far behind their fellows.
A reckless and relentless body of Indian trackers was on his trail, and
woe be to the straggler who came within range of their unerring rifles.

A half hour had not passed before the rest of Poe's scouts came up,
and while busy learning the details of the late fight, they were joined
by Brady, who quietly issued from the leafy coverts on their left, a
strange rifle added to his own, and a fresh scalp adorning his belt.

His companions soon gathered from him the details of this, his latest
exploit. He had as promptly as possible bounded after the savage
whom he saw darting into the woods, but had immediately lost sight
of him. By careful scrutiny of the grass and bushes, he quickly re-
covered the trail, and knew by the crimson stains on the herbage, and
by the very faint impression of the fugitive's right foot, that he was
seriously hurt, and hence Brady kept out a wary look ahead.

He now — despite the careful efforts which had been made to leave
no trail — tracked the fugitive to the foot of a tall, slender ash sapling,
v/hich inclined toward and yet stood distant about thirty feet from a
towering tulip tree.

Here all signs ended. Knowing that Indians never, unless hard
pressed, take refuge in trees, and, least of all, in saplings, and that
when so sorely bestead they were apt to be desperate, preferring death
to captivity, Brady leaped behind the first cover, and cast his search-
ing glance upward.

No redskin there. Our scout was puzzled ; but, observing a slight
motion of the limbs at the top of the sapling, which seemed un-
natural, the thought struck him that the crafty savage must have
climbed along the ash until it had bent under his weight and touched the
tulip tree, thus allowing him to mount the latter without leaving any
trace.

The scout now cast his glance upward along the tulip's trunk and
among its clean, glossy, fiddle-shaped foliage, and, sure enough, there
stood his quarry. The unlucky savage was crouching, half-concealed,
in a notch of the tree, about two-thirds of the way up, hugging the
trunk closely, and his bald head stretched out like that of an eagle,
his glittering eyes warily watching every minutest look and motion of
his deadly foe.

" Come down out of that, you pesky varmint, you," cried Brady, in

1 66 SIMON GIRTY.

his Sternest and most peremptory tones, "or I'll bore your yellow pelt
through and through."

The crack of a rifle and the whistle of a bullet, which passed clear
through Brady's hunting-cap, just grazing his scalp, was the only an-
swer vouchsafed by the desperate redskin.

It was not usual in those fierce and bloody border hunts, where the
fight was to the death, and where success so much depended on supe-
rior vigilance and promptness, for any party to stand long on cere-
mony. It was either give or take. Brady had offered his foe a chance
for his life, which was refused, and himself defied ; so, quickly raising
his long, black tube, a sharp, snappish report, like the crack of a
whip, and the bullet sped home.

The poor victim writhed spasmodically ; jerked out his arms ;
dropped his rifle ; clutched the limb convulsively, and, while essaying
to whip out his tomahawk and utter his shrill, defiant war-whoop, the
bitter death agony caught him. His body suddenly dropped amid
the rustling foliage, a last despairing grasp of the limb in its descent
holding him suspended for a full minute in mid-air, while the other
hand vainly endeavored by repeated but unsuccessful clutches at the
limb, to arrest his fall.

In vain ! The stony, staring, horrified eyes now closed. One shudder
of the limbs ; a sudden stiffening of the whole frame, and the dead
body fell prone, with a dull, heavy thud, to the ground. He died
game.

Whatever pitiful sentiments may have passed through the mind of
the vengeful and implacable scout at this shocking spectacle, he did
not relate, but reluctantly securing the usual trophy, he quietly took
possession of the savage's rifle and accoutrements and rapidly rejoined
his companions.

After a brief rest and consultation, the pack and rifle having been se-
curely cacAgd until their return, the band of scouts again fell silently
into file and doggedly pursued their way.

CHAPTER XLIII.

MRS. MALOTT AND THE LITTLE DECOYS.

While these stirring episodes were occurring in the rear, the cap-
tives and those guarding them were making rapid progress along the
Big Yellow trail. As Mrs. Malott approached the small camp where
she expected to find the wounded Dorman and wife, as also the two
children — who, after having been so successfully used as decoys, had
been sent to the rear — her agitation and nervousness had grown with
every mile of their progress. She had just learned of the existence
and welfare of her oldest daughter, Kate ; would God be so good
as to restore to her Nellie and Frankie ?

Many things favored the supposition that the two bright little decoys
were none else than her children. The experienced Girty had even

MRS. MALOTT AND THE LITTLE DECOYS 1 67

commenced to favor the idea, and, to his credit be it spoken, could
not drive the matter from his head, but would again and again dwell
on the subject with the hoping, fearful mother.

They now came in sight of a beautiful grassy swale, heavily covered
with large timber, and a little off the trail. It was a quiet, lovely
little dale, flanked on either side by slopes covered to their summits
with the most luxuriant foliage. Under a mott of gigantic, white-
trunked sycamores, and — as is the invariable custom with Indians in
locating a camp — hard by a copious spring of pure, sparkling water,
could be seen from afar a few rude bark huts.

It was a tranquil, though a very romantic, sylvan retreat, and, with
its two ponies munching the grass, and with its glowing fire, with
kettle suspended on pole above, looked like an encampment of gyp-
sies ; nor, too, did the few dark-eyed and swarthy-hued squaws, who
were sitting or moving about, appear . unlike those wandering Bo-
hemians. The whole scene was just such a neat little bit of Nature as
would have delighted Rosa or Rembrandt to have transferred to
canvass.

As no home-scene would be complete without its happy, frolicsome
children, these were not lacking, for there were the two in quest,
mounted on one of the ponies — which was grazing right on the mar-
gin of the little babbling run — the boy in front and the little girl be-
hind, gleefully clinging to her older brother. Almost strangers to all
about them ; talking the Cherokee tongue, which none there under-
stood, yet nothing could repress the natural gayety and careless
abandon of childhood ; and the nut-brown and slouchily-dressed little
things laughed and prattled away as merrily as though born and bred
in an Indian village, and surrounded by the fondest parents and
relatives.

Happy, happy childhood ! which, like the dial, counts time only
when the sun shines, and like the fabled Midas, transmutes all it
touches into gold.

By a wave of his hand, Girty stopped his followers right on the
trail, while he, on foot, and Mrs. Malott, on horse- back, hastily ad-
vanced until the whole enceinte of the charming little valley could be
taken in at a glance.

He now thought it necessary to caution his flustered companion not
to be too sanguine, although his own curiosity and nervousness could
scarce be concealed :

"Now don't, ma'am, take on too much if you find you're right;
nor don't get too low-hearted if the little uns should turn out some
body else's. Blamed ef we don't find them chicks o' your'n yet, tho'
we have to ransack the woods from the Allegheny to the Wabash ; but
hold ! by Heavens, there they be ! "

" Where ! Girty; oh, where ! " cried the anxious, impatient lady, as
her roving eye quickly sought out the group by the stream's margin.
" Oh, I see the darlings ! God grant we may not both be disappointed ;
but I must hurry to them at once, while you hold back Mrs. Dorman,
whom I see beckoning to us from yonder hut."

Giving her horse a slight cut, off she darted across the green sward,
much to the surprise and alarm— real or affected — of the little Indian

1 68 SIMON GIRTY.

pony, who, seeing a strange horse, with a still stranger figure upon it,
rushing towards him, tossed up his head, uttered a little whinny of
disgust, kicked up his heels and made off, head up in air, shaggy mane
flying, and the two terrified children screaming and trying to hold
their seats.

" Good Heavens ! what have I done !" cried out the poor mother in
an agony of fright, as she stopped stock still and breathlessly watched
the scene before her. Another curvet of the pony, and down fell, or
rather, slid, the two children, much affrighted and crying lustily, but
apparently not much hurt.

Mrs. Malott now tumbled off her horse — she scarce knew how — ran
rapidly towards the frightened little couple ; raised them from the
ground; held them off at arm's length, and gazed long and intently,
first into the girl's and then into the boy's face, crying out most
passionately to Girty, who had just reached the spot, "Before God,
Girty, they're my own Nellie and Frankie; but oh, how changed !
how changed! butamother cannot be deceived. Poor little innocents !
so long orphaned !" and the glad yet sorrowing woman hugged the
little ones convulsively to her bosom, kissed them frantically again and
again, and shed copious tears of joy and gratitude.

All at once her all-embracing arms relaxed their tight clasp ; her
voice and sobbings grew still; her eyes closed, and the overjoyed but
long-suffering mother sank fainting to the ground. Her heart had so
long been attuned to sadness, that this great joy too rudely swept its
tender chords. It was " like sweet bells jangled, harsh and out of tune."

It was all a novel and touching spectacle. The children, under-
standing no word, and seeing the vehement and incomprehensible
behaviour of one so different in dress, color and appearance from any
they remembered to have seen, had at first cried from fright ; had then
struggled wildly to escape, but when subdued, or rather overwhelmed
with the mother's impetuous kisses and caressses, they grew more still,
as if stricken with awe. And now that they saw this mysterious white
woman stretched, as it were, dead at their very feet, their timid hearts
failed them ; tliey again commenced to cry, and, finally, clasping each
other's hands, they ran away as fast as their little moccasined feet could
carry them.

While the sympathizing Mrs. Dorman, who had now come up,
sprinkled that wan and wasted face with water from the run which
went murmuring by, the stern, cruel, stony-hearted Girty— as men
deemed him — hurried after the young fugitives, an unwonted choking
in his throat and his eyes moistened with tears, which, much as he
strove to conceal, did him great honor. " One touch of nature makes
the whole world kin," and even that hard and obdurate heart had
been penetrated by a ray divine.

At last a tremor fluttered over Mrs. Malott' s person ; a faint flush
revisited her cheeks; her languid eyes opened dreamily; she smiled
radiantly, and whispered, "My children! oh, give me back my
children!"

" Here they are, ma'am," said Girty, stepping briskly forward,
leading the little truants whom he had coaxed and pacified into quiet,
one by either hand; ''but, are you sure, ma'am, that they really are

MRS. MALOTT AND THE LITTLE DECOYS. 1 69

your's? It all seems so strange. Have you — there can be no
deception?"

'' Mothers make no such mistakes, Girty," said the happy mother,
with a sad, sweet smile, rising to a sitting position and again drawing
to her close and tender embrace the nut-brown, wondering-eyed brother
and sister, who now submitted patiently to her warm, tearful caresses,
but gazed at her earnestly, with a blended look of awe, fear and
curiosity.

" I thank the good God, and, after Him, you, Girty, for this happy,
happy moment, so long deferred. Soon as I gazed down into their
dear eyes, I knew in my heart they were my own, despite all the
changes of time, and browned and roughened as they are by exposure,
/need no evidence, but others may. Look there at those locks! "
and she passed her fingers lovingly through Nellie's golden curls.
*' Three long years have neither straightened or bleached them.
Here's what they were at two years of age," and the mother pulled
from her bosom and exhibited the locket containing the silken curl,
which, as stated, she had once shown the ark's company ; and then,
seeing, the eager, curious look of the little girl, who was now content-
edly nestling close down into her arms, and stealing shy, timid glances
into her face, she handed it to the admiring lassie, who took it eagerly,
uttering some childish exclamation of delight to her brother.

" Oh, how painfully distressing it is," bitterly exclaimed the fond
mother, "not to be able to speak to or understand my own loved
prattlers. Do you not know the Cherokee tongue, Girty?"

" Very little, ma'am, I promise you. Ef it was Delaware, or Shaw-
nee, or even Wyandott, I could talk like a streak ; but never had much
to do with the far-South Indians. Might make a stagger at it, tho'.
What do you want to know? "

"Ask them if they remember anything of white people ; what their
names are ; whether they can recall me; their father, Kate, or Harry? "

Girty tried them in various ways, but they looked blank and then
puzzled, and when asked their names, gave their Cherokee ones.

" No," said Girty, slowly, and as distinctly as possible in his broken
Cherokee, " you are white children ; this is your own mamma, and
your name," turning to the boy, "is Frank."

A bright, peculiar gleam of intelligence shot athwart the boy's ear-
nest face, as he dreamily, and as if trying to grasp some fleeting
memory of a long- forgotten past, repeated softly, " Frank, Frank,
Frank," and then added, "Mai — Mai — Malott."

" Oh, Girty," joyfully exclaimed the mother, after having nearly
smothered the black-eyed, curly-pated little fellow with a shower of
kisses, "isn't that enough? If not, glance at this," and the proud
and happy woman,* " looking smily 'bout the lips but teary 'round the
lashes," lifted up the wealth of golden curls from Nellie's neck and
showed him a birth-mark in the shape of a round, red spot that looked
like a stain of blood.

"I give it up, ma'am, I give it up. They're both yourn, and I'm
dog-onned glad of it ; yes, down to the very marrow," hastily and ex-
citedly replied the rough old tory, with a suspicious catch in his
speech. He now, with a sort of hysterical laugh, seized hold of Mrs.

170 SIMON GIRTY.

Malott's hand and shook it like a pump handle ; then hotly asked
Mrs. Dorman what in the tarnal world she was sitting there a snicker-
ing and a blubbering about, and then, alas, that we should have to say it,
he himself turned away to hem and cough, and to brush away with his
fringed sleeve what seemed strangely like tears welling up from that
millstone of a heart.

Oh, it was a rare and singular group ! and to see the savage Girty
now petting Frankie, whom he had taken on his lap, and saying over
dog, cat, cow, chicken, papa, jnamma, &c., and then laughing strangely
when the merry little fellow would repeat each word over, showing by
his intelligent smiles which ones he remembered, it was all as good as
a play, or rather a sermon on faith.

" Con-sume 7ne, but this is powerful cur'ous. I ain't felt so good
since the day I was out hunting with Sime Butler in Dunmore's Injun
war, and we brought down a painter, two Buffalo, a bar and cubs, and
seven deer — all in one tramp. Ah, those early scouting days were my
best, I'm afeard ; but come, ma'am, let's try this on the little gal."

"Your — name — is — Nellie," continued Girty, in the Cherokee
tongue to the little girl, who was on her mother's lap, and tipping her
smilingly under the dimpled chin. A pleased smile from Nellie, but no
intelligence. All looked disappointed. **I fear," said her mother, as if
apologetically, " that she was too young to remember her name. You
must recollect, Girty, that she was only two years old when carried —
but what am I thinking of," she continued excitedly, "I rarely used
to call her Nell, but always Dot, or Dumpling."

At the mention of these once familiar words, a peculiar expression
came into the child's face. They acted somewhat like sudden electric
shocks. Her mouth puckered up as you see a sensitive child's when
she has been spoken harshly to, and her feelings are hurt. She
fastened her wondering, yearning eyes on her mother's for a moment,
then twined her arms about her neck, leaned her head confidingly on
her bosom, and commenced sobbing as if her little heart would break.

The two old words had unlocked her latent, dormant memory, and
with it, melted her child-heart. She was thenceforward mother's
darling again.

" We've tried her too much," tearfully remarked the mother. " Oh,
that her dear father, who so doated on her, could have been here and
seen this — but no, no 1 I'm asking too much. Let me be grateful for
the three children so wonderfully restored to me," and the happy
mother's eyes looked upward reverently, while her lips moved in thank-
ful prayer.

CHAPTER XLIV. •

GIRTY AMBUSHES BRADy's SCOUTS.

Capt. Pipe was now seen approaching with his usual haughty step
and impassioned face, that looked, with its cold, fishy eyes, as if cast
in bronze. He announced the fate of Fat Bear, and the attack on the
rear. Girty heaved a sigh as the new-born tenderness vanished from

GIRTY AMBUSHES BRADY S SCOUTS. I7I

his face, and the usual hard, fierce look leaped to its place. A pursuit
in force was hitherto only highly probable ; now it was an actual
verity, and he turned off abruptly to join his company, ordering Mrs.
Dorrnan to get all ready immediately, putting her wounded husband
on the one pony, and the two children on the other.

" Your pardon, Mrs. Dorman," now spoke up Mrs. Malott, actually
beginning to talk cheerfully, and to look almost beautiful from the
strange flushes and bright expressions sent to the face from her new
heart, "I have been so selfishly engaged with my own family that I
entirely forgot to ask about yours. I trust your husband is better."

" He is, dear madame, — in two ways, I am thankful to say. The
bullet was flattened against the thigh bone, and was a heavy shock at
the time, but it remained in the flesh; it is now out and the wound is
healing finely, but he's an altered man, I hope, besides. He has been
thinking deeply since his hurt, which he says he has deserved ; has
sighed much, and even shed tears ; his old kindness and gentleness to
me have returned, and he has solemnly promised never to touch rum
again. That's all that was the matter with him, I assure you, ma'am,
and he knows it."

'* Thank God for that, Mrs. Dorman. We poor women are so
strangely fashioned that our very lives, and all that life means and is
worth, are inseparably entwined with our families. The death of a
dear husband or child can be borne hopefully, if not resignedly, but
their habitual wrong-doing, never! — it is a daily, hourly torture,
dragging ever a lengthening chain, and finding no rest but in the
grave. But come, my dear benefactress — for so I must count you,
since you were the means of finding my children, neither of us has
now room for any sentiment but joy. Girty has doubtless told you
that my Kate has been discovered?"

" He has, ma'am, and I'm heartily glad of it. Those merry, laugh-
ing little skinfoots," — (they were now playing about their mother as
gleefully and contentedly as when in their old home,) " I was sure
were yours after I knew your story."

" But ain't they horridly dressed, or rather undressed, though,"
laughed — yes, positively laughed the proud and contriving mother.
*' I was just planning where and how I could alter their clothes.
They now look like little frights," and she again chucked them under
the chin, gave them each a passionate kiss, and looked as if she had
little faith in her own last words. Gazing at them fondly, she thus
continued, as if abstractedly :

"I'm just thinking I'll put a little tuck in that long linsey woolsey
of little Dot's — I'm sure I don't know where the Indians could have
stolen it, it's so old-fashioned — and tie back her golden hair, until I can
get a comb, with a little pink ribbon I've kept. I'll then putnice new lit-
tle moccasins on both their feet, and take off those miserable, ragged
tow pants of Frankie's, and make skin leggins, and a little beaver-slcin
cap for his head, and cut off a few of those jetty curls of his — ^just his
own father's over again — and — did you ever, in all your born days, see
such a black, merry eye as the dear little fellow has got — and — and —
oh, Mrs. Dorman, I'm so happy I'm almost afraid. It seems all like
a fairy dream," and the overwrought mother turned around to her

172 SIMON GIRTY.

companion — whose own eyes were swimming in tears — clasped her
arms tightly about her neck, and sobbed and laughed, and laughed
and sobbed till her children, hand in hand, and with wondering faces,
shyly crept up and plucked at her gown for another kiss.

The two mothers were wholly en rapport now, and they sat and
talked, and watched the children's gambols until they saw Drusilla,
Betty, and the other captives, most on foot, and surrounded on every
side by the dusky, athletic forms of Girly's Indians, all grouped
together on the grass near them.

"Selfish me, what am I thinking about !" and Mrs. Malott hastily
arose, took a hand of either child, walked quickly up to and through
the circle of wondering savages, and with her face radiant as with a
sacred halo, cried out nervously : " Oh, my dear friends, God has been
good to me. Here's my two lost children, Frank and Nell. Kate
you know about; all recovered in two " — but again the mother broke
down amid alternate tears and hysteric sobbings.

The virgin wilderness furnishes many very rare and beautiful scenes
that dwell long in the memories of those capable of noting and enjoy-
ing them. The one now presented was not only touching, but exceed-
ingly picturesque.

The towering, glossy-leaved sycamores ; the rich green sward, flecked
and mottled by the sun's ardent rays, as they glinted and shimmered
through the tender foliage ; the swelling slopes of vivid verdure on
either side, with their purling, babbling little run of sparkling water ;
the bound captives, male and female, on horse and on foot, as they
crowded about Mrs. Malott and her children to offer their hearty con-
gratulations, and, then, the groups of grave, dusky, statue-like Indians,
as they sat or leaned on their long rifles under the trees, attentively
watching this strange development.

Girty was much pressed for time, and had — on account of the stir-
ring news from the rear — ordered the " nooning " to be a short one ;
and while the ponies were being prepared, and the whole party were
either resting or taking a hasty meal of jerk, he hurriedly moved some-
what aside with Pipe, Black Hoof, and two of the leading '' braves,"
for a brief consultation.

He earnestly urged on them the need of haste ; recounted his plans,
which embraced the deception of both parties of pursuers, one of which
had just been heard from in an unpleasant sort of way. He called
attention to the importance of the captives, and to the fact that the
party which had just killed Fat Bear and Leaping Panther — the name
of the leader of the three who had retaken Larry — were Brady, the
two Poes, and some of the most daring and skillful scouts of the bor-
der, and finally asserted that it was necessary to his further plans that
Brady's party should receive a prompt and decided check ; besides a
good opportunity was thus offered in revenge for the slaughter of Big
Foot and his brothers.

To all this — and more especially to the last suggestion — his com-
panions quickly assented with gleaming eyes and knitted brows. The
only question was the best way.

Girty promptly answered that he did not think there could be more
than ten or a dozen or so in pursuit ; that he was approaching the

GIRTY AMBUSHES BRADY S SCOUTS. 1 73

forks of the Yellow, where he expected to make a studied effort to
throw, not only the Brady party, but the one confidently expected from
Fort Henry, off his trail, and strongly advised hurrying on Capt. Pipe
and the captives with quarter of the band to the Forks, while he with
the rest would lay an artful ambush for the scouts, who could not be
more than an hour or so behind.

This advice was deemed wise and must be immediately carried into
effect, so Girty told off ten of his band and dispatched them, under
Pipe, with all the prisoners, Dorman and wife, Mrs. Malott and chil-
dren, retaining only Larry and his horse as a decoy.

Soon as the little sward, lately so crowded and animated, had been
totally deserted, and the captives had disappeared around the first
bend of the onward trail, Girty, Larry on Shepherd's horse, and the
two Indians who had before hurried him off, silently filed into the
trail, followed, at some distance, by about twenty-five or thirty grim,
stalwart, determined -looking savages, and proceeded back on their
course.

Girty now sent forward two of his bravest and most trusty followers
to act as flankers by scouring ihe woods in advance on either side of
the trail — that is wherever the Big Yellow allowed it two sides — and
bringing him timely and accurate tidings of the enemy's approach and
exact number.

And now commenced a search for the best place to form an ambush.
At this peculiar branch of savage warfare, the Indians are especially
expert and artful. Their system of tactics commands them never to
attack an enemy unless at a strong advantage, either in numbers or
position, and never to assault openly and in full front, when it caa
better be done from a cover and with a small loss. To simply van-
quish their foe is not deemed an honor, unless it can be done with a
very small damage and loss to their own side. For this advantage,
they will sometimes wait whole days, even though they may be largely
superior in numbers.

This is the true secret of Braddock's, Grant's, and St. Clair's defeats,
and so of many remarkable Indian victories over white troops ; and
the chief reason that, a (nw years later, they were so crushed by Mad
Anthony Wayne at ** Fallen Timbers," was because, as they themselves
said, he was "all eyes;" he had thoroughly learned their tactics, and
was so watchful with his trained scouts that the wily savages had no
opportunity of attacking him at unawares.

Several places were selected by Girty, and afterwards given up as
unsuitable. At last he pitched on a spot near a bend in the creek,
where the trail lay close along the margin of the water, the side to the
woods presenting a ledge of rocks screened by a dense and almost
impenetrable covert of undergrowth. Behind this thicket of matted
brambles, hazel, paw-paws, and what not, the whole band of crafty
and blood-thirsty savages was carefully secreted, each standing patiently
with rifle ready, and with glittering eyes peering through their leafy
loopholes, but as fixed and immovable as statues cut from stone.

Larry had been designedly kept so far in the rear that he was igno-
rant of the precise object of the expedition, and could not help but
marvel at this speedy return on their course. But when his horse — with

174 SIMON GIRTY.

himself bound securely upon it — was now tied to a buttonwood stand-
ing right off the path and just at the hither side of the sharp bend in
the trail before alluded to; and when he saw, moreover, the same two
redskins who had previously attended him, quietly sit down and com-
mence, in as conspicuous a manner as possible, the game of *' Nosey,"
his eyes were suddenly opened, and he shrewdly suspected mischief to
Brady's party, and through his unhappy self as the decoy.

This fairly raised the hair on Larry's head, and the honest, faithful
fellow cast about for some device by which to save his friends. The
game continued amid explosions of boisterous laughter. ''Nosey"
was a finger play universally popular among Western Indians, at which
two of them would sometimes be engaged for hours, the dense circle
of bystanders looking on with scarcely less interest than that of the
gamblers themselves. Its chief and most ludicrous point was the
penalty attached, which subjected the loser to ten fillups on the nose
from the winner, all to be endured with the most inflexible gravity of
face, as the winner was entitled to ten additional fillups for every
smile which he succeeded in forcing from him.

CHAPTER XLV.

A DESPERATE STRUGGLE.

And now came rushing in one of the flankers. He was in great
excitement, and reported that Brady's band were carelessly approach-
ing ; did not number a dozen, and that one of the party, whom he
described as a lean, springy, wild-looking man, with long hair and
shining eyes, had overtaken his companion with long leaps like a pan-
ther, and had killed and scalped him.

Girty gave command in a low tone to his band, to have all ready
for attack, but to be sure not to shoot till he gave the signal. He
then sent forward to Larry's party, and bade them linger until the last
moment, and to retire very slowly, as if the horse had fallen too lame
to walk faster.

The ridiculous nose game continued; but Larry judged by the
falsity in the laughs, and the nervous, apprehensive glances which
were repeatedly cast along the trail, that Brady's scouts, who came so
near rescuing him a few hours before, were momentarily expected
around the bend. It was clearly Girty's crafty design to make them
believe that the Indians who forced Larry off from them were still —
having abandoned all fear of pursuit — loitering on their way.

A sudden jog or hitch in the voice, and a quick, jerky gesture from
the reddy — whose wary eyes were constantly turned down stream,
denoted the long-expected appearance. Larry looked, and saw plainly
the figures of Poe, Brady, and the Hermit, standing just at the bend,
and evidently surprised at the unexpected sight before them. But
only for one instant. He was just about risking a sign to them, when
the whole three forms as quickly disappeared.

A DESPERATE STRUGGLE. 1 75

The Indians now laughingly, but without a'ly apparent anxiety —
although they were m point d/anc range oi three of the surest rifles on the
border — rose to their feet and unhitched the horse, contriving, however,
to keep either Larry or the beast in direct range of any hostile bullet.

If their lure — that of tempting Brady and his band to strive to sur-
round and capture them rather than to risk their second escape, and
a probable damage to Larry by random shots — was a success, the white
scouts must be nearly upon them. So now the two Indians move
briskly along the road, but each managing to walk so that Larry or
his horse would shield him from his pursuers.

And now they are just on the edge of the ambush so craftily pre-
pared by Girty; and now they are fully abreast of it. No white scout
to be seen. It is highly probable they are crouching on either side
of the trail, and stealthily advancing so as to make "assurance doubly
sure." There must be no escape with Larry this time.

And, yet, along that narrow path — scarce ten feet between the Big
Yellow on one side and the matted thicket and masses of protecting
rock on the other — were ranged the deadly barrels of thirty rifles, and
along each long black tube glanced the baleful eye of a cruel, venge-
ful savage.

As if frightened by suspicious figures they had seen in pursuit, the
two Indians now goad and scourge the horse into a gallop. It has
the effect desired. Brady and his ardent, zealous followers, thinking
themselves discovered, and anxious to save poor Larry, rise up from
bushes and come out from trees into the trail again.

With a hearty, ringing cheer, they leap forward to the pursuit.
Twenty steps more will carry the unrecking trackers right into the
jaws of destruction. Is there no one at this dread crisis to stay their
headlong course? no voice to warn? no hand to save?

Yes, the saviour for the emergency is not wanting. He has long
regarded them with the most painful anxiety, and now, at the imminent
risk of his own life, shouts in his clearest and loudest tones,

" Hovvld aff, Brady! for the dear love o' God, howld aff ! It's but
a dek-koy I am this minit, an' there's shure thrubble afore ye and on
ayther soide. The red divils are somewhere out afther ye, thicker and
savager nor wolves afther a hurt buck, and will wasthe ye loike snaw
afl" the ditch. Niver trust — "

The faithful Irishman uttered no word more, for just at this moment
he dodged his head to escape a tomahawk viciously hurled at him by
the Indian at the bridle, and which he received in the shoulder, while
a parting of the bushes on one side, and out rushed Simon Girty,
fairly foaming at the mouth with rage.

"Curses on ye! ye double-dyed villain and Irish traitor ! Is' t for
this I've spared yer vile, accursed carcass ! Here's the dose of lead I
owe ye ! " and Girty raised his pistol and fired at the helpless pri-
soner. The ball entered his breast, inflicting a serious wound.

Larry would have at once fallen heavily to the earth and been pro-
bably dispat'^hed and scalped by the enraged Girty or some of his
furious savages, but, being tied hands and feet, he only fell back upon
the horse's back, and was rapidly carried by the frightened beast out
of the approaching fray.

Ij6 SIMON GIRTY.

Nor did his reckless assailant escape scatheless. Brady and his
scouts had scarcely caught Larry's warning words before they stood
stock still in their tracks; then instinctively sought the nearest covert,
and then — suspecting the superior numbers of their foes — prepared to
beat a hasty retreat. They were too experienced and familiar with
perils of every form, however, to lose their presence of mind, or to
neglect any opportunity of delivering a telling blow, so when Girty,
rendered imprudent by his fierce wrath, leaped out into the path, both
Poe and Brady drew an instant bead on him, each bullet — as was
afterwards found — taking effect.

Girty, while yelling out his orders in the Indian tongue, bounded
back under cover, and then there arose from the dense thicket a series
of the fiercest, shrillest, and most appalling whoops and shrieks. It
seemed as if all pandemonium were let loose. The hideous uproar
and demoniac yells now ceased utterly, and silence " like a poultice
came to heal the blows of sound."

Each party was now well aware of the other's strength and acted
accordingly. While half of Girty's force took to the trees and what-
ever covert might offer, and confronted their foes, the other half
sought, by a hurried side-movement through the woods, to take the
enemy in flank or in the rear.

Brady's gallant little band knew well what dangers were environing
them and made all haste to escape. They ran back from tree to tree,
scarcely ever uncovering their persons or — when it was absolutely
needful so to do — making high leaps and running zig-zag so as to de-
feat all sure aim. Most of these scouts were old and practiced Indian
fighters ; had learned to load and fire as they ran, and were watchful
of every possible chance to deliver a fatal charge.

Their carefully-directed volleys soon became very galling to their
pursuers, who now advanced much more cautiously. The fighting
ground was so narrow and contracted that superior numbers gave no
advantage, so they trusted to their flanking party to bring their
dreaded foe to close quarters. Fully one-fourth of Girty's force had
now been either killed or wounded. Among the latter — although
neither of them very severely — were Girty and Black Hoof.

Of Brady's party, Bill Kennedy had been shot through the head
and killed outright, while old Uncle Josh had been severely wounded,
and Dutch Abe and three other hunters were slightly touched.

And now were heard yells and shots from a new direction, denoting
that the flanking party had reached its destination and were getting
down to their work. This greatly enthused the savages in front, who
hotly pressed forward, and poured forth a storm of leaden hail. Our
brave scouts were hard pressed, but by no means dismayed.

"the combat deepens; on! ye braves!" 177

CHAPTER XLVI.

" THE COMBAT DEEPENS ; ON ! YE BRAVES ! "

Hard pressed, but not dismayed.

In one of the brief pauses of the conflict, while our scouts were
awaiting new exposures from an enemy grown cautious by bloody ex'
perience, Brady had glanced along the verdurous aisles of the dense
woods — those green and mossy vistas of the virgin wilderness amid
whose intricacies the eye ever delights to lose itself— and noted a
number of loping, slippery redskins stealthily working themselves
forward, and availing themselves of every possible cover.

The peril of being crushed between two fires was instant. While
forecasting in his mind some speedy deliverance from this new danger,
Brady was startled by a rude, sharp clutch on the shoulder. It was
the Hermit, who, with begrimed face, disordered locks, and eyes
glowing with an intense burning lustre, looked the incarnation of
relentless Fate.

"There's but a chance left," he hissed out with stifled passion.
"You remember the lone mound a half-mile back on the creek, which
the trail turns by a sharp bend ? I know it well ; have ambushed
there for days watching for cursed yellow-hides, and would agree to
hold it alone against a score."

"I saw it as we passed," answered Brady, quietly but decidedly.
" If you have tried it, Sir, in God's name gather up the lads and lead
on without a moment's pause. The Poes and I will try and cover
your retreat."

No sooner said than done. The shots and yells from the flanking
party were now heard in hideous uproar. The wily savages could be
seen, both in front and on flank, gliding rapidly forward. The grim
and desperate trio stubbornly held their trees until their foes, noting
the rest of the scouts retreating on a run, bounded forward to destroy
these few in the van.

Then to Andy's growl, " Now for't, bullies ; scrunch 'em as ye
would a nest of rattlers; and, Adam, you hold back a shot," two
cracks rang out under the leafy arches, each lead bringing down its
quarry.

A huge, ferocious-looking Huron, who was crouched behind a big
chestnut in the immediate front, and who evidently thought all three
rifles discharged, now uttered a terrific, blood-curdling yell, and,
brandishing his tomahawk, leaped straight at them.

Adam Poe was ready for him. Waiting until the fellow's baleful
breath was almost upon his cheek, he cast his keen tomahawk with full
force straight at his face, crushing through his jaws, and felling him
like a bullock under butcher's axe. Then, with that recklessness
which characterized the Indian-killers of that day, who deemed the
scalp of more importance than the life itself, the infuriate scout ran the
horrid circle about the large Indian's head, and secured the trophy,
while growling out, " Ef you're loaded up, Andy, cut for it, while I've
a shot in resarve. I see the pesky varmints creeping 'round you."
12

IjS SIMON GIRTY.

The fatal work done by the scouts made the pursuers much more
wary. They now kept close to the trees, from which they dared not
emerge until they saw Brady and Andy Poe gliding rapidly away under
the big sycamores of the creek's margin. A Shawnee chief by the name
of '* Mad Cat" now broke cover, flourishing his tomahawk and com-
manding his followers to the pursuit. He had scarce, however, made
his third leap, before Adam's bullet laid hmi on the sward, sorely hurt.

The ready scout now jumped over the bank with its fringe of matted
undergrowth, and ran rapidly down the edge of the creek, pursued by
a straggling mob of yelling, ferocious demons, the more exasperated on
account of being so long baffled by such an inferior foe. A number
of shots were fired, but, with the exception of one bullet, which went
clean through the fleshy part of the right arm, no serious damage was
done.

The elevation referred to by the Hermit, and which was successively
reached by the fugitives, was one of those singular, isolated formations,
which, though apparently having no particular raison d'etre, are yet so
often found in the western wilderness, and which, when their shapes
are uniform and symmetrical, are often considered the artificial creations
of the ancient " Mound Builders."

The one in question was shaped somewhat irregularly. The broad-
est end was all rock, and rose abruptly from the creek to the height of
about forty feet. On top, at the widest part, it was full fifty feet across ;
was covered on all parts with trees of considerable growth, and sloped
gradually down to the trail, causing it, as before stated, to make a
sharp bend.

The peculiar feature, however, which made this mound so effective
as a place of refuge and defence, was an irregular depression on the
top, resembling somewhat an extinct crater, and which seemed, at
some time long previous, to have been hollowed out by the action of
a voluminous spring of water, which had bubbled up into a wide, rock-
rimmed basin.

The stream fed from this perpetual and abundant fountain was even
yet a copious one, and fumed and brawled its way down the slope of
the mound. At one spot in its path it was opposed by a mighty rock,
against which, however, dashing itself in vain, it turned abruptly off
and formed a romantic little cascade of some five or six feefhigh.

The deep and wide rocky channel, which, in the long years, this
stream with its frequent overflows had cut for itself in the hill, offered
the best, and, indeed, the only feasible approach up the height; since
both sides of the mound as well as the end towards the creek were
steep and craggy. This single pass, a compact and resolute force,
sheltered in the hollow about the spring, could defend against ten times
their number. It was either that, or the steep, precipitous rocks which
presented on all other sides.

The hot and panting handful of scouts had scarcely snugged them-
selves away in this secure retreat, before the onrushing foe had first
reached and then surrounded the knoll. The yells and whoops were
frightful. These soon died away, and the baffled savages could now
be seen, from the various "coigns of vantage " around the hollow,
gliding about from tree to tree ; scrutinizing the top and side cliffs

"the combat deepens; on! ye braves!" 179

from every possible point of view, two of them even crossing the creek
to examine the rear bluff.

Then followed a long and ominous silence, which seemed to the little
knot of patient and experienced hunters, to bode mischief. They anx-
iously whispered together, canvassing the probable designs of their foes.
At last they saw "The Hermit" — whose actions were generally as
strange and abrupt as his looks were moody and restless, and whom
they knew it were in vain to confine by their own rules — they saw
him quietly climbing over the rim of the enclosure which protected
them, advance to the smooth trunk of a towering beech just on the
edge of the southern slope, and peer cautiously over.

A quick start, and a finger held up in mute warning, denoted that
his enterprise had been rewarded. Brady and the two Poes now threw
themselves prone on the ground, and dragged themselves slowly for-
ward until they reached the edge of the steep declivity. They chose
a spot screened by a little fringe of briars and laurels, and by cautiously
pushing aside the leaves were enabled to sweep that whole side of the
knoll.

The sight was one to startle and alarm.

About eight feet below them, and double that distance to the right,
the ledge of rock which ran along that side of the hill, and broadened
out into quite a roomy flange or apron, directly behind which there
seemed to be a sort of cave overhung and partially surrounded by
shrubs, bushes and vines — whether deep or shallow, as he had never
had particular occasion to notice in his various sojourns on the summit,
not even the Hermit could tell.

In this recess could plainly be seen — more or less of their persons
being revealed — no fewer than six savages. How many more were
complete'}' sheltered there, was the painful, anxious problem. Two
other redskins could occasionally be noted amid the trees and bushes
stealthily zig-zagging — using hands as well as feet — their slow and toil-
some way up to the same rendezvous: while on the flat below still
others could every now and then be detected behind the larger trees,
cautiously edging their way forward preparatory to making the ascent.

Shrill and appalling yells, accompanied by rifle discharges, just now
burst forth all along the woods from directly the other side of the
hill.

The whole scheme thus stood revealed. This last was but a feint to
withdraw the scouts' attention from the cave, which was to be the real
point of attack: it denoted also that the assaulting party was nearly
ready for their rush.

The four lurking scouts, at a signal from Brady, now silently with-
drew their heads and crawled up stealthily as so many serpents, for a
conference together.

No time now for long discussion. A plan of action was quickly
concluded. Brady retreated a few paces to acquaint the rest of the
band with what they had seen and to request them to answer whoop
with whoop, and shot with shot. Then borrowing four loaded rifles
from his companions, and creeping back to his position, he and Andy,
as being the best shots, drew bead on the two Indians, part of whose
persons were exposed among the trees on the flat below, while the

l8o SIMON GIRTY.

Hermit and Adam covered with their pieces the two who were noise-
lessly climbing to take position with their fellows irL,the cave.

At a given low whistle, the whole four pieces went off as one. The
effect was prodigious. The shots came on the poor devils like thunder
from a clear sky. The couple in the woods below beat a hasty retreat,
one of them evidently severely wounded. The two who were climb-
ing upward dropped from their perilous perches and leaped or rolled
to the bottom, one remaining where he fell and the other limping
away with "little stomach left for the fray."

But two or three only jumped down from the platform before the
cave, the rest slinking back out of sight.

Brady and his companions exchanged hasty glances and words of
exultation ; seized the reserve rifles, and for fear the ascending puffs
of smoke might have revealed their lurking places to the watchful red-
skins in the woods below, commenced — all but Andy, who was left on
watch — shifting thieir position to a point right above the cave.

A sudden cluck of alarm from Andy brought the three to the brow
of the hill again, just in time to witness a general break of the savages
from the cave. They had evidently, on the first moment's reflection,
deemed it untenable, and were now, some by bold leaps and others by
stealthy climbings, scattering down to the woods.

Several well-directed shots from the four lookouts above followed
then), but with what effect could not be seen. The cave was now
apparently all empty ; not an enemy left in sight, The gallant scouts
quietly but joyfully congratulated each other on this auspicious repulse,
while the two Poes joined the band in the hollow to acquaint them
with the results of the conflict.

CHAPTER XL VII.

A FIERCE CONFLICT BETWEEN TWO OLD FOES.

Brady, in order to see whether all the miscreants had really deserted
the cave, now extended himself — and so as to be protected from shots
below — out as far as possible along a hickory which projected in a
slanting direction from the brow of the hill, and gazed intently, as far
as possible, into the cave. He was startled to see a brawny, glistering
form crouching close against the back of the recess — for he now dis-
covered the cavern was quite shallow — the crest of eagle's feathers
bowed forward and the whole figure still and motionless as a statue.

Brady gave a long, keen, steadfast gaze, and then hurriedly drew
himself back. Gripping the " Hermit," who, the late excitemenfover,
stood leaning carelessly on his rifle, looking far-off into the woods
with a strange, dreamy, absent expression, he sternly whispered : —

" By the Lord, Sir, there's one of this hell-brood in there yet ; and
by the look of his grey scalp-plumes, I'd swear it was Black-Hoof. I
could tell his — "

"What's that! Black-Hoof!" hissed out this strange unknown,

A FIERCE CONFLICT BETWEEN TWO OLD FOES. iSl

with a sudden start ; a fierce, dangerous gleam leaping to his eye,
" the bloody, pitiless rufiSan — a very monster of cruel savagery — how
T loathe him ! Say again it was he !"

" I'm dead sure it was. I know well his dress and head-gear. He's
either some crafty design, or expects, by concealing himself, to slip off
free."

"/'// fix him, though it cost me my life!" muttered the Hermit
fiercely, while throwing down his rifle and clutching his scalp-knife
tight between his teeth.

He now, without a moment's pause, advanced to the edge of the
cliff, and catching firm hold of some paw-paw bushes, recklessly swung
himself over the face of the steep slope, and regardless of the bullets
which now commenced whizzing about, scarring the rock on either
side, he dropped, or rather slid down upon the broad rock in front of
the cave.

At these near sounds, Black-Hoof — for it was indeed that brave and .
redoubtable Shawnee chief — threw up his head, and, with 2SiUgh of sur-
prise, whipped out his scalping-knife and faced his opponent.

" And so, you're Black-Hoof, are you ! you vile, cursed cut-throat
and slayer of my wife and children !" gasped out the Hermit with
intense bitterness, a scowl of vengeful hate darkening his face and
glowing in his blood-shot eyes. " We've met at last ! Here's at you,
villain ! Our fight's to the death !"

The Hermit now made a quick, wicked stroke with his knife — which
was partially fended off by the wary chief — and then clinched in a
desperate grapple with his tough and sinewy foe.

The struggle was a fierce and terrible one ! What the scout lacked
in pure brute strength, he made up by the intensity of his hate and the
irresistible violence of his assault. His eyes fairly shot fire ; his veins
swelled like whip-cords ; his mouth actually foamed with rage, and he
possessed all the blind fury and power of insanity. He shook, and
tore, and worried his helpless though still formidable adversary, as a
mastiff would a cat, and finally hurled him violently on his back, fall-
ing heavily upon him.

Black-Hoof, at first over-mastered by the frantic energy of his exas-
perate foe, now began somewhat to recover his dazed wits ; and the
struggle was continued with renewed fierceness, amid terrific throes
and writhings. All he could do, however, the chief could not unseat
his wild and desperate antagonist, who was now — having dropped his
own — contending for his opponent's knife This he at last succeeded
in drawing through the chief's fingers, and, with a low chuckle of
exultation, flashed it aloft for the last fatal stroke.

By this time the two, thus far protected from all fire from above or
below, had worked over to the very edge of the rock : still, however,
were they so inextricably mixed together, that neither the scouts who
were clustered above, nor the Indians watching below, dared fire for
fear of hurting their own peculiar champion.

Black-Hoof felt the keen edge cutting through his bleeding hands;
saw it gleaming aloft for the death stroke ; saw, also — and shuddered as
he saw — the look of deadly hate that would drive it home, and, sud-
denl)^, as his only hope, and preferring revenge to life, gave a powerful

1 82 SIMON GIRTY.

heave towards the precipice, with the desperate intent of dragging his
antagonist to a like horrible fate with himself.

A fearful struggle now took place on the extremest verge — the very
ragged edge of the rock. All above, beneath, held their breaths in
awe, at this deadly conflict in the very air, as it were. Black-Hoof,
with his teeth and eyes aflame with vengeful hate, tugged and tugged
with all the energy of despair to drag his foe over with him. The
Hermit, with no less desperation, made superhuman exertions to free
himself from that fatal, convulsive grip.

In vain ! in vain ! Clinching his teeth and closing his eyes, the
o'erpowered Hermit ceased further struggle, and was just going over
the cliff, closely entwined in Black-Hoof's sinewy arms, when a lithe,
stalwart form dropped from above to his side : a powerful hand first
grasped and then wrenched him from that straining, encircling hug —
fixed and fatal as that of the famed Devil Fish.

It was Brady ! just in time to save his friend from a dreadful fall,
and, with foot lodged firmly against the broad, tawny breast, to push
the desperate Shawnee chief irretrievably over. A mute, despairing
face turned up for one instant ! a black look of baffled, but still undy-
ing hate, and down, down, down, the poor victim rolled, lying bruised
and battered at the bottom.

Brady, knowing the danger of delay, now seized his panting and
utterly exhausted companion, and, amid bullets which sounded with a
dull thud on the rocks above, below and on either side, fairly pushed
the Hermit before him to his old position on the summit above.

One rush of the savages below to regain the maimed and bleeding
body of their beloved chief, and another long, dead silence ! not even
a bird's note to break the brooding quiet of the encircling woods.

Stationing a lookout at each approach, our resolute little band of
scouts, greatly elated over the repulse of their crafty foes, withdraw to
their shelter about the spring.

Here they related incidents of the struggle ; speculated as to what
might be the next move ; lamented the untimely fate of Kennedy, and
at length found time to carefully dress the wounds of old Uncle Josh
and Adam Poe, and others more lightly touched. Thus far they had
been wonderfully preserved, while their pursuers had been as badly
punished.

Probably a half hour had elapsed when scattering reports, seeming to
come from all directions about the knoll, were heard, some of the
bullets whistling uncomfortably near their persons. Considering their
elevation, this occasioned surprise and some excitement.

Just then Brady carelessly plucked off" a piece of lead which had
whizzed past his ear, striking and adhering to the rock just behind
him. Attentively examining it, he saw at once, by the way it was
flattened, that it must have come from some point above them. Spring-
ing hastily to his feet, he exclaimed in low tones :

" Another sly trick of the rascals, lads ! Just look at this slug ! Now
that never came from below or from the same level — could^i't do it.
The cunning varmints must be roosting 'round in the trees."

" True's Scripter," said Andy, carefully examining the bullet. " To
your holes, boys ! quick ! every mother's son of ye ! Brady, as

A FIERCE CONFLICT BETWEEN TWO OLD FOES. 1 83

Adam's been wing-crippled, and the Hermit's purty well pumped out,
let's you and me take to trees, and see ef we can't bark some of them
red squirrels."

No sooner said than done. The scouts scattered to various covers
of rock or wood, while these two dead shots picked out the most
suitable trees, and snugged up close behind them, peering out on all
sides for signs of the artful enemy.

Nothing whatever to be seen but the bright, glossy foliage of the
interminable forest on all sides. Soon there came a sharp crack, and
a bullet whizzed past Brady's tree, striking the stock of the Hermit's
rifle, and awakening that singular being from his moody humor.
Two other cracks were now heard from the other side, one of them
evidently aimed at Brady, since the bullet buried itself in the tree just
above his head.

Still nothing to be seen.

*' Watch for the puffs of smoke, Andy, and be ready next time,"
hurriedly exclaimed Brady. "Those shots came from a distance.
Hold ! hold ! By Heavens ! I see my man — way up in the top of
that tall elm ! Hist !" and the ready scout quickly drew up his trusty
rifle and let drive. "There ! there ! just in the forks there ! Don't
ye sight him now, wriggling himself like a rattler after a cat-bird, and
trying to get down to a lower limb ?"

Just at this moment could be seen and heard in that direction a
great rustling of the branches. Only this, and nothing more.

" By Jupiter, Andy!" exultingly exclaimed Brady, after listening a
moment with the greatest intentness, " I've blazed him out o' that !
I've spotted him sure's I'm a living sinner ! Hurrah !-h-h-h !" and
the excited scout gave out a yell of triumph and defiance, shrill and
horrible enough to have done credit to any native of that wilder-
ness.

Whether killed or not, no further shots came from that quarter.
Both scouts afterward drew bead on two savages whom they saw, or
thought they saw in the tree tops on the other side. Although the
Indians had taken the precaution to climb trees pretty far off, from
whose tops they supposed they could unobservedly keep up a galling
fire on those on the summit, they soon concluded the game was too
perilous, and after a while, the shots ceased entirely,

Poe's band soon reappeared, and hearing nothing further from their
baffled foes, confidently concluded that the pursuit had at length been
abandoned. They pulled out what provisions they had, and were soon
engaged in a hearty meal.

AH at once the profound stillness was disturbed by a single very
loud, piercing and prolonged yell, ending in a peculiar trill or quaver,
and issuing from the woods near the creek on the upper side. The
scouts pricked up their attentive ears, dropped their pieces of jerk, and
gazed at each other inquiringly.

"Well, that fellow's got the magnificentest bellows," at last laughed
Andy. "He screeches as ef he downright liked it. He must have
been gathering and nursing up that catamountish howl all the way
from his moccasins. Wonder what's up?"

About five minutes after another solitary yell, in a higher key and

1 84 SIMON GIRTY.

with a more peculiar quaver, was heard from a different quarter of the
woods.

" By Jehosaphat ! that's the scalp hallo ! " continued Andy, begin-
ning to look grave, and gazing solemnly around from face to face.
"I never hear that confounded shrill, barking shriek that it don't
go through me like a knife. My har just lifts on my scalp like the
bristles of my Caesar hound when a treed bar makes an ugly wipe at
him. Wonder ef it's poor Kennedy's scalp they're bragging about?"

After arfiother brief interval, there came from directly south of the
hill, yet another yell, quite as loud but still differing from the others.
The circle of attentive faces now looked rueful and puzzled enough
Andy's voice sank almost to a fretful whisper as he said : —

" Dog my cats, fellers ! efthat don't flummix me. That's ' the pri-
soner's halloo.' Who's took, I wonder, and what the devil does it all
mean ? I tells ye, boys, I once heerd that kind of a snarly yelp down
below Fort Henry, and it says torture. I'll give ye the differ atween — "

" Girty's clean beat, my brave hunters 1" here suddenly and confi-
dently interrupted Brady, with a laughing chuckle of satisfaction.
"Yes, he's nosed up the wrong scent; has now turned tail, and we
might as well be packing up our traps and be jogging on."

"What d'ye mean, Cap.?" exclaimed several of his companions,
turning to him with wondering looks.

Brady, who had been sitting apart by himself, attentively consider-
ing each peculiar cry as it reached his ears, now rose up quickly and
joined the circle with the remark : —

"Why, precisely what I say. Girty's ambush has utterly failed. He
?«e^j-/keep moving or he's lost, and he knows it bravely. Girty can't
afford to lose more time, but would like to keep us back, so what does
the subtle old fox do but lay a new snare for us. Now, while Andy's
been palavering to you about Indian whoops, Pve been studying them
up, too, and I'll lay old 'Spitfire' — if I ever get it back — against the
meanest popper in this company, that the three yells we've just heard
came all from the same identical throttle— different keys, and pitches
and shakes, doubtless, but the same old whoop. Needn't be wagging
your head so owlishly, Andy ; to quote your own words, ' it's a solium
fact !' I'm so cock sure that there's only one reddy down there, that
I'm going to risk a near pop at him. Are ye tired of foxy pelts,
Poe, or will you join the hunt?"

" Oh, yes, Cap, I'll jine ye, sure and sartin, whether there be one
or whether there be twenty," dubiously answered Andy, now con-
vinced that Brady was right, but anxious to maintain his reputation
for sagacity with his band.

The two scouts, slinging their rifles carelessly over their shoulders,
at once proceeded to the creek bluff; clambered down to the dense
woods below, and with cat-like tread, stealthily crept off under the
trees.

THE DEATH OF OLD UNCLE JOSH. ' 185

CHAPTER XLVIII.

THE DEATH OF OLD UNCLE JOSH.

A half hour passing without one sound from the forest below, went
far to confirm Brady's assertion. The attention of the waiting scouts
had, meanwhile, been called to the sinking condition of pt)or Uncle
Josh.

This rough, but true and simple-hearted old hunter, had been
grievously wounded in the breast at the very outset of the fray, but,
with the generous assistance of his fellows, to whom he was greatly
endeared, he had just managed to reach the refuge ere he sank down
utterly exhausted.

Here he had been tenderly laid near the gushing, murmuring waters,
beneath the shade of a spreading birch, and his desperate wound
treated with a demulcent made from the chewed barks of Sassafras
and Slippery Elm. This was an old Indian application, but, while it
soothed and assuaged the pain, it could, in this instance, do no more.

The tough, gnarly, weather-beaten old borderman had plainly
received a mortal hurt. He was beyond all human aid. A raging
thirst devoured : a burning fever tormented him. His constant cry
Vas water ! water ! Then he wandered in his speech ; was now vio-
lent,.then tranquil : now stormy, then patient as a woman. His gaunt,
meagre body, seemingly all brawn and thews and sinews, was sapped
of its strength, and he grew gentle as a child.

There lay the hard, horny, steel-nerved old woodsman suffering un-
told anguish without murmur or complaint; but casting a strangely
wistful, pleading look around the circle of sympathizing neighbors, as
if for once in his life fairly staggered and confounded. The thought
of death in connection with this "Old Hickory," as he was sometimes
fitly called, had never before entered into the heads of those rude and
rugged frontiersmen, familiar as they were with scenes of blood and
violence.

If he had been killed outright like Bill Kennedy, it would, it is true,
have been a severe shock, but not an extraordinary one that would
impress deeply, but to see their staunch and tireless fellow-tracker,
whom no perils could daunt, no privations dismay, no assaults subdue,
lying prone and impotent, rapidly breathing his life away, it touched
them nearly and profoundly.

As they were thus, with softened, sorrowful looks, gathered about
this old Ironsides, each offering as he could some kind attention, a
sharp rifle crack suddenly broke the solemn stillness. This was quickly
followed by another, and this by a shrill, frightful yell, that sent the
blood leaping through the veins of every hearer.

The scouts were themselves again, and gathered on the hill brow or
descended to the woods to learn the news. Even the dying sufferer
raised his languid lids, his ashen eyes taking a fleeting lustre, and his
pallid cheeks a momentary flush at the thrilling sounds.

"That last shot warn't from Andy's barker," faintly muttered the

1 86 SIMON GIRTY.

old man, with a feeble shake of the head. "I'd know its spiteful snap
'mong a whul battle full."

*' No, Uncle Josh, 'twas a strange crack," softly answered Adam, who,
himself sorely wounded in the arm, was sitting near the old hunter;
" but the Jirs^ shot was from mine — the one I lent Brady. I'll afifidavy
to that. That war-whoop, too's, Shawnee ; I cipher it out by the shaky
tail on't. Ef the bellers that made it isn't sound as a bell, I hope I
may be shot."

"I wig*i the scrimmage was all over, Adam," sighed Uncle Josh,
closing his eyes again. "I'm powerful glad I've saved my top-knot —
but, oh, how I hanker arter the cabin, and my skin bunk and the old
'oman, a smoothing of my bed and a stroking of my har. Jerusha's
growly as a * painter ' sometimes, you know, Adam, and hot as cayenne ;
but only when I crosses her. She means well ! she means well, an' has
a soft and heartsome touch."

*' Oh, cheer up, old fellow, you're not so bad, arter all, an' we'll have
ye in yer own bed yet."

** I misdoubt it, Adam ; yes, I do. It 'pears to me as ef my innards
had all kinder gin out. Every breath cuts like a knife, and I'm drefful
drefiful weak — I couldn't wrassle a varmint of acat now. I ain't afeared o'
death, though, Adam, now that he's gripped me. I've faced him too
long. He'll throw me this bout, but — F II die game. I've tried to be
true and do my duty to ye all, and have been a good neighbor, haven't
I, Adam? "

" You have, indeed. Josh, No man in the settlement truer nor better
nor you. You're cut on a big pattern, and have more conscience than
any of us, and that's a fact."

" Thankee kindly, neighbor, for that lift !" a glad smile lighting up the
gaunt, rugged face, and seizing hold of his companion's hand. " Ef
I could unly see the old wife now, I'd toe the chalk more contented
like. I'm feared I've led her a rough and lunsome life. Ye know,
Adam, how one arter t'other of the childer was took — two peert, hand-
sum gals and three likely lads, chips of the old block ; a couple of the
boys killed and one of 'em toted off by the yaller hides.

" Waal, the old cabin got kind o' dark and cheerless, and Jerusha
jest lost heart like, an' grieved an' fretted an' worried, and both of us
growed kind o' galled and persimmenly and stiff-bristled agin each
other — and agin our Maker, too ; and the dust jest got piled up on the
big Bible, and — waal, ye know Jerusha was a riglar thoroughgoer, and
she worked like all wrath whiles J tramped the woods, month in and
month out, arter Injuns and varmints when I oughter staid to hum and
comforted and guyed up my ole 'oman. There's jest where old Josh
acted dogonned mean and skunky, for grief's a gnawin' and a wastin'
thing, and woman's narves are not so catgutty as man's, and her feelin's
are finer nor — nor — silk ; but what's this comin' over my grizzly old
pate ! Oh, neighbor ! won't ye stilt it up a mite? 'Pears as ef I wor
all a choking up, and a sort of daze is in my eyes. Why, Adam, man,
this can't be — "

At this moment a glad, ringing shout came from the woods below,
which was cheerily answered by such of the scouts as had remained
gathered along the brow of the knoll. Very soon Brady and Andy

THE DEATH OF OLD UNCLE JOSH. 1 87

Poe mounted the top, leading between them, with hands tied behind
him, an agile, defiant, sullen-looking young savage, with eyes as keen
and restless as a lizard's.

"What fiery young devil's that you've snared, Andy?" said Jake
Le.<Tfler. " He looks supple as a yearling buck and glowers out o' his
two coals of eyes like a riled catamount."

"Waal, his looks don't lie on him, I promise ye," laughed Andy.
"He's a reg'lar out-an-out snorter, and guv us a world o' trouble.
He's the reddy with the healthy yell that's been jaying around this neck
o' woods. Brady calkerlated right to a dot. We tracked him 'round
and 'round, and spotted him just as he was craning out his wizend for
a new holler. Ye oughter seen him jump when he sighted us. My
hound, Black Muzzle, warn't a carcumstance to him. Then he streaked
it through the heavy timber and doubled on us like a fox. But Brady
and me havn't lived in the woods for nothing, and we worked him
judgmatically.

"At last we headed him off and druv him into a pesky windfall !
He dodged around among the trunks and stumps like a dipper in a
hail storm ; but we kept a crowding and a crowding of him, and when
he found 'twas no use foolin' away his time that-a way, he flirted behind
the bushy end of a fallen black oak: out with his barker, and drew a
bead at the Captin' here. Lor bless you, t' warn't of enny account.
Brady treed to once, and got in first pop, jist to make things lively
as a Dutch cheese. But, to be honest, young Leather Lungs was
true grit, and jawed back, but missed ; and then gave a yell that —
waal, it was jest screechy and raspy enough to curl the bark off a gum
log.

"But it isn't the tonguy hound that brings down the buck, and no
noise ever yet broke any bones; and when Mr. Injun sighted 'Blue
Blazes' here," (patting his rifle) "a winking at him and jest looking
of him over, he throw'd up his paws and came down han'somely; and
— here he is. We tried to pump him about Girty, but he's dumb as an
oyster, and as ugly and sullen as a treed bar. One thing sartain ! No
more yaller-hides in these diggins — all gone, lock, stock and barrel;
dead, wounded and on the hoof, and that's Injun fashion all out.

" But, come boys ! we hear old LTncle Josh is going fast. Sad news,
sad news, as true a heart as there's on the border. What ! Old Josh
floored ! that's knotty and gritty as an oak gnarl ; that was never sick,
or tired, or even grumpy, and whose narves were like steel wires ; him
down and weak as a puling, bran-new baby ! I can't believe it 'less I
sight it myself."

It was even so ; and as the group of grim, hardy hunters shyly en-
circled the spot where the dying man was lying, his shaggy, grizzled
head supported in Adam's lap, and as they gazed on his pallid face
and his closed eyes, and saw him fetching hurried and painful breaths, a
feeling of awe crept over them, some even turning aside to brush away
the unbidden tear.

A wondrous change had now come over the old man. The vital
flame v/as plainly flickering low in its socket. His eyes lost all their
lustre, and his senses wandered. His rugged features became pinched
and his breathings were rapid and more difficult. All those peculiar

XHii SIMON GIRTY.

but infallible signs which denote the departure of an immortal soul from
its earthly tabernacle were painfully present.

Even the young savage, who had approached with the rest, and who
had been at first startled and then fascinated by the strange, solemn
spectacle, appeared deeply moved. His eyes quickly lost their savage
gleam ; his swarthy countenance softened and saddened. He mut-
tered something in the Shawnee tongue, and sat himself pensively
down behind a tree and leaned his head upon the bark.

And now the sufferer grew more quiet and at ease. He at length
opened his eyes, and as he looked slowly around the circle of sorrow-
ing neighbors, a faint sparkle revisited them, and a sad smile played
over his honest, furrowed features.

"It's all up with old Uncle Josh, neighbors," he muttered faintly.
"I said it and I know'd it from the first. I've lived mainly in the
woods, and now I'm to die in the woods. It's mebbe best Jerusha
shouldn't see me go. Poor soul ! what ud be the use? I leave her
to your care, friends. She's old ; and 'thout her old man and childer,
will be awful lunsome now. I leave her a snug cabin and rich patch
o' bottom and timber land, and some likely cattle ; but all her genoo-
ine comfort must come from the ole Bible and her neighbors. Tell
her of my love ; that I axe pardon for not being a better man to her,
but that I bless her with my last breath, and die game, as I hope I've
lived game, an' tried to do my whul duty as I know'd it. And when
all's over, neighbors, I know ye won't leave me out here 'mong all the
men and beast varmints, but will jest carry the battered hulk back
to the ole wife, and bury it alongside the cabin and under the big
butternut tree. Jerusha might take some little comfort in having me
so near.

" And now, good-bye all ! I call ye to witness that I die 'thout
a flinch and 'thout an innemy. I want every man to give me a part-
ing hand-shake, and to forgive me ef I've harmed him unbeknownst.
And you first, Abe, as I've know'd you longest, and we crossed the
mountains together."

He extended his feeble hand, and pressed that of each one as he
advanced, in turn, accompanying it with a few words of farewell.

When this was done, he muttered, "All's over now. I've along
journey to take, and would like to be left all alone. You, too,
Adam ; prop me up agin the tree and leave me to me. No one of ye
can make dying easier, and I've my own odd notions."

No use arguing. The last wishes of the dying old hunter were re-
spected. The two Poes carefully propped him up in a sitting position,
with his back against the birch and his face toward the setting sun.
They then retired to some distance under the trees and patiently
waited.

The dying man first looked slowly all around and then upward, as
if he were taking a formal, solemn farewell of woods and sky ; then
closed his eyes and clasped his feeble hands. His lips were now seen
to move for a few minutes, and then all grew still and quiet, nor did
any know, so gently and insidiously had Death made his final ap-
proaches, the precise moment when the spirit left the body. Only a
slight rigidity of the features ; a falling of the jaw towards the breast,

girty's plan to give a false trail

189

and a wondrous peace and calm resting on the swart and weather-
beaten visage, denoted that the great change had come.

It had for some time been perfectly clear to Girty that his plot
against the pursuing scouts had miscarried, and that it would not do
for him to loiter long. His own wounds may have hurried his
decision, for although the check received was not severe enough to
alarm or disable, it was yet enough to dispirit both himself and
followers.

Black Hoof, too, his fighting-chief, had been picked up after his
combat with the Hermit, in a very bruised and deplorable condition.
If they wished, therefore, a safe escape, they could risk no longer
delay. So carrying off his dead and wounded, and detailing the
young Shawnee to deceive and detain as much as possible with his
various yells, Girty suddenly turned tail. He stood not upon the
order of his going, but went at once, and he was wise to do so.

His followers soon selected, with great craft, the most unlikely and
sequestered spot in which to bury their dead, concealing with the
greatest art — in order to prevent mutilation of the bodies — every pos-
sible trace of disturbance. With the redman, if the scalp is saved,
everything is saved. This trophy is dressed and plumed and tricked
off, so that every foe who will, may pluck it ; but it is so honored
that the arts and efforts to guard and preserve it, are only equalled by
the arts and efforts to obtain it.

Every scalp fairly won by a "brave " or chief is worn about the
person, and marks his advancement to fame and distinction. These
are his stars and garters; his medals of honor and badges of distinc-
tion. Let us not, therefore, quarrel with this gory fancy of the poor,
untutored savage. It comes to him as an inheritance from the ages
past, and is deemed by all those whose honor and respect he covets,
as his only claims to merit and renown.

These obsequies hurried over, Girty urged his band forward with all
possible speed. So anxious, indeed, was he to make up lost time and
throw his pursuers off the trail — which, if done at all, must be done
that very night — that he soon goaded them into a regular jog-trot,
which was kept up without intermission until the advance under Cap-
tain Pipe was reached.

The Big Yellow Trail on which Girty
and is prisoners traveled, ran north and
south. The dotted lines show where
Girty's whole pirty diverged; waded
up the centre of South Branch; let
Larry's party go on ; crossed back to
the stream on robes ; waded down
stream to the point nearest the North
Branch ; crossed to that branch on robes,
&c. ; waded a mile up its centre, and
finally camped.

GIRTY'S PLAN TO GIVE A FALSE TRAIL.

By Girty's peremptory orders, this vanguard had rested within full
view of where the Big Yellow divided into two branches. Along the
Northern lay the regular beaten trail — the one taken by Gen. Bouquet's

igO SIMON GIRTY.

army many years before — passing thence over to and down the Sandy
to its mouth on the Tuscarawas, between the abandoned Ft. Laurens
and the plain on which stands now the town of Bolivar, O.

Along the Southern branch lay a more unfrequented Indian trace,
which came out on the Tuscarawas below the burnt Moravian town of
Gnadenhutten, and kept thence along that river to the Delaware town
of Goshochking (now Coshocton), whence proceeded a large and
much-traveled trail South-westward ly to the Chillicothe and Piqua
towns on the Scioto.

Now it had all along been Girty's design to retreat by the North
branch which trended to the Sandusky towns near Lake Erie, but to
make the Poe-Brady pursuit believe that he with his main force and
captives had gone by the South branch which led southward to the
Scioto towns. To this end, as also to deceive and divert the Ft.
Henry pursuit, which he knew would go directly North-west to inter-
cept his trail, he had given Larry to Fat Bear's party that they might
take this southern trace, and thus mislead both parties of pursuers.

Fat Bear, however, having been killed, and Larry having been so
dangerously wounded, Girty had about abandoned this scheme; but
found now on his arrival, that Larry was only seriously but not
fatally hurt, and that his guards had made for him, after the Indian
fashion, a rude litter swung between two saplings, the butt ends of
which being tied together, rested on the back of Shepherd's horse,
while the other flexible and leafy ends, fastened two or three feet
apart, were allowed to drag along the ground. So Girty at once put
Larry in charge of " The Moose," another reliable chief of the Miami
tribe, with instructions to push along the south branch with his force of
five, to Goshochking and thence to the Chillicothe towns. The crafty
renegade also detailed, with great minuteness, a plan, by which, at a
certain spot named, where the trail from Ft. Henry would cross this
Chillicothe trail, he should so artfully multiply the tracks of Larr\''s
horse, as well as the moccasin prints of his "braves," that the Ft.
Henry party would inevitably conclude that all of Girty's band with
the captives had gone that way, and would at once give pursuit in a
Southern direction ; while in reality Girty, with his rich booty, would
be off on the Northern or Sandusky trail.

Adroitly conceived, this; but the shrewd and cunning old fox never
dreamed, what our readers will probably remember, that when Brady
was over at the Poes, he had forecast just some such dodge as this.
He had therefore taken the precaution to supplement Lydia Boggs'
story by sending a messenger in hot haste to the Fort Henry party,
acquainting them with his suspicions, putting them on their guard,
and proposing, should neither party of scouts sooner bring Girty's
scalpers to bay, a joint pursuit from the burnt Moravian town of
Gnadenhutten.

And now, knowing that if Brady and the Poes were not by this time
pretty sick of jostling themselves against his force, they could not, at
all events, come up to the Forks of the Yellow much before dusk,
.when it would be too late to scrutinize very closely, here's what
'Girty did to throw them off the trail.

Instead of following the beaten track which led across the south

GIRTY S PLAN TO GIVE A FALSE TRAIL. I91

branch to the north branch, he, with the whole force, diverging to
the left, kept some little distance up the left bank of the south
branch. He then caused them all to enter the stream, choosing a
hard, stony place, as if he desired to conceal all traces, and yet manag-
ing to leave just enough so that skillful trackers like Brady and the
Poes could gather that a number of men and beabts had there
entered.

WaJing up the very centre of the stream a full half-mile to a
point a short distance beyond where he knew the north branch made
a big bend towards them, — it approaching at a distance of not over
a hundred yards or so, — he now selected another rocky margin on
the left bank and of course on the same side that he entered it, where
he made the whole force, foot and horse, take, first to dry land, and
then go along a trail which lay just on the edge of the woods till they
found a hard and stony place, not likely to take foot-prints readily.

As on entering the stream, so on emerging, and up to this point,
Girty had so manoeuvred as to convey the impression that he aimed
to conceal his tracks, while, really, he fully intended and expected
that such expert trailers as were hunting him up, would decipher all.
But just here this part of the game ended. Thenceforth the study
was to deceive.

To this end Girty now ordered The Moose's stpall party forward, the
dragging ends of Larry's sapling litter — since they left so plain a
trace as would look to expert trackers too much designed — to be
raised up and carried for awhile. The Miami chief had full instruc-
tions as to the important role he was to play, and now parted com-
pany, all the captives managing to say a few comforting words to
poor Larry, who, grievously wounded, lay stretched upon his novel
but not uncomfortable couch, looking wretched and disconsolate
enough.

This little detachment had scarce disappeared westward under the
leafy arches of those grand old woods, when a number of skins and
blankets were carefully spread on the rocky ground between the
horses — on which were mounted Mrs. Malott, Drusilla Swearingen,
Betty Zane, Mrs. Dorman and the two children — and the margin of
the stream. Over these the horses and ponies, as well as the male
captives and all of Girty's Indians on foot, were made to pass, of
course leaving no tracks.

When all had thus safely entered the water again — Captain Pipe
leading the way back — and down (not up) the stream's centre — the
skins and blankets were carefully lifted, one after another, by Simon
Girty, who, with head bound up and one arm in a sling from his late
wounds, had yet personally superintended the whole enterprise, and
now stood watchful and solitary on the creek edge, carefully looking
over the whole ground, lest, perchance, any trace or impression, or
lest any suggestive sign or token purposely dropped by the captives,
might betray more than was intended.

Raising the last blanket, he was just about to step backward into
the water, when his eyes seemed suddenly to catch sight of some ob-
ject on the far side of a clump of hazel-bushes lying close to the
stream. Making a hasty but careful step or two aside, he quietly

[92

SIMON GIRTY.

Stooped and picked up something from under the bnsh, which, having
hastily examined, he thrust into the breast of his hunting-frock; and,
all having been now approved, the white chief followed his band to
that point on the opposite or right bank which was nearest to the
horse-shoe bend of the north branch.

Here, as before, skins and blankets were spread closely on the
ground, and horses, ponies and all on foot obliged to pass slowly
over. When about eight or ten yards had been thus traversed, the
spreads in the rear were successively moved to the front, and thus the
passage of more than a hundred yards to the north branch of the Yel-
low was reached, without foot of beast or man ever having touched
the bare ground.

The greatest possible care was used in entering this north branch to
leave not the slightest trace. The singular procession now waded up
the centre of that stream for fully a mile. Girty had again resumed
the lead, and, judging from the more cheerful expression on his sinis-
ter countenance, and from the frequent pleasant words vouchsafed
to Mrs. Malott and her children, he seemed to be relieved of a great
anxiety, and to consider the rest of the journey as secure and freed
from all difficulty.

The sun had now long since descended, and evening, with all
its transforming witcheries ; all its quiet, tranquilizing influences,
was slowly gathering over wood and water. Nothing could exceed
the fresh and varied beauties of the vast, luxuriant forests on either
side. Americans take pardonable pride in the autumnal glories and
dying splendors of their forests — the rich, mottled, mellowed tints of
the maples and gums and hickories, when the whole forest seems aglow
and aflame with the rarest and most gorgeous of orange and crimson
and scarlet dyes ; and yet the forest pomp and pageantry of the re-
generating May is quite as striking and magnificent. Every variety of
tree and bush has its own peculiar fashion and color, of bud, of leaf,
of flower. Every hour of the fervid, vivifying sun upon the opening
foliage marks the most marvelous changes — the most wondrous trans-
figurations. What can excel, for instance, in delicate grace and
beauty, the expanding leafage of the white birch ; what, in tender
richness, the maple, chestnut and tulip trees; what, in floral prodi-
gality, the redbud, the dogwood, the serviceberry, the laurels, or the
magnificent, peerless magnolias.

It was, therefore, a panorama of singular beauty that, on that
pleasant May evening, gladdened the eyes of the jaded and travel-
stained party. What a day of excitement it had been to all ! and
how welcome — even to the tireless, stoical redmen — was Girty's halt
opposite a cluster of gigantic, white-trunked sycamores.

There was to be their rest for the night. No further need now for
concealment ; and all plashed pell-mell to the shore and scrambled
hurriedly up the bank. Simon Girty planted himself at the edge of
the water, waiting until each had passed. Drusilla came last. Desir-
ing to shun an interview with the white chief, she had lingered under
various pretences ; but there Girty patiently stood, a stern and for-
bidding expression upon his face. He could not be avoided; so,
whipping up her horse,and with a flush mounting to her very temples.

GIRTY AND BRADY HAVE A TRIAL OF WITS. 1 93

she essayed to pass. Taking out a glove from the breast of his hunt-
ing-frock, he laid one heavy hand on the saddle of her horse, and
quietly extended to her the glove with the other.

"I allow, Miss Swearingen," he said, in low, severe tones, and giving
her a significant look out of his wicked eyes, which Drusilla was very
long in forgetting, *' that I've seen 7^« wear a glove like this. You
know where I found it, and also what's writ on the paper inside. I'm
told you and Sam Brady are great friends. But him and me are
deadly foes. Ifjw^ want him on our trail, I don't; and so, I warn
you. I'd like to treat you captives decent ; but, d — n it, ma'am, you
won't let me. I ordered you wimmen's hands to be untied this morn-
ing, and now here's what comes of it. If my Injuns had found this,
'twould have gone plaguy tough with you, I can tell ye. Now, no
more of this fooling, or I'll hand you over to Pipe and Blackhoof."

Poor Drusilla was so much confused and dismayed at having her bold
ruse thus quietly exposed by Girty, that she blushed scarlet, and could
only bow her head and faintly mutter, as she took back her glove,
"Thank you Girty. I'll remember. You're better than I thought."

Girty removed his hand from the saddle ; gave her a meaning look,
and held up a warning finger as she rode past him up the bank.

CHAPTER XLIX.

' GIRTY AND BRADY HAVE A TRIAL OF WITS.

With that gipsy readiness at improvising a camp so universal among
these native woodsmen, the fire, with its horizontal sapling and notched
uprights, was quickly in a bright blaze, and venison steaks from deer
killed on the way, were fizzing and sweating out their savory Juices at
the ends of hickory rods stuck in a circle about it. While some brought
water for Mrs. Dorman to prepare different viands, others hoppled the
horses and the ponies, or arranged for the night the captives and
children and such as were wounded.

This done, the weary, improvident savages lit their pipes of kinne-
kenick ; stretched themselves on the grass or dry leaves under the trees,
and lazily discussed the stirring events of the day. They were all at
home; nor were the voices of women and children or occasional bursts
of merriment absent to complete the illusion.

Girty was not far astray in supposing it would be late before his pur-
suers would reach the South Branch crossing. His ambush, although
unexpectedly disastrous to his own force, had proved, likewise, a
severe check to them ; they had taken the lesson to heart, and now,
with greatly diminished strength, resumed the trail with exemplary
caution.

First appeared Brady, with grave, earnest face, and eyes warily cast
ahe-ad and on either side : then the Hermit, with his stern, silent, ab-
stracted air ; his intense ardor slumbering but never dying ; his eyes
aglow with the one absorbing passion of his life ; then Andy, with
slouchy, careless gait, but with the padded footfall of a panther ; and,
13

194 SIMON GIRTY.

finally, the others, dogged and indifferent, content to let the leaders
watch and plan, but prompt to do their whole duty as brave men.

And now Brady beholds the South Branch of the Yellow. In per-
petual danger of ambush, but at this spot especially, he waves one off to
either flank to scour the woods. Nothing suspicious to be seen ! He
now reaches the ford, and closely studies the ground. How's this !
Neither horse nor man lately passed. With form bent to earth, and
every sense on the alert, he slowly retraces the trail, pausing at in-
tervals to study each seeming digression of the tracks from the beaten
path.

Now a longer pause where the sod seems indented and the bushes
and creepers somewhat disturbed. The gathering obscurity sends him
to his knees ; then he stretches himself prone on the grass and listens
intently. He quickly beckons Andy to his side, and a joint and close
scrutiny ensues. A few earnest words of conference, and with figures
again erect, they enter upon, and unerringly follow up, Girty's fresh
trail, where it diverged from that of the Big Yellow.

All this is unexpected. What can Girty mean ? and where can he
be? It both surprises and awakens suspicion. Each scout is on the
quivive. The trail appears to lead right into the south branch. Can
there be any mistake ! Down to the ground again to study out the
indications. No ! It's all indelibly written there.

Here are the faint impressions of horse-shoes of various sizes. The
small unshodden hoof of one of the ponies has there cut into the sod.
On this side a horse has made a bite at a succulent paw-paw bush,
breaking twigs and stripping the leaves. On that, another horse has
dropped a blotch of saliva on the grass, or left scars on the stones with
his irons. And now, on more minute inspection, can be traced out
moccasin prints: some on the grass, but more on the beach, and there,
close by the edge of the water, have actually fallen some ashes from a pipe.

All these, and many more mute but infallible signs, are carefully
gathered and compared. At last the inevitable conclusion is reached ;
fixed as logic; inexorable as a demonstration in Euclid, and Brady
speaks :

"^Have done, lads ! No use of further search. It's all writ there as
plain and simple as a page of the Bible. Girty's party's all taken to
water like so many otters, though what the old fox means, unless he's
playing one of his sly, devilish tricks, is above my bend. It knocks all
ray calculations. What dy'e say, Andy?"

♦'Stumped sure! and bothered as a fly in a tar-box. It's jest a
huckleberry above my persimmons. Was getting, too, as hot on that
trail as all wrath, and now it's getting too darkish to foller to-night.
Might as well put a young hound on a cold scent, or hunt up the track
of a water snake."

"And so it's settled," concluded Brady, " One thing's sure, though.
\i ive have to lie by a night, the same has Girty. So we'll not lose
much, and we'll be off by the first streak o' day. Only a cold snack
to-night, though, as 'twill never do to make a smoke. Who knows
whether Girty's a rod or a mile off? But" — as he noticed Leffler
mounting a little hill somewhat off the creek — " where in the world
are ye going, Jake? "

GIRTY AND BRADY HAVE ATRIAL OF WITS. 195

"This wise old coon's going to tree, being as Poe's too hurted in
the Big Foot scrimmage to climb," laughed Leffler, as he swung his
moccasined feet, through the aid of a hickory sapling, over the lowest
limb of a towering buttonwood. " Ef there's any Injun signs about,
trust me for spying them out. I used to have a hawk's sight, and
guess I havn't lost the trick yet."

So saying, the scout climbed nimbly as a squirrel to the very top,
and gave a long and all-embracing outlook towards the west. Nothing
escaped his keen, experienced eye. Everywhere, over hill, plain and
valley, stretched the vast, illimitable wilderness — a boundless sea, as it
were, of bright, green foliage, only broken in two directions by the
north and south branches of the Big Yellow.

" Well, Yakob," shouted Brady, beginning to grow impatient, "d'ye
see anything? "

" Yes ! oh yes ! no end o' green leaves, but that's no strange sight
in these parts ; but, Lor-dy, man, what a tarnal sight of big and little
game, and pesky varmints and skulking Injuns are often hid under such
a huge screen ! I bet you, now, them woods is jest crowded with life,
but no sign o' iiumans that /can see. Wish it was lighter, but no stain
o' smoke on the whul sky — looks clean as a pan of new milk," and
Leffler rapidly descended.

The scouts now hunted about for a snug, secure covert for the night,
and found it in a dark little tangled dingle, almost completely over-
arched with lush and luxuriant foliage, and opening out on the south
branch. In this sequestered gloom the tired trackers threw themselves
down and pulled out their jerk.

The night soon grew very dark and chilly, and to show either flame
or smoke would have been perilous. Poe, who seemed ever light-
hearted and fertile in expedients, hunted around for a hollow in the
earth. This he widened and deepened into a pit, gathering and placing
on it bark and leaves, and, covering all with loose earth, with an occa-
sional air-hole, he applied a spark, and thus made a sort of warm oven.

On the edge of this pit, with their moccasins dangling over this caked
fire, Poe and the rest seated themselves, and grew quite warm and com-
fortable. The pipe and jest and story went round for a time, but one
by one the hunters dropped backward, and were locked in that dream-
less slumber known only to the healthy and fatigued.

In the wild woods there arises just before the break of day, a prelim-
inary twittering of birds, which, like cock-crowing, becomes general.
A species of owl, too, known to old hunters as the " four o'clock owl,"
chooses the same time for his doleful hoots. At these sounds our scouts
awoke, replenished their novel oven, munched with the eager appetite
of hunters their frugal breakfast, and, by the very first blush of dawn,
were ready for work.

The first thing, obviously, was to find Girty's broken trail. To this
end Brady, with the Hermit, kept up the left ; Poe, with the others,
up the right side of the South Branch. Every foot of ground, but
more especially the margin of the water, was carefully scrutinized.

All at once Brady's keen, watchful eye is arrested by peculiar signs —
slight, trifling marks and traces no bolder than such as have been men-
tioned, and that would have been noticed by no other than an Indian,

196 SIMON GIRTY.

or these with whom trailing was a life business. The impressions be-
came more frequent, and Poe is signalled to cross over. A thorough
examination is now made, and Girty's landing on the left stands con-
fessed. The testimony is strong as that of the rock-ribbed hills to the
geologist. The tracks of the horses are now followed to the stony
ground. Here a link seems wanting. Brady thinks all the horses have
not gone on from this point. Poe stoutly differs ; if not, where are
they? As to those on foot, nothing is certain. Brady is loth to aban-
don his fixed belief that Girty will carry his captives north to the San-
dusky towns, and yet now the trickster appears to be off to the west,
or rather southwest.

Brady goes along the trail into the woods. Of Shepherd's horse
only he is now sure ; also of a force with it. But if the beasts have
not gone on, where are they? This is the problem, and Brady wan-
ders around and around, in a brown study, with hopes of seeing or
finding something to solve the mystery. Drusilla's glove and note
would just now have come in well and gracefully. But that is past.

"Found anything, Cap?" said Andy, who had been following the
fresh trail for some distance and had now rejoined Brady, who was
sitting on the bank of the creek.

"Nothing but this moccasin thong; but // don't tell anything.
Havejv^«/"

*' Not a mite. 'Bout a quarter mile on, looks as ef something like
brush was sweeping along in the track of the lame horse."

"Like brush?" quickly replied Brady. "Why that's odd, too.
Any other horses ?"

" Waal, not so plain as I'd like, but dodrot the thing, they must
have gone on, too. Mebbe their feet were muffled. I've played that
trick myself afore now. They couldn't fly or swim away, and there's
more chance of their being gone that-away than any other. Ain't
we wastin' time?"

"Might have waded, though; if I could only come at the clue,"
replied Brady, abstractedly. " Have you ever scouted up the Yellow's
branches, Andy ?"

"Waal, yes — leastwise on this one, and hunted, too. The low hills
hereabouts, are jest splendiferous in the fall for bar and deer — the
bottoms are full of mast and gum trees. Don't know much 'bout the
north branch."

" Where's the Hermit ?" asked Brady, abruptly.

" Thar he sits on that rock, jest at the edge of timber. He's in one
of his quiet, broodin' tantrums — disappinted like. His moccasins gin
out, and he's thonging them up."

Brady stepped briskly over to him.

" Mr. Markham," (so the Hermit had requested to be called,
although plainly not his real name), "have you ever scouted up the
north branch ?"

" Know every foot of it," replied the Hermit, dryly and senten-
tiously.

" How does it head from the forks — at right angles?"

"By no means; at an acute angley.and then takes a great bend
southward till it comes pretty near //^/.y branch."

GIRTY AND BRADY HAVE A TRIAL OF WITS. I97

** A bend, eh? What ! near here?" a sudden idea showing itself in
the scout's eye and eager manner.

"Let me see," said the Hermit, advancing towards the water and
looking earnestly at the contour of the hills on the other side, up and
down the creek. '' Why, yes, if I'm not mistaken, that break in
the ridge there a quarter of a mile below marks the place. I've
always believed that the north branch once came into this one
across that flat. Why do you ask?" commencing with his moccasins
again.

" I'm downright bothered," replied Brady, not to his interrogator,
but as if to himself, and then resuming vehemently, "Andy, why the
deuce did Girty break off from the regular track when he might have
gone on to the ford, and thence waded up the south branch ? Water
leaves no trail."

" Dogged ef / know. Cap. What's to pay now? Mebbe he took
us for greenys, or mebbe he's not so sharp as he thinks himself."

"Well, by Jupiter, / know, then," said Brady, impetuously, bring-
ing down his hand violently on his buckskinned thigh. " Because he
wanted to deceive us and throw us off his trail. We're following a
blind — a wretched, miserable blind. It's been bothering me all along.
Any boy on the border who's shot his first coon or turkey could have
tracked him thus far, and he meant it so. Don't ye see, Andy?"

"Waal, 'hap I do and 'hap I don't; what then?"

" Why, I'll stake my life Girty's crossed down there to the North
Branch horse-shoe, and's now camped on that stream, unless he's nosed
along all night. Don't know yet how he got his beasts and men over
without traces, but am ready to swear, the one horse's tracks I saw in
the woods just there on this side, ain't four horses. And the brushy,
dragging trail you found going with it ! I've seen that kind before.
It's an Indian litter ; maybe for Killbuck or Black-Hoof, if so be the
Hermit, there, didn't kill him outright, as I hope he did."

"Why, Cap, you 'spirit me, dog my buttons ef you don't," said
Poe, brisking up wonderfully. " 'Pears as ef you were right as a trivet
arter all. Was 'ginning to feel rale crabbed and rantankerous 'bout
this tramp. Talked bigger nor I felt ; like Adam's coon pup, that we
call * Yowler,' kase he yawps and howls and bays the louder the more
he don't see the varmint. I swan to Moses I havn't swore so much
since the hot days last fly time when I plowed our stumpy ' bottom '
with a yoke of skittish, unbroke steers. Je-ru-sa-lem that was a day ;
but what's the next move, Cap?"

" My plan's simple. If I'm right and Girty's on the other creek,
he's striking a bee-line for the Sandusky — have always thought he
would. Well, 'twould be folly, and worse, for our small force to be
constantly battling with his large one. 'Twouldn't help those we wish
to help, and would wipe ourselves out. Here's what we must do :
Keep straight on the trail we're on, and make for Gnadenhutten.
We'll be there to-night if we push along right smart, and a big force,
I hope and believe, will also be there to-night from Fort Henry. You
know we agreed to meet there. We'll then join forces, and, now that
we know exactly which way he's heading, can overtake Girty in half a
day. Then let him look out."

1 98 SIMON GIRTY.

"Hurrah, Captain, just the very thing," cried one and all who
heard him.

" We're with you, Brady, and will all be in at the death," joyfully
added Poe. " That's a heap more sensibler than butting our heads
against Girty's big band of skelping cut-throats — five agin thirty odd ;
but how'U ye know yer right about the old tory ?"

" Listen !" said Brady, " I'll now try Leffler's plan, Andy ; first,
because there's much more light than yesterday ; and second, because I
don't believe Girty's very far off. Let's see, it's just now about sun
up — the very time when in a big camp — especially where there's female
captives, horses, &c., to get ready — they would be either cooking or
eating.

"Now you all stay here, while I'll cross to the top of yon ridge
between the two branches and climb a tree. If I see the smoke of a
camp I'll head straight for it and reconnoitre, and bring you the news.
If as expected, we will then make all haste for the Moravian town. If
I see nothing, I'll straightway return here, and we'll then go down to
the neck and try if we can track men and horses over to the bend of
the North Branch. The old Dodger must have flown across, or, my
life on't, we'll find track of him "

This plan was received with great favor, and without a moment's
delay Brady was in and over the creek, and making his way with rapid
strides to the top of the hill. He felt perfectly confident, and the
ardent desire he experienced to see the captives again but more espe-
cially Drusilla Swearingen, lent wings to his feet.

CHAPTER L.

OFF TO GNADENHUTTEN ("TENTS OF GRACE.")

Brady, with his free, vigorous stride, was soon breasting the ridge
which divided the two arms of the Yellow. On its highest peak he
singled out a towering elm : swung himself into its branches, and was
speedily esconced in its spreading top.

He knew bravely in which direction to look. A vast expanse of
woods lay stretched on every side beneath him. The course of the
North Branch could now be clearly traced by the rift in the bright-
green leafage.

With what anxiety did his eager eye follow the stream up and on !
and with what an exquisite thrill of delight did it fasten on a column
of blue smoke rising gracefully from the woody bottom on the thither
side of the stream, and, too, not more than a mile distant.

His heart beat hard and fast against his hunting frock ; he rubbed
his eyes ; he stood erect, and gave another long, steady gaze for fear
he might have been mistaken — lest his strong and exultant hopes —
" the wish being father to the thought" — might have conjured up
some pleasing illusion ; some beguiling mirage.

No ! The waving pillar of smoke as it lazily lifted above, and hung

OFF TO GNADENHUTTEN ("TENTS OF GRACE.") I99

caressingly over the still woods, stood revealed against the pure, stain-
less sky, plainer than ever. His fancy could almost follow it down
and see the fire which fed it ; the encircling knots of savages ; the
group of unhappy captives, and, above all, her whom he loved so
fondly and devotedly.

Our scout carefully noted " in his mind's eye," the position of the
smoke and the course of the stream ; hurriedly clambered, or rather
tumbled, to the ground, and sped swiftly down the hill and away
obliquely across the level, and soon stood upon the bank of the North
Branch.

The smoke is just around the bend in front, and now its bright
flame bursts upon his view. He keeps back amongst the woods' deep
shadows ; glides along rapidly yet cautiously from shrub to tree ;
from copse to thicket ; and now, he stands — eager and breathless, and
leaning heavily upon his trusty rifle — behind the mossy trunk of a
huge sugar maple, and gazes across the narrow, dividing stream.

How quickly his roving eye takes in all the salient points of the
picturesque scene ! but first of all, with what marvelous rapidity it
wanders over the group of captives and singles out the object of his
dearest affection as she sits gracefully mounted on her horse, toying
with his mane and awaiting the order to move.

A long, wistful, yearning look. He now sees the other captives
standing or mounting about her. There is Mrs. Malott, busy with
Mrs. Dorman in arranging two children on a pony. This is the first
he has seen of these children, although he had frequently marked the
little round hoof-prints of the ponies in the trail the day before, and
could not account for them. Stay ! Can these be the smart little
decoys who had lured his boat to destruction ! more than that, is it
possible that they belong to Mrs. Malott ! And there stand Major
Rose and Shepherd, calm and dignified; with arms still bound behind
them, and Killbuck, patient and unconcerned as ever.

Now he gazes at the group of busy savages, laughing, chatting, pack-
ing up the impedi7?ienta of the camp, and preparing to take the trail.
And now a rude litter is moved to the front. Must be for Larry ! poor
Larry ! No, it's a chief who's helped in ! Blackhoof, by all that's
good ! — not killed then ! Larry must be the wounded occupant of
the drag accompanying Shepherd's lame horse.

And there stands Girty — the artful, truculent, hard-visaged Girty —
now talking with Pipe ; now telling ofl" his band as they file singly
into the trail : and now he curses in a coarse, brawling manner at a
lazy savage who wishes to shirk his turn at Blackhoof's litter ; and
now — do his eyes deceive him ? — he laughs and chucks the two chil-
dren under their chins and actually leads their pony into the trail,
and moves gleefully off" by their side.

Brady's grip tightens on his rifle. How easy it would be to bring
the cursed tory down ! The long, black tube, as if from an incon-
trollable impulse, rapidly rises to his shoulder — but no ! he must for-
bear, it would endanger his friends — and her.

The whole procession is now fairly in motion. Brady follows it for
some distance ; sees all, counts all, understands all ; and as the last
savage slowly disappears around a bend, he gives forth a scoffing

SIMON GIRTY.

chuckle of derision at Girty's blind confidence, and then scurries back
with his budget of important tidings,

He found his trusty little band awaiting him with anxious impa-
tience. He told his story in full, and filled each heart with renewed
hope and energy. They must all be at Gnadenhutten that very
evening. On the morrow Girty must be attacked, crushed, and the
captives free. Brady now put himself at the head, and, with a quick,
nervous stride, took up the South Branch trail.

It was a long, weary tramp, tramp, tramp that day, through an unbro-
ken wilderness. No succession, as now, of green slope, pleasant meadow
and fruitful grain-field, with here and there a mill, or inn; a cross-road
church or school-house or peaceful village.

Oh, no ! nothing of all this, but at least thirty-five miles of tangled
wildwood; with tree and shrub; with vine and bush — everything that
had life pushing out into full leaf.

Through all this lush and exuberant vegetation ran the slight Indian
trail ; past rocky hill and grassy dale ; open grove and matted glade ;
rich, swaly bottom and breezy upland ; over creek, run and rivulet;
now veering aside to escape a hill-spur or a " windfall " of prostrate
trunks ; now bending to take advantage of a valley; but still and ever,
with that unerring general directness which marks all Indian traces
through the forest, leading straight on to the point desired.

They greatly err who suppose that Indians coursed their native woods
at random. They were great and very rapid travelers, often going
hundreds of miles on their hunting expeditions or in pursuit of their
foes. Although they were always at home in the wilderness, thread-
ing— by noting the moss or the thick branches on one side of trees —
those vast solitudes with unerring sagacity and precision ; yet they
had their regular beaten trails, great and little, as well known to
them as our State and County roads are to us ; and frequently far
more direct. Traders and even military leaders often adopted them as
being not only the best but often the shortest routes between given points.

Reader, can you not picture this file of gaunt, silent bordermen, as,
without pause or needless loitering, they steadily forge their way under
the leafy canopy ? their grim, weather-beaten faces bent warily forward;
their restless eyes ever on the alert for lurking redskins.

Now they take brief rest on some old mossy log, or linger to refresh
them with the cool waters of some gushing spring. Now they stoop
to examine a cross-trail for signs of enemies, for every man they meet
is a deadly foe ; every matted thicket traversed by the narrow trail
may prove a fatal ambush.

Now, their moccasined feet suddenly stand still in their tracks, and
they hastily bring their rifles to a "present"; but it is only an
alarmed eagle which has cast itself, with a great whir and rustle of
plumage, from the lofty boughs above them, and goes hoarsely
scraughing out his anger through the heavens ; or mayhap, it is a troop
of dappled deer which their padded footsteps have at last startled
from the shady covert.

These reckless trailers know well they are hated intruders on Indian
soil, and go with their lives in their hands, ready at any moment to
do battle against concealed and treacherous foes.

OFF TO GNADENHUTTEN ("TENTS OF GRACE.") 201

About sunset our scouts struck the Tuscarawas river, as also the
North and South trail, which led along its margin. This they ex-
amined long and very closely for traces of the Fort Henry party.
Nothing could be concluded definitely. Some thought it had, and
some that it had not passed. If the former, it was certainly on foot,
since there was not the slightest trace of hoofs.

The three Moravian villages of Christianized Indians — Shoenbrun
(Beautiful Spring), Gnadenhutten (Cabins of Grace), and Salem, lay
on the Tuscarawas, the first and last on the western and Gnadenhut-
ten on the eastern side of the river. Shoenbrun was about two miles,
Gnadenhutten nine miles, and Salem about fourteen miles below the
present flourishing town of New Philadelphia, Ohio.

Lichtenau, founded in '76 by the Moravian Missionaries, Zeis-
berger and Heckewelder, had been situated on the same river, about
twenty-six miles below Gnadenhutten and two miles from Goshoch-
king (now Coshocton), which was the town of the Turtle Tribe of
Delawares. Lichtenau had been located by the Delaware chiefs them-
selves, in order that they and their people might have an opportunity
of hearing the gospel, as well as to have the converted Indians more
closely under their protection. It had, however, been abandoned only
two years before this, because situate directly on the great war-path
to the Ohio and the Virginia border, and therefore constantly ha-
rassed by parties of wariiors passing through on their way to the
white settlements, to commit all manner of depredations. Salem was
built in its stead, about twenty miles above, and it was just opposite
to it that our scouts struck the river.

The trace to Gnadenhutten, some five miles above, lay along the east
bank of the stream, and our scouts, after a long pause by its bright,
peaceful waters, took up their weary tramp.

The shades of evening had fallen upon the landscape before the deso-
late ruins of the deserted Gnadenhutten were reached. The approach
was made cautiously, for fear a smoke, which had for some time been visi-
ble back towards the hills, should prove from a hostile camp. Andy Poe
was sent ahead to reconnoitre. He crept noiselessly forward, and
found the fire —or rather fires, for there now appeared to be two of
them — located in a little glade between two heavily-timbered slopes,
and several figures, which he took to be scouts, moving about, strongly
revealed by the fire-light. Stealthily moving onward from tree to
tree, his eyes riveted on the flames, his attention was suddenly di-
verted by a slight clicking noise from behind a big chestnut a little to his
right. Stepping deftly aside, Andy noted the stalwart form of a
scout sitting at the tree's foot, his face bent over his gun— the lock of
which he appeared to be picking and tinkering at — singing the while
in a low tone, to the tune of " Marching down to old Quebec," the
following verse of a jingling border ballad of that day, founded on
the bloody battle of Point Pleasamt :

"Brave Lewis, our Colonel, and officers bold,
At the mouth of Kanawha did the Shawnees behold,
■ On the loth of October, at rising of sun,
The armies did meet and the battle begun."

SIMON GIRTY.

chuckle of derision at Girty's blind confidence, and then scurries back
with his budget of important tidings,

Oh, no ! nothing of all this, but at least thirty-five miles of tangled
wildwood; with tree and shrub; with vine and bush — everything that
had life pushing out into full leaf.

These reckless trailers know well they are hated intruders on Indian
soil, and go with their lives in their hands, ready at any moment to
do battle against concealed and treacherous foes.

OFF TO GNADENHUTTEN ("TENTS OF GRACE.") 201

Lichtenau, founded in '76 by the Moravian Missionaries, Zeis-
berger and Heckewelder, had been situated on the same river, about
twenty-six miles below Gnadenhutten and two miles from Goshoch-
king (now Coshocton), which was the town of the Turtle Tribe of
Delawares. Lichtenau had been located by the Delaware chiefs them-
selves, in order that they and their people might have an opportunity
of hearing the gospel, as well as to have the converted Indians more
closely under their protection. It had, however, been abandoned only
two years before this, because situate directly on the great war-path
to the Ohio and the Virginia border, and therefore constantly ha-
rassed by parties of waruors passing through on their way to the
white settlements, to commit all manner of depredations. Salem was
built in its stead, about twenty miles above, and it was just opposite
to it that our scouts struck the river.

The trace to Gnadenhutten, some five miles above, lay along the east
bank of the stream, and our scouts, after a long pause by its bright,
peaceful waters, took up their weary tramp.

The shades of evening had fallen upon the landscape before the deso-
late ruins of the deserted Gnadenhutten were reached. The approach
was made cautiously, for fear a smoke, which had for some time been visi-
ble back towards the hills, should prove from a hostile camp. Andy Poe
was sent ahead to reconnoitre. He crept noiselessly forward, and
found the fire —or rather fires, for there now appeared to be two of
them — located in a little glade between two heavily-timbered slopes,
and several figures, which he took to be scouts, moving about, strongly
revealed by the fire-light. Stealthily moving onward from tree to
tree, his eyes riveted on the flames, his attention was suddenly di-
verted by a slight clickingnoise from behind a big chestnut a little to his
right. Stepping deftly aside, Andy noted the stalwart form of a
scout sitting at the tree's foot, his face bent over his gun — the lock of
which he appeared to be picking and tinkering at — singing the while
in a low tone, to the tune of *' Marching down to old Quebec," the
following verse of a jingling border ballad of that day, founded on
the bloody battle of Point Pleasamt :

"Brave Lewis, our Colonel, and officers bold,
At the mouth of Kanawha did the Shawnees behold,
• On the loth of October, at rising of sun.
The armies did meet and the battle begun."

2C2 SIMON GIRTY.

As Andy gazed intently at the bent form, an expression of pleased
surprise suddenly shot athwart his rugged features ; he emitted from
his leathern jaws a low chuckle of satisfaction ; and slyly creeping up
with the footfall of a panther behind the unconscious singer, brought
down a heavy hand upon his head, saying dryly :

"Waal, ef it ain't Sime Butler, hope I may be jerked ! How cum
you in these diggins? Conceited ye were in old Kantuck hunting
reds with Dan Boone and Ben Logan,"

The first word had not left Poe's mouth before Butler was on his
feet with a spring, and confronting his aggressor with an angry scowl
on his face. The fierce gleam gradually died out of his eyes as he
saw the good-humored phiz of Andy, but the shock had been such an
unpleasant one that there was still an irritable snarl in his tones as he
held out his sinewy hand and growled out : —

" D — n it, Andy, but yev'e a rasping way of gripping an old ac-
quaint— got a paw like an Injun. Next time you'd better bark afore
you bite; thought my har was gone for sure. I feel a cold streak down
my spine yet."

Andy heartily shook the proffered hand, laughingly replying,
"Sime, you desarved it, blamed ef you didn't, for watching camp so
earless. Ef we' d sing and tinker rifles right off a big Injun trail up
our parts, wouldn't give a weazle skin for our har. But who and how
many have you in there ? "

" 'Bout twenty as good fellows as ever drew bead on varmint, be it
beast or be it human — Zane, Wetzel, McColloch and the rest ; and
you ; Where's Adam, and all your crowd ? "

Andy smiled grimly, as he replied —

'* Our crowd! Come, come, Sime, that's a good un ! Ten to
begin with, and only five to end with. They're waiting for me down
there, every one hungry as a wolf in snow time, and sharp set as a
new tomahawk. Old Uncle Josh and Bill Kennedy are killed, and
Adam and two more wounded and sloped back. Girty fought us and
then doubled on us, but we'll be up with the rascal the morrow. Got
all his pints and bearin's."

" Good !" said Butler, giving Poe's hand a new grip. *' Girty's an
old and a good friend of mine, as you know. Iv'e scouted with him
in Dunmore's war, and he's saved me several times from the stake,
and I'll never say a word or raise blade or bead agin him ; but he's
now out on a rale mean and onnery business and we'll have to win
back our pootiest border gals ef it rubs us all out. I heerd Captain
Brady from Fort Pitt was expected. He's kicking up quite a noise on
the border. Would like to see and know him, if he's an out-and-out
game bird." Then, looking searchingly at Poe, he added confiden-
tially: " How d'ye find him, Andy? the rale stuff, true blue and no
miscount. Eh? Andy.

" True grit down to the centre and catgut all over, from moccasin
to eye winkers," answered Poe heartily; "the pluckiest fighter and
quickest trigger I've ever tracked with. He sticks to Girty tighter nor
a fly-blister, and bites as hard, too. Can't scare, nor can't shake him
off. He's like my old bear hound "Death-grip," so called kase he
never gives tongue, never loses the scent, never can be tricked off the

THE MEET OF THE TWO BANDS OF SCOUTS. 203

trail, and when he sights the varmint, bee-lines for him and grips him
till old bruin jest deadens his eyes and throws up his trotters. Oh,
you'll warm to Sam Brady, Sime ; he's jest one o' your own kidney !
ken take your Bible swear on't. We've got another queer old chappy
with us, too, that'll fairly charm ye. He'd rather fight than eat ; hates
Injuns worse nor rattlers, and cares no more for their top-gear than for
a skunk's pelt."

"Glad to know it," laughed Butler. "We want no citified 'big
wigs ' out in the backwoods, but them who grow their own har and
know how to fight for't — wiry, steel-springed, quick-triggered fellows
who stand up to their work; but come, we're wasting time ! Hurry
them up while 1 go .and get ready ! We've been here a long spell, and
the boys have been sizzling venison collops and Jack-salmon from the
river, and have wa-rming fluids too, that won't keep long, I promise ye."

CHAPTER LI.

THE MEET OF THE TWO BANDS OF SCOUTS.

The meeting between the two bands of hunters was most cordial and
hearty. All the Fort Henry party had advanced to the entrance of
the valley to receive their guests. Here Brady and the rest were
introduced to such as they did not know.

Among others, Simon Butler came up to Brady and frankly held out
his hand. These two noted scouts scanned each other with the greatest
interest, for the fame of each had reached the other. They were about
the same age and tall stature ; had the same lithe, agile, stalwart figures,
and both were known as reckless, unquailing Indian-fighters, who never
knew fear. Each, in that quick, comprehensive glance, had taken the
measure of the other and confessed him his peer.

It was a true, genuine border welcome, and all gradually sank down
about the fires for the evening meal. This concluded, the pipe and
little jug came out, and the whole company separated into groups,
threw themselves under the various trees, whose foliage was lit up by
the flickering flames of the fires.

Altogether, the scene presented, though a common one on the
frontier, was highly picturesque, and, as the song and laugh and joke
went round with the grog, and as story after story of exciting adventure
was related in the quaint, pithy, hunter's phraseology of the day, it
would have been admitted that the old bordermen. of that time had
many compensations for their perils and hardships. If their lives were
rough and simple, they were yet free and unfettered ; attended by many
exciting adventures and genuine pleasures ; abounding in a generous,
unstinted hospitality, and devoid of various artificial cares and worries
known only to the more ambitious and pelf-gathering denizens
of the cities.

Brady and Poe had a long conference with Zane and McColloch
about the fresh work for the morrow. After a full exchange of infor-
mation and opinions, the conclusion was as inevitable as it was unani-

2C2 SIMON GIRTY.

"Waal, ef it ain't Sime Butler, hope I may be jerked ! How cum
you in these diggins? Conceited ye were in old Kantuck hunting
reds with Dan Boone and Ben Logan."

** D — n it, Andy, but yev'e a rasping way of gripping an old ac-
quaint— got a paw like an Injun. Next time you'd better bark afore
you bite; thought my har was gone for sure. I feel a cold streak down
my spine yet."

" 'Bout twenty as good fellows as ever drew bead on varmint, be it
beast or be it human — Zane, Wetzel, McColloch and the rest ; and
you ; Where's Adam, and all your crowd ? "

Andy smiled grimly, as he replied —

" Our crowd! Come, come, Sime, that's a good un ! Ten to
begin with, and only five to end with. They're waiting for me down
there, every one hungry as a wolf in snow time, and sharp set as a
new tomahawk. Old Uncle Josh and Bill Kennedy are killed, and
Adam and two more wounded and sloped back. Girty fought us and
then doubled on us, but we'll be up with the rascal the morrow. Got
all his pints and bearin's."

** Good !" said Butler, giving Poe's hand a new grip. *' Girty's an
old and a good friend of mine, as you know. Iv'e scouted with him
in Dunmore's war, and he's saved me several times from the stake,
and I'll never say a word or raise blade or bead agin him ; but he's
now out on a rale mean and onnery business and we'll have to win
back our pootiest border gals ef it rubs us all out. I heerd Captain
Brady from Fort Pitt was expected. He's kicking up quite a noise on
the border. Would like to see and know him, if he's an out-and-out
game bird." Then, looking searchingly at Poe, he added confiden-
tially: ** How d'ye find him, Andy? the rale stuff, true blue and no
miscount. Eh? Andy.

THE MEET Of THE TWO BANDS OF SCOUTS. 203

"Glad to know it," laughed Butler. "We want no citified 'big
wigs ' out in the backwoods, but them who grow their own har and
know how to fight for't — wiry, steel-springed, quick-triggered fellows
who stand up to their work; but come, we're wasting time ! Hurry
them up while I go and get ready ! We've been here a long spell, and
the boys have been sizzling venison collops and Jack-salmon from the
river, and have wa-rming fluids too, that won't keep long, I promise ye."

CHAPTER LI.

THE MEET OF THE TWO BANDS OF SCOUTS.

Altogether, the scene presented, though a common one on the
frontier, was highly picturesque, and, as the song and laugh and joke
went round with the grog, and as story after story of exciting adventure
was related in the quaint, pithy, hunter's phraseology of the day, it
would have been admitted that the old bordermen of that time had
many compensations for their perils and hardships. If their lives were
rough and simple, they were yet free and unfettered ; attended by many
exciting adventures and genuine pleasures ; abounding in a generous,
unstinted hospitality, and devoid of various artificial cares and worries
known only to the more ambitious and pelf-gathering denizens
of the cities.

Brady and Poe had a long conference with Zane and McColloch
about the fresh work for the morrow. After a full exchange of infor-
mation and opinions, the conclusion was as inevitable as it was unani-

204 SIMON GIRTY.

mous, that Girty was heading directly for the Sandusky ; that he had
traveled by the Big Sandy which put into the Tuscarawas just above
the deserted Ft. Laurens, and that he could not be more than fifteen
miles or so ahead of them, which gap they proposed to close by
making a very early start in the morning, and by trudging hard
all day.

Zane then related the adventures of his own party for the last two
days. The great excitement at Ft. Henry and neighborhood over the
capture and probable fate of the prisoners ; the difficulty they had with
Lydia Boggs, to prevent the high-spirited girl from coming on Major
Rose's mare with the expedition ; and then how they had, after being
out some time, been overtaken by Brady's messenger with the latest news
from Girty's party and the probable line of its retreat.

"All at once," said Zane, "we came across, this afternoon, asouth-
westerly trail leading directly for the Chillicothe towns and which had
some odd, suspicious marks about it. But, thanks to Brady there, we
were on our guard, and all knotted over it in the brownest kind of a
study. Where this trail crossed the one which it was known we would
follow if we followed at all, the signs were too thick and plain for nature
and common sense. It looked just a leetle overdone and as if it was
intended to make us believe that Girty's whole party had passed.
Then there was a something like brush trailing along, which we
couldn't size nohow. Some of our crowd were quite sure that it was
Girty's band, and were as impatient to get on the trail as leashed
hounds, but Sime Butler and I held them back, and followed the cross
trail until it ran along side Maiden Creek, and then just close to the
water, where the ground was soft and waxy, we plainly saw the prints
of several horses. ' Dod rot me,' cried Sime Butler, 'ef it don't look
as if we were wrong and the greenys right after all. There's more
than one have passed there, sure's you're born.'

"Let's study this a mite,' I replied, and down upon our knees we
got and looked and looked and looked. At last I heard a low chuckle
from Sime there, and he cried out, 'By Jehosaphat, I've got it; ef it
isn't the same old boss, I wish I may be shot. The prints are all
exactly the same pattern and the light marks here and there show, true
as Scripter, that the hoss was lame in the off fore foot too."

" But how about the brush tracks," I said.

"Well," said Sime, "I haven't figgered that out yet, nor how the
pesky varmints made that one horse four horses, but " —

"Just then the whole trick stood clear as light before me, and I was
sure that the redhide who was trying to fool us had made the same
horse take water again and again. Now, how d'ye think the devil got
his horse into water without any marks except just where they were
wanted ? "

" Igive it up," laughed Brady. " Unless he toted his one horse over
blankets, and made him do duty several times."

" That's just it ! Confound his trickery. He chose a place where
the trail lay right along the creek. When the lame horse reached
a piece of hard, rocky ground, he must have got it into the water by
some means which we could not make out till now that you suggest
them ; he must then have turned the horse around ; gone down the stream

THE MEET OF THE TWO BANDS OF SCOUTS. 205

a quarter of a mile, brought it out into the trail so the tracks could be
plainly seen from the edge of the water, and repeated that trick three
times, evidently aiming to make us think that three other horses coming
up the run from some other point had joined the one which had kept
the regular trail."

'' A plain blind," here put in Butler, who had come up, ''and when
we all cyphered it out, half of us laughed in each other's faces at the
simpleness of the thing, and the other half, with Lew Wetzel thereat
the head, were as riled as catamounts that we had lost so much time.
The brush tracks — now here and now there — we didn't stay to make
out; we'd been so befooled and bamboozled, we just threw our noses
up in the air and backed out in disgust."

" Oh, I can explain that," laughed Brady. "I told you that Larry,
our wild Irishman, had been hurt. He must have been dragged on
an Indian litter, which was carried or toted, just as it suited. But it
seems Girty don't know everything. If there's some vvho've the wit
to make puzzles, there's always others with the wit to unravel them,
and the last is the easier of the two."

Brady and Butler, drawn to each other, perhaps, by a mutual
admiration, soon sauntered off together, and sat down on a log to
a better acquaintance. Brady had been anxious to see the famed
scout — whose wonderful exploits were in every pioneer's mouth — alone,
for he knew he had news for him which would remove a certain
mysterious gloom and reserve that he had heard at times drove
Butler on long, reckless hunts into the woods, and which appeared
to many the cause of his desperate and hair-breadth adventures,
making his friends say there must have happened something in his
early life over which he was ever brooding, and desirous of drawing a
veil.

In order, therefore, to enhance the value of his news., as well as to
test the mettle of a man who looked so gentle and quiet, Brady took
occasion— during a slight pause in the conversation — to remark:
" And so you say your name's Simon Butler,^' looking at him narrow-
ly, and putting a strong emphasis on the last name. His companion
gave a quick start; a troubled and suspicious look came into his frank,
laughing gray eyes, but he simply answered in those soft, tremulous
woman's tones, which always seemed so remarkable coming from such
an unrecking and intrepid fighter : —

" I said nothing about it, Brady. Don't you know my name's Simon
Butler?"

''Well, no!" continued Brady, calmly, while never removing his
eyes off those of his companion — " there are sometimes rash and
violent characters who find their way from the East to our frontiers,
who often make it convenient to leave their names behind. The rea-
sons for this they best — "

" Hold ! enough !" said Butler, with a sudden start ; and laying his
hand on his knife. A purple flush had suffused his face ; the mild and
even guileless look of his eyes had been exchanged for one of intense
passion, fiery enough almost to curdle the blood of the beholder. He
looked steadily and distrustfully at Brady, as if he would read his in-
most thoughts, and continued, trying to affect a calm he did not

2o6 SIMON GIRTY.

feel : — " if Capt. Brady wants to insult or provoke a stranger, he must
have a reason. Out with it, man ! What is it?"

Brady hesitated for a moment, but thought he would make one more
trial, and added, in the same low, even tones: " ybtername's «^/ Butler,
but Kenton. Did you ever know a man in Fauquier county, Va., where
you sprang from, by the name of Leitchman ?"

At the first part of this sentence Butler leaped to his feet, quivering
with passion and his eyes darting forth a most dangerous light. At
the last part, he trembled violently all over ; then looked furtively
around at the other hunters lying crouched in knots at some distance
off ; then made a most desperate, almost convulsive, effort to restrain
his wrath and agitation, and finally hissed out close into Brady's ear : —

"Brady ! you're a devil ! You know my secret, and would betray me
to those who love me ! What harm have I done ye? They say you're
brave : I can't, I don't believe it ! If you dare follow me into the
woods, take your knife and come quick !" at the same time leading the
way with great, rapid strides.

" Oh, no, Kenton ; come back ! Think we can settle all that's be-
tween us on this old log. Was only trying you, and can give you rea-
sons why you may take your own name again."

"What do you mean ?" said poor Butler, turning falteringly, an
appealing look in his eye.

" Just what I say," laughingly replied Brady, " Your rival, young
Leitchman, whom ten years ago you, when a youth of seventeen, left
for dead, and on whose account you look the name of Butler, is not
dead, but live as you are — even a better man, for he's married and — "

"In God's name, man, do not mock me! Are you speaking
truth?" said Butler, running back, seizing Brady's hand in both his own,
and speaking with great vehemence and emotion. "Why should ye
trifle with a poor fellow, who for many years has been haunted day
and night with the idea that he was a wretched murderer. Say it again,
Brady, and I'll be your servant for life !" and the tears welled up into
Butler's eyes and rolled down his cheeks.

"1 do say it again, and it's true, every word ! I saw a friend of your
family from Culpepper, Va., at Fort Pitt, a few weeks since, who told
me the whole story of your rivalry in love ; your subsequent desperate
conflict with Leitchman ; how you left him lifeless; your consequent
flight and change of name, and who charged me, if I ever met you on
the border, to tell you ; for he had somehow learned that Simon Butler
and Simon Kenton were one and the same."

" Oh, thank God ! and thank you, my dear friend, for these blessed
words !" exclaimed Butler, actually shaking with his emotion, covering
his face with his hands and shedding tears like a child.*

"None know, Brady, but those who have tried it," he murmured
in broken tones, "the horrible load that guilt is on the soul— espe-

*Some authorities give the name of Kenton's rival — whom he left for dead and therefore changed
his name lo IJ .tier — as William Veach ; b Jt all agree that his own real name, Kenton, was resumed
in '82, and because he was informed his old playmate still lived. Leitchman, on account of some
jealcu y about a mutual flame, had badly trounced Kenton when only a callow youth of sixteen.
Next year, however, Kenton, who had grown larger and stronger, came and offered him battle, and,
after a most de-perate struggle, succeeded in twining Leitchman's long hair about a sapling, and then
beating him into insensibility. Kenton thinlcinghim dead and himself a muraerer, fled to the border,
took the name of Butler, and became a most reckless fighter and roamer.

SIMON KENTON S THRILLING EXPLOITS.

207

cially blood guiltiness. Men call me brave even to fool-hardiness.
It's false! I'm an arrant coward! frighting at my own shadow;
starting and trembling in the dark ; running for days from my own
thoughts; hunting redskins and other varmints, only because I'm
worse hunted myself. 'Tis true I was only seventeen when I fought
my neighbor and old playmate, and never meant more than a mere
drubbing ; but when I saw him stretched lifeless on the sod ; when I
tried in vain to bring him to life ; when the awful thought first struck
me that I was a murderer ; had the brand of Cain on my brow, and
would be hunted and hung, I was filled with terror and remorse ; fled
to the trackless woods and became an outcast."

" For ten years, now, I've lain down and risen up with this terrible
night-mare — far worse than savage torture. It's made me what I am —
a homeless wanderer ; an exile from all I once loved ; a reckless and
desperate borderer ; no better than a savage — no, not half so good,
for he was born and bred so, while I was meant for better things."

"Your feelings do you much honor, Butler," said Brady, almost in
tears himself, and extremely sorry for the rude way he had lately tried
his sensitive companion. " They show you have a conscience and a
feeling heart, and it's the greatest happiness of my life to be able to
bring you such good news. Your old father still lives, but mourns you
as lost. He — "

" Thank God, again, for that ! " burst out Butler, with violent emo-
tion, and sobbing until his frame fairly shook. " Oh, Brady, you
have made of me a weak child, but you will make a strong man of me.
I feel as if a terrible load was lifted from my heart."

CHAPTER LIT.

SIMON Kenton's thrilling exploits.

** Well, come now, Kenton ! " said Brady, cheerily ; " shall we go
and tell this news to your friends ? "

" Oh, not now ! not now ! " pleaded the scout, involuntarily
shrinking at the familiar mention of the dreaded name so long con-
cealed. " As Butler, I've won their good will, and why disturb them
with doubts? Let me still be Simon Butler to them and to you !
keep my secret, I beg ! If this hunt is safe over, I'll go again, like
the Prodigal son, to my father, and should all turn out as you say, 111
then take on my own name before the world."

" As you will," replied Brady; and then, with the design to turn
the subject, he added : " How came you, Butler, to be on this fron-
tier ? Thought you and Boone couldn't live apart. Didn't you once
save his life ? "

"So they say," answered Butler, his eye kindling at the recollec-
tion. " I'll tell you how it was, and how I happen to be here, after-
wards. The reddies were so enraged at the squatting on their famous
Kan-tuck hunting grounds, that they made constant and bloody incur-
sions against the settlers. In '77, almost every cabin was deserted.

2o8 SIMON GIRTY.

their inmates taking refuge in the forts and stations. Boonesboro was
besieged three times. To watch the Injuns, and give timely notice of
their approach, Boone appointed a lot of scouts to range, by turns,
two each week, along the Ohio, guard the trails, look for Indian signs,
&c.

" But once they managed to come on us without warning. I was
one fine morning standing in the gate of Boonesboro preparing for a
hunt, when two men in the field were shot at and fled. One of them
was overtaken, and tomahawked and scalped within seventy yards of
the fort. I drew a fair bead on the bloody miscreant, and he fell to
my lead, while chase was given to the others by Boone and a dozen
more.

"Just then I happened to see a fellow behind a white-oak squinting
along his tube at the party. I let drive quicker' n a wink, and down
came reddy, handsome. A big crowd of Indians now broke cover,
and got between Boone's party and the gate. There was no time to
waste. Old Daniel saw 'bout how it stood, and, with the fighting
devil in his eye, shouted out, ' right about ! fire ! charge / ' and the
boys dashed in among them in a desperate effort to reach the fort.
At the return fire of the savages, seven of Boone's party were wounded,
among the rest the old man himself, who had a leg broken, and fell to
the ground.

** Just then I hap'd to sight a big burly rapscallion spring towards
him with uplifted tomahawk. I scurried up, having no time to sight
even, but just let fly, and squelched old Injy before he knew what hurt
him. I then lifted Boone in my arms, broke for the fort, and made it,
too. When the great gate was closed and all safe, Boone's leg was
tinkered up and he sent for me, gave me a hearty hand-grip and said :
'Well, Simon, you've behaved like a man, to-day — indeed, you're a
fine fellow ! ' Tell ye what, I was proud. I was just then grown up,
and Danel's a mighty plain and silent sort of man, and cuts off his
words right short, so that every single one o' them counts."

" Another question," said Brady. — " Your long captivity among
the Indians in '78, and the wonderful hair-breadth escapes you made,
has long been the story of the whole border ; but you're now trailing
Girty, and I've often heard he saved your life, took you into his cabin,
clothed you, and did all he — "

" So he did — so he did ! all that, and more ! " broke in Butler, im-
patiently, his eyes fairly dancing with excitement ; " and I'm not the
mean scamp to either deny or forget it. Whatever people say of Gir-
ty, I'm his fast friend, and will stand by him, as he's stood by me.
I'm not tracking /lim, but the Wheeling girls he's carried off. He's
in deuced bad company, and's on an ugly business. I'll ne'er raise
knife nor draw bead on /«>«. If he's taken alive I'll save him at the
risk of my own life ; but all the same, I'll do my pootiest to get my
friends out of the clutches of his prowling, scalping band.

" The Zanes have asked me to help save their sister ; ' Injun Van,'
as they call Swearingen, has asked the same for his daughter. Colo-
nel Shepherd, for his son, Mo; and then there's Major Rose, and my
old crony Killbuck, and d'ye think I'd laze away in fort, or go out
cooning or possuming when such game's about ? No ! no ! I'll be as hot

Jlil"

i#*?vXf

SIMON KENTON S THRILLING EXPLOITS. 209

on the trail as any of ye, and'll do a good turn to Girty when and
where I can ; but if he should fall in a fair scrimmage, it's what he ex-
pects, and what's his honest due as an open enemy to our border."

" Have ye known him long?" queried Brady; "and how did he
come to save you ? "

"Well," answered Butler, modestly, "I ain't much given to talking
of myself or my doings and escapes; but it's pleasant and exciting to
remember, and if you care to hear, don't see why I shouldn't oblige
you. You see, I met Girty at Ft. Pitt when he was Indian interpreter,
and several years before he disgraced himself by turning tory. In
Dunmore's Indian war of '74, we took long scouts together for Gen-
eral Lewis, and scoured both sides of the Ohio, from Fort Pitt down
to the Kenawha. Well, I went to Kantuck the next year, and never
met Simon again till my horse-stealing expedition to the Chillecothe
towns in the fall of '78.

"You know how I was took, by stupidly fooling away my time on
the Ohio waiting for the wind to fall so I could cross my horses over;
how I was mauled and beaten, tied on a bare-back colt, driven to
Chillecothe, whaled by Blackfish for telling him that Boone hadn't sent
me to steal horses, but that I did it of my own free will ; how I had to
run the gauntlet, headed by two fierce Hurons with butcher-knives in
their hands, and finally how I was condemned to be first tortured and
then burnt.

"Well, they toted me off from Chillecothe to Wapatomika, where I
was to run the gauntlet before I was roasted. I had been so cut and
cuffed and kicked and tormented, that I preferred death to be thus
made game of by the squaws and devilish boys of every Indian town I
came to ; so, choosing my time, I gave a whoop, sprang into the bushes,
and worked my trotters just all I knew. All no use ! After me they
came, foot and horse, pell mell, helter-skelter, and devil take the
hinder-most. I was loping along confounded spry, with big chances
in my favor, when I plunged right in the middle of a fresh party of
horse.

" My heart just sank ; my underpinning gave out, and I was lassoed
like a yearling steer and drove back to the slaughter. For a brisk sort
o' change, I was then handed over to a howling mob of young demons,
who dragged me into a creek, rolled me in the mud, held my head
under water, kneaded every inch of my body with their fists, so that
I was almost drowned and suffocated.

" I was now painted black, a sure sign of death by torture, and was
led into Wapatomika, where I had to again run the gauntlet, being
about flayed in the cruel and pitiless operation. While sitting on the
floor nearly dead, and wishing I was altogether, Simon Girty and his
brother James came in with a lot of children prisoners. I was then
removed until a new council was lield on these last victims. Shortly
after I was dragged back ; Girty threw a blanket on the floor and
roughly jerked me down on it. I was blacked all over, you remember,
and he didn't know me, and was in such a terrible bad humor that I
dared not make myself known to him.

" With a gruff growl like that of a wounded bear, he then asked
' How many men are there in Kentucky?' ' I can't tell you that,' I
14

2IO SIMON GIRTY,

replied, ' but can give you the number of officers and their rank, and
you can judge for yourself.' 'Do you know William Stewart?'
' Very well 1 do ; he is an old and intimate acquaintance.' ' Ah ! what
is your own name then ?' said he. Now for it, thought I for good or bad,
and answered, ' Simon Butler.'

"You never saw such a sudden change come over a man. He sprang
from his seat, threw his arms about my neck, embraced me with the
greatest emotion, and even shed tears, saying, ' Well, Sime, you're
condemned to die, but I'll do my very best to save you.' All this time,
as you may well suppose, the Indian council looked on with amazement.
Girty turned to them and made a strong, eloquent and vehement
speech ; telling them that I was his old bosom friend ; that we had long
traveled the same war-path, slept on the same blanket and dwelt in the
same wigwam ; and ended by recounting his services to the Indians,
and earnestly entreating for my life.

" This did not suit the younger hot bloods, who fiercely argued that
I was one of the hated Kantucks ; had come far into their country to
steal and scalp; had broke into their horse pound; diove off a lot of
their best beasts ; flashed a gun into their very faces ; had twice tried
to escape, and that I couM never become an Indian at heart like their
brother Girty, My death, they added, had been resolved in solemn
council ; and they were not squaws to be changing their minds. I
could see from the savage, forbidding faces of all, that I was counted
a desperate hard case, and blamed if I didn't begin to think so my-
self, and abused myself for being so wicked.

" But Girty was the right grit, and sprang up again to my rescue,
making a long, fiery and very passionate speech ; he dwelt on his many
services, and ended by asking, as a special favor, the life of his bosom
friend. I tell you, Brady, I watched those hideous old parchment
faces with the greatest anxiety. At first they looked like stone, and
their fishy eyes were as cold and dead as a frog's ; but, at last, I
thought I saw many of them warming up a mite ; some of the older
sinners glanced at me every now and then with a squint of relenting,
but most of the young, fiery ones looked as if they thought I would
make an excellent broth, and they would like the business of stirring
me around, and then serving me up hot.

" At length the war club was brought out, and a vote taken. My
heart was in my mouth in a trice, and I was all of a shiver. So, I
believe, was Girty. He looked very pale about the gills, but as thump
after thump came down, each one sending a shock along every single
nerve in my body, I began to think the ayes would have it, and
breathed freer. As the last club fell, and I had a decided majority,
you might have knocked me down with a feather.

" Girty was just as much tickled as I was, and for several weeks took
the greatest care of me. He introduced me to many of the big
chiefs, and I soon grew sleek and sassy again, and almost began to be
'quoted on the Indian change,' when, alas, a sudden turn occurred

"I was one day walking with Girty and chief 'Redpole,' when an
Indian ' runner ' came from the village yelling what is called the ' Dis-
tress whoop,' calling all to Grand Council. I fairly hated all sorts
of whoops and councils, and had a dire foreboding of ill. Sure

BRADY MAKES A NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 211

enough, when I entered the council-house, I found it unusually full,
many chiefs and warriors from distant towns being present, and all
wearing very grave and very ugly countenances. I walked around
with my companion, blandly offering, as usual, my paw to each. No
go ! Kot one ! All rejected my hand with an ominous scowl of dis-
gust. Hallo 1 what's to pay now ? thought I, and stood skulking
aloof with a heart at low ebb.

CHAPTER LHI.

BRADY MAKES A NEW ACQUAINTANCE.

" The debate commenced, and Girty looked anxious and distressed.
All the speakers turned their wrathful, glittering eyes upon me, Girty
stuck to me like a good fellow, but could do nothing at all. After a
hot and protracted debate, he turned sadly to me and said : ' Well,
Sime, my poor fellow, I'm afeard you've got to die ; but I've friends
in the next town with whom I hope to do something.'

" One of the chiefs now seized me by the cuff, pinioned me with
thongs, and dragged me off with a long strap about my neck, held by
a guard on horseback. Girty passed me going to the next town ; but
finding he could do nothing whatever for me, he declined to see me
again, but returned to Wapatomika by another route. I couldn't
blame him.

" A short distance out I passed an old squaw chopping wood, her
husband lazily smoking along side. As soon as he saw me he was
roused to fury, jumped about like a * dancing Dervish ;' snatched the
axe from the squaw, and made at me, dealing me a vicious blow on
the shoulder, breaking the bone and almost severing my arm from my
body. He would instantly have laid me dead at his feet had my guard
not interfered, severely scolding him for his attempt to rob the tribe
of the expected torture.

*' On reaching a Scioto village, I first saw Logan, the far-famed
Mingo chief. He had a fine, commanding figure; a countenance no-
ble and dignified, and spoke first-rate English. My heart went out
to him at once, as I suppose his must have done to me, for he walked
grandly up to where I stood, and said, ' Well, my lad, these young
men seem very mad at you.' ' Yes sir,' I said ; ' they certainly are.'
' Well, don't be disheartened,' he added ; ' I am a great chief. You
are to go to Sandusky to-morrow to be burned, but I will send two
runners to-morrow to speak for you.'

" My spirits rose again at that, but the fine old chief was good as
he promised, and until the runners returned, I staid and conversed
with him freely. When they came back, Logan shut himself up with
them, and did not see me till next day. He then walked up to me,
gave me some bread, said I was to be taken at once to Sandusky, and
without another word, but with sorrowful looks, he turned and left
me. That looked bad, and I was in the suds again, but soon had to
move on into the town, and was condemned to be burned the next day.

212 SIMON GIRTY.

" Well, to make a long story short, I was unexpectedly rescued by
an Indian agent, who said — and I do believe through Logan's influ-
ence—he must take me to Detroit to give certain intelligence to the
British Commandant, but solemnly promising to return me again. You
have heard of my eight months captivity there ; how, finally, I made
my escape, traveling for thirty-three days, by way of the Wabash,
through an unbroken wilderness, until at last, tattered and torn, and
wasted by hunger and privations, I reached the Falls of the Ohio (Lou-
isville).- In this interesting little excursion, I ran the gauntlet eight
times ; was thrice tied to the stake ; was nearly killed by an axe, and
most of the time suffered the severest hardships. For a whole month
I was see-sawing between life and death, and that, Brady, in brief, is
my story."

"Well," said Brady, "you've had a pretty active and busy time.
Thought I was restless enough, in all conscience, but my life is a dead
calm compared with yours."

"Oh, yes, indeed," merrily laughed Butler, on whom Brady's news
was having a most exhilarating effect — his face joyful and his eyes
bright and sparkling; " it actually rests me to look at you ; but, you
know, I couldn't stay still — had to keep moving on like old Cain or
the 'Wandering Jew.' I was, however, so sick and disgusted with my
year's trip that Ididnotgoonanother longscout forat least — a week, —
and have been at the risky business ever since.

" And now, Brady, you asked me a while since how I drifted up
this way. 'Twas the same old thing. Ever struggling to keep off,
but always brought back by some singular spell that I could not resist.
I was like a fierce wolf that a settler traps and binds to a pole ; he's
always looking to the woods and leaping off and bearing hard on his
collar, but the pole jerks him back. Captain, what makes a man —
wretched and tortured as he is, if not made of flint — hang around the
scene of his bloody crimes?

" He can't get away. 'Tis his fate — his punishment. The 'smoke
of his torment ariseth forever,' and often drives him with whips like
scorpions to give himself up. Confession sometimes brings peace,
even though followed by hanging. Concealment never ! Although
I did not think myself a murderer, yet I did believe I had shed life's
blood, and have suffered terribly ten years for it. I keep sneaking
back to Fort Henry every year or so for news from home. I always
risked detection by it ; but, Lord bless you, Brady, I couldn't help
that. Something inside just drove me, and, this time, I thank God
I was driven, for you can't— no one can ! — know the dreadful weight
that's lifted from my heavy heart."

Just then some of the young scouts approached, and asked Butler if
he would join them in a panther hunt ; they had heard the peculiar,
human cry of one off" towards the hills, and were going out to kill it.

" Why, yes," said Butler, briskly and airily. " I never felt better than
I do to-night. It's early yet, and I always like a night varmint hunt.
You go on, and I'll follow you in a jiffy. Will you be one -of us,
Brady ? "

" Think not," said Brady. " I want to stroll down to the river and
see the ruins of Gnadenhutten. I have heard so much of the late

BRADY MAKES A NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 213

atrocious massacre there that I would like vastly to see the bloody
scene of it. There'll not be time to-morrow. Before you're off, But-
ler, can you tell me who that grave, slender, trimly-dressed young fel-
low is who's been so attentive to Mr. Markham, our Hermit? He
looks more like a clerk or a scholar than a rough pioneer, and is en-
tirely out of keeping with wood and war craft."

"Why, don't ye know young Christy, yet? That was an over-
sight. He is a scholar, and a right bright one, too, I can tell you.
Bye-the-by, Captain, he'll be the very best chap to show you round
the Moravian town down yonder. He was the only one of us all out
under Williamson when it was burnt, and was witness to every dam-
nable deed done that horrible night."

"What, that slight, modest, lady-like looking lad!" exclaimed
Brady, in great surprise. "He like scenes of blood and carnage ! I'd
as soon think it of my own sister 1 "

"Oh," laughed Butler, "he's no Miss Nancy, be sure of that, and
has a story ! Tell ye how it comes about. You see what's given out
as the cause of Dave Williamson's maraud on the three Muskingum
towns was the inhuman butchery of the Wallace family about the mid-
dle of last February. Wallace lived across the Ohio, back on Buffa-
lo creek, and was killed and scalped by Indians, together with his wife
and four children; the oldest daughter Jennie — and a very sweet,
pretty girl she was, too — being carried off prisoner, together with a
man named Carpenter.

" Well, you know the Indians don't generally move in the spring
till about May, and so it got out that this scalping party must have been
Moravians, they being so near, besides they were trailed straight out
this way ; and it's long been a practice for Indian horse thieves and
murderers to either call themselves Moravians or to retreat by their
towns, so as to make the bordermen tJwtk they are. There were a
number of horrible atrocities committed on our frontier early this
spring, and when the whole Wallace family was wiped out, the news
spread like a prairie fire, and kicked up an uncommon hubbub along
the whole border.

" Well, a body of about a hundred men soon gathered together and
banded under Col. Williamson, of Catfish, to go against the * praying
Indians ' and just rub 'em out. Most of the band were goodish men
— farmers, millers and such like ; but there were others pretty rough
and savage, and powerfully down on Indians ; thought them Canaan-
ites, and that they ought to be all killed, as they kept the best lands
away from the whites.

" Young Ned Christy, now, was up on Chartiers, at Rev. McMil-
lan's Theology school, trainin' for a preacher, and being desperate
sweet on Jennie Wallace, was wrathy as all possessed when he heard
of her carrying off. He rode straight down to the border and helped
trail the raiders to near the river down there, and then hurried back
to raise a bigger force. He was one of the fore men of the expedition,
but on his arrival at Salem and Gnadenhutten, and on talking with
the missionaries and their chief native assistants, he was at once con-
vinced that they were totally ignorant of the murders ; knew nothing
of the captives ; were warm friends to the Americans and were so sin-

214 SIMON GIRTY.

cerely good and pious that his opinions underwent a complete revohi-
tion, and he was horrified and outraged at what subsequently took
place, protesting most solemnly against each barbarity, and having no
lot nor part in them.

" He returned, disgusted and disappointed, having found no trace
of Miss Wallace, and now he's going with us, even if to the Sandusky
in hopes of finding some trace of his sweetheart.

" Come ! as the boys are waiting on me, 1 11 introduce you ; he's
just the very man if you want a quiet walk through the deserted town,
or rather over the ground where it stood. 'Twill be like walking
through a graveyard, though. I'll lay a bran new rifle that William-
son nor any of his butcher crew, darn't walk there, either by night or
day."

Christy having expressed his willingness to accompany Brady, But-
ler disappeared up the glen after the hunters, while the two promena-
ded towards the river.

CHAPTER LIV.

THE MASSACRE AT GNADENHUTTEN.

As Brady and his 3'oung companion, in lively converse, approached
the scene of this massacre, the radiant full-orbed moon — "pale regent
of the sky " — emerged from a massed bank of fleecy clouds, and
advanced with stately steppings on her triumphal march through the
heavens. A flood of pure mellow lustre suffused the whole landscape,
serving not only to illumine but to glorify. The cool, chaste, weird
lights touched graciously every salient object, obscuring all that was
repulsive or unlovely, and bringing into stronger prominence all that
was beautiful — grassy bluff, woody hill and plain, and the bright and
abounding river. It was like a strange glamour raised by the wand of
enchantment. Far better thus ! for there were cursed spots on that
river-side bluff which would have looked ghastly horrible in the garish
splendor of a searching noonday sun.

As the two stood on the river bluff, gazing dreamily out upon the
silver sheen of its bright, luminous waters; then along the shadowy
beach dotted here and there by some old partly sunken-canoes, and
then glanced around among the low half-consumed ruins — the ghostly
chimney-stacks marking the locations of former abodes of peace and
plenty — it was impossible for them to restrain a feeling of sadness at
the desolation.

But a few months since and a thrifty, happy village of comfortable
Christian homes stood there. Here was the chapel, and there the
school. This is the ruin of the smoke-house, and that, of the public
granary. In this row was the village smithy, and right beyond, the
carpenter shop.

But two short months before, and the desolated village was reoccu-
pied by its glad people ; the streets again re-echoed the sounds of
laugh and merry joke The chapel bell again gave forth its resonous
clang, and the morning and evening hymn and the fervent prayer arose

THE MASSACRE OF GNADENHUTTEN. 215

from grateful hearts. Now nothing is seen but the " ashes of desola-
tion ! " nothing heard but distant bay of wolf or the doleful hoot
of owl.

Never was missionary enterprise more successful, or productive
of more blessed results than that of the Moravians among the noble and
teachable Delaware Indians. Their three villages at the Muskingum,
Schoenbrun, Gnadenhutten and Salem, were thrifty and prosperous,
and the land about cultivated and covered with flocks and herds.
When the white-Indian war broke out, these happy converted Indians
excited first the envy, then the jealousy, and then the hatred of the
different tribes.

At last after having undergone innumerable annoyances and perse-
cutions at the instigation of those execrable tories, Girty, Elliott, and
McKee, king Pomoacon "came down like a wolf on the fold," from
Sandusky and compelled the inhabitants to take up their mournful pil-
grimage—tl.eir beloved pastors in their midst — for the distant Sandusky
" barrens." All their comfortable log homes left behind : over three
hundred acres of standing corn left in the ear ; most of their cattle shot
or driven to the woods ; their bountiful stores of meal, tools, honey
and all left behind.

They were a whole month on their way, and the recital of their woes
and sufferings forms one of the most touching episodes in all Border
History. The Paradise promised by King Pomoacon turned out a
bleak, wintry desert. Many of the cattle that were left died of
absolute starvation and cruel want. Amid pinching cold, sick and
starving children, passed the terrible winter of 1781.

In the first two months of 1782, this little band of Christians
suffered so terribly from cold and want of provisions that many
sickened and died. The rest lived on roots and the carcasses of their
starved cattle. Many babes perished, and the grown persons were
reduced to a pint of corn per day. To save themselves from utter
starvation they concluded to return to the forsaken towns of the Mus-
kingum and gather the corn from the large crops they had left standing
in the ear.

About March, therefore, they accordingly set out — men, women and
children, with horses to bring back the much-needed food — in three
divisions, numbering in all one hundred and fifty souls. How they
were treated, and the sad cruel fate they met, will now be told by an
eye-witness to all the scenes of savagery.

It was almost with a shudder that Brady broke the brooding silence.
" Christy, this is a strangely melancholy place ; it is positively un-
earthly. Those tall chimneys look like mournful spectres watching
over the ruins, and I feel oppressed with gloom ; and, look ! absolutely
there is a gaunt Indian cur slinking and cowering along by that
old stable, probably hunting after one who'll never whistle him
more."

"Ah, Captain," replied his companion, sorrowfully, " if it seems thus
to you, how must it appear to me, wlio saw this village but a few weeks
since alive with excited people, and who was a shocked and unwilling
witness to the disgraceful perfidy and sickening savageries which
ensued. It does seem to me as if those horrible scenes will never

2l6 SIMON GIRTY.

vanish from my memory. They rise up before me at night with all the
vividness of reality — the tears, the prayers, the hymns, the appeals for
mercy, and then the groans of strong men, the shrieks of fond women and
the wails of poor, innocent children, as they were torn from mothers'
arms and cut and hacked to death."

"And did you witness the whole from beginning to end ?" queried
Brady, with strong interest.

** I was among the first to come and the last to leave. I have told
you all I now know of the Moravian towns and people, and of the er-
rand that brought me here. I wish I had then known more ; but I
was as hot and infuriate as any of them all, and was sure I would
find Jennie Wallace — if alive at all — concealed somewhere among
them."

" Well," said Brady, "I've found but few yet who dare confess to
being present, and these few won't say much, and I'm fairly hungry for
some reliable account of what took place."

" Let me see," replied Christy, reflectively. "It was the fourth of
March that our company of about a hundred gathered from the Ohio
shore and the various settlements along Short, Buffalo, Raccoon, Ten
Mile, and other creeks, assembled at Mingo Bottom. Most of us were
good and true men, who were much exasperated at Indian incursions
and atrocities and determined to retaliate. Since all the signs favored
the Moravians as either the perpetrators or the instigators of these
thefts and scalpings, and as we did not know their characters so well
as they were known at Fort Pitt, we were honest in our ends ; but
still there were many Indian haters among us ; people who looked
upon them as of no more account than mad curs, to be shot on sight ;
others who had a religious or rather fanatical hate of all redmen, and
very many rough, lawless desperadoes, who coveted their lands, horses
and pelts, and who, by their boldness and violence, were allowed to
have far too much influence among us. There was the mischief! It
was an odd and incongruous mixture of good and bad.

" Well, in about two days we came in sight of this town. We
found out afterwards that about one hundred and fifty men, women
and children, all told, had come down from Sandusky to gather their
corn, and that the day before our coming, a party of Wyandotts pass-
ing through here confessed to a border murder, and advised them all
to be off or they would be attacked. A conference was then held
here by the leaders of the three villages, and the conclusion was, that
as they had always been peaceable and friendly to the whites, feeding
and relieving their captives and sending the settlements early intelli-
gence of expected raids, they certainly had nothing to fear ; but it
was also resolved, that as they had gathered their corn and [were all
ready to go back, they would start for home on the sixth, the very day
we arrived.

" Our videttes having informed us that most of the Indians were
across the river, the band was divided into two equal parts ; one to
cross over about a mile below Gnadenhutten and secure those who
were gathering corn, and the other, with which I was, to attack this
village itself. The first party found young Shabosch about a mile from
here out catching horses. He was shot and scalped by a Capt. Build-

THE MASSACRE OF GXADENHUTTEN. 21 7

erbeck.* Finding no canoes for crossing, and the river being high
and running ice, young Dave Slaughter swam over and brought back
an old sugar trough, which would carry only two at a time.

' This was slow work, and a good many stripped, and, putting guns
and clothes on board, swam over. Fearing the noise of their shot
would alarm the Indians, they sent word for us to advance on the
town, which we did with a rush, finding it, much to our surprise, com-
pletely deserted — all but one man who was just pushing off in a canoe,
and who was instantly killed.

" The other party hurried along with all speed ; hailed the corn-
gatherers as friends and brothers ; told them they had heard of their
sufferings and bad treatment among the Hurons, and offered to take
them to Fort Pitt and protect and support them.

"This was joyful news to the Indians, for they had been so starved
and maltreated that any change was for the better. So they gathered
about, shook hands and exchanged congratulations with each other.
They were then advised to leave off work and cross to Gnadenhutten.

"Meanwhile, as we afterwards learned, a native teacher, by name
of Martin, from Salem, on the west side of the river, five miles below,
was out with his son and saw the tracks of our shodden horses, for we
had a good many mounted men with us ; and being surprised thereat,
ascended a hill to reconnoitre. Seeing whites and reds all together,
talking and chatting in the most friendly manner, he sent his son
across, while he rode rapidly to Salem, and told them there what he
had seen, giving it as his opinion that God had ordained that they
should not perish on the Sandusky barrens, and that these whites were
sent to succor them. Two brethren were then dispatched to this vil-
lage,and finding all favorable, returned with some of our band to Salem,
who, on repeating the same promises that were made by the whites
here, all came trooping up the west bank.

"Unfortunately our party who went to Salem set fire to the church
and houses there, which at once excited disapproval and suspicion. It
was explained, however, that, as they were going to abandon the place,
it had been done to prevent its occupation by the enemy."

"They must have been a very credulous folk," here put in Brady,
" to be so easily deceived."

" Well, I've heard that our boys talked religion to them, praised
their church, called them good Christians, and made so many fine
promises that their suspicions seem to have been completely lulled.
On arriving opposite this place, however, their eyes were opened very
quick ; but it was now too late. They discovered blood on the sandy
beach, and more of it in the canoe by which they crossed."

" But when they found themselves betrayed, why didn't they fly to
arms? " wonderingly asked Brady.

"Ah, that was the most curious part of the whole performance,"

♦ This Captain Builderbeck was a large, fine-looking and yery daring borderer, who was some
years after captured by Indians. On giving his name, a look of intelligence immediately circulated
among his captors. He was recognized as the nn an who fired the first shot at the Moravian massa-
cre, and as the slayer of the much-esteemed Shabosch, and was at once killed and scalped under cir-
cumstances of great cruelty. It may here also be stated that although Col. David Williamson
escaped immediate retribution for his share in the massacre, and was even afterwards made sher-
iflf of Washington County, Pa., yet towards the end of his life he became wretchedly poor, and
died in the Washington, Pa., jaii.

2l8 SIMON GIRTY.

said Christy. " Both lots of Indians had freely and unhesitatingly
yielded up guns, axes and knives, on solemn promise being made that
when they arrived at Pittsburgh all should be promptly returned to
the right owners ; besides, by their religion, they were non-comba-
tants.

" Up to this point, I cannot say but what I, and many who after-
wards joined me in a solemn protest against the subsequent atrocities,
acquiesced.

CHAPTER LV.

THE MASSACRE OF GNADENHUTTEN.

" Brady, do you see that blotch of deep shadow yonder, marking a
break in the river bank ? "

" Just in front of those two spectral-looking chimney-stacks ? Yes ;
what of it ? '

" 'Twas the road to the ferry ; and right on that bluff above, the
two lots of dismayed Indians met and exchanged sad greetings and
suspicions. They had much reason. Yox, presto, presto, and the scene
was now abruptly changed. The looks of their captors lowered ; their
faces became clouded and sullen ; their words fierce and insolent.
They roughly separated the women and children, and confined them
in one cabin, and then drove the shocked and unresisting males into
another, impudently charging them with being warriors and enemies
instead of peaceful Christians ; with having the stolen goods of mur-
dered borderers in their possession, and triumphantly pointing to pewter
dishes and spoons, and to branded horses as proof of the alleged
robberies.

'"Twas in vain that the branding-irons made by native blacksmiths
were shown, and that the astonished Indians accounted — as I heard
their teachers do in each case — for every article in their possession
— what had been made by themselves and what had been bought from
traders or carried from the east. It was the old fable of the Wolf and
the Lamb. They were doomed to destruction, and as the terrible truth
gradually took possession of them, a feeling of horror was depicted on
their tearful countenances.

" A council was now held by the miscreant band, and a violent and
blood-thirsty feeling soon developed itself. Angry words arose, followed
by menacing gestures. Suggestions of pity and moderation were rudely
scoffed at, and it soon became manifest that the hundred were to be
ruled and domineered by a few fierce, violent, fanatical spirits — tur-
bulent, tempestuous borderers, with mouths filled with whisky, tobacco
and big oaths, and who hated and hunted Indians like snakes."

"But where was the craven Williamson all this time?" queried
Brady, indignantly; " and why didn't he at once rebuke and beat down
this dastardly treachery? "

" Well, Williamson did what he could in a mild, arguing sort of way.
I'll give him that credit. But his band was militia, all of equal authority,
collected from various places, many of them unknown to him ; and,

THE MASSACRE OF GNADENHUTTEN. 219

although a brave and humane man himself, he hadn't that kind of quiet
moral force that such a lawless band required. All he and the ofificers
generally dared to do was to refer the matter to the men and
take a vote."*

" Well, by — , there's just where he made a fatal mistake," hotly put
in Brady. " I've served through the Revolution, and know well how
a few bold, blustering bullies can make a whole regiment do wrong
against their will. No use for an officer to temporize and argue with
that strain of men. He must take the bull by the horns, and dare do
his whole duty. If Dave Williamson had stepped sternly out ; boldly
denounced and forbidden such villainy, and called on his command to
obey orders, and not discuss them, the few cut-throat savages would
have slunk away, and the rest asserted themselves."

"I believe you, Captain," answered the young Divinity student,
quietly; **but would have believed you just as readily if you hadn't
challenged your Maker to back you up. 'Thou shalt not take the
name of the Lord, thy God, in vain.' "

"I ask your pardon, Sir," answered Brady, confusedly, feeling the
rebuke was deserved. "I forgot your cloth, and we borderers fall into
a rough way of speaking; but I get so riled up at the Moravian butchery
that I want to talk as strong as I feel."

Mr. Christy bowed gravely, and continued : " Well, whether the
Colonel could or could not control his men, it is certain he didn^ t; but
pusillanimously shifted the responsibility on his band by a vote ' whether
the Moravian Indians should be taken prisoners to Pittsburgh or put
to death,' and requested that all those who were in favor of saving their
lives should step out of the line and form a second rank.

" Would you believe it, Brady, only eighteen out of all that party
dared to put them on the side of right and justice — ^just 2^ paltry eighteen.
The rest were overawed or demonized, I don't know which. I was
shocked ! confounded ! speechless with amazement ! had talked with a
number of the teachers and leading Indians, and was perfectly convinced
they were good and sincere Christians, ever on the side of peace, and
having nothing whatever to do with border raids and savageries.

" I supposed that, having the same proofs, many others were likewise
so convinced, but when I saw this sparse little group of protesters, I
thought 'twas high time to do 7)iy duly if the Colonel wouldn't do his.
So I held a brief consultation with our party, and then harangued the
whole assemblage, protesting in the most solemn manner against such
a horrible piece of hypocrisy and outrage. I went over all the
circumstances of the case ; showed how we had disarmed and then
enticed over these inoffensive Christians ; what they had already suffered
from Girty and the Ohio tribes, and finished by calling God to witness
that we would be innocent of their blood."

♦Injustice to the memory of Col. Williamson, I have to say that, although at that time veryyoung.
I was personally acquainted with him, and say with confidence he was a brave man, but not or. el.
He would meet an enemy in battle and fight like a soldier,but not murder a prisoner. — Doddridge" s
Notes.

From the best evidence before us, Colonel Williamson deserves not the censure helonging to this
campaign. He is acknowledsied on all hands to have been a brave and meritorious officer, and had
he possessed proper command, none can doubt but what the resu.t would have bten very different.
-De Haas' History of Western Virginia.

220 SIMON GIRTY.

"The base, infernal butchers," said Brady. "I hope you put it to
them hot and strong."

"I did, indeed, Captain; stronger than they would bear, for, while
the better part of them slunk away beyond the sound of my voice, and
others winced and uneasily affected to scoff and jeer at my reproofs,
the bolder scoundrels gathered about me with scowling faces and
menacing gestures ; called me a young milksop, a chicken-hearted boy,
a black-coated pedagogue, old McMillan's baby darling, and what-not."

" I tell you, Brady, I seemed to be looking into the fierce, savage
faces of a pack of famished blood-thirsty wolves ; their yellow eyes
shot fire ; their teeth gnashed like fangs ; they glared at me horribly,
nervously rubbing their hands together, as if they wanted to tear me
to pieces. I couldn't believe these were my gay, roystering compan-
ions of the day previous. Like tigers, the smell of blood seemed to
have completely crazed them, and whetted their appetites for more."

** It's marvellous," here interrupted Brady. "It does seem as if
the long Indian wars had actually debased a large number of our fron-
tier's people to the savage state. Having lost so many friends and re-
latives by the savages, and heard of so many horrid murders and
scalpings, they are possessed with an insatiate thirst for blood, and
look upon all Indians as wild varmints to be killed and scalped on
sight. They are worse than the savages themselves. Well, what
next?"*

" Oh, our steadfast little band of malcontents barely escaped.vio-
lence, and retired to the edge of the woods protesting in God's name
against the diabolical atrocity resolved upon. Meanwhile the assas-
sins— for I can call them by no milder name — debated as to the mode
of death. Some even advised burning the Moravians alive as they
were cooped up in the two cabins. At last it was all decided to kill and
scalp them wholesale, and then burn their towns and carry off all their
horses, skins, &c.

"You may faintly imagine, but I can't hope to describe the scene
that ensued when this terrible news was told the victims. The males
soon quieted down into a sort of sullen, stoical indifference, but the
tears and wails and shrieks among the women and children were truly
heart-rending. They might have moved hearts of stone — not of ada-
mant.

" A petition now came up from the poor betrayed innocents that
they might have some time to prepare for death. They called God
to witness their guiltlessness, but were ready to suffer for His sake,
only asking that they might sing and pray together, and make their
peace with Him.

*' This was grudgingly granted. It was now night. The Heavens
were overcast. The wind arose and soughed mournfully through the
forest where our little party sat sad and indignant ; but above all the
noise and bluster of the winds, floated the strong, sweet sounds of
public worship.

" I could scarce believe my own ears, and several of us wended our

* The sentiment here expressed by Brady is the same as written by Dr. Joseph Doddridg*,
an Historian of that period, in his Notes on Indian Wars.

THE MASSACRE OF GNADENHUTTEN. 221

way to the cabins, passing the huge fires around which were assem-
bled the main portion of the expedition. Approaching a window,
I stepped upon a log, looked in, and beheld one of the most touching
scenes man ever saw. The hymns were just over, and now strong,
brawny, swarthy-hued men were passing around shaking each other's
hands and kissing each other's cheeks. Some faces were bedewed
with tears, and some convulsed with agony, but most had on them
the joyful, exultant expression of the victory almost won — a prefigura-
tion as it were of the coming glory. Now they tenderly asked each
other's pardon for offenses given or griefs occasioned ; now they kneel-
ed and offered with uplifted faces — which seemed to brighten with a
radiance almost celestial — fervent prayers to God, their Saviour,
and then, as one or another would touchingly allude to their wives
and children — so near to them and yet so far from them — the whole
assemblage would burst out into tears and convulsive sobbings.

"Oh, Brady, 'twas just awful ! I never expect to witness on earth
another such moving sight. I never hope to see God's grace and
power so manifested, or His name so magnified. No Heathen curses
or boastings ; no revilings of their cruel, merciless murderers, or call-
ing down upon them of Almighty vengeance. All was love and joy
and resignation to God's will. Some even had the amazing grace to
imitate our Saviour, and cry out ' Father, forgive them ; they know
not what they do.'

" The scene among the poor women and children was somewhat
similar, only infinitely more harrowing and agonizing. Ruthlessly
torn from those who should have been their stay and support in these
last trying hours, how could their sobs and wails and pitiful cries be
pent up ! And how, hearing and seeing all this, and not old enough
to have the martyr's faith and joy in death, could tender, innocent
children, who laugh or weep like a capricious April day, be expected
to bear up against such an overwhelming woe !

"Excited by a louder and more distressful wail — more like a shriek
— than usual, I summoned up courage to take one glance within.
Merciful Father ! One was enough ! An exemplary believer, Chris-
tina by name, from Bethlehem, Pa. , had just finished an exhortation
for all to stand firm to the death ! that there was no hope left but in a
merciful Saviour ! and that, if those present could not see their hus-
bands or fathers in this world, they soon would in another and
better.

" The poor creatures did not seem to realize their awful fate till
then, and such a heart-rending wail arose from the whole assemblage
as would have moved the dead. I saw fond mothers, with tears
streaming down their tawny faces, convulsively embrace their dear
little children, and children — some of them scarcely knowing what
it all meant — clinging to their parents amid harrowing cries and sob-
bings ; but most touching sight of all a number of little ones of
both sexes had quietly fallen asleep, and were lying around, with tear-
ful, passionate, agonized mother's faces hanging over them.

" Horror-stricken, I almost fell from my position at the window,
and rushed off to find Williamson. I implored him to come back
with me and gaze upon that dolorous scene. He declined, kindly,

222 SIMON GIRTY.

but firmly ; said he deeply regretted the way matters stood, but was
powerless to do anything. 'Twas as much as his life was worth. He
had done all he could, but each man had as much authority as him-
self, and all were stubbornly bent on vengeance.

"I then asked permission to enter the two cabins and mingle with
the victims and help prepare them for the dreadful fate awaiting them.
This raised a storm of indignant reproach among the men who, at-
tracted by the discussion, had gathered about. Some of them had
imbibed freely from a keg of sacramental wine they had discovered,
and were rude and turbulent.

" I rejoined our little party, and sadly awaited the morning. The
8th of March dawned gloomily. The air was raw and chilly, and
gusts of wind and soft snow would at times sweep through the air.
Two houses were chosen for the execution, one for the men and the
other for the women and children. To these the wanton murderers
appropriately gave the name of ' slaughter-houses ! ' You see those
two naked chimnies ? 'Tis all that's left of them ; but come, Brady !
let's go nearer that I may explain what happened next."

CHAPTER LVI.

A VISIT TO THE "SLAUGHTER-HOUSES."

The twain silently arose from an old canoe which had served as a
seat, and almost shudderingly advanced to where the "slaughter-
houses " had stood. The moon was now obscured behind a heavy,
rapidly drifting cloud. A brisk breeze brought mournful sounds from
the encircling forests. They now stood upon the very edge of the cel-
lar where lay the scorched and half-consumed remains of twenty wo-
men and thirty-four children.

Nothing but a heap of charred and blackened ruins ' A rank, fetid,
charnel-house odor filled the air and offended the nostrils. A blue
smoke was even yet rising from one corner of the crushed and fallen
timbers. The scene was weird arid uncanny. The gloom and desola-
tion became oppressive. Neither spake. At last Brady whispered :

" For God's sake, Christy, let's get out of this ! It's simply horri-
ble ! I'm not easily moved, but what you've told me this night; this
sacrificial stench of burnt flesh, and that pile of still smouldering ru-
ins, shock me deeply. I seem to see the whole awful scene before me,
and feel it down to the very marrow of my bones."

" And so do I," replied Christy, in low, earnest tones while tightly
clutching Brady's arm. " It's given me the horrors for two months.
I saw but a small part of the damnable atrocities, and yet enough to
curdle ray blood, and at night, especially, the hellish saturnalia rise
up before me in ghostly procession. I cannot shut them out. They
grip and shake me like a hideous nightmare, and yet they do my soul
good. ' Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.' But come !
you must see the other one," and Christy dragged his companion

A VISIT TO THE '' SLAUGHTER HOUSES."

!23

hurriedly forward to the cellar, where lay buried amid the charred and
smoking debris, the remains of forty-two slaughtered male converts.

This cellar presented about the same dismal and forlorn aspect as
did the other. As the two stood gloomily looking down upon the de-
solate ruins, all at once, Brady, in his turn, tightly grasped his com-
panion's arm and hoarsely whispered : —

" My God, Christy, what's that ! Don't you hear something down
there ? Listen ! "

" No, I don't,'' after a pause. " You ain't trying to frighten me,
Brady ? I'm not of that—"

" Hist ! hist ! there 'tis again ! By Heaven, I tell you there is a
strange sound down there — a sort of grating, grinding, crunching
noise. It stopped for a moment, but I heard it just now again.
Must be some varmint " — and Brady hunted around by the obscure
light, and found a heavy stick of charred wood, whicla he, with a
shout, hurled down into the cellar.

An instant noise and rush were heard from various parts of the ru-
ins, accompanied by short angry yelps and snarls, and immediately
after could be seen leaping up from under the arched timbers and
darting off, several gaunt and shaggy forms, which soon disappeared
in the adjacent woods.

" Must b3 Indian dogs left here, and looking for their poor, lost
masters," nervously whispered Christy.

''Dogs be hanged," quickly answered Brady; " they're ravenous
wolves gone down beneath that pile of burnt stuff to gnaw the bones
of the dead. Thought I couldn't be mistaken in those crunching,
mumbling sounds. Now come away, I tell you ! I'll stop here no lon-
ger. It's a horrible charnel-house — would as soon breathe the stifling
odor of the Catacombs," and Brady led the way from the place with
quick, impatient strides.

They soon left the deserted village behind Ihem ; entered the dense,
sombre woods ; sped along till the camp-fires were in full view, and
then sat down on a mossy log to rest. Here Brady felt again at home^
but nothing was said for some little time. At length, while taking off
his skin cap, thridding his thick chestnut curls with his fingers, and
wiping the thick beads from his brow, Brady smilingly remarked :

" Glad to get out of that graveyard, anyhow ! It's strange, Christy,
how the night will affect a strong man. Now I'm no chicken, and am
deemed a pretty tough, weather-beaten hunter. Scarcely know what
nerves are in the day time, and yet many a night in the woods, on a
'painter' or Indian hunt, I've started up and found my head filled
with the sickliest kind of fancies — thought Indians were on all sides of
me. Every dancing, rustling leaf above my head would take strange,
fantastic shapes in the flickering fire-light, and make me as nervous as
a girl with the megrims, or as a cat in a strange garret. I'd pish and
pshaw, and shut my eyes tight, but not the slightest use. I never could
get to sleep again without jumping up, giving the fire a turn, taking a
pipe of tobacco, and then, maybe, going over several times my ' Now
I lay me's,' &c."

"It is odd," laughed Christy. "I have the same experience.
Night makes mountains out of mole-hills, and it's a capital time for

224 SIMON GIRTY.

nursing up all one's pet troubles. Great pity that our feelings, and
even our faith, should depend on the state of our liver, and on whe-
ther we've eaten pork and cabbage, or corn pone and venison for sup-
per. I'll tell you one thing, though, Brady. I don't believe certain
ones I could name of Williamson's gang would dare go within a stone's
throw of that village by night, and as for gazing down at either one
of those cellars, 'twould be worse on them than a regular scalping ; but
shall I go on, or wait another time ? "

" Oh, yes, go on ! go on ! Make a finish of it at once!" said
Brady. "I'm daily learning how little better many Christian whites
are to wild beasts, and how much worse often times tlian heathen."

" * But for the grace of God there goes John Bunyan ! ' said once
the 'inspired tinker' on seeing a drunken, worthless wretch reeling
down the street of Bedford, and I suspect," added Christy, " we all
have that same tendency of going back to our original wildness which
fruit trees are said to possess. , But to resume.

*' On the morning of the 8th the doomed Christians again com-
menced their devotions, but were interrupted by one of the execu-
tioners bluntly asking if they were not yet ready for death. The re-
ply came in the affirmative ; they had commended their souls to God
and were now prepared for the sacrifice.

" The cabin in which the males were confined belonged to a cooper,
and one of the party — you'd be shocked, Brady, if I called him by
name — taking up a cooper's mallet, said : * How exactly this will an-
swer for the business,' and commencing with Abraham, whom I
learned was amost devoted and exemplary disci pie, he felled, as a butcher
would so many beeves, no less than fourteett Christians / He now
handed the bloody mallet to another miscreant, with the remark : 'My
arm fails me ! Go on in the same way ! I think I^ve done pretty
well ! ' and so the horrid, hellish work went on till over forty were thus
dropped, scalped and hacked to pieces.

" In the other house, Judith, an aged and remarkably pious and gen-
tle widow, was the first victim. Christina, before mentioned, fell on
her knees and begged for life.

" In vain ! In vain ! Tli.e tigers had again tasted blood. In both
houses men, women and children were bound by ropes in couples, and
were thus ' led like lambs to the slaughter.' Most all of them, I heard,
— for I only saw that part of the butchery which I was compelled to
witness — marched cheerfully, and some smilingly, to meet their death.

"And in this atrocious and inhuman manner," solemnly continued
Christy, "died, in all, over ninety Christian Indians, and may God
have had mercy on their souls, and given them, in Heaven, that joy
and peace which His enemies prevented them from knowing on earth."

"Amen ! " added Brady in his deep, bass tones, "and may his curse
and punishment equally follow — "

" Stop ! stop ! my hasty friend. ' Vengeance is mine : I will repay,
sayeth the Lord.' We can safely rest this matter with Him. ' The
mills of the gods grind slow, but they grind exceeding fine.' Five of
the slain were extremely aged and accomplished native teachers — two
of them originally converts to Brainard, in New Jersey, and one, the
famous fighting chief, Glickhiccan.

A VISIT TO THE "SLAUGHTER HOUSES. 225

**But the children ! Ah, the tender, innocent children, whose lov-
ing voices of praise had so often ascended from the home, the school,
and the chapel, my heart faileth me to describe the shocking and har-
rowing scene of their horrid death. Their agonizing cries pierce my
ears ; their pitiful, beseeching young faces wring my heart even to this
day."

"My God! what sickening savagery!" gasped Brady. "It
fairly stuns and appalls me ! And were none of those precious inno-
cents allowed to live?"

" I'll tell you, my friend, for your query leads me to the part /took
in the tragedy. After exhausting every effort to stay the carnage, I
had, with very many others, kept aloof from the slaughter pens, but all
at once heard a piercing shriek, and saw a bright, active young lad of
about eight years running for dear life in my direction, and pursued
by one of the murderers with gory, uplifted tomahawk. I immediate-
ly sprang towards him. The little fellow saw me ; ran as hard as his
tiny legs would carry him, and wound his arms tight about my limbs
crying — ' Good pale face ! save ' ittie Injun boy. Don't let him kill
Benny! oh, don't ! '

" I would have saved that life with my own ! Raising my rifle and
drawing a bead on him, I sternly warned off the pursuing cut-throat.
Fortunately those who saw the affair were as much moved as I was, and
backed me up at once. And so the bloody miscreant was forced to re-
tire suddenly without his prey."

" And what became of the lad?" eagerly asked Brady.

" He's at my father's house on Buffalo creek, and — Oh, strange in-
consistency of man ! — the very caitiffs who were so pitiless at the car-
nage, overwhelmed the little fellow with their attentions on the route
home. He became a great favorite with all. Happily for him he has
a child's memory, and is now as merry and frolicsome as any of my
little brothers with whom he plays. I intend raising him and making
a missionary of him, as the only reparation I can give for my share in
this disgraceful expedition."*

*'0h, you're not to blame," said his companion, 'and I thank you
in the name of our common humanity for what you were able to do ;
but what became of those at the upper village?"

" Why, soon as the slaughter was over, a party of the most insatia-
ble of the free-booters scurried off on horse-back to Schoenbrun ; but,
thank God, the game had fled. The village was found completely de-
serted; so setting fire to it, they returned and finished their devasta-
tion here, by first burning the two ' slaughter-houses/ and then the chap-
el, school-house and all the other buildings.

" Hastily gathering up their ill-gotten and blood-stained plunder,
they started for Fort Pitt, driving before them about fifty stolen horses.
You already know what the scoundrels did there. Reaching the Ohio,
they marched up its bank to Smoky Island, opposite Fort Pitt ; attack-
ed a settlement of peaceful and friendly Delawares there, under Kill-
buck, Big Cat, and the young chief who was to succeed White Eyes ;

*One little boy of eight years old (named Benjamin) was happily saved by a humane white man
of the party, who privately took him oflf to his home, where he raised him to a man, whence he after-
wards returned to the Indian country. — Heckwelder, M</r. Missions.

226 SIMON GIRTY.

killed and scalped the last with many others ; drove off the other chiefs
and a sergeant's guard from the fort; crossed to Pittsburgh, boasting
of their inhuman atrocities, and ended by having a public vendue of
all the blankets, guns, horses, and other booty, so vilely and meanly
stolen.

" Meanwhile, about the time the lad was rescued, at least half the ex-
pedition, disgusted and indignant at the desperate extremes of the
ringleaders, had ridden homewards, and were not overtaken until near
Mingo Bottom, on the Ohio. While many there crossed the river and
dispersed, the rest, as stated, rode on towards Pittsburgh to complete
their deviltries, and so my story's ended.

" And a sad and shameful one it is," said Brady as he rose slowly
to his feet. " I fairly shudder at it — can scarcely credit it — seems
like some horrid nightmare ! Come ! I feel sore about this. Let's to
camp ! There's no use in a hell if not meant for just such fellows."

We may add here some few additional facts derived from Moravian
writers, and of which, of course, Mr. Christy was then ignorant.

Two Indian lads, respectively aged fourteen and fifteen, made a
miraculous escape from the "slaughter-houses." One (Thomas by
name) was knocked down and scalped with the rest, but after a while
coming to his senses, he saw Abel, a friend, also scalped, covered with
blood and trying to get on his feet. Fearing a return of the murder-
ers, Thomas lay down and feigned death. True enough, the murder-
ers did return, and seeing Abel still living, chopped his head off.
Thomas now crept over all the dead, mutilated bodies, stole out at the
door, concealed himself until dark and escaped.

The other lad referred to as escaping was in the house with the wo-
men and children, and raising a loose plank which served as a trap
into the cellar, he and a companion slipped into the basement, and
lay there during the whole time of the butchery, the blood of the
slaughtered women and children running down upon them in streams
through the crevices of the rough plank floor. At dark they both at-
tempted to escape by a small hole which served for a window. The
smaller one succeeded, but his companion stuck fast and was burnt
with the house.

These two lads, the only human beings, besides little Bennie afore-
said, who escaped the slaughter, took to the woods at different times,
and with that unerring sagacity which seems to be an instinct with la-
dians of all ages, made a straight course home. The next day they
met on the trail and also fell in with the spared fugitives from Shoen-
brun. These latter had providentially been warned in time to have
all escaped.

A runner named Stephen had been sent down from Sandusky by
the missionaries Zeisberger and Heckewelder, to the three Moravian
towns, summoning the corn-gatherers to return. As he was much
spent on arriving at Shoenbrun, two fresh messengers were sent on to
Gnadenhutten and Salem. On approaching the former, they saw
tracks of shodden horses ; then came on the scalped and mangled
body of young Shabosch, and then saw in the distance the whites and
Indians all crowded together. Hastening back with the news, the
Indians at Shoenbrun at once took to the woods near by, and were

THE SCOUTS "TAKE UP " A HOT TRAIL. 227

there concealed when the monsters visited and burned their beautiful
village.

Many attempts — some of them of late years — have been made by
historical writers to exculpate Williamson in regard to this terrible
butchery. // cannot be done. ! The damned blood spot will not out
at the bidding of any feeble apologist. The commander of the expe-
dition must be held, not only as particeps criminis, but as its very
" head and front." Dr. Doddridge asserts that, as a militia officer,
Williamson could advise but not command, and that " his only fault
was that of too easy compliance with popular prejudice." It is a gross
abuse of words to call that z. fault which should be deemed a flagrant
crime.

If the Colonel had but dared to head the eighteen protestants, and
had boldly and firmly opposed the dastardly ruffians, not a man, wo-
man or child would have bled. All blustering bullies are arrant cow-
ards. He did not so dare, but shirked his plain duty, bandying
honied words and flimsy arguments when he should have thundered
out commands, or presented rifles. As with Macbeth, "All great
Neptune's ocean cannot wash this blood clean from his hand."

The whole massacre leaves a stain of deepest dye on the page of
American History. It was simply atrocious and execrable — a blister-
ing disgrace to all concerned ; utterly without excuse and incapable
of defence. It damns the memory of each participator "to the last
syllable of recorded time." All down the ages the " massacre of the
Innocents " is its only parallel. We must go to the Thugs of India or
to the slaughters of African Dahomey for its superior.

CHAPTER LVII.

THE SCOUTS " TAKE UP " A HOT TRAIL.

The first " skriek o' day" found the united band not only up, but
all ready for the trail. As Zane, Brady and Maj. McColloch stood
grouped together at the debouchure of the ravine, the gaunt and
sinewy hunters led by Andy Poe, Simon Butler and Lew Wetzel, with
his long, jetty curls, filed past them and out into the open. The last
man abreast of them, Butler turned and said : "A cheer, my lads, for
our guest, Captain Brady, the best scout on the upper waters."

It was given with a will. Brady bowed his acknowledgments, and
pleasantly remarked : " As fine a brood of Leather-breeches as I ever
clapped eyes on — and not one o' them less than six feet one, and as
light and springy as a one-spike buck."

" You're right, Captain, and you'll find they're no slouches, either
— tough hickory all through, and well clinched. They've a keen nose
for a cold trail, and bound to be in at the death."

" I see you had luck last night, Butler, by the ' painter * skin on
your back. Much sport ? "

"A right smart tussle; was out till midnight, and have a story to
tell ye. Will see you again."

228 SIMON GIRTY.

Strange to say the Hermit had loitered and came last. His intense
passion seemed, as it were, to be burning him out, but his eye was as
lustrous and fever-lit as ever.

"Halloo, Mr. Markham ! " exclaimed Brady, as the Hermit, with
head bent steadily forward was swinging rapidly past. '' How's this?
You're not apt to so play the laggard ! "

The Hermit started; looked at the three confusedly for a moment,
and then glided quickly and nervously up to Brady's side, remarking
in a low, quiet tone of suppressed excitement:

"Do ye think we'll come up with him to-day?"

"Who? Girty? Oh, yes, I hope so. He can't be over a couple of
hours the start of us."

"No! No! Black-Hoof! Black-Hoof! If I can secure my trophy
from him, I'll rest content. Girty be hanged ! "

"Well," laughed Brady, "that's just the end I'd like for him — or, as
poor Larry says it — 'may he dance a hornpipe in the air; ' but you
must first catch your rabbit before you can cook it."

The Hermit shook his head in a strange, absent sort of way,
shouldered his rifle, and recommenced his dogged walk, simply
remarking: "I must push for the fore front. I never jest when
tracking Indians — it's too serious a business."

"An odd fish, that Hermit of yours," said Zane; "but despite his
shabby dress, and strange wildness, looks as if he had been a gentleman
once. He has a sort of refined air about him uncommon to the back-
woods, and how his big brown eyes blaze ! is it the fire of insanity,
think ye ! "

"Oh, no ! Only a monomania for revenge. It is just devouring him,
and will waste and consume him to the end; but I've been studying
the man, and believe his intellect will burn clear to the very last. He
talks well, and reads strange books, but hotly repels all attempts to get
at his secret. But come! we must be on the move."

The trail commenced at Gnadenhutten, proceeding along the bank
of the Tuscarawas to the mouth of Big Sandy. Near the deserted Fort
Laurens, our band, feeling quite confident of its ability — not only on
account of quantity but quality — to cope with Girty's force, there
boldly crossed the river in a canoe which they hunted out, and took a
short cut for the Sandusky trail. The leaders had little doubt but
what Girty and the captives had passed that way. They approached it
with Indian wariness, and were soon rewarded by seeing the tracks of
horses' feet.

The news was soon passed from one to the other and all was joy and
animation. Every head was up in air at once. The moccasined feet
lifted more briskly and springily, and there was a general push for the
front. This ardent competition was at once repressed by the leaders.
Only the best trackers, and those most skilled at reading "Indian sign,"
were allowed to head the file Two flankers on either side, at one and
two hundred yards from the trail, coursed along in parallel lines to
guard against surprise or ambush.

The trail now descended to cross a broad, shallow run. The moist,
impressible margins of streams are the tracker's favorite study. He
reads the hieroglyphics printed there on the mud or sand, as savants

THE SCOUTS "TAKE UP A HOT TRAIL. 229

would those on an Egyptian papyrus, or as Geologists would extort the
hidden testimony and secrets of the rocks. An instant pause was
made; Poe was sent up and Wetzel down stream, while Brady, Butler
and other close scrutinizers addressed themselves to the work of
decyphering.

It was at once patent to all that no attempt was made by Girty to
cover his tracks. Confident in his strength, or in his late studied en-
deavors to throw both bodies of pursuers off his trail, he had moved
boldly. Not a stone, twig, blade of grass or inch of ground was left
unquestioned. Where fresh leaves had been cut by the horses' feet, oi;
twigs stripped or broken by their teeth, a special study was made.
How m.uch sap had been expressed? was it still exuding? was it
gathered in drops or run together? Again! how did the footprints
look? how dry or how moist? and even their color; how far withered
and sapless were the broken ends of twigs? All these told about how
long the party had passed. Other professional signs gave some
indication as to numbers.

The trailing experts had now finished, and came together to collate
their facts and draw their inferences. Result: All the horses with the
captives had gone over; likewise the two ponies, which meant, as Brady
could testify, Mrs. Dormanand the children ; also, the litter with Black-
Hoof. The whole party had passed about two hours before; was
traveling rapidly; was larger than expected; and this last occasioned
surprise and discussion. Could any reinforcement have reached Girty
by a side trail? if so, who and of how many composed? and admitting,
or rather supposing a reinforcement, should the pursuit now rush to an
immediate attack, or should it await the night?

When the leaders had resolved, all the scouts — volunteers and equal
in authority — were grouped together; the facts exhibited and the
arguments discussed. The Wheeling party generally — furious at the
abduction of the three most beautiful and accomplished girls on their
border, and of a man so popular as young Mo. Shepherd, son of the
commandant of Fort Henry — were forsweeping forward and making a
sudden and desperate assault.

The cooler heads of Zane, Brady and McColloch now interposed
objections and suggestions until the opinion gradually obtained that
even if Girty had not been strengthened, yet still the two forces were
so near equal, that a doubtful and terrible conflict must ensue, putting
in jeopardy the safety, and even the lives of those they wished to succor.

If Girty, on the contrary, had been reinforced, the struggle would
be still more uncertain and desperate, infinitely augmenting the risks
to the captives. Why not, then, after the 'fashion of their crafty foe
themselves, employ strategy to make all even?

We need not give the/r^jand cons, but the conclusion accepted was
that it were wiser to follow up the trail during the day ; advance the
most skillful scouts to study force and position ; closely watch every
opportunity, and risk, if all things favored, a sudden and masked
attack. This would equalize any disparity, if such existed; would
exact the least risk and afford the largest combination of chances and
advantages.

Thus, therefore, it was arranged, and each scout girded up his loins

230 SIMON GIRTY.

and sprang eagerly to his place in the file. No more listless saunter-
ing now ! The battle is snuffed from afar. The thought of the cap-
tives animates every breast. Each keen eye is on the alert for the foe.
Every heart throbs with excitement ; and so the silent, stealthy, ner-
vous tramp goes on. Poe videttes far in advance ; Brady is the file
leader ; Wetzel and the Hermit are flankers on the right ; Zane and
Butler on the left. A hard party to surprise — a still harder one to
vanquish.

, A long restful nooning occurred on a pine-covered cliff, overjutting
the trace at the Walnut Creek crossing. No object in pushing too fast
or jostling the foe before the time.

At about four, one of the scouts stepped aside to pick up a broad
piece of birchen bark, which seemed to him to have a fresh, ragged
edge, and to be out of place under the paw-paw bush where it lay.
On turning it around, the smooth side is seen covered with rude draw-
ings in charcoal. Nothing is valueless on a trail, and Zane had urged
all to keep a bright look out on either side. The scout calls to the
next two in file to look at the odd thing, but they can make nothing
of it. They are about to toss it aside as a piece of mere Indian idling
when Brady's quick eye is attracted.

" What is't, my lads? Found anything?"

" Nothing, Captain, but a birch bark, with some redskin fooling.
Like to see it ?"

Brady took the bark, looked at it intently, knit his brows, scratched
his head, and sat down on the grass to study it more closely. At last
his face gradually began to brighten as he gazed, and then to look tri-
umphant.

" Call in Butler !" he said decisively; and then turning to the scouts
eagerly gathered about, he smilingly continued :

" Redskin fooling that talks pretty plain, anyhow. That's a picto-
rial letter from my old and faithful friend, Killbuck, the Delaware
chief."

A start of surprise went around the circle as they bent over to look
at the rude characters.

" Fact !' laughed Brady; "sure as shooting! Here, Butler!" to
Kenton as he hurried up. "You've been a good deal among Indians
and know their ways. What d'ye make out o' that ?"

Butler scrutinized the bark very closely. " Wall, it's Delaware all
over, and means something, I do believe, but 'zactly what I can't
make out."

" Neither could I, at first." replied Brady; "but I've cyphered out
this much. That line with a white man at head, followed by thirty
smaller outlines of reds, three horses, two smaller beasts, three white
men and an Indian, means Girty's force, and that Killbuck, and all
the captives and the two children are with him. Now, here comes a
line into the other from the northwest with one war-chief and ten In-
dians marked on it. I make that to mean another trail, on which has
come a force of ten men, and I know the war-chiefs Delaware by the
wolf totem on his breast. It's probably Wingenund, who I learned at
Fort Pitt had a camp somewhere near the Olentangy or Broken Sword
Creek."

THE SCOUTS "take UP A HOT TRAIL. 23 1

"It begins to look that way, I do declare," laughed Butler;
" if so, Girty's been reinforced by eleven fighters, and we must b;;
more cautious than ever ; but how do you know Killbuck made
his?"

" Why, there it's writ at the end, as plain as if he had signed his
name in ink — plainer than a * his X mark.' There's his own rough
portrait, with the 'turtle totem' of his tribe; something in one hand,
which I take to mean a piece of charcoal, and something broad in the
other, which must mean this bark peeling. Now there' s a part — point-
ing to a rude representation of some Indians carrying something like
a box — "which I was long in making out. I now believe it to mean
the litter in which the wounded Black Hoof is carried. And here's
something just at the end which I cant interpret.

"Look at it, Butler, and see \l yau can spell it out. There's some-
thing like a fire and a bark hut ; around it are Indian figures reclining,
and above them two white men standing — at least I judge them to be
white men by their having caps on instead of scalp-locks, and hunting
frocks instead of the usual Indian blanket or naked upper body — one
aiming a rifle and the other bringing down a tomahawk. Then above
all this is a round circle with a man's grinning face in it, and a whole
lot of little dots about. If the old chief ever drank * fire-water,' would
say he had been taking a strong * night cap.' "

Butler again took and examined the bark, while the wondering scouts
gazed intently over his shoulder. All at once his face lightened up
amazingly, while a dry, silent sort of chuckle was emitted from his
throat. "Why where's your eyes, Cap? Fve got it, sure's a bar uj)
a gum tree; just the plainest and talkingest thing in the whole picter.
Hope I may be shot ef those injuns lying there with the fire and the
bark hut, don't mean an encampment. The round thing that looks
like a barrel head splashed about with dots, means the moon and stars ;
ha ! ha 1 ha ! and the white men standing over the sleeping reddies,
mean us, and no one else. Claw my back with wild cats ef they don't !
and the whole reads that Killbuck wants us to make a night attack as
the only safe plan."

There was a general laugh as the mortified Brady looked once again,
and then said: "Right as a trivet, Butler, and so's the old chief —
was stupified not to see it all. As you say, it's about the clearest
writing of any. But come, lads ! we've read an Indian letter from end
to end, and now let's act on it. Am glad the wise and crafty Killbuck
agrees with us as to the best mode of assault."

The whole band, which had by this time — flankers and all — assem-
bled around, now took up the trail again in high good humor. As
evening approached, and the chances increased of coming upon either
Girty's encampment or some of his outworking hunters or laggards
on the trail, it was deemed best to stop altogether till dark.

A pause was, therefore, ordered on the eastern margin of a rapid
little stream, and, of course, quite off the trail and completely shel-
tered from all chance stragglers. No fire could be made, as everything
depended on the utmost secrecy, and all seemed to know it. While
the men picked their flints, examined their bullet and greased patch-
pouches, and made all ready for what might prove a desperate struggle,

232 SIMON GIRTY.

the leaders sat apart, discussing in low, guarded tones, the best policy
to pursue.

It was concluded that as soon as their evening lunch should be over,
the band should be left in charge of Zane, while Poe, Butler, Brady
and McColloch should cautiously advance towards Girty's camp,
carefully examine its position and surroundings, mark where the cap-
tives were posted, and report everything necessary. The attack would
then be organized, and its leaders appointed. The Hermit, whose
burning zeal, it was feared, might outrun his discretion, was persuaded
to stay behind for the present.

CHAPTER LVni.

. THE SCOUTS COME UPON GIRTY's CAMP.

It was just dark when these four daring wood-rangers covertly sought
again the trail, and picked their stealthy way through the sombre,
solemn solitudes that enclosed them on every side. The shades of
night gathered down so thick and fast about their path that progress
became difficult.

Now gradually surged up the many night sounds peculiar to the vast
wilderness — the mournful hoot of owl, the distant bay of wolves, the
occasional snort of deer, rudely startled from their tangled coverts,
while once their attentive ears caught the strangely human cry of a
panther as he ventured out on his nightly prowl —

Cruel as Death, and hungry as the grave.
Burning for blood; bony, gaunt and grim.

They had gone probably a matter of two miles or so, when the
sounds of dashing waters were borne through the still air, heavy with
woodland aromas. The scouts stood mute in their tracks, and listened
intently. Must be Killbuck Creek, and those were the rapids ! Yes,
no doubt of it ! they had made a long day's tramp, and were now just
on the edge of the highlands! Brady and McColloch had both
scouted the country, and at once jumped to the same conclusion, that
Girty's force would be found on the old camping ground about a
famous spring where once was located "Killbuck'sTown" — "not our
big-moon Killbuck, but his grandfather," added Brady, laughingly.

It was even so. The noise of the rapids grew fuller and fresher ;
the cool air and moisture from the water were felt in the air, and at a
sharp bend of the trail a circular space in the forest lighted up by two
huge camp fires, suddenly burst upon their view.

No oaks of that forest stood stiller or firmer than our scouts. Their
hearts beat hard and fast. The blood fairly leaped in their veins.
Their quick, roving eyes devoured everything. The evening meal had
evidently been concluded, and the cooks were now at their's. The
savory odors of spitted venison, of basted turkeys and of tobacco
smoke were wafted even to the nostrils of our scouts. The savages
were stretched about in groups under the trees, smoking and chatting.

THE SCOUTS COME UPON GIRTY'S CAMP. 233

Now a hearty, ringing laugh would be borne towards them; now tlie
acid, angry tones of altercation, and now a snatch of rude Indian
chanting. Fortunately, as this party of " braves " were on the war-
path, but a single dog could be heard, and he, while looking towards
the unbidden guests of the forest, commenced a furious yowling. A
sudden kick from an Indian near by greatly discouraged him. A
chunk of wood hurled at him by another, abruptly diminuendoed his
noisy yelping into a pitiful, quavering wail.

Brady saw but little of all this. His eager eyes ranged away in
quest of the captives' hut. He thought he saw it off to one side
backed by something that looked like a rocky cliff. He even heard,
or fancied he heard, the soft tones of a woman's voice. Heavens !
could it be Drusilla's! He sank down to earth, and brought his ear
close to the ground to better catch the sounds. While thus engaged,
a gentle tug at the thong of his powder-horn made him spring to his
feet, with hand on knife.

"Let's move back a little to consult. We must study this camp
from all sides," whispered Major McColloch, in calm, even tones — the
same dauntless mad-cap, who, five years earlier, was famed as the hero
of "McColloch's Leap" over the Wheeling Hill, and who, scarce two
months from the time he now stands so bold and confident "under
the greenwood tree," was scalped and his heart cut out and eaten by
savage foes, that — so they boasted — "we be brave like him."

A whispered conference resulted in sending Brady, at his own special
request, to the right, where the captives were supposed to be stationed.
Butler was to make a detour, and ascertain the lay of the ground in the
rear; Poe was to go to the left; while McColloch was to maintain a
close watch in front. All were to meet in the same place in about
half an hour. In case of sudden alarm, two hoots of an owl — which
every hunter of the time could imitate — was to be the signal, and in
case of pursuit, each was to make his own way back to the main body.

It was now about seven of the evening, and quite dark, the moon
having not yet shown itself. The three scouts, keeping just far
enough back to be completely out of the fire-light ; with muffled foot-
fall and making no more noise than would their own shadows, began
to glide from tree to tree. We will follow Brady ; first, however,
giving a brief description of the peculiar and picturesque location of
Girty's camp.

Killbuck Creek here took quite a circular bend. On the right there
stood a steep, rocky cliff, partly following the sweep of the water, and
densely covered with laurel, vines and trees, plentifully interspersed
with pines and hemlocks. This cliff formed the extreme end of a line
of bold hills, the ground to the south being perfectly level, and
covered with a firm sward under an open grove of walnut, maple, and
— near the creek — of gigantic sycamores.

From under the base of the rocky cliff nearest the creek gushed out
a bounteous spring, so prodigal of its pure, crystal waters as to form
quite a voluminous stream, which had worked out for itself a deep and
tortuous channel that traversed the whole grassy bottom, and went
brawling and dancing its joyous course to the creek, down towards
the rapids.

234 SIMON GIRTY.

On the thither side of the shrub-and-vine-broidered little ravine was
located the larger fire, around which were grouped the Delawares un-
der Pipe and the late coming chief who was now recognized as Wing-
enund, and a small body of Hurons and Shawnees under Catahecassa,
or Black Hoof, now hors du co7nbat from late injuries inflicted by Bra-
dy and the Hermit.

The hither side of this run — that between it and the cliff — wag kept
sacred to Girty, Black Hoof, the prisoners and their guards. Right
on its margin was the second fire. Hard by, and built sheer against
the rocky perpendicular was a rude, open hut, covered with aromatic
boughs of hemlock, and designed for Mrs. Malott, Mrs. Dorman and
the children, and for the female prisoners, Betty Zane and Drusilla
Swearingen.

The perpetual organ roar of the distant rapids chiming in with the
softer melody of the babbling run ; the huge fire surrounded vi^ith its
dusky, half-naked figures, ever crossing the line of vision and boldly
relieved by strong lights against the deep gloom of the forests ; and
then again, that more peaceful and homelike scene, the other fire illu-
mining the vine-clad and green-mantled face of the rocky cliff, with
its sylvan bower at the base, the horses and ponies munching the
grass among the trees, and the group of women and children in front.
These, altogether, formed a perfect picture, one which our readers
may imagine, but which no amount of word-picturing can serve to
portray.

We speak above of women and children. It is true. Brady had
not gone two hundred yards on his course, and was cautiously thrid-
ding his way amid the forest glooms, when a loud burst of childish
merriment startled his ears. In such a place ! and so unexpected !
Again were floated to him those blithe, gleeful, rollicksome notes ;
bringing memories of a distant home ; of young brothers and sisters,
and so infectious.

It stilled the tough, restless man-hunter in an instant. His eye sof-
tened ; the grim visage relaxed, and a soft, sunny smile actually
played about his heavily-bearded mouth.

Brady pushed aside the obscuring bushes and branches, and worked
out towards the fire-light. He was right.

There, indeed, stood the cliff and the hut that he thought he saw a
while back. On the grass before the door were tumbling and gambol-
ing Mrs. Malott' s two children, filling the air with frolicksome shouts
and peals of childish laughter. They were clad just as we saw them
last. The happy mother sat on a log near by, now tossing a few
words to the little ones and now talking with Mrs Dorman, her com-
panion, or turning backward to answer some one who stood in a tree's
shadow, but whom Brady took at once to be Girty. "There must be
some good in that cursed Tory after all ! What has he in common
with children ?" muttered the scout between his teeth, ignorant of the
relations between Girty and Mrs. Malott.

But where are the captives? and where, especially, Drusilla? Bra-
dy now stooped and now stood on tip-toe : swayed his body hither
and yon in vain endeavors to spy out every nook and shadow. A
murmur of voices now reaches his ear. He listens intently ! He

THE SCOUTS COME UPON GIRTY S CAMP. 235

moves forward a few paces ! Again he hears the pleasant sounds !
You can tell it by the look of curious wonder on his face. They are
certainly the soft voices of women, and came from behind an isolated
tree a little to one side, and about midway between him and the hut.

The scout looks warily around. The tree stands within full range
of the fire-light. Any who ventured to approach it would be in peril
from those clustered near both fires. It's a dreadful risk, thinks Bra-
dy, but he'll take it. Could he meet Drusilla it would amply repay
him; besides — thought No. 2 — her information would be highly valu-
able for the coming attack.

Brady now glides warily along till he reaches the shadow of the
tree. He bends to a stooping posture and slinks rapidly ahead. Now,
the trees cease, and he drops on his stomach, dragging himself slowly
along like a snake. The voices grow more distinct ; and, oh rapture !
he is thrilled to the centre and along every nerve with Drusilla's sweet
voice as she answers a question of Betty Zane's.

His heart thumps so violently that he has to pause and lay his head
on the sod. Could anything have turned out more fortunately for
him and for all ! He now snugs himself close up behind the tree, be-
fore which, on a little grassy hillock, the two girls are sitting. He
now hears his name breathed by the one he loves best in all the world.
He cannot help but listen.

"Well, Betty, what Captain Brady says may be true, but still, if
Girty marries Kate Malott, it might be the making of him. Just to
think, too, of that poor, dear Mrs. Malott, starting perfectly hopeless
on this ill-starred journey, and to find within a few days three of her
lost children. How providential ! And one of them, too, sought in
marriage by the desperate leader of the attack."

"Three children recovered, and one to marry Girty ! " repeated
Brady to himself in great surprise. " Wonder if the smart little de-
coys are two of them ! Aha, this accounts for those children frolick-
ing before Girty and his mother-in-law that is to be. But who the
deuce is Ka/e Malott ? "

While Brady now pondered anxiously how he could reveal himself
to the two friends without putting them to flight and thus discovering
himself, Betty petulantly took up the conversation.

" Oh, yes, Silla, Mrs. Malott's getting along famously — far better
than we. Here's four days passed now, and we're captives yet, and
likely to be so to the end of the chapter. Ain't that Providential,
too ? What can Lydia Boggs and all my brothers be doing at Wheel-
ing ; and where's jour friend Brady, who escaped that he might lead
on a pursuit ? "

Brady quietly chuckled at this query. He ought to have interposed
just here, but was afraid. He had not yet decided the safest way or
making known his presence. Maybe he was curious to hear Drusilla'a
answer.

" Why, how you talk, Betty. You mz/sfgWe them time. As for
Brady," with much warmth, " I'd answer for him with my life. Pie's
brave and constant, and will never forsake his friends. Be sure of
f/iaf, Betty ! I'm expecting him hourly."

" He's here nazv/ but for God's sake keep quiet or we're all lost I "

236 SIMON GIRTY.

rapidly whispered Brady from behind the tree. He could no longer
have restrained himself, even if he had not concluded that a prompt,
bold course would probably be, after all, the most prudent.

Betty gave a slight scream and sprang in terror to her feet, while
Drusilla sat completely paralyzed with fear — trembling and almost
unconscious.

The scout immediately followed up his first remark:

''Brady's here! Onl) keep still and don't move, and all's safe!
Thank you. Miss Swearingen, for your faith in me."

The worst was over. Betty sank again confusedly and tremblingly
to the grass, while Drusilla tried hard to calm herself. Very for-
tunately, Girty was then conversing with Captain Pipe, who had
come over to arrange for the scalp-dance about to come off, while the
Indian guards were lolling about half asleep under the trees. Their
time for watching had not yet come.

A pause now ensued, until it was perfectly sure no alarm whatever
had been created. Drusilla, a lady of much quiet force of character,
was the first to break the silence.

"Oh, Captain, how you did frighten us; but, thank God, you've
come at last! Did you get my note, and are you alone?'

"I did gtt your note, and a77i alone, just now, but there's a large
force from \Vheeling two miles back — your brother Jonathan, Miss
Betty, who you were asking about, is among the number."

"Oh, Captain," whispered Betty in great confusion, "how can you
ever forgive me for what I asked Silla a while ago?"

** Pshaw!" whispered back Brady, "not worth mentioning! You
don't know me, I flatter myself, as well as Miss Drusilla does — besides
you had reason to be impatient, for we were pretty long in getting
here. Be thankful, my ladies, I didn't overhear any of your love
secrets; but where in the world are Rose and Shepherd, and
old Killbuck, too?"

Brady could not see just then the faces of the two girls or he would
have noted the tell-tale blushes on the cheeks of both. Drusilla,
however, made haste to answer:

"Oh, they're sitting over there on a log under the tree, securely
bound; all but poor Killbuck, who's standing tied to a sapling near
them in expectation of his dreadful fate."

"Dreadful fate! What do you mean?" replied the scout, popping
his head up and speaking far louder than was prudent.

"Oh, pardon me; of course you don't know. The old chief's been
getting well fast, and has been so patient and dignified that he has won
all our hearts, but last night another splendid-looking Delaware chief
— Wingenund, I believe they call him — ^joined Girty with some more
' braves,' and all the Delawares had a grand council, and after much
grave talk and deliberation, condemned him to immediate torture.
They are, I fear, making ready now."

"What!" exclaimed Brady, in great excitement: "to-night? And
will not Girty prevent it?"

"He can't, he says. Mrs. Malott and we all have entreated him to
do so, but he asserts that he himself is an adopted Wyandott, and
'twould be sheer madness in him to interfere. 'Twould cost him not

KILLBUCK S FATE — A

237

only position, but life itself. The Delawares charge that Killbuck
kept back his nation from the late war; then deserted to live among
their foes, the whites, and has offended against so many Mohican laws
that his life is justly forfeit."

"And what says the old chief himself?" asked Brady, with great
concern.

"Oh, he stoutly denies it all; taunts Pipe himself with dividing and
wasting the nation; defies him to his teeth, and charges back on him
that — now the lineal chief's killed near Pittsburgh — he wants to carry
over the Turtle tribe and make himself head-chief. Pipe, therefore,
is as bitter as gall — inexorable as Death, and is using all his arts to
push on this torture. I fairly hate him."

"Why, all this is horrible, and must be prevented at every hazard ! "
spoke Brady with anxiety. ''The chief's just risked his life to help
us, and we must return the service. I must back at once."

CHAPTER LIX.

killbuck's fate — A "fancy" chief.

We need not detail the confidential discourse that ensued. All that
was necessary to know, on either side, was fully related. Brady found
where the guards and horses would likely be; urged the girls to try
and tell Rose, Shepherd, and if possible, Killbuck, to be ready for an
attack in force that night; to conceal all from Mrs. Malott, who would
surely follow Girty; and was pressing the importance of themselves
coming again to this same tree, when all at once Drusilla's alarmed
but subdued voice broke out :

"Oh, Brady, fly, fly! for God's sake — for my sake, go at once!
Here comes Girty and that treacherous Pipe."

''They are, are they? then I'm off"," coolly replied the scout, sinking
down into the grass and commencing to back out along the shadow of
the tree in the most industrious and energetic manner. " Excuse me,
young ladies, for my undignified and craw-fish way of advance and
retreat. Next time I'll come as a man; and remember what I
tell you! Good-bye."

Drusilla sat with heart in a terrible flutter and head inclined in a
listening attitude — still as a statue for a moment, and then schooled
herself to say quietly :

"Come, Betty, better go at once to meet Girty."

The two high-mettled girls sauntered along until they encountered
the cold, suspicious eyes of the intruders, when Betty, feigning a
calmness she was far from feeling, and assuming tones of great
dejection, said sadly:

"Were you afraid we'd run off", Girty, that you keep such a
close watch?"

"No, oh no; by no means! but," glaring at them narrowly and
casting strained looks beyond and all around as if in a vain attempt tc

338 SIMON GIRTY.

pierce the darkness, "I thought I heard an odd noise a bit back,
and — and — you've been keeping mighty quiet since. Eh?"

"Miss Zane did giwQ a little scream a while ago at what we both
thought was a snake; but it proved only the rustle of a rabbit," said
Drusilla, tranquilly, although the arm she had thrust in Betty's shook
like an aspen, and her heart thumped against her boddice like a small
trip hammer.

"We're only poor, useless women, Girty," smiling sadly, "and
couldn't get out of these vast woods even if we wanted, while our
friends all seem to have forgotten us ;" this last with a mournful sigh.

"Oh, no," answered Girty, with a loud, coarse laugh, "I'll be
bound they've not forgotten such good-looking wenches ; but they've
had Simon Girty to deal with, and must be by this time near the
Chillecothe towns ; ha ! ha ! ha ! — but come, ye'd best bunk in an' catch
yer rest. We've a long jog the morrow, and widow Malott and her
childer's fast asnooze by this time."

" We'll go in if you bid us, Girty," spoke up Betty with much spirit ;
"but how, pray, could you expect us to sleep with the cries and groans
of poor, tortured Killbuck ringing in our — "

"Oh, d — n poor, tortured Killbuck," hotly broke in Girty. "One
'ud think he was yer own lover, with all the sickly, whining fuss you
make over him, instead of a false-hearted loon and a milk-livered
deserter. That cursed fellow's made me more worry and trouble the
last few years than the whole raft and grist of Ohio chiefs put together.
Now, never you fret, ma'am ! You'll hear no moans or shrieks from
him. He'll chant like a cotched jay or a dying swan, and'll fairly
warble ye to sleep."

The pained, horror-stricken girls said no more, but hurriedly enter-
ed the hut.

Brady found his three companions impatiently awaiting him. He
heard their news, and told his, at once. On account of Killbuck, he
urged all haste. The backward trip — notwithstanding the party's
skill in woodcraft, and their care in noting marks on the out-tramp —
was somewhat tedious. The moon was now abroad, it is true, and its
pale beams glinted and shimmered through the o'erarching foliage,
in many places diffusing a mild, genial radiance, and flecking both
sward and undergrowth with shifting, flickering lights and shadows;
but in other spots, the fretted leafy canopy was so dense and impene-
trable, that scarce a stray beam could sift under, and the rangers had
to grope their way with the utmost caution through inky, pitchy
glooms. Now one and now another, by feeling the moss or rough
bark on the northern sides of trunks, would pick up again the lost
trail.

At last, altogether, and after many fatiguing entanglements, "through
wandering mazes lost," they reached the main band, which had grown
anxious and restless.

The urgent tidings were curtly told ; for a half hour all was bus-
tle and preparation, and then those wiry, tireless, steel-nerved trackers
again took up the trail and led their party swiftly and safely through
all those wilderness meshes and intricacies.

The sounds of barbaric revelry caught the ear long before the fire-

killbuck's fate — A "fancy" chief.

239

lights burst into view. The sport was "growing fast and furious."
The savages were now hard at their war and scalp dances, and the
compact and excited band of scouts looked out through the various
leafy loop-holes of the snug retreat in which they were at once secret-
ly sheltered, with wonder and amazement.

Indian dances vary with the tribes. The one the Delawares were
now celebrating with such frenzied shouts and leaps, was the " war-
dance." A post was inserted near the fire. The Tay-wa-egun, or
one-headed drum, made by stretching a deer-skin over a section of
hollow-log, keeps up its monotonous beat to mark the time. A chief
leads the dance, stands forth and sings the deeds of his ancestors and
then his own, brandishing his tomahawk in the one hand, and in the
other his string of scalps. At the end of each feat of valor, he sounds
the horrid war whoop and hurls his tomahawk into the post. He is
then followed by the whole crowd, with unearthly whoops, wild leaps
and frantic gestures and contortions, each finishing his round by a
cast of the keen hatchet at the post. They then work themselves into
a perfect frenzy of rage, howling and whooping as if mad; threatening
to cut, stab or beat each other, and yet careful and dexterous to avoid
all actual injury. Sometimes a shrill, hard, disagreeable noise is made
from a fife of reed.

In this instance "The Pipe" had led the revels, followed by one
round from the whole yelling, screeching mob. It was now Winge-
nund's turn, and as he advanced within full range of the bright, blaz-
ing fire, fed with fat woods, his appearance at once attracted the at-
tention of both Indians and our scouts.

Every savage tribe has its notable dandies, who devote unusual at-
tention to rich colors, and gay, fantastic dressing. Wingenund was one
of these "fancy" chiefs, who delighted in the fashion and elegance of
his attire. Tall and well proportioned ; with a bold and stern, yet
finely-moulded countenance, and possessing much dignity of carriage
and deportment, this famed war chief strode majestically to the front
— "the observed of all observers."

On his head he wore a gay coronet of variegated plumes — plucked
from war-eagle, swan, heron and jay. His scalp-locks were tricked
with tail feathers from the black and golden eagles. An ample man-
tle of panther skin — the animal's head hanging down the back — on
which various figures were beautifully embroidered with split porcupine
quills of brilliant red and yellow dyes — hung dependent from his
shoulders. The hem of this chiefly robe was heavily fringed
with the slender, polished hoofs of young fawns, which, together with
broad anklets of little bells, made a rattling, jingling sound at each
firm tread. Around Wingenund's tawny neck hung a necklace of
bear and ocelot claws, while his leggins of dressed fawn skin were
fringed with vari-colored tufts of human hair, and his moccasins
richly decorated with beads and quills deftly wrought into divers
figures.

Oh, a right royal-looking chief was Wingenund, and as he tossed his
arms and brandished his gleaming tomahawk about, he looked as if he
knew it bravely. A great commotion followed the fierce cast of his
hatchet, accompanied by a blood-curdling yell. The dance now

240 SIMON GIRTY.

changed into a furious whirl about the scalp-post, and the excitement
grew more maddening than ever.

All at once a wild, uproarious rush, headed by Pipe, was made to-
wards the other side of the run. The onlooking and amazed scouts,
who were from their near " coign of vantage " spell-bound spectators
of the whole scene, now sprang to their feet, closed their jaws al-
most with a snap, clicked their rifles, and had actually commenced to
sally forth for the protection of the captiv<?s, when arrested by the low,
stern whisper of Jonathan Zane, distinctly heard by all:

" Stop ! stop ! down on your marrow bones, every mother's son of
ye, or its all up with us and those we seek. It's not the captives
they're after but Killbuck, and I promise ye not a hair of his head
shall be singed."

The yelling mob soon reappeared with Killbuck in their midst, his
hands bound behind him, yet calm, erect and defiant as ever. He
seemed to be totally oblivious to the taunts,, threats and buffetings
which were so freely showered upon him.

As he approached the fire and saw the preparations made for his
horrible and protracted torments — the pine splinters, the hot irons,
the pincers for drawing the toe and finger nails, the fagots of wood
piled about a hickory tree — he was still unmoved and contemptuous.
Like a true Delaware chief, of tried valor and noble lineage, he went
to his death rejoicing; ready to sing his death chant; bear unflinch-
ingly the most excruciating tortures, and even excite his enemies to
still greater inhumanities by scoffs and jibes.

And yet Killbuck had at this critical juncture of his life a cause for
hope that his deadly foes wot not of. Let us explain.

CHAPTER LX.

BETTY ZANE's RUSE — KILLBUCK's FATE.

When Brady enjoined on the two girls the duty of warning the three
captives,- if possible, they at once saw the urgency of the advice.
They entered the hut, therefore, not to sleep, but to devise ways and
await opportunities. Mrs. Malott, Mrs. Dorman and the children
were fortunately asleep. They cudgelled their brains to invent some
excuse by which to pass the guards. They thought of taking a gourd
and going down for water. But there was the Big Spring hard by.
Why not go there ? and redskins are so suspicious and sharp-witted !
and Girty was still hanging around, and that hateful renegade Dorman
too ! No use doing anything while they were near, for Girty never
would let them go within speaking distance of either Rose or Shep-
herd. The precious time was fast vanishing.

At last Girty and Dorman moved over to the other fire to v/itness
the approaching dance, when the anxious and impulsive Betty could
no longer restrain Her feelings.

*' I declare, Silla, it's too bad ! I'm getting real desperate. Some-

BETTY ZANE S RUSE — KILLBUCK S FATE. 241

thing must be done at once," drumming energetically with her fingers
and pouting out her cherry lips.

" How would it do," suggested her much calmer and more self-con-
tained companion, '' to walk down to the run together, and trust to
chance. The spot where the prisoners and two keepers are, is almost
as near as any other point. I'd risk almost anything to warn poor Kill-
buck. He' s in most danger now^

"Would you, indeed?" answered Betty, pettishly. "Well, if 'twas
Captain Samuel Brady down on that log, Kiilbuck wouldn't be thought
in so much peril. Now hush, there's a dear girl, and forgive me !"
as she noticed her friend's hurt and reproachful glance. "I know
very well what you meant, but I'm just as nervous as a cat, and feel as
if I was all rubbed up the wrong way. 7'^ risk much for the old chief,
too; but, then, you know, Drusilla, I wouldn't exactly put him before
Mo Shep — before Rose and Shepherd."

Betty's last words, and the charming blush which immediately there-
after suffused her face, betrayed in which direction her thoughts were
running, but her friend spared all comment ; she was much too
anxious herself.

A moment's pause, interrupted by Betty's eager voice, ''I've got it,
Silla; I do believe a bold, impudent course is best. Those two loung-
ing savages looked quite delighted this evening when I stopped and
chatted with them awhile. I'll try them again. Yes! yes! that's
just it ! Quick ! quick ! hand me your handkerchief and talce off your
stockings," and the impetuous young girl was at once down on the
grass hastily drawing off her own hose.

Drusilla looked at her with amazement. *' Why, Betty Zane, are
you clean daft I What do you mean ?"

"It's our only chance, I tell you ! I'll trip down to the run with
the gourd and these things to wash. There's aslope there leading
right down to the water, and so my going that way will appear
quite natural. If stopped, I'll show the Indians our travel-stained
stockings and soiled handkerchiefs, and say they must be washed to-
night, and on coming back, will wheedle them into letting me carry
the gourd to the prisoners. Off with them, Silla! no time for squeam-
ishness when three lives hang in the scales."

Drusilla did as she was bidden, but shook her head with some mis-
givings, saying: "You are a brave, true-hearted girl, Betty, and
there's no harm in trying, anyway, and I'll go with you."

" Oh, no, indeed ; that would spoil all ! You watch the mother and
children !" answered Betty, snatching up the gourd and other things,
and slipping on her shoes again. " But stay, Kiilbuck ! I'd show you
what I'd do for him if I could only slip something into his hands to
cut the thongs with."

" Bless us !" exclaimed Drusilla, flurriedly, "what will it be ?" look-
ing anxiously about the hut. "Stop! stop! here's the sharp pen-
knife your aunt Rachel gave me in Philadelphia; won't that do ?"

" Why, of course it will; the very thing. Good bye," and the
ardent young girl forced herself to hum a merry song as she quickly
made a straight course to the spot where she dimly saw the two senti-
nels resting under a tree. As she was tripping unconcernedly by, one
i6

242 SIMON GIRTY.

of them sprang to his feet and sternly confronted her. Betty gave a
quick start and an affected scream, which caused Rose and Shepherd,
who were sitting on a log about thirty yards distant, to leap to their
feet, bound as they were.

"Good evening! kind Indians. I thought you were over by
Gellelemend " (Killbuck), said Betty, smilingly and with a sweet,
pleasant voice.

The grim savage looked hideous enough, standing there in all his
war paint, directly in her path. His countenance was both forbidding
and suspicious as he accosted her in pretty good English, a language
which was spoken and understood by very many Delawares — Killbuck
especially well.

** Why do ' pale- face ' girl go from wigwam? She no whip-poor-
will to fly by night."

*' I go for water to drink, my good Indian, and to wash these,"
showing the bundle and making a rubbing motion. '' Pale-face girls
like to have all clothes clean and white. Where is Girty ; he will take
me there."

"You no run away if I let you go?" his stern visage softening into
what he meant for a complaisant smile, but which looked to Betty like
a horrible leer.

" Me run away ! Ha ! ha !" and Betty rippled a melodious and un-
constrained laugh. "I'm too young and little to run away. Too
many great woods around, and couldn't leave my friends and the
pretty children. Please let me pass. Sir, and you can watch me if
you're afraid." This was said in a beseeching way, and yet so per-
suasively that the Indian who was lying down made some rapid excla-
mations in Delaware, whereat the other stepped aside and gave her free
course.

"Thank you, Sir; you are very good and kind," said Betty, softly,
dropping a polite courtesy as she passed, although her slender frame
shook so that she feared she would drop to the ground with terror.
She, however, got safely down to the run's edge, dashed some cool
water over her head and face, and made a great pretence of busily
washing her things.

So far, so good ; but the worst was to come and no moment to waste.

About ten minutes had passed when the trembling girl filled her
gourd with water, bundled up her clothes, and nerved herself for the
return trial. She was somewhat relieved and encouraged this time by
finding both guards reclining quietly. Turning aside a step or two —
but with heart beating tumultuously — she approached them unhesita-
tingly, and said in the pleasantest tones, and with her most blandish-
ing smile, " The sun has been hot to-day, and the Mohican chiefs
must be very tired. Will thev take some water from the young
maiden of the * pale-faces.'" This was to them evidently an unex-
pected courtesy, and to be called chiefs, too ! After a momentary
and embarrassing pause, a few words passed in Delaware, when one
of them answered very civilly, ' Pale-face maiden beautiful as the
night, and has a voice like the wren of the woods. Ka-te-us-ka much
like water from her hands."

Betty handed him the gourd, stood quietly by while he took a brief

BETTY ZANE S RUSE KILLBUCK S FATE. 243

draught — spilling more than he drank — and then said as she moved
off — "Good-night, Ka-te-us-ka, and you, Mr. Mr. — good Indian."

She had gone but a step or two, when looking, as if by chance, over
to where the prisoners were, and returning, as though the thought had
just now for the first time entered her coquettish little noddle, she
promptly and decidedly remarked, while pointing over to the captives :

"The two 'pale-face' captives and Gellellemend are very hot and
tired, too. Water would be as good for them as for you. I'll run
over and give them some."

" No, no; Katepacomen (this was Girty's Indian name) may be no
like it."

"Oh, yes, he would," persisted Betty ;" Katepacomen wants his
prisoners to be well, and the Great Spirit says you must be kind to
those you take in war. I'll only be gone a minute," and taking their
consent for granted — which was manifestly her best course — Betty leis-
urely walked over to where Rose and Shepherd were sitting, as if on
nettles.

They had overheard part of her conversation, and had, at last,
guessed correctly her motives. As she approached, both exclaimed at
her rashness, and the great risks she had unwittingly run in approach-
ing the Indians alone.

"Hush-h ! not a word, or all's lost !" whispered the brave young girl
in a very excited and agitated manner, while standing erect so as to
disarm suspicion, and holding the gourd to Major Rose's mouth;
"we've seen and talked with Brady. There's a large force from Fort
Henry coming up — Poe, Butler, McColloch and my brother Jonathan,
at the head. They'll be here in less than an hour; you may know
when, Brady says, by two hoots of an owl."

"Thank God for it ! and thank you, Miss Zane, for the great risks
you've run to tell it," Rose managed to whisper as Betty tremblingly
glided along with the gourd, and put it to Shepherd's lips.

"Be of good heart. Mo," she hurriedly resumed. "The plan is to
first carry off Drusilla and me; then release you and take the horses;
leave Mrs. Malott and the children and save Killbuck. I've a knife
for him. You can arrange among you what's best to be done. No
thanks. Mo, please; I must go."

As Betty removed the gourd she was amply rewarded by seeing in
Shepherd's eyes the heartfelt look of gratitude that he dared not trust
to words.

Killbuck had been first bound hand and foot, and then made fast to a
sapling. Not much danger of his escape. Happily, however, his arms
were thonged at the wrists, which were crossed, leaving free play to
the hands. Managing to keep her person as much as possible be-
tween him and the guards, both of whom she dimly saw a little ways
off, standing up and attentively observing every motion, she cautioned
him to silence, and hurriedly stooped forward with the gourd and
rapidly whispered into his ear :

'' Drink, brave Delaware ! while I slip this knife into your hands !
You'll know how and when to use it. There ! am so glad you can
grasp it. Don't worry about those two ! Your friend Brady, and a
large band of Wheeling scouts will be in front of the big fire in less

244 SIMON GIRTY.

than an hour. Listen for two hoots of an owl. Never fear ! you
shan't be harmed. Good bye, and wait patiently, or we'll all be lost."

•The old chief's head bowed his thanks, while his dark eyes fairly
gleamed and glittered with the unexpected and joyful hope which
filled his heart.

Betty's duty had been done — and done well and nobly. She drew
a long breath of relief as she tripped blithely back on her path;
thanked the two' Indians warmly as she rapidly cut across to the hut,
and with a " we're saved ! we're saved !" fell breathlessly and faint-
ingly into the outstretched arms of Drusilla waiting to receive her.

CHAPTER LXI.

killbuck's torture and flight.

A few minutes later, signs of an unusual stir were visible among the
captives. Betty had glided to them out of the night like some min-
istering spirit, bringing joy and comfort to their despondent hearts.

First, a low-toned consultation between Rose and Shepherd ; then,
a shifting over to that end of the log nearest Killbuck, and now some
louder whisperings across the interval. The two whites had concluded
it wisest to wait patiently as they were — the cutting of their withes
might imperil the whole scheme.

Killbuck was asked if he could use the knife to free his hands. Yes,
but it would require a little time, and the chief thought he would
attempt nothing now, but would hold the knife clenched in his fist
until the proper moment came ; and so it was finally arranged.

When, therefore, the yelling mob pounced on the old Delaware,
cut the bands which tied his feet, and dragged him ignominiously to
what was intended alike as his place of torment and funeral pyre, he
was calm and unruffled as the night itself. When his foes and the
foes of his nation environed and hedged him about, glaring and
gnashing at him, like a pack of hungry coyotes around some wounded
old bull-buffalo, he smiled on them in the most contemptuous and
exasperating manner.

He was first bound to a hickory, in order that his vengeful and
infuriate tormentors, before firing the circuit of brush and fagots
which were meant to consume him, might vent their spite and wreak
on him their cruelties, commencing on him with tomahawk casting.
This would rack his nerves, terrify his soul, and break down his lofty
courage.

To have him suffer and die without wringing from him one groan
of agony or extorting one sign of human weakness, would be his tri-
umph. But to so gall and torture him : to so writhe and harass him
as to force out a cry for pity, a groan of anguish or a shriek of despair,
that would be their triumph.

And first Captain Pipe advanced to harangue him, commencing
with what purported to be a calm recital of facts ; then proceeding to
false charges, emphasized with violent language and vehement gestures,

KILLBUCK S TORTURE AND FLIGHT. 245

and then, as he saw Killbuck's haughty indifference and disdainful
scorn, he proceeded to taunts, reproaches and all manner of vile
imputations.

In vain ! The old chief stood immovable as a rock — placid as a
summer's morn. Pipe retired utterly discomfited to give place to
the imposing and magnificent Wingenund, who, greatly in-
censed and irritated, commenced the assault in a strain of biting
sarcasm and withering invective. Killbuck scarce deigned to bestow
on him one glance ; but when, stung to the quick by all this con-
tempt, his pretentious adversary alluded to Gellelemend's having ever
been on the side of peace, and of having even fled to the whites rather
than fight at the head of his tribe, it stirred the blood of the baited
chief like a flout on the face, and he turned on his tormentors with
these words, spoken calmly — and of course in the Mohican tongue —
but with provoking derision :

" The great chiefs of the Monseys and the Wolf Delawares rail and
act like women. They are no longer warriors, but wear the squaw's
petticoats. Gellelemend scorns to defend himself. His whole life is
before his tribe, and it knows best whether blood or water runs in his
veins. Kogieschquanoheel there " (Pipe's Delaware name) " is,
rather, the coward, for did not Koquethagechton himself" (the Dela-
ware name for the great Captain White Eyes) " charge before the
Grand Council that he was like the bear hunter, who is ever hissing
on the dogs, yet who himself keeps back in a safe place ; and as for
this impostor," looking scornfully at the gaily-dressed chief and then
around at the circle of listening Mohicans, "what is Wingenund but
the flaunting blue jay of the woods, with its strutting airs; its gay,
gaudy feathers, and its loud, scolding voice ; but will it fight for its
nest of young? Does not every piping wren cause it to quake? Does
not even the little angry bee put it to flight ? If, Mohican warriors,
Gellelemend be a coward, give him but a gun or tomahawk and put
him in the woods against both these pretenders, and all can see for
themselves."

This bold, honest little speech did not serve greatly to placate the
irate chiefs. They snorted out their wrath and disgust without stint,
and pranced about among their followers to prepare more stringent
measures for their contumacious insulter.

Just at this auspicious moment came the droning, mournful hoot of
an owl from the woods in front. Killbuck had evidently been
anxiously expecting it. He brought his head around with a quick
jerk, and listened intently. Almost too real to be an imitation ! Will
there be another?

The chief stands motionless as a statue ; even his eyes have a dead,
stony stare in them. , Again came the muffled, doleful monotones.
An admirable imitation, but it is an imitation ! A sudden fierce glow
now leaps to Killbuck's eyes : a gleam of triumph shoots athwart his
swarthy visage. He construes it as a summons to instant action. It
was scarcely needed, for the speeches of his foes — although producing
no visible effects — may be said to have moved him even to his finger
ends, which had for some time been busy with the knife slowly sever-
ing the thongs which bound his wrists.

246 SIMON GIRTY.

A few moments more and the Delaware stands as free and unfettered
as the winds of those woods. His hands are still kept crossed behind
him, and while his tormentors are busy preparing to hurl the tomahawk
at his doomed head, he, to keep up the deception, lifts up his voice
strong, clear and exultant, in the Indians' Death Chant and Song of
Victory, the sense of which is admirably conveyed by the following
lines :

" I fear not the silence nor gloom of the grave,

'Tis a pathway of shade and gay flowers to the brave ;

For it leads him to plains where the gleams of the sun

Kindle Spring in their path that will never be done.

Groves, valleys and mountains ! bright streamlet and dell ;

Sweet haunts of my youth ! take my parting farewell ;

Ye braves of my kindred ! and thou, mother, adieu I

Great shades of my father, I hasten to you 1

I'here was something peculiarly appropriate in Killbuck's touching
farewell to the lovely groves, streams and valleys around him, for were
not these the "sweet haunts of his youth," when " Killbucktown "
flourished about this same famous spring ! And were not those who
were now being so relentlessly hounded on to his destruction, of the
same stock and nation as that very Killbuck, his honored father, and
one of the great names among the Mohicans !

Pipe and Wingenund, would allow no time for tender memories
among the crowd of attentive Delawares, but impatiently urged them
on to the trial by tomahawk. A line had been drawn about thirty
feet distant from the hickory, against which Killbuck stood upright —
calm but defiant.

Five of the most skillful throwers had been chosen for the cruel
sport — for the aim was not to kill, or even to wound, but to terrify
and unman. These now toed the mark, led by a savage and malev-
olent old Mousey chief, by the name of The Crow — a bitter foe to
Killbuck and the whole Turtle tribe, and one noted for his surly and
ferocious temper and his vicious and foul-mouthed tongue.

The fierce, pitiless glance of this ruffian's baleful eye, and the
abusive epithets which he now showered upon his unruffled adversary,
gave evidence of his amiable intentions. Flourishing his gleaming
tomahawk about his head, he made a leap forward, gave a sharp, blood-
curdling yell, and hurled it forth with all his mighty force. The
thirsting, sharp edged weapon went whizzing and flashing through the
air, its keen, broad blade sinking deep into the wood close by Kill-
buck's ear, v/here it remained, all bright and quivering.

Only for an instant ! Quick and sudden as the lightning's flash, a
sinewy hand seized it by the trembling heft, tore it from its sappy
binding, and cast it back with even greater power and more deadly
aim.

It came with crushing, resistless force ; striking The Crow directly
between the eyes, driving its keen edge deep into the brain, and felling
him to the ground, a quivering mass of thews and nerves. He never
spoke or moved more.

A terrific and defiant yell immediately followed, and before the
stunned and paralyzed mob could gather up their dazed senses. Kill-

KILLBUCK S TORTURE AND FLIGHT. 247

buck had, by a series of rapid bounds, vanished from out the fire-light
into the glooms of the forests, and was skirting along under the huge
buttonwood trees which grew thickly on the creek's margin.

As his object was to work over to the scouts, who he knew were
stationed where he had heard the owl's hoot, as also to draw as
large a force as possible after him into their clutches, he soon stopped
in his course and crawled up close under the leafy edge of a lately
fallen tree.

Girty's stern, hoarse voice of command, bidding his band scatter out
in pursuit, and in different directions from the fire, was the first step
towards bringing order out of the dire confusion following the start-
ling death of The Crow and the escape of Killbuck. The white chief
had not been consenting to Killbuck's torture, neither could he pre-
vent it, so quietly gathering to himself the small body of Wyandotts —
a nation that he knew was opposed to the torture of prisoners — he had
stationed them with himself and Dorman between the fire and the
captives' quarters beyond the run.

The fact was, that Girty, knowing into what an uncontrollable
frenzy Indians at a torture succeed in working themselves, could not
trust his own followers ; feared a maddened rush on his prisoners, and
stood there to protect them. He had not the remotest suspicion of
the near presence of the Fort Henry Scouts, and deemed Killbuck's
recapture a matter of course. He and his Wyandotts proceeded
straight down to the creek to cut off escape at that end of the arc.

Killbuck, with every sense on the qui vive to catch the slightest move-'
ments of his swarming foes, squatted quietly — like a hare in its " form"
before the pursuing hounds — until he thought the whole was widely
scattered. He then cautiously arose to the upright, and commenced
a stealthy gliding from tree to tree in a straight line for the very
point from which he had escaped.

A slight rustling noise to the front suddenly stilled him in his tracks.
As he crouched behind his tree, and peered intently through the sur-
rounding darkness, his shoulders were all at once firmly grasped from
behind ; he felt a panting breath on his cheek and a fierce smothered
voice hissed into his ears.

" Gellelemend thinks Wingenund's voice and plumage those of the
screaming jay. He shall now know that his hug is that of the strong
bear, and his scratch that of the deadly panther."

Truly a bad trap this for our chief! Instead of being able to lure
his foes into the clutches of Brady and his scouts, here he was himself,
and with no weapon but Drusilla's delicate knife, in the dreadful
grasp cf a bitter and implacable foe, whose scalping blade was now
gleaming aloft ready for a death thrust. Killbuck saw this like a flash,
and like a flash he acted.

With a sudden and resistless contortion of his whole body, he
wrenched himself free from the vice-like grip, then fronted his power-
ful foe, grasping Wingenund's descending knife arm with his own left
hand, and making a quick sharp thrust with the pen-knife in his right
into his antagonist's side.

Wingenund was confounded and staggered at this marvelous alert-
ness. He had thought Killbuck utterly defenceless, and had under-

248 SIMON GIRTY.

rated his skill and strength, but he now hastened to seize his opponent's
right hand, and there the two stood face to face, eye to eye, each
grasping the other's arm, and both nerving themselves for a desperate
conflict to the death.

Wingenund's object was to hold this position till help came. Kill-
buck's only safety, however, lay in forcing the fight, and well he knew
it. His eyes fairly flashed fire ; his breath came thick and fast ; he
concentrated all the force of his body to free his one right arm. In
vain were his terrible throes and struggles. All he could do was
to force his foe backward, as one stag pushes another when their
horns are interlocked in deadly conflict.

He now hears the rustle of approaching footsteps on either side.
The sweat of his agony gathers in great drops upon his brow.

" Dog of a Monsey !" he hisses forth as his swaying, writhing, hard
pressed foe pants out for his companions to hasten up. " Where's the
coward now ! The form and strength of the bison — yet still the heart
of the jay ! What are you but a cowering deer in a panther's hide ;
but your cry's too late 3" and Killbuck made a quick and violent
lurch forward, threw his foot behind that of his tottering adversary,
pushed and twisted him to his knees, and then by another desperate
wrench freed his right hand, making several quick and angry thrusts
of his knife into the side of the sinking, fainting Wingenund.

Snatching the tomahawk from the chief's nerveless grasp, Killbuck
now gave out a shrill, frightful, ear-piercing yell of triumph, felled with
a well-directed blow a savage who was hurrying up in front, and leap-
ed forward, pursued by a raft of whooping and screeching redskins,
who seemed to pour into his track from every side.

Killbuck now put on a tremendous stride, making leaps like a
hounded buck, but keeping straight for the scouts' position. Here
he turns aside to escape Girty and his Hurons who are hurrying up
on his left ; there he bends the other way to avoid the fire and its too
revealing lights, and now, breathless and almost spent with his super-
human eff"orts, he approaches the run's broad, deep fissure, and gathers
himself for a mighty leap Pacross. Then, a few more vigorous strides,
and he will be in the sheltering woods and among fast and numerous
friends.

His yelling pursuers close in upon him like a pack of ravenous
wolves on the track of a hunted and exhausted buck. Now one with
unsteady aim hurls after him his murderous tomahawk. Another,
despairing of coming up, essays to overtake him with a pursuing
bullet.

If Killbuck is hit, he shows it not, but pauses a moment on the
very brink of the ravine to collect himself for the leap. To his
surprise and great joy he hears right under him the low, stern voice of
a command in English — " Here come the coppery devils, all in a
bunch ! Now for't lads ! Each man pick his scalp ! Fire low and
all together, and pepper 'em like all wrath ! "

As the Delaware clears the chasm, he catches momentary sight of a
row of black ominous-looking tubes resting on its grassy edge — at
their ends, a long line of crouching scouts, glinting along the sights,
and as he falls prone, panting and exhausted on the grass, he hears

THE PRISONERS FREED AND GIRTY S RAGE. 249

the angry, spiteful cracks of a score of rifles, fired at point-blank
distance.

The sheet of fire and the spiteful crack, crack, cracking of the rifles
was to the onrushing troop of savages like " thunder from a clear sky."
They recoiled with a sudden jar, and were doubled back on them-
selves in a trice. Some stopped on the very edge, while two of them
— such was their impetus — were even forced to make the leap only to
be overtaken and tomahawked by the vigilant scouts.

An ominous pause ensued. There lay the dead, and there writhed
the wounded. The first shock over, the ready savages commenced to
break ia great confusion, and now was heard above all the hoarse
bellow of Girty's voice as he roared out in Delaware for every man to
scatter to the trees, and keep out of the firelight.

CHAPTER LXII.

THE PRISONERS FREED AND GIRTv's RAGE.

Girty knew well what was the matter, and what to expect. He
saw at once that his followers were demoralized at the awful sudden-
ness of the murderous fire — the more appalling since it seemed to burst
right out from the ground. When danger comes in a visible form, it
can be measured and confronted. It appeals to the eye. Brave
warriors expect it, and can meet and cope with it, but a horrible feu
d'enfer bursting out of the jaws of darkness — out of the womb of night,
as it were, and from an invisible foe, this works on the mind, and is
hard to bear even by veteran fighters. It was just that which not
many years before first shocked, then disheartened, and then terrified
and dismayed Braddock's skilled veterans, causing them to run as
Washington wrote after the battle, "like sheep pursued by hounds."

No; there could be no stauncher or more intrepid " braves" than
those about Girty. The Delawares have ever been noted for their
calmness in the face of dangers, and their intelligence at overcoming
them. The Shawnees were more fierce and implacable, but not less
dogged ; and as for the Hurons or Wyandotts, flight or captivity in
battle was, with them, an indelible disgrace and resistance till death
the highest virtue.*

After thus sending his Indians to their trees to recover courage and
restore their w^ra/^, Girty hastily dispatches a half dozen Wyandotts
to join the two guards, and all to immediately drive the prisoners
before them across the creek, and to carry off" the wounded. Black
Hoof, Mrs. Malott, Mrs. Dorman and the two children. While
impatiently awaiting news that his orders had been obeyed, he pon-
dered anxiously as to the next step.

*In the battle of "Miami Rapids," of thirteen "Wyandott chiefs present, one only survived, and
he badly wounded. Some time before the action. General Wayne sent for Captain Wells, the famous
scout, and requested him to go to Sandusky, and take a prisoner for the sake of obtaining informa-
tion. Wells— who had been bred with the Indians, and was perfectly acquainted with their charac-
ter, answered that he could take a prisoner, but not from Sandusky, because Wyandotts would not
be taken alive. — Historical Discourse by Gen. Harrison

250 SIMON GIRTY.

He was startled, almost terrified, out of his revery by the sudden
return of one of his messengers, breathless with amaze and terror. He
reported that all the captives — every man and woman except Mrs.
Malott — had gone off with the two horses, and that both guards had
been killed and scalped.

Girty, maddened with rage jumped at the poor fellow's throat, hiss-
ing out in Indian : "Vile hound of a Huron, you're mad to speak it.
Say you've lied, or I'll give your scalp to the hoops, and your cowardly
carcass to the crows and buzzards."

" Metawa has no forked tongue like a snake," sullenly gasped out the
Huron, wresting Girty's clenched hands from his throat. *' Is Keta-
pakoraen drunk or crazy, that he thinks the pale-face captives have no
legs to run, and no friends to help? Go see for yourself! "

Girty looked at him as if stunned, cleared the run at a bound, and
rushed towards the hut.

Too true ! All gone ! The place utterly deserted ! Even Black
Hoof, Mrs. Malott and the children crossing the creek by this time.
He hears the plash of the ponies' feet in the water.

" Stupid dolt that I was ! " he muttered in an agony of despair, and
striking his head repeatedly with his clenched fists. "Beat all out
and out and on every side ! fooled by smock-faced wenches and their
cursed lovers ! It's all the doings of that lean, lanky, lantern-jawed
Sam Brady, d — n him! Oh, Girty! Girty! You're clean crazy!
and you might have known it ! This comes of mooning and spooning
over pooty wimmen, and getting soft and sappy about the gizzard.
Enough! It's done forever, and I'm all hard flint again, and there's
time yet for blood and revenge ! "

Back again to the other side, his head in a mad whirl and his
heart in a tumult with rage and chagrin ! It was high time !

When the scouts had first taken their position, Brady asked that Poe,
Zane, Butler and Wetzell — brave, adventurous spirits all — might
accompany him to the rescue of the captives. He needed men of
skill and tried, unflinching courage, and so these were freely accorded
him. While, therefore, the clamorous savages were still howling and
spinning about their scalp-post like Dancing Dervishes, these five
famed scouts stole ofl" to the right. It was a glad errand they had
entered upon, but one requiring the utmost prudence and secrecy.
Brady led the way, his eyes sparkling with expectancy, his heart flut-
tering with excitement.

When opposite the tree appointed for the two girls, the leader
quietly touched the one next him and all stood still and intent. No
sound but those of the noisy revelers audible ! Brady's heart sank
within him. Could Girty have confined or restrained them ?

A whispering consultation now ensued. It was concluded that
Zane and Brady should advance and make a careful survey. If Betty
and Drusilla were at the tree they were to be led back into the woods
by Betty's brother ; and while Brady attempted to secure the horses,
Poe, Butler and Wetzell should try a rescue of Rose and Shepherd ; if
the guards were on duty they were to creep up stealthily and finish
them without noise or allowing any outcry.

Zane and Brady glide forward under the dense forest shades. Now

THE PRISONERS FREED AND GIRTY S RAGE. 25 1

they reach the lights from the flickering fires. Even more cau-
tion than before is needed. They fall on their knees and follow, as
did Brady previously, the shadow of the tree. Their rifles had been
left behind ; but now each takes his keen and trusty hunting-knife
from its sheath, and crawls forward like a wily serpent. Their posi-
tion is now more favorable for catching sounds from enemies, and
Brady had not advanced ten yards before he indicated by slight
thumps with his moccasined feet that he hears something ahead.

The signal agreed on by him was the chirp of a wood cricket.
This he is now near enough to give. A yard further he repeats it.
An answer, somewhat inaptly imitated, comes back from the tree.
"All right, they're on hand," Brady emphatically conveys to Zane
with his feet.

" Is that you, Captain Brady?" now floated back to them in a soft
but tremulous whisper.
* "That's me. Captain Brady ! and are you both there ?"

"Yes, both ; and with all our things. Oh, we thought you'd never,
never come ! Are you all alone ?"

"All but Betty's brother, who's trailing me up right — "

Here a slight, imprudent exclamation from Betty made both scouts
quickly juke and drop their heads in the grass and lay flat for awhile.

"Come, come, Bet" — it was Zane who now spoke — "that kind'U
never do. Philadelphia's spoiling yer. Consider yourself bussed, and
that all's well at home, and tell us where Rose and Shepherd are."

" Oh, dearest brother!" whispered Betty in tones between crying
and laughing, " how glad I am to hear you ! Mo. Shepherd and Maj.
Rose are sitting on a tree trunk on the other side of that fire, and
Killbuck's tied to a sapling near him. I've given him a knife and
everything favors. Girty's gone over to the other fire, and the hop-
pled horses are feeding just on this side of yon hut by the rocks."

" That's it ! Bet, now you're talking a streak o' mother sense — just
like a border gal again," said Zane, with a low chuckle. "You and
Silla now stoop down, make yourselves look as dark and as little as
you can, and then slide around this way, while Captain Brady takes
your place."

No sooner said than done, some emphatic kissing and hand-pressing
taking place in the operation. Zane now led the girls carefully back
into the woods, where they were silently but most joyfully received
by the three scouts, to all of whom they were known.

Brady was equally fortunate in finding his rifle "Spitfire," Kill-
buck's rifle, and the horses. Three belonged to them, but one proved
skittish, and kept snorting and moving off. It had, therefore to be
given up. The others were unhoppled and led very cautiously around
by the rock, and thence back to where Zane was stationed with the
two ladies — now so happy and overjoyed that it was a great tax on
them to be compelled to keep their tongues idle.

To move thence to a secure covert near the main body of rangers
was an easy matter. When their rescue was made known to all their
friends from Fort Henry, it was hard to repress a glad shout of victory.
One knot after another sought them out, and there was a scene of joy-
ful hand-shaking and congratulation.

252 SIMON GIRTY.

Meanwhile, Poe, Butler and Wetzel, having learned the precise
location of the other prisoners, prepared to attempt their rescue.

There could not have been found on the whole frontier a trio of
trackers better fitted for the delicate and perilous work in hand. No
prowling beast of prey in those vast, illimitable forests went on its
bloody business more craftily or stealthily than they on theirs. Sly as
the lynx, bold as the cougar, and subtle as the serpent, even the wily
savages were no match for them.

They crouched along on noiseless feet till the lights of the fire were
reached. Prone in the grass they then slowly snaked themselves for-
ward. In shadow, they quickened ; in light, they slackened, but in
either they glided on. The distant notes of the Indian drum, or the
yells of the boastful dancers smote their ears.

On, on they creep ! Now they reach the^ shade and shelter of a
huge black oak, and rise carefully to the upright to take a survey.

Butler clutches Poe's arm as the low, rumbling voices of the two
guards now reach his ears. By twisting and peering around among
the underbrush, their forms can be dimly seen under the trees against
which they lean. A deep, guttural chuckling noise is now borne to
their ears. The two thoughtless watchers are playing some Indian
game, or, mayhap, making confidants of each other regarding their
dusky charmers.

Butler, with his cat-like power of seeing in the dark, thinks he can
discern the log just beyond, and one of the prisoners sitting bolt
upright on it. Wetzell is now told to make a detour towards the
prisoners, so that in case of any failure or bungling, he may make a
sudden dash and cut their thongs.

It is settled that the guards must be " fixed " first. Fixed! that
word carries a dread, terrible import which the unconscious twain reck
not of.

Just as Wetzell has renewed his snailing, and as the others are
putting knives between their teeth, ready to resume theirs, a sudden
roar and rush is made towards them from the direction of the other
fire.

Heavens ! have they been seen ! Are they betrayed ! Does this
rush mean them ! Butler evidently thinks so, and is springing to his
feet, but Poe clutches him tightly and drags him to earth again, as he
points to the mob of maddened savages turned somewhat away from
them, and whispers : " Hush-h-h ! must be the poor Delaware they're
after. "

True enough ! This was the mad dash on Killbuck already de-
scribed. There was a fearful crowd and noise, and the dusky glisten-
ing forms came alarmingly near. The scouts lay among the grass and
brush, dead as logs, but with hearts beating, eyes strained, and limbs
all crook'd ready for a leap.

The Delaware is borne off by the whooping gang, and all soon be-
comes still again. The two guards now resume their places, but are
talking excitedly. A good time to push along !

At last, with incredible effort and noiselessness, the two trees which
cover the scouts, are within arm's reach. Butler waits till Poe is abreast
of him, and then taps a spot on the spine between the Jatter's shoulders

THE COMBAT OPENS — GIRTY S AMBUSH. 253

and covers his mouth with his hand, as indicating the place to strike,
and also how to hush any possible sounds.

Now they are both up on their knees with keen blades lifted. A
moment's pause to secure concert of action. Are there none to warn
those two poor devils of their fate ! None ! They both suddenly
cease talking and incline their bodies. They have evidently heard a
rustle !

Just as their heads are turning backward, down come the two blades
deep into their backs and driven with full strength and directness.
At the same time the scouts precipitate themselves upon them and try
to cover their gasping mouths with their hands.

With the one Butler struck such precaution was needless. The
steel had penetrated to the very seat of life itself. He lay quivering in
agonies of death. The other was also mortally but not so vitally
struck, and as Poe lurched over him, the poor victim gave a quick,
sharp cry of affright.

Fortunately the noise and excitement before Killbuck's sapling was
so great that none heard it but the prisoners, who jumped to their feet
with surprise.

Poe's knife descended again and again, until the second savage, too,
lay still in death. It was but the matter of a moment for the scouts
to draw the horrid circles and secure the scalps.

Be not too harsh with them, reader ! Those were rude and bloody
times, and scalps were the trophies most coveted by whites as well as
reds. Liberal bounties for human hair were offered by both British
and Americans. Deplore and resent the facts as we may, we must not
ignore them. Such coarse and ruffianly barbarities would be a gross
affront to the superior civilization of our day ; but a scourged and
harassed frontier affords poor soil for the growth of the courtesies and
refinements of peace and social culture. Alas, that manly courage
when made a trade of, should so frequently degenerate into savagery
and brutishness !

When the two victors advanced towards the prisoners, the latter
were free and unfettered. The cry of the dying Huron had given the
cue to Wetzell, who dashed forward and cut the thongs that bound
their hands and feet. A rapid whispering and hearty pressure of
hands ensued, and all five slunk under the sheltering trees, and were
soon with the main band, and in time to take their part in the ap-
proaching fray.

CHAPTER LXIII.

THE COMBAT OPENS — GIRTV's AMBUSH.

It had been the original design of the leaders to make the onslaught
about two of the morning, when all the savages were wrapped in deep-
est slumber. It was rarely ever that Indians made a night attack
themselves, and still rarer that they could withstand one that was well
planned and forcibly pushed. But Killbuck's critical situation excited

254 SIMON GIRTY.

sympathy, and all clamored for an attempt at rescue at all hazards.
The disparity in strength, however, dictated to those in command
the prudence of securing every possible advantage. The ravine was
so much nearer, and took such a favoring bend about the spot
selected for Killbuck's torture ; at the same time it offered such a com-
plete shelter and vantage ground from which to operate, that the dar-
ing McColloch — who, as stated, had been chosen leader — proposed
its immediate occupation.

It would be a bold and very hazardous operation, but in its very
rashness lay its effect ; and when did such reckless and hot-blooded
fighters as we have seen gathered together, ever shirk a peril because
of its desperate risk? In that lay the chief charm, and each knew
his neighbor to be true as steel.

McColloch therefore stealthily led his band down to the creek. Here
they entered the ravine at its very mouth, just above the "rapids,"
and silently and under its obscuring shelter, worked cautiously along
until they found themselves opposite the fire and ready for action at
an instant's notice. Killbuck's escape and crowded pursuit gave
them their opportunity, and eight or ten savages lying on the sod
before them, either dead or too badly hurt to move, was the first result.

Scarce had the smoke of their murderous volley cleared away, before
McColloch detected the Hermit, with the fire of an undying hate in
his lustrous eyes, scrambling over the edge of the ravine. He leaped
to him and tapped him on the shoulder.

" Here, Mr. Markham, where are you going? don't you know your
piece's empty?"

" I do : if I want to load, there's a tree. This knife's enough just
now," said the Hermit, wearily looking down from the top of the
bank, with the signs of a terrible earnestness in his haggard, frenzied
visage.

" Hold ! I'm leader here," said the Major, decidedly. " You're mad

to go off in that plight and, by , you s/ia// not. Come back,

I say !"

The Hermit glanced at him for a moment, and then emitted a wild,
unearthly sort of a chuckle, adding quietly :

"You're not my leader, and I'm after Black Hoof. He must not,
he shall not escape me ! Shoot at me if you wish, but I go, neverthe-
less. Think you life is dear to me ? Why should it be ? But wh'/e I
live, I have a sacred mission. Shoot ! shoot ! Major, but remember !
ha ! ha ! that my hair brings no money," and the Hermit deliberately
glided off, and was soon lost in the darkness.

" He's mad, boys ! stark, staring mad ! Some of you will have to
follow him."

McColloch now led his party down the ravine a little so as to get out of
the range of the fire. At a favorable spot they leaped out upon the level,
and availing themselves of every tree, began cautiously to advance.

The two forces were now about equal, and it behooved them to be
both wary and prudent. The savages had, doubtless, by this time
recovered their senses, and would be collected ready to repel any
attack. Tree fighting was their forte, and to their keen visions, a
moonlight night was almost as good as — nay better than — the day.

THE COMBAT OPENS — GIRTY S AMBUSH. 255

" Keep a sharp look-out, men !" whispered Zane, in earnest, anxious
tones. ** Every tree may cover a yellow hide." They had not gone
far before a rustle of bushes and the breaking of branches could be
heard in a little hollow towards the left. What could it mean ? Each
scout, with eyes straining into the gloom and rifle at a present,
advanced on tip-toe. Now could be heard panting and gasping, fol-
lowed by angry exclamations. Evidently a desperate struggle was
going on near them, but between whom ? and how all grew still, and
then a strange, wild laugh and voice.

" Another trophy won ! 'Twas a desperate tussle, though. Who
wants a rifle in such a fight? and yet they'd keep me back !"

" As I live, 'tis the Hermit's voice," exclaimed Brady. " He's met
a foe and counts another victim. Halloo ! Mr. Markham ! hold a
minute till we come up."

*' Gantlemen," came back in low, startling tones, " the enemy's in
front, and's to be fought with knives. You'll have to hunt thejn, or
they'll \\nnt you. I'll meet you at the creek ; " and a gaunt, shadowy
form could be seen like a spectre emerging with a gliding motion
from under the deep shadows of a low-branched oak, then flitting
rapidly across a little stretch of moonlight, and finally disappearing in
the distant gloom.

Very soon were heard by Brady and Butler — who had rapidly
advanced together and boldly penetrated a dense clump of trees and
thickly-matted undergrowth which lay at the foot of a gentle declivity
— the low, sharp, quick commands of Girty, who had just hunted up
his band. His voice, though carefully subdued, was full of hot wrath.
It had a snarly, snappy, stinging jerk to each word, betokening a
heart full of desperate hate and bitterness.

He exhorted his followers in Delaware to be cool and artful : told
them to retire slowly before the hated long-knives and draw them
into an ambush by gathering behind a huge fallen log which lay at
a little distance directly in their rear. The two scouts happened to
be hugging a huge chestnut trunk a few paces off, and being both
familiar with Delaware, they heard and understood almost every word,
and hurried back to McCoUoch to report Girty's plan.

" Ha, ha, thaf s the wrinkle, is it, Brady ! Well, Girty'll blame
soon find that's a game two can play at. But what would you advise,
Captain ? "

"That a very small but pretty noisy force should be kept stretched
out here in front for a blind," promptly answered Brady, "while all
the rest should swiftly and quietly make a circuit, and rush at the am-
bushed crowd with knives and clubbed rifles. In that way we can
crunch them like a nest of copperheads, as they are."

" Good ! Captain. My notions to a fraction. At it then ! and for
God's sake hurry ! You and Butler collect all the lads you can and
leave me the balance. We'll give you ten minutes to make the turn.
When you're all ready, whoop like mad ! We'll draw close as we can
on this side, and when we hear you, we'll rush on and catch the d — d
rascals between both our forces, and grind 'em hard and honest."

The two now stole quietly around, and soon led about eighteen or
twenty scouts secretly and silently to the left.

256 SIMON GIRTY.

It was a strange, weird contest this under those sombre and solemn
leafy arches, with the moon's rays sifting through and flecking the
ground with its silver bars. The silence, especially when contrasted
with the late mad excitement about the fire — which had just before,
by order of Girty, been scattered — was almost painful. Both whites
and reds flitted about like ghosts, making no more noise than a fluffy
owl in its soft flight, and yet that piece of woods was full of warring,
dangerous elements, waiting, like two alien, antagonistic gases, only
the slightest contact, to produce a thundering and terrific explosion.

This brooding, unnatural stillness was all at once rudely broken by
a startling yell, so shrill, so piercing, so blood-curdling, and yet withal
so fierce and triumphant, that all who heard it started as if personally
smitten. It jarred the nerves, and sent the blood rushing to the heart
like a powerful electric shock.

" My God, Zane, what means that ! " gasped out the Major.

" It's an Injun scalp yell, sure's shooting; but coming just now
when there's such an awful stillness, and when every nerve is tense
with feverish suspense, it just bristles my hair right up."

''It's a Delaware cry, I'd swear," whispered Zane, "but who from,
or who's hair's been lifted, beats me. I'm downright flabbergasted.
Was Killbuck with us? "

" Started with us, but you never can depend on an Injun fighting to
orders. He's gone off on his own hook. I fear if it's him, like as not
it's the Hermit he's tackled."

There is a time, it is said, just before every battle, when even the
bravest veteran feels like running away. That dreadful, mysterious
yell, doubtless, moved the hearts of all who heard it in the same way.
The silence that followed seemed more profound than ever. It was
like the solemn hush which, it has been noted, generally precedes an
earthquake, or when the close, stifling air is full of the slumberous
electricity which forebodes a terrific outbreak.

The ten minutes had now expired. McColloch had silently pushed
his few men as far forward as Wisdom warranted, when all at once was
seen the flash and heard the crack of a solitary rifle, immediately fol-
lowed by a continuous volley, and then a rush, a roar, and a mad and
confused din of shouts, shrieks, whoops, blows, cursings and clashingsof
knives, as if all Pandemonium had broken loose in that leafy soli-
tude.

The Major, with his compact little group of men was ready waiting.
"Brady's got 'em, sure pop!" he shouted in triumphant tones.
" Now, my lads, down on 'em on this side ! Keep your eyes skinned
on the log. The pesky varmints will all be swarming over on our side,
and we must be devilish friendly."

Sure enough, the circumvented savages, taken at such dreadful dis-
advantage, were found slinking away on all sides — some over and some
at each end of the huge log, from whose favoring shelter they had ex-
pected so much.

The contest had been short but terrible. Brady and his men had
secretly sneaked up within easy rifle shot. The moon was shining on
one end of the massive prostrate trunk, and several Indians could be
dimly seen in motion behind it. The direction of the rest could be

THE COMBAT OPENS — GIRTY S AMBUSH. 257

imagined, and it was hastily resolved to give them one volley, and
then all rush in with as much noise as possible.

The poor reds defended themselves as well as they could under the
circumstances ; they first whooped a defiance and then rushed boldly
to meet their foes ; but soon as Brady heard Zane's loud commands
from the other side, he knew how it was at once, and heard Pipe shout
out in Delaware for their men to scatter and take trees.

This was in strict accordance with Indian tactics, even had it not
been absolutely necessary to prevent utter destruction. Those who
were still unhurt, or who could escape from the fierce assaults of the
scouts, stole away on all sides. A number of fierce and desperate
personal conflicts ensued. The woods were full of angry, frightful battle-
sounds — sharp cheers and muttered curses from the furious whites ; shrill
yells or desperate blows from the exasperated reds, and all these min-
gled with the clash of knives, the pantings and gaspings of the hand-
to-hand struggle; the groans of the dying and the loud rustle of bushes
and crash of broken branches.

It could not last, however. The shock had been too sudden and
terrible for Girty. His dogged followers had been sore bestead, but
had quitted themselves like men. Girty himself had fought like an
incarnate fiend. Although again wounded and at the very first fire, he
had rushed at and grappled with the very first foe who offered.

His rage was terrible — his cursings awful, but he stubbornly held
his ground until he had chopped down his antagonist with repeated
blows of his tomahawk.

Girty, much spent with his late efforts, and beginning to feel great
pain from his latest wound, now paused a moment to look about him.
He had fought his fight a little aloof from the chief centre of struggle,
and heard all about him the threshing of the bushes and the noise of
individual encounters. The conflict was already against him, and he
therefore concluded to save his followers while he could, and then
conduct a retreat across the creek.

Brady had been busily hunting him up as "a. foeman worthy of his
steel," but had himself been grappled by Capt. Pipe, and was just then
engaged in a desperate struggle with that formidable Delaware chief.
So, seeing no foe to obstruct, Girty was stealthily gliding off under the
opportune obscurity. of a densely foliaged sugar maple, when he sud-
denly encountered one of the scouts directly in his path.

He himself was evidently taken for an Indian by the stranger, for
he whispered in English, "Is that you, Killbuck?" That hated name
was gall and wormwood to the desperate renegade. He it was who
had brought on him all this trouble. So whipping out his scalping
knife and without uttering a single word, he rushed furiously upon his
unknown foe.

But he had evidently caught a Tartar. The scout was already on
his guard, and received him with such readiness, and handled him
with such fiery vigor and energy, that Girty was sorely pressed.
17

258 SIMON GIRTY.

CHAPTER LXIV.

TWO DESPERATE ENCOUNTERS — THE HERMIT GONE.

A brief but terrible contest ensued. The toughened thews and in-
durated muscles of the sturdy, square-set, bull-chested outlaw were
tried and strained as they never had been before. Weakened by
wounds, he was plainly overmatched. All his desperate throes and
twistings availed him nothing. His knife was violently jerked from
his hand ; his feet went from under him, and he came down with a
dull, heavy thud, stretched his full length upon the grass. His fierce
foe raised aloft the knife that was to pierce the heart, but paused just
on the drop.

*' No," he muttered between his set teeth, " there's been enough
blood spilt;" and adding in Delaware: "Ask for mercy, you hound
of an Indian, or I'll spit you through and through."

"I'm no Injun, but am as white as yourself," came in husky gasps
of English from the panting, exhausted form before him; " and what's
more, am no slink to beg life from a foe I hate. Do yer worst, curse
ye ! There's little left now for Simon Girty to live for."

" What ! Girty? " said the other, with a sudden start; dropping his
knife and quickly withdrawing himself from the prostrate form. "I
thought I know'd that voice. No, no, you've nothing to fear from me,
Girty. Take your life and get out of this, quick ! or you'll come to
harm. Thank God, we're quits at last- a life for a life."

Girty had now sprung to his feet and seized the scout's hand in
both of his own. "You're either Sime Butler or the Devil," he ex-
claimed, in tones of great surprise and agitation. " How do you
happen to be on my trail? thought you war in Kantuck with Boone."

" Wal, I'm here, and agin you, Girty, and that's enough ! Don't
risk talking more, but be off! You've done me some rale hearty turns,
and I ain't one to forget. Score this one for me. You're mixed up
in a blamed dirty bizznes, Girty — that of stealing off innocent women,
and you ought to smoke for it. Howsumdever, you're badly beat this
time, and we've got back our own. Now go ! «'(? go ! I hear them
coming this way. We're even now, but next time you're caught in a
like scrape, you'll be nipped sure. Now, good bye, Girty, and give
our border a wide berth."

" Much obleeged to you, Butler, for your advice," quietly sneered
the mortified Girty, "but more for the good turn you've just done me,
as I hope to be spliced soon. Thought I was a gone goose a bit back.
While you're thinking, Sime, which is the meanest bizznes, toting off
prisoners who've been taken in reg'lar war, or stealing Injun horses —
which was the last trade you were in when I knew you, — I'll slip off.
Good bye. May we meet again, friends if you will ; foes if we must."

So saying, Girty stole off towards the creek, and just in time to
escape the rest of the scouts who now came up and found Butler lean-
ing musingly against a tree. He said never a word about his desperate
combat, but he could not and did not regret his generous action.

We stated that Brady had been encountered by Captain Pipe, and

TWO DESPERATE ENCOUNTERS THE HERMIT GONE. 259

that an obstinate struggle had ensued. The Delaware was the stronger
and heavier of the two, but Brady was the younger and more skillful —
had more vim and spring in him. In grit and stubborn resolution
neither could claim the advantage.

The contest was for some time in doubt. At last Brady succeeded
in pushing Pipe back against a tree, where he pinned him firmly by
the throat with one hand, and with the other was about to give him
the tomahawk's keen edge, when the wily Delaware by a mighty effort
wrenched himself loose, gave a sudden thrust at Brady's side with his
knife, and shouting in Delaware, "so be it to every foe of Kogiesch-
quanoheel," darted off into the darkness.

The boasted name betrayed him. Killbuck, who had from the very
first fire in the ravine, been busy in his own peculiar fashion, was just
then in search of his friend Brady. Hearing Pipe's Delaware name
shouted out, he was directed to the spot; came just in time to see the
Delaware, and to seat the wounded Brady quietly on the grass with
back leaning against the tree's trunk, and then swift as an arrow he
bounded off and disappeared in the direction of his inveterate and
most rancorous foe.

When Pipe plunged forward with the desperate intent of finishing
the combat by a single blow. Brady had lifted his knee to aid in hold-
ing his powerful antagonist to the tree.

So it happened that the blade which was meant to pierce the vitals,
was only fleshed deep into the thigh, where, buried almost to the very
hilt, it remained, making a ghastly but not a very dangerous wound.
In the very posture he was placed by the faithful Delaware, the jaded
scout was found by Zane and McColloch, the knife drawn out, and
busy binding the wound with the wrapping from his neck.

"Halloo, Brady!" said the Major, anxiously, ''have they pinked
you? Let us see ! I hope not a bad hurt."

" Well," said Brady, ruefully, " I might say as I once heard a play fel-
low in Philadelphia say, ' No, 'tis not so deep as a well nor so wide as a
church door ; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve,' but I'm not yet * made worm's
meat of,' I think. Leave me and hurry on, or the rascals will escape ! "

"Oh, the fight's well over, I think," said Zane. "I hear a great
plashing in the creek down there. We've trounced them beautifully,
and have got back all we're after. Come! lean on us, and we'll take
you back to the fire, for we've won the battle, and, like true victors,
must sleep on the field. We'll have down the girls too. They'll soon
nurse you back to trailing strength again; Shepherd and Rose have
already gone to tell them the news."

The contest was ended, sure enough. The savages could not with-
stand two such fatal surprises. They had been badly smitten and
shattered, and were fast scurrying across the Killbuck, hotly pursued
by the exultant scouts.

The shouts and various sounds of conflict and pursuit gradually died
away. The solemn roar of the rapids again filled the woods. The
little run, as for centuries past, brawled or whispered its tortuous
course, while the paling moon was hastening down the westward sky,
leaving its mild, silvery lights enmeshed in the trees' thick foliage.

The victors, with glad shouts and vociferous clamor, now found their

26o SIMON GIRTY.

several ways back to the fire. The various reports were compared,
and soon it became known who were killed, wounded or missing, the
most prominent of the last being the Hermit.

As all were thus noisily talking together, Killbuck, with dripping
leggins and lowering face, quietly emerged from the darkling, wind-
ing aisles of the forest, sat himself down by his friend Brady who was
lying with head resting on a mossy trunk, and gravely extended
his hand.

"Welcome, my old friend," cheerily spake the scout. You've
made a deuced narrow escape from Mohican torture." Then observ-
ing the old Delaware's clouded visage, he continued : " Why, how's
this, Killbuck? All glad but you; and you look as ugly and crabbed
as an old mother bear with whelps. I see it by the fiery glint o'your
eyes. Could you find no 'dead medicine' for our friend Pipe?"

" Kogieschquanoheel look bold as a panther, but has the heart of a
rabbit, and the cunning of a fox," replied the chief, in deep, guttural
tones, and with an air of great disgust. " When he wound my brother,
I watch close where him go. I leap after like the wild cat, and
straight like the heavy bee to its house, but I no find him.

"I then creep down to the water and hide like a snake under the
bushes. Bymeby I hear plash here, plash there, plash all around, and
I know that redman steal 'cross the creek and try get away. Just now
I hear rustling of bushes behind, and low voices on all sides, and be-
fore I can go off I am in the middle of big crowd of very mad Indians,
but I no see much who.

*' Too late to get away now, and I must have Captain Pipe's scalp,
so I feel if tomahawk all right, and I wade into the water with the rest,
and then look around very close, but I no find him. No, but I see
strange 'pale-face,' with a belt tied over his mouth so he no make any
noise, and all Indians about pulling and poking and hissing curses at
him like so many snakes.

" I very, very sorry for this 'pale-face,' but I no can help him, and
he make no business for me ; so I go to this one and that one, but I
no see the Delaware I want. Then I cross water with the rest, and
when I come under the dark of the woods, I say to a Wolf Mohican :
* Where be Kogieschquanoheel ? I much ' fraid he lost ? ' and he say he
know nothing, and that he no cross the creek yet.

"I then say who is this 'pale-face' that make you so much mad?
what has he done?" and he answered : " He is the great enemy of
our nation, and soon as he get to top of that hill, we cut him all up
into little bits and make him food for the hawks and buzzards ! He
then tell me that this 'pale-face' had been just caught stooping over
the dead body of the Delaware chief Ko-ta-chi-wa (which means,
Brady, in your tongue — the Bison that Paws the Grass), and had cut
off his right ear, and — "

" My God ! Killbuck ! " here interrupted Brady, with deep feeling
and sitting bolt upright. " It's the poor Hermit of the Big Yellow.
He never takes scalps, and that's his way of counting his dead, and
by this time he's probably cut all to pieces. "

" Never heard my brother say anything of this friend. I no know
what Hermit mean," answered Killbuck coolly. "I could no save

TWO DESPERATE ENCOUNTERS — THE HERMIT GONE. 26 1

him, but if I know my brother love him, I might have kill him all to
once, and so kept him from being all cut up like bear meat or scalp-
ing post. Too late now. Why do he cut off ears and no take scalps ?"

" Heavens ! what a hard, cruel fate ! Killbuck, do you think he still
lives? Go my friend, maybe you can yet save him."

" No, no ! he sure dead by now. Mohicans all boiling over mad at
him. He had one bloody tomahawk gash in his shoulder, and all were
hitting him, pulling his hair and shaking their tomahawks at him.
The one who speak to me foam at the mouth, and shake his hatchet
terrible ; said * pale-face' was evil spirit of their race, and had been
watching their trails for many moons past ; that he had killed a heap
of Mohicans and cut off their right ears, and that they were too much
mad to wait the torture, but must mince him up right off."

"Go on ! Killbuck ! go on ! " said Brady, sternly, covering his face
with his hands, and more moved than he cared to show. "It is a
dreadful, horrible fate, and awfully sudden."

The chief gazed for a moment wondering at his friend, and re-
sumed : "I have no more business there, so I move off and move off
till I get out of the crowd ; then I stand still till all go on, and then I
go back into water; I almos' reach this side, when I hears the plash,
plash, plash, of some one walking towards me. I see somebody come,
and I turn round as if I was stealing across like the rest,

"Then comes a low, deep voice to me in Mohican: 'Are Girty
and all the rest across ? ' I tremble all over with joy when I find I
have at last my old foe just behind me ! " Yes, I believe so ; you are
the last to cross," I whispered in our tongue, at the same time I feel
for my tomahawk.

" My brother, it had gone j slipped somehow into the water, and I
was without weapon, and my old enemy now by my elbows. Big drops
of sweat break out over my head, but I then hope that The Pipe had
left his knife too, and might be so naked as I be, so I waded on and
on, cast a glance around to see if Pipe had any hatchet. It was not
very clear, but I could sight no gun or tomahawk, and so I make all
ready,

" Then he say again : ' Did my braves get Wingenund safe over
who's hurt so bad by Gellelemend, that cursed coward ? '

" That word make me all over mad, so I cry : ' You be the coward,
vile dog of a Mohican,' and I leap like a panther right on his breast,
and I grip his throat with my two hands, till he turn up his eyes, put
out his tongue, and make some funny noises.

" The Pipe was much whipped for one, two, several minutes. Then
he make heap o' ugly fight, and try hold my head under water. But
I no stay under much, no; and keep tight hold of his throat, and
squeeze him as tho' I love it very much,

" Then his eyes turn up ; a rattle come from his mouth like that
from a stuck deer, and he fall down into the water, which was up to
my breech-clouts. This is just where your brother want him, so I take
him by the scalp lock and hold his head anunder, and he splashing and
thrashing the water all around,

" He make so much noise, and I so busy drowning him, that I no
see or hear anything. Then I feel my two arms tight. I jump up

262 SIMON GIRTY.

and see a big Huron holding me, and three, four, five several more
hurrying up with tomahawks. This too much for your brother. He
want to keep his hair, and no stop for more fight, but break loose, swim
under water like a fish and make for shore.

" They no know who I is, and dare not come back to this side again,
and so here I be. Ugh ! If Killbuck had tomahawk," concluded the
disgusted chief, lugubriously, "the scalp of Capt. Pipe now hang at
his belt. "

" Yes, yes, Killbuck ! that's one way to look at it ; but if Pipe had
had one, your hair might have been drying at hts, so be content, my
old friend ; we've had a great victory. The two ladies with Shepherd
and Rose are all safe, and Girty's had such a backset as he'll not get
over for years. More than that, I've got ' Spitfire' back, and Shepherd
has your rifle all safe. Now take some tobacco out of my tquirrel-skin
yonder, and since you havn't got Ihe Pipe you wish, you may yet en-
joy a pipe. "

Killbuck smiled grimly, and having first ascertained the exact
nature of his friend's wound, and telling him he would as soon as light
came, gather some herbs for a poultice which would cure him right up,
he sauntered off towards the fire to smoke his stone pipe and dry his
buckskins.

CHAPTER LXV.

AFTER THE BATTLE — HOMEWARD BOUND.

Brady was soon joined again by his friends, to whom he related
Killbuck's adventures and the sad fate of the Hermit. It was very re-
luctantly concluded that he must have been killed outright, and that
any further pursuit would be useless.

Several sentinels were now sent down to patrol the bank of the creek
and others carefully posted in different directions. Any return in force
was not anticipated. The foe was too badly cut up for that; but an
Indian's vengeance is frequently as reckless as it is sudden, and their
desperate valor has frequently enabled them to wrest signal revenges
out of the very jaws of hopeless defeat.

When Shepherd and Rose now approached the fire, leading the two
horses on which were seated Betty and Drusilla, happy and smiling,
the rejoicing was at its height. The whole company seemed for the
first time to realize what had been accomplished. The death of the
Hermit and the wounds of others of their band could not overcloud so
much genuine joy.

So soon as the two girls could escape from the hearty congratulations
of their friends, they gratefully hastened to Brady's side and vied with
each other in tender attentions. They shook him by the hand, pour-
ed out their profuse thanks and did their utmost to make him comfort-
able.

A rude shelter was soon thrown up ; the fire was replenished, and
as it was now considerably after midnight and the long day had been

AFTER THE BATTLE HOMEWARD BOUND. 263

Unusually crowded with fatigues and excitements, the whole camp
gradually sank to rest.

Some, however, remained up who could not go to sleep. The joy
and excitement were too great, and they were making a regular night
of it. Occasionally could be noted a snatch of song, a ringing laugh,
and even the savory odors of cooking venison and coffee. Hunters'
appetites are proverbial, and there be many sound-livered, strong-
stomached people in this world whose greatest happiness is best ex-
pressed by the acts of eating and drinking.

It was late on the morrow when this impromptu camp awakened.
The sun was pouring its rich golden light through the tender leafage ;
the woodland shrubs and flowers exhaled their sweet-scented breath;
the dew-begemmed herbage was fragrant with its morning incense ;
the little run rippled and babbled its meandering way ; while the birds
poured forth their matin notes in "profuse strains of unpremeditated
art."

All seemed perfect peace and repose. What a contrast to the hor-
rid din and murderous clamor of the night before ! And yet under
that verdant, fretted canopy, and amid that moist and fragrant herb-
age, lay rows of stark, staring corpses.

Not all, however, were so drowsy and slumberous. Killbuck had
been up from early dawn gathering material for a soothing poultice
for his friend Brady's wound — stramonium, sassafras, slippery elm.
and the bark of the white-walnut, whose various potencies were well
known to all Indians. Others were searching the woods for the dead
and wounded.

The Indian bodies, by McColloch's orders, had been gathered to-
gether to the number of fourteen, and then hidden under the bushes
by the stream. Their wounded had all managed to escape, or had
been carried off. Of the whites five were wounded, but happily, none
of them desperately so, while three dead bodies were discovered and
reverently conveyed to a sheltered spot near the little river. The
surrounding woods were thoroughly ransacked, but no lurking enemies
had been discovered.

And now came the hunters' breakfast, a meal that all/ partook of
most heartily, and the general hilarity of which was only occasionally
disturbed by thoughts of their dead comrades. The whole company
were now ready for the return.

After consultation among the leaders, it had been concluded, on
account of the difficulty of carriage for so great a distance, that the
dead should be immediately buried. In order to prevent any discov-
ery or mutilation of the bodies from wandering savages, the fire was
scattered ; its embers and ashes scraped aside, and a shallow grave,
sufficient to contain all three bodies, was dug just where the flames had
burned hottest and brightest.

The entire band of scouts gathered about in a solemn circle. Brady
sat at a little distance off, reclining against his tree, and attended by his
grateful lady nurses. Major 'Rose, in his neat and graceful uniform,
made the centre for a group of the leaders.

Now the bodies, resting on rough litters and preceded by the Rev.
Christy, were reverently brought forward. A simple hymn was raised

264 SIMON GIRTY.

by the young minister and the ladies, in which manyof the scouts de-
voutly joined. A few feeling remarks, appropriate to the occasion
were then made, and a fervent and touching prayer, in which thanks
for the signal victory were mingled with a sorrowful tribute to those
who had been so suddenly and violently ushered into a dread eternity,
concluded the service.

The bodies were then laid side by side in their forest sepulture; a
volley was fired over it by those around ; the earth covering those
mortal remains was tramped hard, and the brands and ashes gathered
back to their old place.

A rude and simple burial, and yet one of unusual solemnity ! There
was many a husky voice and tear-bedimmed eye among those rough
and stalwart, but yet warm-hearted pioneers. The departed had been
true to the death, and prodigal of their life's blood, and were sincerely
mourned by men with whom faithful courage was a crowning virtue.
They exchanged saddened looks with each otlier, and quietly dispersed
to prepare for the homeward march. Three of the wounded, Cooney
Stroop, Hambleton Kerr and Peter Neiswanger had received their
hurts on the upper part of their bodies and needed no special assis-
tance, but Brady and young Casper French had been wounded in the
lower limbs, and were unable to walk.

Two Indian litters, similar to the drag before described on which
poor Larry had been carried into distant captivity, had therefore been
made — simply a couple of saplings, whose butts were lashed to a horse,
one on either side, like a pair of shafts ; the bushy, leafy ends drag-
ging on the ground behind, and a bed of interlaced branches, covered
with robes between. No easier or more elastic litter for a weak or
wounded invalid could possibly be devised.

The Yellow Creek scouts, headed by Andy Poe, had the post of
honor at the head. Then came Drusilla on horseback, with Killbuck
to the right, and Brady, reclining on his litter, behind them: Betty,
with young French on his litter, and then the rest, mostly in single
file and led by Zane, Butler and McColloch. Rose and Shepherd
walked beside the horses.

Notwithstanding the honored dead, so reluctantly left behind, the
whole party moved under the majestic colonnades of that luxuriant
and illimitable wilderness with a proud and elastic step.

Think of it! Two whole days in those virgin, primeval forests.
What a luxury for those with ears attuned to hear the deep breathings
of Nature, or to such as were admitted to her most tender confidences !

Everything within, above and around them invited to joy and exul-
tation. It was a veritable triumphal procession amid all the pomp and
pageantry of exuberant spring. The air above was full of a delicious
warmth and sunshine ; the trees, vines and flowers stretched out on
every side, far as eye could reach or imagination picture — infinite in
number, endless in tint and variety. The whole atmosphere was filled
with the melody of birds and the fragrance of balmy May.

And so the day wore on. The gay procession made no attempt at
either silence or secrecy. Occasional diversions would be made after
a startled deer, or a flock of wild turkeys, A noisy joke or a shout of
laughter would run all along the line, and at intervals a halt would be

AFTER THE BATTLE — HOMEWARD BOUND. 265

made in some grassy glade, or by the margin of some limpid spring or
sequestered stream.

It was fully dusk ere the jaded company reached the secluded glen
near Gnadenhutten. As a still longer march remained for the next
day, the fires were hastily made, the spitted game was set up to broil,
and, after a hearty meal, all soon couched themselves for the night.

And yet not all ! For such was the inborn ardor for outdoor sports
among those roving, restless borderers, that quite a number of the
younger hunters started off a few miles further to watch for deer at a
famous "salt lick," noted throughout all that region; still others
wandered out about the camp after cats, coons and possums, while Kill-
buck and another "runner" kept straight on their way to the fort to
announce the recapture of the prisoners and the return of the victors.

The first blush of dawn found the whole party again in file ; over
hills, down valleys, across streams; now softly treading on rich, vel-
vety carpets of moss, or picking their way among perplexing windfalls
of trees; now winding their devious path along thicketed streams or
low luxuriant swales, and anon sweeping along at a free swinging stride
through open groves of oaks, maples and chestnuts.

But ever and on, with the vast, solemn wilderness opening out in
every direction. The unbroken stillness amid those profound and
magnificent aisles, with their interlaced roofs of variegated frondage,
was at all times impressive — the solitude was oftentimes sublime and
overpowering.

For a great portion of the way, the trail followed the picturesque
valley of the Stillwater, the headwaters of which interlock with those
of McMechens Creek ; a clear, rapid stream that debouches into the
Ohio, opposite Fort Henry.

Soon as the "divide" which separates the affluents of the two waters
was passed, their progress grew more rapid. The final pause was
made about ten miles from the fort, and right within the jaws of a deep,
cool, rocky gorge, to the bottom of which scarce did ever the sun's
rays penetrate, and adown which rushed in a mad whirl of yeasty
waters, a noisy and turbulent stream.

It was, for romantic beauty and picturesqueness, a perfect gem of a
resting place. No artist who should see it, but would wish to take its
picture, or no poet but would essay to embalm it in verse. The beet-
ling cliffs of gray rock were richly mantled o'er with verdure — ferns,
vines, mosses and creepers. A little way up, the stream dashed over
a height of some fifteen feet, and then broadening out, glided and
rippled melodiously over a long convex incline of slaty rock, the bright,
sparkling waters being collected in a large, rocky basin at its foot.

Right below this inviting pool the stream divided to unite about fifty
yards lower down, and enclosing within its loving, sheltering arms a
little islet of green sward, beautifully enamelled with flowers and bright
with vividly green patches of moist moss.

On this little mead, then, reclined our tired party. The two girls
dismounted and allowed their jaded horses to crop the luxuriant herb-
age. The wounded had a welcome quiet and change of position, and
enjoyed it amazingly.

This ravine looked out upon a noble grove of venerable maples.

266 S7.M0N GIRTY.

without any tangled undergrowth whatever, but having a carpet of
elastic sward. It had been used for years by the Indians as a sugar
camp, and almost every tree had its wooden conduit for the sap; and,
beneath, its trough or vessel of elm bark.

All at once some of the quick-eared scouts stopped their idle chaffing,
and raised upon their elbows at the distant bay of a hound. Then
came another and another of different tone ; and again ; and louder,
nearer than before, the same clear, mellow, sonorous bay as at first.

"Boys," exclaimed Lew Wetzell," that's Col. Zane's Music, sure's
you're born! No hound on our border 'gives tongue' with such a
deep and far-reaching voice."

"That's so," answered McColloch, springing to his feet. "It's Eb.
Zane's Irish stag-hound, and that's his pack, too, after her. When
Music opens out with her rich, sweet notes, be sure there's a deer in
view, and that she means to be in at the death. They're coming close,
too ! Look sharp there ! "

CHAPTER LXVI.

A STAG HUNT ''MAD ANN BAILEY."

All were now on their feet. The ough-ough-oughing of the deep-
mouthed dogs was very exciting. None there who had not often
engaged with ardor in the chase. And now came the tuneful notes of
a hunting horn. All made a rush out towards the maple grove.

Just then a noble buck, with his muzzle proudly aloft in tlie air, and
his spreading ten-tine antlers thrown back upon his haunches, bounded
past in magnificent leaps and swift as the very wind. His eyes glanced
affrightedly on either side; his nostrils were distended with terror and
hard breathing ; his little white flag of a tail stood erect and defiant,
and his delicate limbs were as elastic as steel springs.

Hard after him, nose to the ground and with Music in the van,
came the panting hounds, and at considerable distance in the rear was
a party of four on horseback.

The buck kept straight along the Indian trail. The hounds bounded
after with vociferous clamor, but soon as they struck the fresh trail
made by our party, they stopped, seemed confused, ran snuffing hither
and thither, and finally dropped their notes into low, plaintive
whimpers.

Music, however, soon resolved the difficulty by turning straight off
from the buck's scent, and taking the one which led into the ravine.
The rest, incited by the voices of Zane and others whom they knew so
well, changed their trailing lope into joyful leaps and gambols, and
their sonorous baying into short, quick barks of joyful recogni-
tion.

And now in a mad, furious gallop dashed along a lady on horse-
back. Hard after her came another black horse, mounted by — well,
whether man or woman no one seemed able to tell.

*' Hurrah, lads," cried Butler with the greatest eagerness. " Hanged

A STAG HUNT **MAD ANN BAILEY," 267

ef it isn't pooty little Lydia Boggs, the pet of the border, and mounted
— yes, shoot ine through if she ain't — on Major Rose's blood mare.
Catch anything but a wild pigeon getting ahead of her! But in the
name of all that's good, who's that lapping her behind ! 'Pears like
a man dressed in a woman's toggery."

"Ha! ha! ha! I've got it," shouted out Lew Wetzell. ''It's none
but mad Ann Bailey on her black horse 'Liverpool,' and a hard un to
beat he is, and she is, too. She's rid him for years, and when his
blood's up he's a riglar screamer. He lays back his long ears, puts an
extra flash into his fiery eyes, doubles himself into a bunch a^d just
untwists himself He kinks out like a blacksnake,"

"And who the deuce," retorted Butler, "is mad Ann Bai — but,
halloo ! By Ginger, here they come ! Did ye ever see — Go it, little
un ! go it ! Make her skim like a bird I Je-ru-sa-lem ! "

By this time the two horses were fairly abreast of the ravine's mouth
and the group of shouting, excited scouts gather about it. Lydia — for
she, indeed, it proved — was fairly in front, going like the wind, and
pulling hard on the reins.

But Black Bess, lean and fleet as a greyhound, was all aquiver with
excitement, and with nostrils distended and neck craned out, snorted
by like a rocket. The beautiful rider, with her brown curls flying
behind, tossed a salute and gave a blast on her horn as she whizzed by.
Liverpool, however, was better in hand and was much sooner checked
up. He was quickly turned by his strong and skillful rider, and came
back on a sharp, quick trot, as if he " told his steps," his strange-
looking rider crying out to the crowd as Col. Eb. Zane and Lydia's
father, Capt. James Boggs, rode briskly up on the other side : —

"Ah, ye screeching gallows birds, ye. I'm glad to see ye'z all safe
back again, but ye've spoiled as neat a racing spurt as was ever plotted.
Here's my Liverpool, now — a nag that for stride and bottom's never
been beat, and that's got me quit of bloody Injuns — may the Lord
confound and destroy the whole breed — many and many's the time ;
and yet that little conceited pink and white chit of a Lydia Boggs,
just because she's mounted on a piece of horse-flesh a little better than's
common on the border, had to banter me to a race. Me and Liver-
pool ! ha I ha ! ha !

"Ye saw, men, how I held my black in. A rod behind when the
dogs opened in cry ; his nose at the mare's girth when ye shouted,
and neck and neck when I checked up. Oh, no ! No matter how far
behind Liverpool is at the start, he's bound to come out head. Ha I
ha! ha! that's his way."

Let us briefly pen-picture Mad Ann Bailey — for so, for a score of
years, was she universally called throughout all western Virginia — as
she thus sits firm and erect astride of her famed black steed, and strokes
his silken ears as in his excitement he paws up the grass.

A square, sturdy English figure, with tanned, weather-beaten face
and strong, masculine features, she was then about fifty years of age.
Her hair, just beginning to grizzle, escaped from beneath her otter-
skin head-gear — a sort of cross between cap and hood. She was
dressed mainly in the costume of a scout — hunting-frock, leggins and
moccasins — with a short rifle slung across her back, and with both

268 SIMON GIRTY.

knife and tomahawk stuck in her ornamented girdle — a brave, singular
and adventurous spirit, with little feminine about her but the name.

What a strange, wild, solitary life she had led as we find it handed
down by tradition or living in Border chronicles ! It is said that
" Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." Neither hath it any like
a woman wronged and thoroughly imbued with the spirit of vengeance.
There was a wild, unnatural brightness in her sharp, gray eyes, and a
mocking jeer in her loud, grating laugh. One could scarce help pity-
ing while he shuddered to see a woman, who, at her age, should be
tender and affectionate, cherished and protected by the love of friends
and children and surrounded with every care and comfort, so thor-
oughly unsexed ; roaming alone the vast wilderness solitudes and
exposed to all the spiteful elements. She was a veritable Meg Merrilies
— a thorough gipsy in look, habit and vagabondage.

Her maiden name was Hennis, and she was raised at Liverpool, emi-
grating to America with her husband, Richard Trotter, who was a vol-
unteer in Dunmore's war of 1774, and fell fighting at the bloody In-
dian battle of Point Pleasant. From the period of his death, she be-
came possessed with a strange, savage spirit of revenge against the In-
dians.

She was somewhat disordered in her intellect ; forsook her sewing
and spinning and commenced practicing with the rifle, casting the
tomahawk, hunting the wild game of the forests, and riding about the
country to every muster of scouts or hunters. She even discarded fe-
male attire, and differed little in appearance from the ordinary scout
of the border. The rifle was her constant companion ; she frequently
carried off the prizes at the various shooting matches ; spent most of
her time scouring the woods with no companion but a powerful black
horse which she called Liverpool, after her birth-place,

Lydia Boggs has mentioned the inestimable service she performed
for the beleaguered garrison of Charleston Fort by riding day and
night amid appalling perils, a distance of two hundred miles through
the savage wilds and unbroken forests of West Virginia, and procuring
a supply of powder from camp Union (now Lewisburg )

With a led horse weighted down with ammunition, she resolutely com-
menced her return; her trail followed by packs of ravenous wolves, or
still more dangerous red-skins; sleeping by night amid the profound
solitudes of the wilderness, and on spreads of boughs raised high
on stakes to protect her from venomous snakes or savage beasts ; cross-
ing raging torrents, breasting craggy heights ; ever watching for In-
dian " sign," but ever avoiding Indian attacks, until she heroically
delivered her powder and saved the fort. She afterwards took her
place among the men in defending the place, and used to boast that
she had fired many a shot at her foes.

Strange that such an odd, rugged, intractable character should ever,
even for a day, allow the soft passion of love to usurp the place of her
fierce and cruel revenge ! Stranger still that any mortal man could
be found who would be attracted by such a wild, stormy, riotous
spirit. He must have "wooed her as the lion woos his bride,"
where the mutual caresses and encounters of love pass amid savage
roars and growls and rude buffetings. But a man did woo, and won

LYDIA EOGGS AND COLONEL EB. ZANE. 269

her, too, and his name it was Bailey, and so she became Mrs. Ann
Bailey.

Whether he ever " tamed this shrew " history sayeth not, but we
read that her unquenchable spirit and audacity, in spite of her many
eccentricities, greatly endeared her to the whole border. She engaged
in the hunt of deer, bear and panther; was, during the Indian trou-
bles, employed as fort messenger, and afterwards — mounted on her
famed black hunter — used to visit many of the chief people of West
Virginia, returning laden down with gifts.

It was while starting out on one of these annual journeyings that
she had happened to arrive at Ft. Henry the night before, and hearing
from the "runner" of the fight with Girty, and the recapture of the
prisoners, had come out with Col. Zane, Lydia and her father to meet
and escort the returning victors.

CHAPTER LXVII.

LYDIA BOGGS AND COLONEL EB. ZANE.

By this time Lydia Boggs has come up on her fretting and spirited
mare, and is delivering a lively volley of vivacious laughs, queries and
exclamations.

No wonder she was such a great pet on that border. The pert and
saucy airs and oddities of a young girl of undoubted and acknowledged
beauty, always pass with her crowd of admirers as graces. Lydia was
such a queer, downright and positive beauty ; was such a brave and
dashing little body ; could run, swim, ride and shoot so well, and
with such a hearty spirit, that — if it must be confessed — she was some-
what spoiled by admiration.

She could say and do about as she pleased, and her late intrepid
feat of escaping from Girty's band of maurauders by a bold plunge
into the Ohio on horseback, and then her successful dash to the fort,
had raised her to a still higher pinnacle in the estimation of those rude
frontiersmen, with whom reckless courage was the best, as indeed it
was the only, title of nobility.

Lydia wzac/ have been, as a girl, of unusual nerve and force of char-
acter, for, at a hundred years — and she has died since the outbreak of
our late rebellion — she was noted for her wonderful energy and
sprightliness. The blood which cannot be cooled, and the spirit
which cannot be broken or tamed by a whole century of world care
and strife, must have been at seventeen of a very nimble and fiery
quality.

And, indeed, the lovely young girl looked strangely winning and
masterful as she sat her chafing and panting steed like a centaur. No
wonder those rough scouts surrounded her and gazed with staring
vision. There was a bright sparkle in her eye, and the flush of health
and excitement on her fair cheeks. Had she never parted her lips,
yet her very looks, smiles and manner would have been all eloquence
and animation.

270 SIMON GIRTY.

She was clad in a short, simple riding habit of home-spun, from
under the hem of which peeped out her little moccasined feet, A
jaunty, close-fitting cap of fine beaver fur confined her wealth of brown,
glossy curls ; but none there observed her dress. Why should they ?
Indeed, it is probable she would have been more natural and winsome
in her customary cloth tunic and fawn-skin leggins. It was her bright,
wide-awake face, and the spirited, stylish tout ensemble of both person
and attitude which attracted all eyes and took captive all hearts.

"And where are those naughty truants, Betty and Silla?" she ex-
claimed, after learning all she wished of the late conflict and capture,

" Come, Bess ! I must see them at once," and spurring up her restive
and impatient mare, she dashed and clattered up the rocky bed of the
stream, and caught sight of the group scattered over and about the
little island.

Mo, Shepherd, her companion and lover from earliest childhood,
was the first person her roving eyes beheld, but not the first they noted.
A momentary blush, it is true, flew to her face, but seeing Betty and
Drusilla reclining on the grass beside their browsing nags, she gave
Bess the word, made her leap the foaming run, slid off her back she
scarce knew how and why, and with an " Oh, girls ! " was locked in
their arms and covering them with a prodigal effusion of warm kisses
and embraces.

She was too full for poor, articulate speech, and yet told more by
lips, eyes and arms than ever could nimble tongue. After laughing
and crying over them a moment, she observed Major Rose standing
by the head of his recovered mare, talking tenderly to her and patting
her satin-like nose.

" Welcome back. Major ! " she exclaimed joyfully, going up to him
and frankly extending her hand. " I stole Black Bess away very un-
ceremoniously the other day, but I now return her again safe and
sound. She's the best nag I've ever backed ; has blood, bone and
beauty ; is as easy as an old sofa, and as fleet as Col. Zane's Music.
She's fit for a queen to ride."

"And therefore. Miss Lydia," gallantly replied the Major, warmly
pressing her hand, " I beg you'll continue to ride it. Who has better
earned the right or becomes it so well ? I saw your daring leap, and
know well what succor it has brought to us miserable captives. Bess
is your's and welcome, from this joyful day, Miss — "

" Now, Major, I cannot, will not take it, that's poz; I know how
a soldier values his steed, and you are to be Col. Crawford's aide in
the coming expedition, and what would you 'do, pray, without a
horse? "

" But, really, now Miss Lydia — "

" But me no buts, Major. I thank you, but will talk no more
about it until you come back from the wars. Look how Bess is asking
you to back her, Major ! "

Then leaning towards him, she whispered, " Major Rose — here's
Shepherd coming up — but if you want to thank me best, give Ann
Bailey a brush as you go back. She'll ask you sure, and's terribly
conceited about that old black of her's ; insists that she was actually
beating me, while the truth is, I was only funning her. You can see

LYDIA BOGGS AND COLONEL EB. ZANE. 271

Bess has never turned a hair yet, and I was tugging on the bit the
whole time."

" How d'ye do, Mo.," she continued, turning and taking Shepherd's
offered hand. " Right glad to see you back," and then adding, pout-
ingly, "but would like to know, my young sir, why you left poor me
to ride home all alone by myself. There's gallantry for you ! Father
and you pretend to escort me up to Fort Pitt and back. First thing,
father strays over to Catfish Camp, and my other beau goes meandering
off for days among the Indians, in company with two young, pretty
girls. Come, sir," stamping her little moccasined foot upon the
sward, and looking at her lover with a saucy, coquettish air, "I'll
make you tell me every single word you said to Bet and 'Silla. "

The look of pleased admiration in young Shepherd's face as he
laughingly answered, could not be mistaken — least of all by the one
most concerned.

" Well, Lydy, that's your way of putting it. I might now ask why
you ran away from me, bound and miserable as I was — and as for talk,
don't mention it ! my tongue's just rusty with idleness. Even Larry
grew silent and mel — "

" Oh, yes, what about poor Larry 1 I heard he was carried off. I
do hope we can recover him. "

" Oh, I fancy, Lydy, he's a full-rigged chief by this time, and
married to some Indian queen or other. Larry generally accommo-
dates himself to circumstances, and is pretty hard to keep down. But,
come, don't you want to go over to that tree by the pool, and see
poor Brady?"

" Indeed I do," answered Lydia, feelingly. " Was so sorry to hear
he was wounded, and for our party, too. I say, Mo., we must keep
him at our house in the fort until he's entirely well. He's risked a
great deal for us. "

" I heard Col. Zane ask him awhile since to be his guest," said
Shepherd, "but wherever he stays, be sure we'll all be glad enough to
nurse him back to health."

And so the talk ran on, all three girls. Col. Zane, Capt. Boggs and
Major Rose joining in animated converse around Brady's litter. It
was a charming sight to observe Lydia pressing the hand of the
wounded scout in both her own, and, with voice trembling and eyes
filled with tears, thanking him for his generous services. Drusilla her-
self could not have been more grateful to him, and was, equally with
Brady, overcome by Lydia's hearty sympathy.

Col. Ebenezer Zane, to whom now for the first time we introduce
our readers, was then about thirty-five j-ears old, the head of the Zane
family, and the foremost man in all that district. He was a person of
marked and prominent traits, not very tall, but uncommonly brave,
active and athletic ; a great runner and hunter, and, like his brother
Jonathan, a splendid shot.

The. very year before we now present him, some of the inmates of
the fort observed an Indian on the island opposite, going through
some insulting and indelicate gestures. Col. Zane's attention having
been called to the fellow, he swore he would soon spoil his sport, and
charging his rifle with an additional ball, he patiently waited his

272 SIMON GIRTY.

opportunity. In a moment the savage's naked body was seen emerg-
ing from behind a large sycamore, and commencing anew his perform-
ances. The Colonel drew a careful bead upon him, and next instant
the native harlequin was tumbled from his perch, and limped off into
the water very badly hurt.

Zane's personal appearance was somewhat remarkable : very swarthy
complexion, piercing black eyes, huge brows and prominent nose.
He had already received various marks of distinction from colonial,
state and national governments, and his estate embraced the main
portion of the present city of Wheeling, his house being just without
the fort.

He married Elizabeth McColloch, sister of the gallant Major, and a
lady known along the whole extended frontier, for her zeal, courage,
matronly virtues and skill in healing.

The whole party, now well rested and in the very best of spirits,
soon filed out into the sugar grove, and the romantic little ravine, so
lately filled with strange and boisterous noises, was left again to the
monotones of its own waterfall.

Col. Zane, with his dogs, led the way, while Mad Ann Bailey, sitting
grim and stern upon her coal-black steed, stationed herself at the
mouth of the ravine, challenging every one she knew with some
characteristic remark, and after all had passed out, bringing up the
rear.

Of course Rose insisted that Lydia, who had determined to sit en
croupe behind her father, should ride Black Bess back to the fort. After
some good-natured altercation, she was fain to yield, but she made no
race with Liverpool, but jogged quietly beside Drusilla or Betty and
Brady.

The setting sun was just burnishing the broad expanse of waters
with its dying glories, when our glad but weary party came out upon
the Ohio. Directly amid stream appeared Zane's Island and the
stockades and bastions of Fort Henry — with flag waving proudly
above — crowning the opposite bluff.

It was a lovely panorama of hill, plain, wood aiid water which there
presented, and to give eclat to the occasion, the lookout of the fort
had no sooner sighted the party ranged along the shore, before the
fort's single cannon — a little piece, by the way, which the French had
thrown into the Monongahela in 1758 on the evacuation of old Fort
Duquesne, and which was afterwards found and fished out by a man
named Neely — gave out a flash, followed by a resounding boom which
filled all the hills about with reverberating echoes.

Boats were all ready for the crossing, and when the company
reached the thither shore, and marched up to the fort, the whole set-
tlement, men, women, children and dogs, were ranged upon the bluff
to receive them.

They made a noisy and merry night of it. Those who had lost
relatives in the late fight retired to mourn almost alone.

LARRY COMES OUT AS A LOVER. 273

CHAPTER LXVIII.

LARRY COMES OUT AS A LOVER.

The Pickaway Plains on the sunrise side of the Scioto (and now
lying south of Circleville, O.) have long been famed for their fertility.
They are said to contain the richest body of land in Ohio. To the
redmen the whole region was "classic ground." There in olden
times burned their council fires ; there the allied tribes assembled to
decide on peace or war ; thence departed the most numerous maraud-
ing expeditions against the Virginia and Kentucky borders, and there
was their place of securest retreat in case of defeat.

The whole district was consecrated by their desperate valor and by
the blood of their best chiefs and braves. There lay old Chillicothe,
near which was the home of Logan, the famed Mingo chief, and there
were the towns of the great and mighty chief, Cornstalk, and his sis-
ter, so widely known in western border chronicles, as the Grenadier
Squaw.

Another dread circumstance invests this region with a most melan-
choly interest ; for thither was brought a large proportion of the
unhappy prisoners abducted from the neighboring frontiers, and at
these Chillicothe Towns they were condemned to a cruel, and horrible
death. Both Old Chillicothe and Grenadier Squaw's Town had its
Gauntlet Course and Burning Ground, each located on an elevated
knoll, so that when a victim was undergoing his torments by fire, by
tomahawk, or by any other inhuman torture practiced by redmen on
their captive foes, the whole horrid scene was in full view from the
Black Mountain and the surrounding towns.

No wonder the redman fought to the very last for these rich, beautiful
and well-watered Plains. In all that made their lives secure, happy
and prosperous, they had not their parallel in America. It could
truthfully be said of those treeless, black-loamed and marvelously fer-
tile prairies, that if one would only " tickle the earth with a hoe, it
would laugh with a bounteous harvest." One hundred bushels of corn
or fifty of wheat to the acre, was but a common product for many,
many years.

On Scippo Creek, which bounded these Plains on the east, and di-
vided Cornstalk's Town from Grenadier Squaw's Town, was located a
hamlet of rough log huts, all roofed with broad peelings of birch bark.

It was the village of the Miami chief. The Moose, who had our friend
Larry in charge, and if, a fortnight after the events already related, one
had entered the central one of the straggling huts which lined the
sluggish creek, they would have seen that self-complacent and irrepres-
sible worthy reclining in state and in all his glory.

It will be remembered that Girty had first entrusted the blathering
and good-natured Irishman to Fat Bear, the purpose being to use him
as a decoy to divert the Wheeling scouts on to the Old Chillicothe
trail. He was to have been adopted into the Miami tribe, and to have
played the role of Great Medicine, his marriage with Lone Wolfs widow
being part of the programme.
18

2 74 SIMON GIRTY.

The violent death of Fat Bear, however, and Larry's pistol wound
at Girty's hands for betraying the latter's well-planned ambush, put a
different complexion on matters. At the same time with Girty's shot,
Larry's guard had given him a terrible tomahawk slash on the right
shoulder, so that the poor fellow was put on his drag in a most des-
perate plight, and lay for hours in a senseless condition.

The tedious journey, too, on his novel litter, and the announcement
made to him that, on account of his having been the occasion of Fat
Bear's death, that chief's widow, according to Indian custom could
take him as her husband and family provider, did not tend much to
mend his broken spirits.

Larry's good niture and his national trait of looking on the bright
side and making the best of every thing, had rendered him very popu-
lar "with all the reddys. His feats of magic, too, and especially the
miracle of squeezing whisky out of a scalping knife, led them to hope
much from him as a Big Medicine. They were, therefore, very kind
and attentive on the route, and their skill in treating wounds, together
with his own strong constitution and flow of spirits, gradually brought
him speedily round.

At first, to use his own blundering expression, he felt as if he would
" jist as soon live as die ;" then he commenced to take some little no-
tice ; then to ask questions and crack jokes, until, before reaching his
destination, he had, although grievously hurt, almost recovered his old
easy assurance ; began to take on his amusing airs, ending by finding
out' all about Fat Bear's widow and four papooses, and busying him-
self in speculations concerning his near future as a conjurer and fami-
ly man.

All Irishmen, we believe, take naturally to love and blarney, and
have the happy faculty of making themselves at home wherever their
lot may cast them. Larry was not only no exception to this rule, but
in these respects he fairly out Paddied Paddy himself. It was as neces-
sary for him to make love on short notice as, to use his own expression,
for a " speckled trout to shwim or a cat to lap crame. " Every speech
of his to the free and easy Irish girls he met in his wanderings, was
graced with a sigh, an ogle or a compliment ; every motion was a
possible caress.

He sang, danced and flirted with one and all he could, and being a
strapping, lilting, rollicking " broth of a boy," he never left a town
without a regret, nor came to one without a hope. He had finally
reached the conclusion that " wimmen were quare craytures inny way,
all out and out," and that the surest way to win them was to "tip
them the blarney — the laste taste in life," and to make up by vigor or
violence what was lacked in time and opportunity.

" Faint heart ne'er won fair lady," was the motto our Irishman in-
variably acted on. He lost no useless time in digging trenches, form-
ing parallels, or laying slow and heavy siege, but leaped to the assault
at once. If repulsed, he never despaired but simply — tried some-
where else. That was his way with Irish lassies of his own class, and
he felt sure it would be the best way with American lassies, whether
white or red.

He was somewhat taken aback, however, when he heard the terrible

LARRY COMES OUT AS A LOVER. 275

hullibaloo which Mrs. Fat Bear or Wa-ba-sha, as she was generally
called — which anglicised means nothing but Fat Possum — when she
heard of the death of her chief. She howled, screamed, pranced
about, tore her coarse hair, and ended by whipping the children all
around, expressing the amiable wish of tomahawking his murderer and
cutting him up into little bits to make soup of.

Larry's litter had been carried into The Moose's cabin, and he
could distinctly hear the terrible shindy outside. It reminded him of
Donnybrook and a real old Irish wake. He had never witnessed such
a violent paroxysm of grief, and he was temporarily very much dis-
couraged.

You see, there was a great deal of Fat Bear, and his widow, natu-
rally, did not relish the giving up so much good husband for a "pale-
face," whom she heard was meagre and tall, with sun-colored hair,
not only all over his head, but all around his face.

Soon Larry heard, to his dismay, a horrible pother and hubbub
about the door. They seemed to be trying to keep somebody back.
No use ! The deer-skin was tossed aside, and in rushed the corpulent
Wa-ba-sha, brandishing a tomahawk in her hand, and glaring around
the gloomy apartment like a tigress bereft of her whelps.

At last her little pig-eyes, aflame with a vicious fire, lighted upon
poor Larry who was sitting propped up on his litter all pale and
abashed, and too weak to walk or get out of her way.

It was an odd tableau. Curiosity and maybe — let us hope — pity for
his weak and helpless condition brought The Possum to an abrupt
poise, about the middle of the hut. There she wondering stood —
rooted to the spot like the image before a tobacconist's store— toma-
hawk uplifted, and gazing as if spell-bound on the stranger "pale-face"
whom she was told was the murderer of her lord. She was evidently
surprised, disarmed, confused, speechless.

Larry's shock was of a different kind. Instead of the comely,
pleasant, motherly Indian beauty she had been represented to him, he
saw a fat, greasy, vicious-looking fury, who wished to brain him. She
looked to him a very devil — possibly like the very Devil.

His heart sank within him, but recognizing at once his critical posi-
tion, he nodded to her pleasantly and wreathed his visage in his most
alluring and fascinating smiles ; not, however, before involuntarily
giving vent to his disappointment by muttering to himself: "The
ould mahogny-colored haythen — got a face as round as a Limerick
chase, a nose like the seat of a saddle, and a mouth like the slit in a
fiddle."

In meditating on this scene afterwards, Larry esteemed it a great
triumph that he could so transfix her with his glittering eye, and that
his appearance and the power of his smiles were so irresistible as to
make the "howling baggage," as he called her, drop her murderous
hatchet, and change her hostility to favor.

For this was indeed the result. Wa-ba-sha gradually softened in
her feelings, "smoothed her wrinkled front," approached Larry's lit-
ter cautiously, and soon began to take quite an interest in the poor
wounded " pale-face."

It is a blessed thing in this world that the deepest and most tem-

276 SIMON GIRTY.

pestuous grief can be assuaged, and that even a widow's extremest loss
can in time be repaired. " If it were not for hope the heart would
break," it is said once sobbed a forlorn widow over the grave of her
fifth husband, as she peered about among the attendants for a sixth.
The anecdote may be an extravagant one, but the sentiment on which
it is based is not ; and so even the stormy violence of Wa-ba-sha
quickly subsided into a resigned content.

The next day she had Larry's litter conveyed to her own lodge, and
it soon began to be matter of lively gossip in that little village that
" sunny hair" was growing in favor, and there would shortly be a new
chief, having no solitary scalp-lock on top of his head, but one who
had a great bush of golden hair on his pate, and a girdle of the same
all around his face.

Suppose two weeks to have passed away since Larry's arrival and
the tableau vivant we have essayed to depict, and let our readers now
enter by imagination the lorn widow's wigwam. Behold Larry sitting
up on his skin-covered litter, " clothed and in his right mind ; " his
face all beaming and radiant with satisfaction, and in the full exercise
of all those whimsical airs and easy graces, which not only at all times
distinguished him, but which now denoted that he was full " master
of the situation."

He has been and is yet an invalid, and by all those sweet offerings
and little attentions which sufferers know so well how to exact, and
that tender woman so delights tobestow, he has made wonderful strides
in Wa-ba-sha's affections. Her face is now as smooth and placid as a
duck pond ; she no longer heaves a deep sigh at the memory of Fat
Bear, great as he undoubtedly was; her little eyes twinkle with mirth
and jollity, and her apple-dumpling figure even shakes all over at the
odd ways and merry conceits of her intended.

For Larry — save the mark — has been long busy teaching her English,
"swatening the discoorse," as he used to say afterwards, with sundry
laughs, jokes, hand-pressures, and even occasional osculatory smacks,
just enough to keep the widow well consoled and himself in practice.

Oh, a funny time they always had at Larry's English lessons ! He
was so odd, so hilarious, so affectionate, so bubbling over with jokes
and laughing, that the tawny widow was ever on the alert for her in-
structions.

And then Larry's delightful ways with the children ; how he would
ride them " a cock horse to Banbury Cross ; " sing them inexpressibly
funny Irish songs with all the facial accompaniments ; make false-faces
and cut wooden swords and whistles ; get them on his back and play
horsey with them on the earthen floor, and then perform all sorts of
tricks and sleights-of-hand, including the swallowing of scalping-knives,
and the squeezing of liquid from their ends — only it was water and not
whiskey which was expressed.

Oh, just the best and jolliest papa ! Fat Bear was nowhere, and so
they thought all, from the little tallow-complexioned toddler without
any clothes — worth speaking about, to the urchin of ten snows, who
used to fill the lodge with boyish war-whoops, shoot rabits with his ar-
rows, and throw at imaginary scalp-posts with his " little hatchet."

It must be evident to all that " Richard" (which here stands for the

LARRY COMES OUT AS A LOVER.

277

convalescent Hibernian) was " himself again" and ambitious to be the
biggest toad in the puddle. For, as he ruled in the shanty, so he
ruled out, and was the most popular character in that secluded little
village, actually in danger of supplanting The Moose himself.

All knew him to be brave and a great magician. When he began
to grow better, he held a levee daily of chiefs, warriors and dusky
children, whom he won and entertained — the cunning fellow — by his
airy ways, his good nature, his marvelous feats and his ludicrous at-
tempts to learn their language and conform to local customs. He was
just the town talk, was daily quoted on Indian "change," and it was
the growing feeling that he would soon be a better Indian than the
late Fat Bear himself, and that he even gave promise of leading their
dances and tortures.

We are sorry to be obliged to confess that all this hilarity of Larry's
was a mere sham, — or rather that it had other source than Wa-ba-sha.
During the whole time of his convalescence there had been present as
his attendant a young, shy and very comely Indian maiden whom it
is high time we should notice. She was a niece of Wa-ba-sha's and
was called Net-to-way. (Light-of-the-moon.) At first Larry was too
ill to note the young girl particularly, but as he observed her frequent
looks of pity and interest, marked her quiet flittings about his couch,
and felt the tender touches of her fingers, he was speedily overcome
and his interest grew rapidly.

On account of the watchful aunt, Larry had to be very wary. At
first a free-masonry of glances was established which was promptly
followed on Larry's part by ardent speeches and frequent hand press-
ings. These grew bolder and more constant. The artless child of
nature was evidently yielding to the stranger's blandishments and
flattering speeches. They often brought the blush to her dusky cheek,
for when Larry was in his wooing moods he was apt to be very im-
petuous. One day he suddenly caught her little hand as she was
gliding by and imprisoned it so long that even Wa-ba-sha noticed it
with a few snappish words in Indian, which sent the modest girl out
of the cabin all blushing and flustered.

The impudent Larry not only repeated the offense the very next day,
but he made a masterly dash at her fresh lips. It was queer, too, how
all these sighings and oglings, and little attentions on Larry's part
occurred when Aunt Wa-ba-sha was absent or humming around the
cabm. When that one was present she received all the rapturous
glances, hand pressings, and impassioned devotions which were meant
for another, and so, finally, it somehow came to be understood be-
tween the younger pair, and thus it happened on this day — to return
a nous moutons — that Net-to-way sat shy and demure, fashioning a moc-
casin on one side of Larry, content with occasional tender glances
and smiling within herself— the sly puss — at his amatory extravagance
with the aunt.

Larry, in fact, was wooing the young girl by proxy. He was
courting the aunt in the most industrious and conspicuous way, but
he loved the niece, as he was fond of saying, " into the very cockles
of his heart, and the marrow of his bones." So he had told her the
very day previous, and too, with such violence and confirmatory

278 SIMON GIRTY.

proofs that she was forced to believe it. Both perfectly understood,'
therefore, the situation — what was best to be done or concealed.

Frequently Larry was very much perplexed between the two. He
sometimes must have felt like exclaiming as Capt. McCheath : "How
happy could I be with either, were 'tother dear charmer away." The
self-complacent widow never dreamed that such a young, shy chit of
a girl as Net-to-way — scarcely yet seventeen — could experience the
sentiment of love — much less excite it. Larry was to be hers by her
deliberate choice, through old and venerated tribal custom, and, ap-
parently, by his own most hearty and even enthusiastic concurrence.

Had she been of a jealous nature, she must, however, have frequent-
ly been strangely puzzled at noting how Larry frequently courted her
with one arm and with one side of his face only. Had not her
love been as blind as the proverb makes it, she could scarcely have
failed to observe how often her lover turned to or addressed her niece;
the merry twinkle of his eye, the suspicious tones of his voice, and
the brassy, swaggering shams of his manner.

We have read once — it matters not now when or where — that the ac-
cepted lover of a hugely obese young lady could not help observing one
evening at a public place, that, while he was pouring into her ear all
the precious little nothings of love, she was only occasionally atten-
tive ; that her head seemed often to be directed to the other side, and
that she somehow appeared to be smiling, or talking, or listening to
him with one side of her face only.

At last, it is related, his suspicions were excited. He got up and
went around his amplitudinous sweet-heart, and there, lo and behold !
he caught a second amorous swain courting her on the other side.

So, if Wa-ba-sha had been as shrewd as experienced widows are tra-
ditionally reputed to be, she would have made many astounding dis-
coveries by peeping more around corners.

CHAPTER LXIX.

LARRY REVIEWS THE SITUATION.

Let us now, on this special morning, listen to a brief snatch of
Larry's talk, which he, having all the privileges of a spoiled and
peevish invalid, was accustomed to pour out glibly and even unctuous-
ly, as the humor took him, and without much regard as to whether he
was understood or not. Such a self-complacent rattlepate as Larry
had to talk; he was, in fact, a " plugless word spout," and his fre-
quent verbal hemorrhages were not only his delight, but his safety-
valve. Both his listeners had become accustomed to his quaint, fan-
tastical monologues, and let him run on. They could usually manage
to make out the drift of his remarks, sometimes by the words, some-
times by the look or gesture. When in the dark, however, they smiled
or kept silence all the same.

" May glory be my bed, Wa-ba sha, darlint, but it's mysilf that's
getting heart-sick of this ould shanty. It's as toight as a jug and

LARRY REVIEWS' THE SITUATION. 279

dark as a pit, wid not enough braze to float a feader, Av ye had here
now but a nate slip uv a pig, a scratching of hisself forninst the cor-
ners, or maundhering around wid his schwate playful ways, or poking
his soshyul snout into every whipstitch, 'twould be more homesome
like.

" Arrah, my jewel, in spite of yer dimpled sun kissed face, and yer
roguish phosphoriscent eye " — and here he chucked her laughingly
under the chin, at the same time turning to wink his eye and put out
his tongue to Net-to-way as a memento that it was only funning he
was — " it's getting to be low days wid me, and me heart's joost grey
wid grief. Sure it's no wonder, acushla, that I'm down on me luck
an' me cooped up more nor two weeks in this coffin, as dull as ditch-
wather and as melancholy as a jib-cat. Faith, an' I wish that I had
died afore that I was born."

" Phat ! 'Why you no go out?' Ah, bedad, ye may well squat
there, cool as a custard, and speer that. That's joost phat I'm coming
to, honey. Look at my emashiated figger, wid my ribs showing
through like the bars uv a gridiron, and wid no more mate on my car-
cass than a grey-hound. Dawmed if it be'ent a bony skilleton I'm
grown."

" Me hear," smilingly put in the widow, " dat 'pale-face' trader from
Sandus-kee come to de Moose village. He have beads and wampum
for squaws, and fire-water, too."

" Phat's that! Fire-wather," excitedly exclaimed Larry, artfully
ignoring the hint about the feminine gear. " Howly Joseph and the
blissed Vargin, and here's Larry Donohue blathering away the time
and he as dhry as a mummy, and his mouth as dusty as an ould lime
kiln. Come, Biddy, acushla, and help me to the dure in the twink-
ling of a lamb's tail. Saints be about us, but I'm feared The Moose
will get so dhrunk that he can't see the holes in a laddher."

Biddy was the pet name Larry had bestowed on his dusky sweet-
heart; telling her that Biddy was more melodyus than Net-to-way; it
made him dhrame of home and meant in Irish " a fawn wid the big,
black eyes."

" Me vely glad you go out," here cheerfully broke in Waba-sha,
who had ever an eye on business. " Now you well again, you soon be
great Miami chief; take lodge of Fat Bear, and shoot much game for
squaw and papooses."

" Whirroo ! " involuntarily ejaculated Larry to himself, while toss-
ing a meaning look at Net-to-way, who was sitting with her eyes
studiously cast down. " An shure, the ould vestal spakes out her
whole mind to wonct, and's never backards in coming forards."

Then, seeing the necessity of humoring the widow, while secretly
resolving to " forbid the banns," Larry went up, took her and shook
her by the two hands and said in the most hilarious manner :

" Thrue for you, my paycock — yis, a gorgious paycock, that's joost
phat yiz are — an' shure I'd marry ye right out o' hand this blissed
minut, av there was a praste here to the fore, and a fiddle and some
mountain dew to set the boys' toes a waggin. But, my bouchal, whin
I comes to be chafe, musn't I have a chafe's dress and scalp lock, and
go in the wather to wash the white blood all out ? "

28o SIMON GIRTY.

"Yes, yes," answered the impetuous widow; "go in water to-mor-
row. Got chiefs dress all ready. Come to wigwam very next sun."

This was getting to be awfully near. The embarrassed groom, that
was to be, grew red in the face, cast a bashful look at Net-to-way, who
steadily kept her eyes on her bead-work, and whistled softly to him-
self. A bright thought struck him. He must change his tactics.

" Wa-ba-sha, you bright and illustrious phaynix, do but look at the
Donohue, the moighty magichshun, the sivinth son uv a sivinth son,
who wunct had a face broad as a Munster pratie. He's now thin
as a dale-board, run to a pint like the pin of a sun-dial ; no bigger
than a chalk mark, and could hide ahint his own shadder."

Then throwing his arms tightly about Mrs. Fat Bear's ample person,
and looking fondly down into her little glinting eyes, he added, as if
so much enraptured that he couldn't help it, "Ah, you schwate de-
ludher you ! Shure the soft end uv a honeycomb's but a fool to ye ;
but ye must hould yer pretty clack now, for jist two weeks longer, till
I grow stout and sthrong, and thin I'm yours, and your mine for the
blissed forever — till ould Horny gathers us.

' If you luves me as I luves you,
No knife can cut our luves in two.'

" But T must lave yez now. My heart's jist that crazy that I'll be
pumping up the salt, salt tears, and be throwing them about the flure like
a spout afcher a thunder shower. Come, Biddy, darl — no, my dutiful
niece, and be me crutch through the village; " and Larry took the
arm of Net-to-way, who rose shyly and obediently from her work, and
walked out of the door humming meditatively to himself a well-known
Irish song.

Larry now kept silence as well as a stiff, upright position, until the
twain had gotten to the margin of Scippo creek. Then inclining
more towards the young maiden, and giving her the most meaning
and comical look imaginable, he softly whispered :

" Bad fate to me, Biddy, but did ye hear what the ould baggage
said ? — a chafe the morrow and the fader of four little gossoons of
Injuns the next day. Divil run away wid me, darlint, if childer arn't
much loike toothpicks — ivery one wants but his own and not ano-
ther's. Oh, wirrasthrew, only sivinteen snows old, Biddy, an' shure
your're right big for your size. Spake to me, child ; your soft voice
is joost like the song of a mairmaid. Phat's to become uv us?"

Net-to-way, though a coy and modest little maid, was yet, like all
her sex where their affections are engaged, resolute and ready-witted
enough. Her two weeks of nursing and gentle offices had touched
and melted her heart. Larry's ardor and fervent protestations in return
had ensnared her affections. She fully understood the situation ; knew
what would be the dreadful consequences of thwarting old tribal cus-
toms ; but believing in the white stranger with her whole heart, she
was ready, if he were, to take the consequences.

Had her lover been able to talk Indian, it is probable she would
have shyly and artfully talked round and round the all-engrossing sub-
ject ; but noi knowing much English, she was shut up to a certain

LARRY "WANDERS BY THE BROOK SIDE." 2S1

directness. So, looking shyly but trustfully up to Larry's freckled
face, she said with a very sweet and confiding manner : —

"'Sunny Hair' say much, many time he love Indian maiden. Is
dat true? "

" Thrue ! my fairy red bird ! Schwate modher of Heaven, an' how
could ye iver misdoubt me ! I'll schware it to yiz, by all the crosses
in a yard uv check ; phat's more, I'll sale it and stamp it on your rose-
bud uv a mouth. Wud ye lift me up again, darlint, if I'd down on
my knees ? I'm still wake ! "

" Oh, no ! no! Net-to-way believe. Listen! You no love Wa-
ba-sha — ' '

" Blissed Pether ! don't harrish and mulfather me, honey, about
that painted haythen ! By the Big Toe of Egypshun Pharoh, but
she's coulder and bitherer to me than a stepmother's breath. Ye
know, Biddy, darlint, how I had to put the comether on the widder.
How I fed her with false music and butthered her up wid blarney till
she got past all bearing wid her upsettedness,

" May the divil whip the tongue out o' me this minnit av I'd trust
widder Fat Bear as far as I could sling a cow by the tail — dawmed ef
I would. But, my illegant charmer, you're the rale Paddy's delight,
no tighter, modester, nor claner-skinned little girl betwuxt Fairhead
and Kinsale, Ye've got the natest trick o' blushing ; yer eyes are
soft and guileless as a kitten's, and yer a match for inny Irish colleen
bawn that iver peeled praties."

"Well, den," continued Net-to-way, greatly delighted^with Larry's
fervent rhapsody, which she interpreted as much by his florid manner
as by his eloquent language; " I tell ' Sunny Hair ' what we do. He
take me for his squaw, * paleface ' way, and Net-to-way go wid him
toward the rising sun. She vely sad dis day, 'cause she dream you
love Wa-ba-sha and go live in her lodge."

" Och, the divil fly away wid her lodge and her, too, and all the
childer wid their Injun gibberish. Dhrames always go by conthraries,
my dear. Shure the ould Beelzebub's a rale heart-scald to me. She's
enough to take the hair off an iron dog. But come, mavourneen, I
see all the Injuns staring and peeping at me from their dures as we
pass. Leave us meandher down to the Falls, the roar and botheration
of which has been vexing my ears day and night this two weeks past.
We must put on our considering caps, and see phat's best to do. Och,
troth and be jabers, but it's a proud and consated mon Larry Donohue
is this blissed day."

CHAPTER LXX.

LARRY "wanders BY THE BROOK SIDE."

The two wandered slowly past the long range of huts which fronted
the creek. At every door appeared the curious, prying eyes of women
and children, anxious to see the strange-looking ' pale-face ' who was
soon to be a chief. But very few ' braves ' were visible, most of thera
having gone off on a scalping raid against the Kentucky border. The

282 SIMON GIRTY.

noise of the Falls grew nearer and louder, and finally they burst upon
their view.

Larry had been so weakened by sickness, or so pre-occupied by his
new love, that he forgot even the trader with his packs and fire water.
The two sat them down on a moss-covered rock shelving out over the
mad yeast of waters, and ever kept cool by the rising spray. These
Falls were not high, but, by reason of the spring rains, were passing
an unusually large volume of water.

No living creatures in sight, but a group of young Indian boys
standing knee-deep on the very edge of the cascade, and entirely en-
grossed in fishing. From the topmost bough of a lofty, lightning-
scarred sycamore on the other side of the creek, could be heard the
occasional harsh notes of an osprey as he swooped down, with a roar
of plumage, on his scaly prey ; while along the shore, some distance
behind them, stalked a pair of crested, long-legged herons, also engaged
in fishing. A number of smaller birds — pipers, king-fishers, bank swal-
lows, &c., kept hovering over the Falls and darting, like winged
meteors, hither and yon, making the glad air vocal with their various
jocund notes.

A wild and romantic scene and especially favorable to lovers. Larry,
however, needed no picturesque accessories to stimulate his passion.
He borrowed nothing either from occasion or concomitants. Give
him but courting material, and he would have been ready all the same
to deliver his burnings and gushings, whether lost in a desert or cast
away on a surf-dashed rock in mid ocean.

It is surprising how well the two simpletons understood each other ;
but the language of love being emphatically of a polyglot character,
and speaking " with most miraculous organs " — chiefly eyes, lips, and
hands — they managed to get along famously.

Together they busily planned an escape by horse or canoe, to Ft.
Henry, to be attempted as soon as Larry had recovered sufficiently to
bear the fatigues of such a long journey. The time was fixed as the
night before the ceremony of his becoming the husband of Mrs. Fat
Bear, and the father of her brood — " the divil's own clutch, and good
neither egg nor bird," Larry would say — "the very thought of which
was enough to make a dog bate his own grandfader."

As the gushing pair were thus intently busy discussing the details
of the scheme, all at once came to their ears a great outcry of childish
voices. On looking out in the direction of the clamor, they saw the
group of lads in a state of violent excitement — some yelling out and
wringing their little hands, while others stood spell-bound on the
brink of the Falls, peering over its whirl of waters at some object but
dimly seen among the white foam below, but which appeared to be
clinging to the rocks on the edge of the deep pool.

Both at once sprang to their feet : " An' phat's the mather now, ye
screeching divil's clips !" shouted Larry in his excitement, forgetting
they could not understand. Net-to-way shouted the same in Indian.
The lads answered that Tu-te-lu had tumbled over the Falls, and was
all cut and bloody.

"Oh, oh!" exclaimed the young girl, in great alarm; "Little Tu-
te-lu, son of Chillecothe chief. How he come here?"

I-ARRY ''wanders BY THE BROOK SIDE." 283

The warm-hearted Larry had by this time thrown off his coat and
cap and started for the creek, saying : " Divil a wun o' me knows nor
cares, Biddy, who he is, how he's here or where he's from ; here goes
for the little shaver, innyhow."

" No ! no ! no !" cried Net-to-way in great alarm, catching and
trying to hold him back ; ^^ me go! Me swim like duck; you too
sick and much hurt. No ! no !"

"Be aff wid ye, swateheart, whin I bid ye ! It must niver be said
that a Donohue stood by, idle as a mile-stone widout figgers, an' a fel-
low crayture, big or little; gentle or simple; red, white or black, in
need of his aid."

So saying, Larry stepped promptly out into the water, followed
closely by Net to-way. His will, however, was stronger than his deed,
and progress was so slow that his nimble companion soon outstripped
him ; and, on reaching the deep water, boldly struck out on a swim.

She found Tu-te-lu, a handsome, curly-headed lad of some thirteen
years, clinging to the rock, very pale and faint, and the blood oozing
from a wide cut in the head. Any active Indian boy almost could
have rescued himself from such a fall, but this one had been forcibly
dashed against a jagged rock, and so stunned as to be utterly helpless.
He could only cling tenaciously to the rock and await assistance.

Net-to-way caught him up to her breast, covered his face with kisses
and bravely dragged him into shallow water. There Larry, weak and
staggering-, met and aided her, and the boy was soon laid on the
grassy shore.

The wound was carefully examined and bound up, and the young-
ster, gradually recovering from his fright and the stunning effects of
the blow, began to look about him. He first saw Larry's broad,
kindly and fiery-fringed and saffron-crowned phiz, bending over him,
and the lad's black, earnest eyes fastened on it at once as if spell-
bound. The longer he looked the more he seemed fascinated, his eyes
apparently growing larger and larger. The jetty curls lay in wet,
heavy masses over his forehead. Larry was, in his turn, struck with the
child's peculiar appearance, and returned his ardent gaze with in-
terest.

At last the Hibernian could restrain himself no longer : " An'
troth, Biddy, but that's the quarest-looking Injun, all out and out, that
miself iver seed. He's so frighted that he's a'most as pale as a spook.
His eyes are as big as an owl's and as black as the sloe's; and
schwate good luck to the damp young whelp, but his hair's as foine as
silk and curls as tight as a nagur's. An' who the divil is the gossoon,
innyway ? "

When Larry commenced speaking the boy gave a sudden start, and
half rising with ear inclined, drank in every word.

He then, as if understanding it all, turned his earnest eyes up to
the girl's face, as if expecting as much enlightenment from her answer
as was Larry himself.

"Me tole you two, free, sev'ral times," answered the girl in a quick,
nervous and somewhat nettled manner, " dere be little, little 'pale-
face' over at Chille-co-the. He now son of Chief Wa-cous-ta. Injun
no like speak of dese tings. When ' pale-fdce ' have white blood all

284 SIMON GIRTY.

wash out and come into our tribes, he all same as red. Tu-te-lu like
my own brudder, and he no go way, ever."

The lad had watched intently, almost tremblingly, every motion
of his companion's lips. The last words had scarcely issued ere his
arms were thrown tight about her neck, his head nestled on her shoul-
der, and, to the surprise of all, he faltered out in English, but in a
somewhat uncertain, hesitating manner, as if the language came back
to him only by use : " Dat man talks so queer and you talk so funny ;
but Tu-te-lu know what both say. I want go with you. Don't let
him take me."

" Whirroo ! murther ! here's the very divil to pay!" exclaimed
Larry in the utmost astonishment. " I'd know the spalpeen wasn't an
Injun away 'round a corner ! ' Talk so funny ! ' phat d'ye mane, ye
young vagabone, an' bad scran to ye."

" I don't know. You don't talk like my white papa talk, and don't
look — " and then as if a tide of recollections, associated with the old
language long since disused, had rushed in upon him, he burst out
into a flood of tears, clinging tightly to Net-to-way and crying out
passionately : " Oh, where is my own papa ! Take me to him ! "

Both Larry and his companion were not only surprised, but deeply
touched. " Look here, my brave little laddy," the former said ; " tell
me who you are and where you're from."

The boy disengaged his arms, looked quickly into Larry's homely
but compassionate face and said, " JVow, you look and speak more
like the old papa. Don't know where I'm from. Been here long
time ; " and then as if struggling to gather some salient point out ot
the sudden confusion of ideas and throng of memories which were
plainly at work within him, he added slowly, " Was in big boat on
the water. There was firing of guns and a crowd of Injuns, and papa
and mamma and-and-Sis-and-Franky-yes, yes, and little Dot-and
Maggie Kennedy and — "

" Och, wirra, wirra ! " said Larry, but with a tear actually standing
in each eye. "The saints be good to the little shaver, but how his
tongue clacks away now. It works as nimbly as a hare's fut. And
d'ye moind phat yer own name was, my lad? "

" Yes ! " with a sudden start and gleam of intelligence. " Harry —
Harry Malott, but papa — "

" God save us ! but I've found him at last ! Hoorrah ! hoorrah ! "
and Larry snatched the boy from Net-to-way's arms, kissed and
hugged him as if he would devour him, and then rose quickly to his
feet and commenced walking up the creek towards Wa-ba-sha's lodge.

"Where you go, and what hurt you? " anxiously cried Net-to-way,
following as quick as she could, and doubtless thinking him de-
mented.

"Och, whist ! whist! hould yer prate now, ye Judy, you. Don't
spake to me, I kape telling of you ! Havn't I joost seen the gossoon's
mudher ; and Franky and Nelly and the whul kit o' them, not a
moon back. Blissed St. Patrick ! but Larry's the happy mon this
day ! Av I could but sight the whisky trader now I'd get slewed as a
boiled owl. Fall in ! fall in ! av ye've but a thimble full o' sinse left yet.
Av yer not as blind as a beetle ye moost pursaive the young divil can't

LARRY "wanders BY THE BROOK SIDE." 285

go to Chille — Chille — phat-d'ye-call-it, the day;" and without wait-
ing longer, Larry, forgetting his weakness, made off for Wa-ba-sha's
hut in long strides.

They soon reached again the line of cabins. The unusual sight of a
white captive leading along a half-drowned Indian boy, brought
crowds to their heels. Larry would waive off all explanation, or only
cry " aff wid ye, now, ye blackguards ! " but the girl stopped to ex-
plain, so that when Wa-ba-sha's lodge was reached, Larry had quite a
following.

All soon grew quiet again, but the news speedily flew over this as
well as neighboring hamlets ; and Larry, who was known to have
saved the life of Wa-cous-ta's adopted son at the risk of his own, was
more popular than ever.

That chief came over from Chillecothe the same day, and after
thanking his son's preserver most heartily, took Tu-te-lu home on the
horse before him.

Wa-cous-ta had at first been very suspicious, and seemed anxious to
know whether Larry had discovered who the boy really was ; but the
captive had that day found many opportunities for secret conferences,
both with Netto-way and the boj himself. He related to Tu-te-lu
all he knew about his mother and Frankie and Nellie ; told him that
Kate, his oldest sister, had also been found, and that if he wished to
escape and see them he must be "as close as a trap and as dark as a
well." He must wait quietly till Net-to-way would go over and tell
him what to do, and he mustn't breathe a word to a living soul.

All the rest of the day Larry studiously kept aloof from the boy,
only showing him by frequent kind and meaning glances that he
was a friend.

The poor little fellow seemed in a daze the whole time. The news
of mother, brothers and sisters moved his tender child's heart to its
very depths. Tears frequently filled his eyes, and he was evidently
most anxious to talk and know more. A warning look from Larry,
however, taught him the absolute necessity of silence.

When, at last, the time came for going home, Tu-te-lu seemed to
be struggling with novel and contending emotions : and just as he
was being lifted on the horse behind his putative father, he suddenly
broke away, ran over to Larry, threw his arms tightly about his neck,
and tearfully whispered, " I want to go to my mother."

" Whist-t-t ! laddie, or you'll play the divil, and break things!
Not a word more on your life ! Wait till Net-to-way sees you,"
whispered back Larry while stooping to return his embrace. He then
lifted the boy to the crupper, and went back into the lodge.

All this seemed not only very natural to the crowd around, but very
creditable on the boy's part. Gratitude for kindness is a virtue as
sedulously instilled into the hearts of Indian children by their parents
as is the study of revenge for an injury. The last Larry saw of him
was asad, wistful face turned yearningly towards hiin.

286 SIMON GIRTY.

CHAPTER LXXI.

THE " HERMIT " DRAGGED TO TORTURE.

When the Hermit was driven over Killbuck Creek on the night of
the battle with Girty, he was in a sad and desperate plight. Having
been caught in the very act of cutting the ear off a prostrate foe, he
had thus revealed himself as the mysterious and bloody avenger who
had so long watched and desolated the Indian trails.

Had he despoiled his victims of their scalps it would have been par-
donable— for this fate every warrior who trod the war-path was pre-
pared. It was an honorable spoil, and their scalp-locks were plumed
and fashioned for any foe who had the skill or the hardihood to pluck
them.

But to have the scalp of their dead untouched, despised, while an
ear was preferred instead, was an open affront. It rankled in their
hearts and excited an intense bitterness. Had it not been for the
pleasure of inflicting the excruciating agonies of a long torture, the
poor Hermit would have been sacrificed on the very spot where the
insult was given. As it was, he was most dreadfully abused.

Surrounded by a crowd of infuriated savages, all anxious, too, to
find a scapegoat for their crushing defeat, he was cursed and cuffed,
taunted and kicked, mauled and buffeted and so shockingly maltrea-
ted that death were welcome if it only brought surcease of suffering.

Knives and tomahawks were flashed in his face, and one, more
exasperated than the rest by the contemptuous silence and indifference
of the hated victim, laid open his shoulder with the tomahawk. The
Hermit snatched at the keen weapon at once, in the vain hope of pro-
voking the warrior to another and more fatal stroke.

Poor fellow ! what had he to live for ! He had fed fat his revenge ;
all that he loved were murdered, and the savage torture was before
him. Welcome death ! but it was not so to come. The remorseless
tomahawk was arrested, and the Hermit compelled to stumble and
stagger on.

At the top of the bluff a brief pause was made to enable all the
wounded to be carried off and all stragglers to be collected. The
band was fearfully decimated ; not a chief who was not badly
wounded; scarcely a leading "brave" who would not to his dying
day carry the scars of that dreadful conflict.

The rage and hate of the survivors was deep and quiet, but none the
less terrible. Killbuck, it is true, had escaped, but here was one who
was even more execrated than Killbuck. At one time Girty had come
up, his begrimed face and fiery eyes giving him more the sinister
aspect of a demon than of a man, and his deep voice, as he almost
cursed out his orders, grumbling like the muttering of distant
thunder.

The Hermit, in hopes of having his fate decided at once, ventured
to pluck him by the skirt as he was walking past.

Girty turned on him like a wild beast, with a scowl, a growl and a
gnash of teeth.

THE "hermit" dragged TO TORTURE. 287

" Hands off! away with ye, ye carrion ! Who dares stop Girty at
such a time as this ? "

" Only to ask the favor of a quick knife-thrust or a pistol-bullet at
your hands," quietly replied the Hermit.

"And who arc you, fool ? " queried the outlaw ; " and what claim
have you on me, that ye should ask such a favor, or that I should
grant it. D — n ye, you've lived for years on Injun trails, and now
you're to die the death on one. You cursed scoundrel, torture's too
good for ye ! I could fire the brands myself."

The Hermit shrank back before the devouring wrath of this bad
man, but concluded to try one more appeal.

"I'm weak, bruised and suffering, and the blood's flowing down
my back from a tomahawk gash. Have you no pity ? "

" No ! " hissed out Girty, with'^ hoarse, fiendish laugh. " No, not
ad — d hate. So am /weak and bruised and suffering. Have lead
all through me and gashes all over me. Who pities Simon Girty ? —
Zane or Brady or Andy Poe or Sam McColloch ? None ; curse 'em
all ! If they had me now they'd crunch me like a rattlesnake. I've
got to worry through, and why not you ? "

" But, Girty—"

" Shut up your whining, I say ! What's the end of all my plans? —
one poor woman and a skulking dogger of trails and a murderer of
Injuns — a foe that they've been hunting for years. What have ye
done with all the ears you've cut off? — fried 'em? Ha ! ha ! and yet
now you want to sneak out of the world by a bullet or a knife ! "

No mercy in that breast ! The Hermit was silenced. Girty sent
a couple of men down to the creek to watch the enemy on the other
side, and tell him at once if they attempted a crossing.

The march was then stealthily resumed and continued for a full
hour, until a deep and savage gorge, lying a few hundred yards off the
trail, was reached. To this wild and sequestered glen had Mrs. Ma-
lott and the children been conveyed ; also the wounded — Blackhoof,
Wingenund, and others, and here Girty sought the rest which had
been so rudely disturbed.

Girty himself was badly, although not dangerously wounded. The
most skillful " Medicine" was called in. One ball was found to have
grazed the ribs and was lodged deep under the arm pit. Its extrac-
tion was a matter of time, and was conducted amid groans and writh-
ings, mingled with curses and grindings of teeth.

At length all his wounds and bruises were carefully dressed, and the
exhausted and desperate Renegade sank into a fitful and unquiet
slumber, broken by many a start and grumble.

The tired band were too terribly used up for the customary dances.
The Hermit, whose gaping wound was just sufficiently dressed to
staunch the flow of blood, was securely bound hand and foot with
thongs, and stretched between two of the most fierce and watchful
warriors. A thong passed from the prisoner to each of his guards, so
that his very slightest movement would disturb them.

A bright morrow followed to mend the aspect of the camp Fires
were soon blazing brightly. Game, which was very abundant, had
been shot and spitted, and all were busy drying, mending, eating, and

288 SIMON GIRTY.

putting things to rights. The scouts from the creek soon appeared to
announce the departure of the victorious enemy; and it was at once
resolved to spend a whole day where they were.

Indeed, it would have been inconvenient for this shattered force to
move immediately. Many were stiff from wounds, while the others
were tired, sullen and dejected, sleepily lounging away the day under
the trees. Some few revisited the scene of last night's encounter to
care for their own dead, or procure scalps from the enemy's dead.
The report they brought was far from encouraging — not a single scalp
was obtained, but they found a row of fourteen of their own number,
and every one despoiled.

Girty had passed a m.ost wretched night. Racked with pain, tor-
mented with thirst, and suffering mentally all the pangs which would
naturally arise from such a disastrous defeat, Mrs. Malott had found
him in the morning tossing with fever-parched lips, blood-shot eyes,
and bandages worked off. He was cross, sullen and gloomy. Under
this lady's kind and skillful nursing, and by the aid of a tender broil
of venison and a broth prepared by Mrs. Dorman, he became towards
noon much easier and more cheerful. He said little,, however ; but
his frequent groans, growls and strong exclamations proved that he
was keeping up a desperate thinking.

The Hermit was nearly as much distressed as Girty. His fearful
wound, his many bruises and his painful, straightened position had all
contributed to deprive him of rest. His despairing face looked
pinched and haggard, while the fierce lustrous fire of his corroding
hate seemed now to have utterly died out of his eyes. They were dull,
leaden and sunk deep in their cavernous sockets.

In fact, the wretched sufferer sadly needed attention and careful
nursing. He looked so ghastly and inexpressibly sad that, had Girty
seen him then, even his flinty heart would have melted and gone out
in pity towards him. It seemed as if his devouring and long-contin-
ued passion had about consumed him.

But even Mrs. Malott and Mrs. Dorman were unaware of his condi-
tion— and even of his presence there. He was zealously kept seclu-
ded, lying on his back among some wild plum trees away over in the
Indian quarters.

After the evening meal there seemed to be a growing stir and ex-
citement among the group of dusky and embittered warriors. The
fire was fed with fat woods, and its crackling flames blazed higher and
higher. Shadowy figures began to flit to and fro, strongly revealed
against the surrounding blackness. The dull, monotonous beat of the
redmen's drum, and their wild, unearthly and singularly impressive
chants filled the air. They were now on their feet, engaged in their
peculiar dances. Every swing about the scalping-post, accomplished
in short, jerky jumps, and accompanied by barks, yells and whoops,
increased the excitement.

Mrs. Malott, who had been diligently engaged, in a rough hut
hastily thrown up, in changing the dressings of Girty's wounds, and
preparing him for the night's rest, was drawn to the entrance by the
terrible racket. It actually seemed to her that such a state of fury
could not be reached without the aid of maddening liquors, and she

THE " HERMIT DRAGGED TO TORTURE. 289

had aske<^ Glrty if it were possible that they could be drunk with rum.
No, he said it was only their common custom ; but they were now
unusually soured by their defeat and wounds.

Even as she was gazing, there came a wilder, more blood-curdling
yell, and a sudden, tumultuous rush was made to one side. They soon
reappeared, dragging along the unfortunate Malott, leaping and
screeching about him like so many devils. They passed right in front
of the bright fire. Mrs. Malott started back with surprise and affright.
It was the first she had either seen or known of a captive,

*' Great Heavens, Girty !" she cried in dismay, " they are dragging
some poor white man out of the woods. What on earth does it mean?"

"Means a prisoner, I reckon," growled out the Renegade, in his
very gruffest and raspiest tones, while studiously keeping his face
turned away, and a bearskin drawn partly over his bandaged head.
" Is it so deuced odd, widow, that a gang like mine should take an
enemy? it's all we have taken, and nothing to what we've lost, by a
blamed sigh^."

"Why, Girty," she said reproachfully, '''you never told me this."

"Lots more things, ma'am, I've never told ye," jerked out Girty
with a vicious snap. " Ef I'd a known you were so curious, I would
have told ye that we've cotched the bloodiest and snakiest foe to our
tribes — a desprit fellow who's squatted and crawled for the last two
years on the big Ohio trails, a ad picked off more'n a score of our best
'braves.' Lifting scalps, too, in the good old fashion wouldn't suit
this pesky rascal, but he must slice off" ears. I hate him like I do the
Devil — yes, far worse," he continued with a hoarse and sneering
chuckle, " for sometimes I'm on the most friendly terms with His
Infernal Majesty."

"Why, Girty, you're in a very ugly mood to-night. You "should
remember you are speaking to a lady, and one, too, who may be — "
she could not finish the sentence.

" My mother-in-law, you were going to say. Well, that's so, ma'am;
and ye must excuse poor Girty when he's bruised to a mummy and's
riddled with lead and slashed with knives. He don't feel much as if
he were going to a wedding, that's sartain. An Injun torture couldn't
be worse."

"Yes; but, Girty, tell me, please, what they're going to do with
that — "

" Now, see here, Widow Malott, ye'd best go to yer lodge and
childer. I heerd Nell a cryin' right sharp a bit back. That ear-
clipper over there is a wild, starved, half-crazy ghost of a creature,
and's not worth a thought from such a one as you."

"Poor unfortunate ! So much the worse, I tell you." Then going
up to his rude couch, she resolutely laid her hand on his shoulder, and
said quietly but solemnly: "Girty, look at me ! I ask you again,
what are those savages going to do with him?"

The outlaw, as if driven to bay by such inconvenient questionings,
turned him about scowlingly, but with a certain shamed look, too, on
his weather beaten visage, and snapped out : —

" Going to torture him, I guess. Would you have 'em give him a
new popper and sticker, and load him down with deer meat so's he
19

290 SIMON GIRTY.

could commence murdering agin. That's not Injun style, and by —
it's not my style, woman, neither." He then added in a low grumble,
and as if deprecatingly: — "The cursed fellows promised me they
wouldn't begin on him till arter you wimmen were asleep."

Mrs. Malott stood horror-stricken — almost like an avenging Ne-
mesis : " Torture him ! Why, man, you don't — you can't mean it !
'Women asleep!' Why, that's worse and worse! It makes ^^« as
bad as they I ' '

" Oh, worse, far worse, don't it ?" sneered out Girty, stirred to his
very depths by this tender woman's conscience. '• I'd like to know how
I could help it. Don't push me too far, ma'am. I'm sick and sore
and cross-grained, and you couldn't a come on me at a worse — "

" Go, Girty, go !" impatiently interrupted his companion, catching
him by the arm, and hearing nothing but the Indian yells, which
seemed to load the very air and to be getting fiercer and more devilish.
" You are a kind, good-hearted man when away from the drink.
Assert your better nature and stop these savage, inhuman atrocities.
If not for your own sake, Girty, go for God's sake," and then
stooping towards him and whispering into his ear, " for Kate's sake
go ! What would that young, tender girl think of — "

"Don't crowd me too much, ma'am, donU. D — d ef it's fair — you
don't know !'' interrupted Girty hastily, and with a groan, while bury-
ing his agitated face in his hands. " I tell ye, woman, I'm just no-
where after this horrible beating we've had. Never seen my men so
savage, cantankerous and cut-up like. Ef I dared to stop 'em, they'd
turn on me like a pack of hungry wolves, and tear me to pieces. No !
no ! Mrs. Malott, let 'em alone this time, and I'll take you and Kate
and the childer to Detroit and quit this horrible life. Won't that do?"
he added, with actual feeling, and with a troubled look upon his face,
and an appealing look in his attitude.

"No, Girty," she answered sadly, " it may do {or you, but not for
me. I see and understand your difficulties, and won't blame you too
much — there ! listen to that ear-piercing shriek ! Good Heavens I
they've kindled a circle of fire about the poor wretch, and are going to
burn him. I'll hurry up myself. God help me ! Maybe they'll listen
to a woman ! Good-bye, or I'll be too late !"

" Stop ! stop ! mad woman !" roared Girty. " Ye might as well
talk to them winds soughing through the trees, or to them flames.
D — n it, she's gone. They'll kill her shure's shootin'. I'll huddle
on my duds and after her."

CHAPTER LXXII.

MRS. MALOTT MAKES A STRANGE DISCOVERY.

Mrs. Malott, moved by the noblest and most unselfish feeling
which can actuate human conduct, sped rapidly across the interval that
separated her from the yelling savages. Passing the first fire, she came

MRS. MALOTT MAKES A STRANGE DISCOVERY. 29 1

in view of the second, and for a moment stood paralyzed at the appalling
sight which burst upon her startled vision.

Around a sapling, and at a distance from it of several yards, was
burning a circle of hickory poles. Near the tree stood the poor Her-
mit, his hands bound behind his back and a leather thong fastened —
one end to the foot of the trunk and the other to his wrists. This thong
was long enough to enable him to sit down or walk around the tree
once or twice, and return the same way.

The poor f^'llow was stripped entirely naked — saving only a breech-
clout about his loins. His figure was gaunt and emaciated, and his
skin — at least that part which had not been subject to exposure, was
unusually white and glistened in the fire-light. He stood quietly by
the tree, passive and indifferent — his eyes cast down and his whole
attitude expressing weakness and despair. Only his lips seemed to be
moving, doubtless in supplication to his God.

Around him danced the whole band of red demons — infuriate
devils; some with fire-brands in their hands, others with iheir guns
loaded only with powder. The dreadful ceremonies were about to
commence. The mocking, maddened fiends glared on their prey,
with savage delight ; so horribly intent that they neither saw nor heard
any thing but their yells and the crackling of the fierce fire, which
leaped and bent forward in long, lambent tongues of flame, as if
struggling to enfold their victim.

The cruel torture was just about to commence. The tomahawk
throwing was over, with no other effects than some superficial gashes,
from which small crimson streams of blood were trickling down the
white skin. The object was to keep the tormented and anguished
martyr — by means of fire-brands and charges of powder shot against
his person — constantly moving in his circumscribed limits ; ever
treading on hot embers, or slowly scorching by fire until exhaustion
and death would come to end his pangs.

Mrs. Malott had glided up rapidly and stealthily under the obscu-
ring shadow of the huge trees around. She took in the whole sicken-
ing scene in one shuddering glance. Her entire frame trembled, and
her eyes closed at the shocking spectacle. A deadly faintness came
over her, and she had to grasp a tree near by to keep from falling.
The sight of the poor, forlorn, bleeding sufferer went through her like
a knife.

When her eyes opened again, she saw a ferocious savage leap for-
ward with a great bound and toss nearer the flaming fagots. At the
same moment the crack of a rifle filled her ears. It was only a charge
of powder that was emitted, but this she did not then know. She saw
only a weak, emaciated, tottering victim, baited and tormented, who
was to be sacrificed by the most fiendish atrocities.

The tender, overwrought woman uttered a shrill, piercing shriek,
and rushed forward towards the ring. Wildly catching an Indian
with either hand and thrusting him aside, she leaped through an inter-
val of the encircling flames, and rapidly glided up to the prisoner,
saying, " Poor wretch, I will save your life 'if it cost my own," and
unconsciously, as it were, commenced untying the thong which bound
him to the sapling.

292 SIMON GIRTY.

The Hermit, whose spirit already seemea absent from his mere

shell of a body, and who stood dejected, with dreamy eyes cast down,
had aroused himself somewhat at the woman's shrill scream, and at
the compassionate English words that followed. He raised his bleed-
ing head. His eyes looked full into her's.

She stood stunned, transfixed, cold and dead as a marble statue.
Then with a shriek so shrill, so piercing, so almost inhuman that it
even thrilled every savage there to his very marrow, she threw her
arms about the Hermit's neck, sobbing out convulsively, "Oh,
Joseph ! Joseph ! my poor, suffering, long-lost husband ! Have I
found you at last ! Saved ! saved ! saved ! Thank God ! " .

That yearning, passionate voice would have even rung " through
the mouldy vaults of the dull idiot's brain." The head of the dying
Hermit came up with a sudden start at thesa strange words. He
seemed to be gathering up his dazed and wandering senses ; his eyes
shone again with an unnatural lustre ; his body trembled like an
aspen from head to foot. Just then Mrs. Malott caught his face be^
tween both her hands to look again. Eyes met eyes. A gleam o?
intelligence, like that which comes to a dying man just ere the immor-
tal spirit takes its flight forever, leaped into those sad, sunken orbs,
and with a great sob he slowly uttered :

" Great God ! Kate, my dear wife, and is it you? I thought you
dead."

His head fell, his eyes closed, his body relaxed. He was in a dead
faint.

" Oh, my God ! my God ! what have I done," cried the poor wife,
wringing both her hands. " Oh, I have killed him ! killed my hus-
band ! Quick ! quick ! cut his bands ! " and Mr.?. Malott glared
around at the close-crowding circle of astounded savages. Seeing u
knife in Capt. Pipe's girdle, she rushed forward and snatched it, rap-
idly cut the thongs ; caught her husband's body in her encircling
arms, dragged it outside the fiery circle, and sank down with it to the
ground.

Reader, all this singular scene took place much quicker than you
can read it. At the woman's first shriek and interruption of their
cruel tortures, the redskins were stunned — fairly petrified at her bold-
ness. The strange spectacle which followed was so startling and
unexpected that they could only gather close around with bewildered
faces and bated breaths.

When the relation between the prisoner and his deliverer was an-
nounced, they were still more dumbfounded. It was only when the
Hermit fell dead, as they supposed, that their senses seemed to come
back. They then began to murmur and complain bitterly that they
had been cheated of their victim. The more cruel and ferocious of
them even looked threateningly at the cause of all this disturbance.
What mattered it to them if the hated and hunted foe of their tribes
was Mrs. Malott's long-lost husband ! So much the worse for her !

The poor wife, as she sat by the Hermit's side, kissing his cold
brow, chafing his thin hands and nursing his head in her lap, could
not help but see the sullen, lowering, vindictive faces pressing so
closely about her, nor help but hear the low utterances of baffled rage

MRS. MALOTT MAKES A STRANGE DISCOVERY. 293

and threats of vengeance. She whispered to Pipe: " Send for Girty !
— quick ! quick ! " but Girty was now on hand. He had heard Mrs.
Malott's strange cries, and felt sure the savages had fallen upon her.
His heart was filled with rage — his mouth with maledictions. Thrust-
ing knife and pistols in his belt, and seizing his trusty rifle, he had
made his way as quickly as the ground and his wounds would permit.
He pushed his way into the circle, and stood breathless with amaze-
ment at the strange scene which greeted his eyes. What could it all
mean !

Soon as Mrs. Malott caught sight of his square, powerful frame,
with head all bruised and bandaged up, she cried " Oh, Girty, Girty,
come quick ! Who'd have thought it ! That poor, wild ghost of a
creature that you thought not worth saving, has turned out my long-
lost husband, and"" — sinking her voice still lower as he came up —
'• Kate Malott's own father ! "

" What's that ! " gasped out the Renegade, with a wild, blank stare
of amazement in his face. "Your — husband — and — Kate's — father!
Pooh ! pooh ! woman ! you're mad — mad as a march hare — as crazy
as this poor devil ! How's this ! is he dead ? "

" No, thank God, he's warm and breathing yet ! Oh, Girty, I can
scarce understand it myself, but it's true — all true ! T/u's is Joseph
Malott, Avho would have been hacked and scorched to death had not
a merciful Father moved me to go to his aid."

"I can't and won't believe it!" stoutly persisted Girty. "How
d'ye know it's yer husband?"

*' How does a fond wife know her husband — the father of her chil-
dren ?" looking at her companion reproachfully. " I saw it in his
eyes, and he knew me and called me Kate — zvife f and the happy
woman stooped to kiss once more the pale brow. " But, Girty, please
look at all these scowling countenances. You're their leader, Girty;
do speak to them and help me carry my husband out of their sight."

Girty slowly arose, as if still in a confused daze ; and, with hands
on his pistols, glowered around upon the menacing faces of the baffled
crowd. He then changed his tactics, and commenced addressing them
in a strong, earnest, impassioned manner in their own language. He
told them the whole story ; confirmed Mrs. Malott's statement ; and
ended by appealing to them to grant him the favor of the Hermit's
life.

Some few were content ; but the larger proportion muttered out
their wrath. An angry hum arose like the buzz of a swarm of bees.
The Shawnees, especially, were very bitter, and did not hesitate to
threaten Girty himself, who, they boldly charged, was a traitor to their
tribes and a masked friend of the "long knives." How else, they
urged, could he have lost the late battle, and so many prisoners, and
now he wanted to save a captive, whom he knew well was the deadliest
and most rancorous foe that ever watched their trails. Killbuck
might escape, but this despiser of scalps should suffer torture.

Girty winced at all this. The storm gathered on his savage face,
and he was about to defy the whole of them with scorn and contempt
when policy got the better of rage. He quietly sent for Wingenund,
who soon came hobbling up, still ghastly and suffering from the pen-

294 SIMON GIRTY.

knife thrusts inflicted by Killbuck the night before. Girty dared not
call in Black Hoof, since the Hermit, in his conflict in the cave, had
been the cause of all his bruises.

Girty now retired apart with Wingenund and Pipe, and told them
exactly how he was situated with reference to Mrs. Malott and her so
strangely discovered husband. He frankly admitted the Hermit's
deadly depredations, but explained and excused his role as avenger by
the mistaken belief on the Hermit's part that his wife and family had
all been ruthlessly murdered by Indians. Change places and they
would have done the same thing.

Whether he then clinched his arguments by the offer of costly bribes
to his listeners, we do not know. At any rate, they were at first mol-
lified and then convinced, and agreed to satisfy their followers. This
they soon managed to do, and Girty and Pipe were allowed to carry
the still insensible Hermit down to the barken hut hastily thrown up
for the two women and children, and to cover him with bear skins.

The outlaw, with that strange inconsistency which uniformly marked
his conduct, had again shown the better and tenderer part of his
nature. He was very glad at the late discovery, and Mrs. Malott, too,
felt grateful to him, and when the excitement was all over, and his
wounds compelled him to retire, the happy wife, with tears of joy in
her eyes, shook him heartily by the hand, saying, " I am so thankful
to you, Girty ! I'm widow Malott no longer. God is too good to me."

" No thanks to me, ma'am ; I don't deserve a hate : 'twas yer own
good heart and for one, too, you didn't know. But be keerful, now,
when he wakes how you tell him about the childer. He's drefful weak
and shaky."

As he tottered off to his lonely bed of robes, he kept muttering to
himself, "Her husband! Gad, who'd a thought it I who'd a thought
it!"

CHAPTER L XX 1 1 1.

A HAPPY FAMILY REUNION.

Mrs Dorman and the children were all sound asleep. The happy
wife would not awake the former, for she did not wish any to intrude
on her sacred joy ; she dared not wake the latter for fear the sudden
shock would prove too much for her husband in his weakened state.
She cast a most wistful, tearful look upon that wan. wasted face ; im-
printed a kiss on his cold brow; smoothed back the matted, tangled
locks which hung around in disorder, and then knelt beside him and
ofl"ered up a prayer of thanks and supplication.

A long sigh, followed by a muttering of the lips, warned her that
the momentous time was approaching. She clasped his hands in hers
and leaned over him fondly, earnestly watching every minutest sign of
returning consciousness. First came another long sigh ; then a flutter
of the eyelids, and then a twitching of the face. At last the eyes
opened, but there was no intelligence there.

" Here I am, dear Joseph; your own lost Catharine — Kate Malott."

A HAPPY FAMILY REUNION. 295

A tremor passed over the wasted frame ; a flush mounted to the
cheek ; again the eyes opened and gazed at her tenderly, but dreamily.
*"Tis I Joseph, your Catharine. Merciful Father, will he never
know me !"

Another sigh came from the pinched lips ; the eyes closed, but a
whisper was heard. The trembling woman stooped down close to listen :

" It's no fleeting dream then ! Kate's not dead ! Thank God !
Thank God !" and the poor wife, the hot tears pouring down her
cheeks, distinctly felt the answering pressure of the hand.

Blissful moment ! enough to repay her for many long, dreary
months — yes, whole years of misery !"

"Press this, dear husband! it will strengthen and stimulate you;"
and Mrs. Malott inserted between his lips a cloth saturated in whisky
which she had saved from her frugal store. The parched lips closed
eagerly upon it. Again and again was this done to the manifest im-
provement of the sufferer.

His eyes soon opened to their full extent ; the dazed expression
faded away, and each breath brought strength. Another pressure of
the hand, followed by a smile — yes, actually a smile, sad but distinct,
and then a long, wistful look into his wife's face. " Don't speak now,
dear. You'll be stronger soon."

" I'm stronger riow, but I can't believe it yet; don't leave me, Kate,
I want to look at you."

Just then little Nellie muttered in her sleep. " What's that !" he
cried, with a troubled start. "Where am I, Kate? Oh, yes ! I re-
member the whole fearful scene! — the dance, the yells, the whizzing
tomahawks, the rush forward, then your loved voice — yes, all ! all !"

Now, she proceeded to dress his wounds with the utmost care and
tenderness, talking to him somewhat the while. She then gave him
to eat and drink. He felt in every way better and more comfortable.
The torch of resinous wood was burning towards its end, when again
was heard the muttering of Nellie in her sleep. Another start from
the father.

"Is there any one within that partition, dear wife?"

' Yes, a Mrs. Dorman and — and " — should she tell him now? Was
he yet strong enough to bear it? she yearned yet feared.

" It strangely reminds me of children, Kate. Oh, if we only had
back our dear boys and girls, wife, we'd be too, too happy ; but no !
— why should I complain ! Already I have been blessed far beyond
my expectations, and my first wish is for more. You say you have
traces of some of them ?"

" I have, indeed, Joseph," and then smilingly and hesitatingly, "If
I thought you were strong enough to hear good news, I could tell you
more."

*' I am strong enough, Kate ; my heart is so full of joy and peace
with your recovery, that more could not harm me. What is it?"

Should she do it? Yes she would risk it.

" Dear husband," she faltered out, " I have seen both our little
Franky and Nelly. They are much grown."

" Good God, seen them !" he cried, with a quick start of surprise.
" When and where, Kate ?"

296 SIMON GIRTY.

Mrs. Malott bent over and kissed his brow, saying impressively:
" Don't start, Joseph; they both sleep now behind yonder screen of
boughs. 'Twas Nelly's voice you heard."

" Great Heavens ! wife, can this be so !" and the fond father half
rose on his bed of skins, bowed his head between his hands and burst
into a profuse flood of tears. The wife sat still and silent, her heart
so overflowing with happiness that she dared not trust herself to speak.
Tears would do him greatest good. They would be a wonderful
relief to his pent-up feelings — to that tense, over-charged mind, so
long possessed by one consuming, soul-subduing passion. At last he
ceased his tears and commenced to get on his feet.

" Kate, help me up ! I miist go and see my precious children."
" Indeed, husband, you i7iust not ; 'twould be as much as your life's
worth. There ! see how weak you are — Stay ! I'll bring them to you,
asleep as they are, and the baby first — little Dot."

She went within, laid her arms under little Nelly and carried her
in. How his large, yearning hungry eyes watched their coming !
How he snatched his youngest from her arms and covered its face
with kisses mingled with tears ! The child stirred and murmured
"mamma." It was laid, sleeping, by his side. He gazed down at
its fresh young face with ineffable tenderness.

" And now for Franky," he soon said T\iih a smile ; " I want them
both here, one on either side."

The fond mother was only too glad to obey. Mr. Malott — for so
we roust henceforth designate our Hermit — almost smothered little
Franky, too, with kisses and caresses. It was a most touching sight
to see the happy parents bending over their sleeping children, smiling,
hoping, comparing, commenting.

Mrs. Malott kept back the wonderful news about Kate and Girty to
the next day. It was hard to refrain, but she saw signs of pain and
weakness pass over her husband's face. She begged him to take some
rest — she would carry the. children back and arrange him for the
night. No, no ! they must both stay by his side, and so it was ; the
father finally sinking to a quiet slumber with an arm thrown around
each of his children, and such a look of peace and content on his
pallid, shrunken face as it had not worn for long, long weary years.

The wife and mother sat quietly brooding o'er her thick coming
fancies, and forecasting the future, until her husband was in a deep,
deep sleep. Arising, she then softly crept to his side, disengaged one
arm and then the other, and carried the children back to their leafy
bed, and resumed her watch. It was the most blissful, restful night
she had ever passed. Who knoweth what a day may bring forth !

The next morning was a bright and glorious one. Mr. Malott had
enjoyed a long, unbroken rest, and was still slumbering. His wife,
too, when the delightful tumult of her mind, and the jostling throng
of happy hopes and memories was somewhat quieted, had snatched
some hours for refreshing sleep.

— Sleep, that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care,
The death of each day's life; sore labor's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great Nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast.

THE hermit's story KATE MALOTT. 297

Mrs. Dorman and the children were not only up betimes, but had
been told the wonderful story of the night before. The two little
ones — who, by the by, were rapidly regaining their English — were in
a twitter and hubbub of childish delight and excitement. Papa had
come ! Papa had come ! They scarcely knew exactly what that
meant, but it was sofnething strange and wonderful.

Their mother now told them to hush-h-h and they could see the
wonderful papa. He was very, very sick, and they must not wake
him for the world. With finger on mouth and a merry twinkle in
her eye, she led the festive procession.

Tiie two children stood timidly beside the great unknown. They
gazed awe-stricken and with wide open eyes at his wan face and long-
disordered locks and unkempt flowing beard. Little Nelly was ac-
tually frightened, and began to cry. Her mother was proceeding to
hustle her out of the place, when all this noise awoke the mysterious
stranger. ■ His eyes at first had the same sad, wild look as before.
For a moment he seemed confused and bewildered at the group before
him.

All at once his faded eyes kindled, and his attenuated face was fairly
radiant, lit up with an exulting joy. He yearningly stretched forth his
arms, and with tears in his eyes and a fervent " thank God !" he em-
braced his wife. She pushed the children forward. His heart was too
full for utterance. He folded them to his bosom with the utmost
warmth and tenderness, the big tears rolling down his cheeks. It
was a happy, rapturous hour ! Let us draw the curtain on the scene.

It was marvelous to see the wondrous change produced on Mr.
Malott by a night of sleep and a heart at ease. They were Nature's
medicines, of greater potency than the whole pharmacopoeia. His
tomahawk wound was healing most favorably. His eye was bright
and his voice strong. There was a color in his cheek, and once, at
some wise childish remark of little Dot's, he actually laughed heartily.
Like Fear in " Collins's Passions," he "started back e'en at the
sound that he himself had made." It seemed for the moment a posi-
tive sin.

CHAPTER LXXIV.

THE hermit's STORY — KATE MALOTT.

After •" hearty breakfast — all partaking together — the children were
sent cut to play, and at least two hours were spent by the parents in
a confidential chat. The whole past from the time of their separation
was reviewed ; all on either side was explained to the minutest partic-
ular, and if she shed tears at the sad story of his despair on hearing of
his family's death ; his forlorn, desolate life in the cave on the Big
Yellow, and his long career of vengeance; so did he at her recital of
her surprise, her many horrors, her long wanderings and the late
terrible scenes she had passed through.

We are only concerned in giving that part of his history with which
our readers are, as yet, unacquainted. In Mrs. Malott's original ac-

298 SIMON GIRTY.

count of the Indian attack on Capt. Reynolds' boat and the capture
of about nineteen souls in all, it was stated that her husband with an
assistant was in a stock boat in front ; that he had first discovered the
*' blind " on shore ; had shouted back to Reynolds a warning, and
that the last she heard of him was his firing away at the savages until
his boat drifted entirely out of sight. She had added that, although
search had been made by her agents through all the Ohio tribes, she
never could find trace of him'; but hearing once from a trader that a
boat with cattle had about that time been captured on the Ohio, and
the two men defending it killed, ^she very much feared that was her
husband.

In the Hermit's first interview with Brady in his cave, he had given
as the reason for his revengeful life that his whole family had been
barbarously murdered by Indians under Black Hoof — that his wife
had been tortured to death by fire, and all his dear children brained
and scalped, and that he heard the tstory not only from a white man
who witnessed the wh )le damnalL' atrocity, but it had been confirmed
by an Indian. That then his spirit was broken, his head crazed, his
heart turned to stone and he vowed to live only for revenge.

Mr. Malott's account now to his wife was, in brief, to the effect
that when, in the year '79, he saw the Indians make a rush on Cap-
tain Reynolds' boat, he had done all he could to divert the attack;
but their boat was not long pursued. He had been only slightly
wounded, but many of the horses and cattle had been badly hurt, and
were tearing about the boat in a perfectly frantic state.

He soon sighted the mouth of the Scioto, and concluding that his
family had been either killed or captured with Reynolds' ark, he re-
solved to stop there to be more certain of their fate. They concealed
their boat in the Scioto, and were surprised to find near by the rough
lodge of a Kentucky rifleman out upon a deer hunt. On account of
the wounded cattle, Mr. Malott finally persuaded this hunter to help
his assistant take the boat down to Limestone, (now Maysville, Ky.)
while he himself would go back to the place of attack and discover
the fate of his family, and, if prisoners, share captivity with them.

He had scarce advanced, however, but a few miles on his course,
when he fell into an Indian ambush. At least a dozen Shawnees sur-
rounded him, and a brief encounter, in which he received a severe
wound in the breast, ensued. Resistance was vain, however, and he
was dragged roughly away to a small village on the Scioto, near the
Chillicothe towns. He was nearly a month recovering from his
wounds, all the time making inquiry of traders and passing Indians
concerning his family. He heard various reports, but on tracing them
up, was invariably disappointed.

One day, however, he learned that his stock-boat had been attacked
and captured near Limestone, and that Jack McPherson, his assistant,
and the Kentucky hunter he had hired, had been both killed. This
was doubtless the same attack of which his wife received news, and
which led her to believe her husband dead.

Finally, after being a captive over three months, he had come
across a white trader who gave him a dreadful account of the capture
of a Kentucky boat somewhere below Ft. Henry, and the massacre

THE HERMIT S STORY KATE MALOTT. 299

of all on board. He described one woman in particular who, because
she had refused to be separated from her children, and had given her
captors a great deal of trouble, had been cruelly tortured, all her four
children having been first brained and scalped before her very eyes.
As the time, place and all the circumstances related to him agreed
precisely with the facts he already knew, he was sure it was his, and
no other one's family, that had thus been so ruthlessly slaughtered.

From that moment he was a changed man. He fell sick and be-
came so gloomy and despondent that his mind became deranged. A
settled, intensely bitter hate commenced to take possession of his de-
spairing heart, deprived so cruelly of wife and children, and he, on a
lock of his wife's hair, solemnly swore to devote his life to^ a terrible
vengeance. .

Shortly after he recovered, he fell in with an Indian chief who
confirmed the statement of the trader ; asserted that Catahecassa, or
Black- Hoof, the Shawnee chief, was the wretch who had so wantonly
destroyed a family, and gave such a touching and harrowing descrip-
tion of the poor mother's pleadings and her subsequent torture, that
there was no further room for doubt. He could have no idea that it
was of another family than his own that the chief spoke.

He then determined to carry out his deadly resolves. Securing a
rifle and plenty of ammunition, he stole off down the Scioto, traveled
only by night, and finding a lonely, rocky and almost inaccessible
glen near the chief Chill icothe trail, he commenced his vengeful
trade. He lived in that savage solitude nearly a year, subsisting on
the game he killed and obtaining his ammunition from his victims.

Learning from a wounded Indian that Black-Hoof and his gang of
murderers had moved further East, he also changed his habitat, and
squ:atted next on the trail which struck the Ohio at Mingo Bottom.
Somehow he never could come on any trace of Black-Hoof, and that
trail becoming disused by the savages, he had next domiciled in the
cave on the Big Yellow trail, where Captain Brady had found him,
and from which he was fortunately allured by the assurance that Black-
Hoof, whom he had so long hunted in vain, was only a couple of hours
ahead of him.

The only time he had opportunity to grapple the Shawnee, how-
ever, was when he had a few days before dropped down on him, and,
with Brady's assistance, had tumbled him over the cliff.

"And now you tell me, Kate," laughingly concluded Mr. Malott,
*' that Black-Hoof is in this very camp, sorely bruised and battered
from that very tumble ; that he's not such a bad Indian after all.
Well, since he never did you nor mine any harm, I certainly owe the
old fellow an apology for the bad opinion and the deadly rancor I've
so long entertained for him, and if he don't hate me too bitterly I'll
undoubtedly make him one."

"I fear, husband, that not only the Shawnee but 'all the rest in
camp will hate you. You'll have to keep very close. May be Girty — "

*' Hang that insolent wretch ! I only wish I was out of his clutches
and rd feel more contented."

"Joseph, you greatly wrong Girty, indeed you do. He has many
and glaring faults, it is true, but many redeeming traits, too. Be sure.

300 SIMON GIRTY.

had it not been for him last night, you would not be with me now.
He has proved the kindest friend to me, Frankie and Dot, and has for
years assisted me in my search for yoa and the children ; besides — "

Mrs. Malott still hesitated. She had not yet told him one word of
Kate, and Girty's love for her. She was the night before afraid of
over-exciting him. That morning, however, she feared his opposition,
and yet knew how indispensably necessary Girty was to the rescue of
her child from the Indians.

"So you've told me, wife," he interrupted; "and I'm glad he's
better than reported. I could forgive all but his being a cursed tory
and a traitor."

"You must even forgive that, Joseph," smilingly responded Mrs.
Malott. •" You don't know how necessary he is to our future welfare."

" How? in what way, Kate? Explain !"

The time had come at last, and Mrs. Malott proceeded to tell him
the whole story of Kate's discovery, of Girty's strange attachment for
her, and how invaluable he might be in getting her away from the
Shawnees.

The stunning surprise of Mr, Malott may well be imagined. Ex-
ceeding delight for the recovery of another child was mingled with
the natural aversion he felt at any closer alliance with Girty. He had
a rooted prejudice against the outlaw. He pished and pshawed and
looked very much annoyed. "What you say, Catharine, vexes me
greatly. I know Girty is a brave and prominent leader, but he must
be much better than 1 hear he is before I'd consent to give him our
Kate." Then brightening up, he laughingly continued : " Our
Kate ! — ^just listen to me ! Last night I was a lone, desolate, wounded
captive, without hope or even desire for life, and couldn't say our any-
thing, and yet here I am laying down the law about a dear daughter
whom, up to ten minutes ago, I thought dead. I'm sure I'm willing
to leave this matter to you and to her ; only let me once see the
darling child again and I'll let the future take care of itself. But
didn't you say that Girty was best when not in liquor ? I fear,
love — ' '

" Hush-h-h, husband, here comes the very man himself, Frankie in
one hand and Nell in the other. Now do be kind to him for my, for
Kate's, for a /I our sakes."

Sure enough ! In limped slowly, Capt. Simon Girty, looking like
anything but a candidate for early matrimony. His head all bruised
and bandaged up ; his buckskin garments soiled and rather dilapi-
dated ; one arm in a sling — altogether, he looked like the last of pea
time or the breaking up of a hard winter.

He had, too, a certain awkward and embarrassed air, which he
essayed to conceal by laughs with the children and under an easy,
off-handed boisterousness. He first cast a furtive, meaning glance at
Mrs. Malott, to ascertain if she had told a//. Approaching the couch,
or spread, on which Malott was half reclining, he gave a quick start
of surprise at the wonderful change for the better in his appearance — •
his bright eye, animated face and trim appearance; for the wife had
made it her first duty to cut and comb out her husband's long, tangled
hair and beard. He looked a gentleman in presence of the Renegade.

THE HERMITS STORY KATE MALOTT, 30 I

Mr. Malott was the first to speak. Extending his hand frankly to
Girty, he said easily and pleasantly : —

"This is a great contrast to last night, Captain Girty. No wonder
you look surprised, I thank you from my heart for your ki.idness to
nie and my long-lost wife and children."

'/Ah, yes, yes; no thanks, sir — don't deserve any," said Girty,
with an air manifestly ill at ease, but with, also, a certain assumption
of indifference. "Deuce take it, Malott, but you're awfully trans-
mogrified. Who'd a thought ye the desperit fighter that's been
bumping up agin us for the last few days. We've been neatly whaled
this time, I own up honest. You must be a ran*-ankerous Injun hater,
Malott. Our reddies jist love you."

"Say rather I was, Captain," laughed Malott. "I feel most heart-
ily ashamed of my late life — so bitter, so revengeful, so blood-thirsty —
and to think, too, Girty, that it was all a huge mistake. I'll never
draw bead on a human being again. I feel so repentant that I could
shake hands with every Indian in yon camp and ask his pardon — and
Black Hoof first."

"Ha! ha! ha!" boisterously laughed Girty, "I told Black Hoof
this morning that you had been saved from torture last night and were
going with us. Je-hos-a-phat, you oughter seen the old sinner dance
and prance 'round. He stripped to the buff and showed me his black
and blue bruises ; seemed right low-hearted that you'd been let off so
easy, and made motions as if he'd like to squeeze your wizend.
Better steer clear of him, I can tell you."

" On the contrary," gaily remarked Malott, " I'll call on him now
with you. I told Kate here I owed him an apology and would make
him one. From a state of utter despair I've been raised to such a
height of hopefulness that I wouldn't resent even an insult from any
one to-day, much less from him. Why do you know. Captain, that
I even believe our little Harry will turn up yet ? Indians don't gen-
erally kill boys unless they're specially troublesome, and Kate says
that the Chief who carried him off was a kind hearted soul."

And so the talk ran on, Girty spending at least an hour with them
and the children and making himself so pleasant and agreeable, that
Mr. Malott was astonished. It is an old and shrewd way suitors have
of paying court to the loved one through all their relatives.

Net one word was said by any of Kate Malott in relation to Girty,
but the latter stated that on account of Mr. Malott's and his own
wounds they would rest where they were all day, and would start
bright and early the next morning for the Mac-a-chac Towns on Mad
river, where tlieir daughter Kate was staying. From there he'thought
he would give Pomoacan and his town the go by for the present and
go to Detroit. He didn't suppose he would stand very well wdth the
Indians or the Half King after his late defeat, but he was tired of
marauding and fighting anyway, and would be only too glad to take a
few weeks' rest.

All present knew what the programme meant, but^ they made no
special comment, being content with any movement having Kate as an
object.

30a SIMON GIRTY.

CHAPTER LXXV.

THE HERMIT CALLS ON HIS OLD FOE.

Girty had sent down to Mr. Malott the clothes stripped from him
before the torture, so that he was now dressed and ready to call on
Black Hoof.

The invalid arose with some difficulty, and passed out, leaning on a
stout hickory staff. His chief wound was on his shoulder, so that loco-
motion was not impeded, and, as it might prove a somewhat risky
business, he took a knife and tomahawk along.

The two proceeded first to Girty's own hut. He wished to get his
pistols, besides he had a little whiskey left, and suggested that that
would prove the best salve wherewith to take the wrinkles out of the
grim old Shawnee's face.

As they passed along they noted several groups of savages glowering
at them in the most scowling and ferocious manner. Several of the
Shawnees even clenched their hands as if anxious to get at Malott
again, and made certain menacing gestures against both.

Of all this they took no notice whatever, but, on leaving Girty's
shelter, proceeded to that of Black Hoof, which lay a short distance
aloof, on the border of a rippling little run.

On approaching the place, Girty went ahead ; interviewed the
huffy, irate old chief; explained the terrible mistake under which
Malott had so long lived and operated ; and said that, wounded as he
was, Mr. Malott had insisted on paying his respects to so great a chief,
and to apologize, not only for believing that he was the destroyer of
his family, but for his late attack on him.

Black Hoof threw his " proboskis," as Larry used to call it, in the
air, and was very difficult to placate. He got upon his shaky legs,
hobbled about on one foot, snorted out his wrath, and, for awhile,
utterly refused to be comforted. It required all Girty's art to smoothe
him down. Finally, amid a muttering roll of grumbles and protesta-
tions, the chief sat sulkily down and offered to hear what the " ear-
cutter" had to say, but would have been much better pleased had he
been sent to the spirit-land.

Girty stepped out and beckoned Mr. Malott to come on, which he
did with a pleasant and unembarrassed air, saying as he held out his
hand :

" Catahecassa is a great Shawnee chief. The pale face is come to
show him honor."

Black Hoof deigned to give him one vicious glance, as he approached,
refused the offered hand, and gave a short grunt of supreme disgust.

" Ugh ! " he said, " he no de one that throw me over the rocks ?
Dat man had long shaggy hair all over head and face like a buffalo ;
had eyes that blazed like a panther's, and he spit like wild cat — he all
through and all over mad."

" Oh, yes ; I'm the same one," blandly answered Malott ; "but have
found wife and children since, and am not so wild and ugly as I was.
If it had not been for Brady, chief, I'm afraid / would have been the

THE HERMIT CALLS ON HIS OLD FOE. 303

one to go over the cliff. Catahecassa is a mighty chief — strong as
t'le bison, active as the catamount, and knows not what fear is. I
1 ki him."

"Ugh! yes, dat so ; first part ; last part heap lie," grunted out
Black Hoof, looking as sulkily suspicious as did the man in the play
under somewhat similar circumstances, when he made the natural re-
mark : '■' You did well to dissemble your love, but why did you kick
me down stairs?" " If you like Catahecassa, why you do so ? Come!
I show you," and he was proceeding to uncover his various hurts and
bruises when Malott stopped him :

"Oh, no. Black Hoof. I know ; but that was when I was crazy,
and thought you had killed my wife and children. I'm here now to
tell you how sorry "

*' Catahecassa brave chief," interrupted the Indian. " He only
fight braves, and no squaws and papooses. What make you kill so
many Injuns, eh? tell me dat?"

" Why, chief, when the ' long knives ' steal your horses, burn your
towns and shoot down your women and children, don't you become
very angry and kill and scalp all you can ? But come ! let's say no
more. I'm very sorry. Here's some strong * fire-water' to clear all
the dust from our eyes, and to make us bury the hatchet."

Black Hoof was specially fond of the ardent. His manner changed
on the instant. His little eyes twinkled. A ghastly smile shot athwart
his hideous, parchment-like face, and he stretched forth his hand
eagerly, look the gourd, and drained it to the bottom.

"Ugh ! Dat take heap o' hurt out of my body. If you sorry you
throw me over, I sorry, too. Got any more?"

"Only enough for one little drink," and Malott and Girty sat
down and chatted sociably with the grim old Shawnee who, finally,
shuffling about to where the two sat, drew Malott aside, and said sol-
emnly, but in low tones, "To-morrow, when Catahecassa move very
stiff and sore, he feel very mad again at the stranger pale-face ! Dat
be good time to give chief more 'firewater ;' it make his heart glad,
and he forget all his wounds. When me get rum five, three, two
several times, then mad be all gone. Eh ?"

With this delicate hint to reflect upon, the two sought again Mrs.
Malott' s hut, and the day was quietly and pleasantly passed with her
and the children - resting, talking, and getting strong enough for the
morrow's journey.

The next morning early the onward march was resumed ; Pipe and
Wingenund with the Delawares in front, next the horse and two po-
nies carrying the women and children, which were flanked by Girty
and Mr. Malott, and then Black Hoof and the rest of the company.

The Sandusky trail was followed until after Mohicon John's Lake
(now Odell's Lake, Ashland County, Ohio), was passed, and then, as
is customary with the Indians after any decisive struggle, a separation
took place. Pipe, whose village was on the Tymochtee ; the Wyan-
dotts, who hailed from Sandusky, and Wingenund, whose camp was
not far off, kept straight on the trail.

But Girty, desirous of avoiding the Half King at present, and
anxious to reach Wapatomika, Mad river, filed off into a southwesterly

304 SIMON GIRTY.

trail with Mr. and Mrs. Malott and children, and the Shawnees under
Black Hoof. Much to the surprise of all, Mr, Malott was quite able
to keep on foot the whole way. He gained in strength and cheerful-
ness every hour, and none could recognize in him the moody, passion-
ate, distracted hermit of a few days previous.

We need not follow Girty's party on that long wilderness tramp.
Although not an eventful journey, it was by no means monotonous.
If ever the woods could look specially charming, it was in that deli-
cious May season, when all nature seemed at its best and freshest —
dressed, as it were, in its gayest holiday attire.

On the third evening they had not only crossed the Olentangy, but
had encamped on the east bank of the Scioto. Here they were com-
pelled to make a bark canoe. Having safely crossed, the horses
swimming behind, they at length emerged from the vast solemn wood-
land shades which had so long enshrouded them, and came out into
God's blessed sunshine, over a level open country of alternate plain
and grove.

Their course was now rapid and delightful. The whole country
was of the most varied and beautiful description. The children
seemed to revel as much in that pure, delicious air and in the shifting
panorama of nature's charms as did their parents. Even the eyes of
the grim and stoical Shawnees seemed to kindle, and their we^ry feet
to lift more airily, as they drew near their homes and loved ones.

About sundown the next evening, while crossing over a breezy, tree-
less knoll, the silvery sheen of the Mad river burst upon their enrap-
tured vision. Shortly after the trail led them out upon its grassy mar-
gin, and they gazed with delight upon its bright, swift, dancing
waters. The sun was then creeping down behind the hills on the
thither side, and its dying glories gilded and burnished the broken,
agitated current with sparkling, shimmering tints.

It was just that witching time of evening when every person of sen-
timent seems to be most en rapport with nature, when the feeling mind
is filled with a pleasing, musing pensiveness.

Girty himself had now fallen somewhat in the rear, and what for,
think you ? Ah ! he and the two agitated, anxiously expectant parents
gazed ahead with far different eyes from the crowd that accompanied
them. Even the hard, cruel, flinty-hearted Girty, as men deemed
him, had been touched by the enchanter's wand. For the first time,
perhaps, in his reckless and turbulent life, he found he, too, had a hu-
man heart susceptible to gentle emotions ; where another and better
ruled supreme, and wliich instinctively taught him that to love is to
please.

He had, therefore, tarried at a little run, which suggestively crossed
his path, to make his toilet. Do not smile, reader, but respect the
fine motive which underlay the action ! The same doubtless has come,
or will yet come, to each of you. It is something to this dread-naught
outlaw's credit that he shortly rejoined the company with his face
clean and bright ; his hair put in order ; his skin cap arranged with
a more jaunty set, and his travel-stained garments dusted and adjusted.

He was not an ill-looking person when so furbished, and with face
lit up with the "divine passion." His shy, half-embarrassed air ; the

A STRANGE BUT HAPPY FAMILY REUNION. 305

eager, expectant light in his eye, and the tinge of color on his sv/arthy,
weather-beaten visage, were quite becoming. Mrs. Malott scooped
down from her horse to so tell her husband. It was nothing but the
unconscious homage which the roughest, hardest heart pays to the
object of its purest, tenderest love.

CHAPTER LXXVI.

A STRANGE BUT HAPPY FAMILY REUNION.

Their course lay now under a line of enormous, white-trunked syca-
mores, which, singly or in clusters, studded the river's margin. They
were plodding quietly along, and had turned a little bend of the trail,
when all at once they came upon a family group of Indians — a chief
and several women sitting under a tree, and watching the merry sports
of some five or six children who were wading in the water, and
splashing each other with merry laughs and shoutings.

Both parties were much surprised. The travelers came to a sudden
halt, the ponies stopping without orders. The children in the water
hushed their noise and came trooping up the bank.

" It's Moluntha himself, and his two wives," nervously and excitedly
whispered Girty, holding himself somewhat back, as if knowing his
present visit would be an unwelcome one; "and good heavens!
there's Kate her very self, sitting behind them. Don't you see her ?
— that blue-eyed girl with the tawny curls."

** Where, oh, where ?" exclaimed the anxious mother, still looking
for the slight girl of fifteen she had lost three years before, and not at
first seeing her in this shy, half-concealed, full-grown maiden. " My
God ! that must be her ! Kate, my dear, long-lost daughter ! " and
Mrs. Malott threw herself from her horse, and was running up with
the greatest haste to embrace her, when suddenly a very tall, stern-
looking woman, of majestic mien, sprang up before her and extended
her hand with a warning gesture, shouting out in Shawnese :

*' Back ! bac> ! I say ! What do the hated pale-faces want with
Moluntha's family ?"

Mrs. Malott stood appalled before the forbidding looks and harsh,
commanding tones of this dusky giantess.

''Let me manage it," said Girty, coming rapidly to the front; "it's
the Grenadier Squaw, and she's a perfect tigress if you meddle with
her whelps. Here's Wa-ta-wa's mother and father," he hurriedly
blurted out in Indian. " They've come "

It needed no further management. At this sentence Wa-ta-wa
uttered a shrill cry, sprang to her feet, rushed past the Grenadier
Squaw, and threw herself, with a great sob and a touching cry of
"Mother! mother !" into Mrs Malott's arms. There they both stood
locked for a moment. The whole scene beggars description.
_ It was all so sudden that the entire company were now on their feet,
silent and stunned. The Indians on both sides were grouped about,
wondering what it all meant.
20

3o6 SIMON GIRTY.

Wa-ta-wa now lifted her head, and seeing her own father standing
over her, threw herself also into his arms.

The Grenadier Squaw for a moment stood petriiied, glaring savagely-
first at one and then at the other. Her eyes commenced to roll in a
perfect frenzy. A hot, angry flush had mounted to her swarthy cheek.
She now commenced to understand the matter somewhat.

Striding forward a step or two, and with a passionate exclamation,
she was about to reclaim Wa-ta-wa, when Girty glided in between.
She blazed on him with a terrible scowl.

"Dog of a paleface," she hissed out in Shawnee. "It's you, is it,
that robs a mother of her young!" and was proceeding to clutch
and hurl him to one side — which by the way would have been quite
an easy task for her, so colossal was her size and so enormous her
strength — when Moluntha, a very noble and commanding-looking
chief, rushed forward and bade her hold.

All this had taken place sooner than we can write. It was entirely
understood now. Wa-ta-wa had turned from her father to embrace
first Nellie and then Frankie, whom their mother had thrust into her
arms. A great commotion and confusion followed. The children on
both sides were some crying and some mute with awe.

Moluntha, the great Sachem of the Shawnese, and an Indian of
uncommon dignity and excellence of character, alone seemed calm.
Addressing himself to Girty, he said quietly and impressively in his
own tongue, " Captain Girty — I see — these are Wa-ta-wa's parents,
and these," pointing to the children — "her brother and sister. Is it
not so?"

"It is, indeed," answered Girty in the same language, and then
hastily ran over a brief narrative of their original capture, his subse-
quent search, his discovery of Kate not long before, and the strange
story of the Hermit, and then the wonderful manner in which the
family had been reunited.

Moluntha listened gravely and courteously, all who understood
Shawnee being grouped around and drinking in every word.

The Grenadier Squaw stocd aloof — sad, sullen, and dejected. She
was very fond of the child of her adoption, and it was hard to give
her up. Moluntha's children stood whispering around and casting cu-
rious or angry looks first at Wa-ta-wa, their sister ; then at Malott and
his wife, and then at the other two children, now again seated on their
ponies.

When the story was completely through, Moluntha said sadly : "It
is the mysterious work of the Great Spirit. Moluntha loves Wa-ta-wa
as his own blood ; but they love her more than he does. She is
free."

He turned abruptly about to conceal his emotions, and bade his
lamily go back to the village. The Grenadier Squaw stood sullen and
hesitating. At last she said to Girty: "Wa-ta-wa must stay at Mo-
luntha's lodge. We cannot yet give her up. We must have a Council."

"Oh, certainly," Girty hastened to reply. "We will not take
Wata-wa without all are willing. I will stop here several days with
Colonel McKee and this white family with Isaac Zane. Wa-ta-wa will
go home with you j" and then sinking his voice so that the chief

A STRANGE BUT HAPPY FAMILY REUNION. 307

wife alone could hear it, he added this {argumeniiim ad fcsminam •)
"I will give for her more than I said I would when here before."

Just at this juncture, and when Moluntha and most of his family-
were sauntering homewards, a sturdy, active, keen-eyed little Indian
lad, of about twelve years, angrily broke from Moluntna's hand, and
with an air half angry, half tearful, ran rapidly back to Wa-ta-wa, and,
clutching her hand, said with great spirit that his sister should not go
with the strange pale-faces, but must come home with him. Those
who did not understand Shawnese wondered at his eager, excited
manner, but Kate turned to her mother and said in English, "It's my
Indian brother, Lawba. We are always together. I don't know how
to leave him."

Then stooping down, she kissed him tenderly, stroked his jet black
hair, and tried to pacify him, begging him in the only language he
understood, to run home and she v/ould be there after a little.
Moluntha, meanwhile, had come back, and looking somewhat "smily
about the lips, but teary around the lashes," essayed again to lead
little Lawba off, but he only clung the tighter, stamped his tawny,
bare feet imperiously, and refused to leave his sister.

In this dilemma, Girty hastily stepped up. The poor fellow, such
was the great confusion, and so busy was Kate in making acquaintance
with her relatives, had not yet had an opportunity of exchanging one
word, although he had glances with her. He now exclaimed ; " Halloo !
what's the row, my little lad ! and so you shall stay with your sister,"
adding in a lower tone, "I don't wonder you can't part with her. But
come, I'll fix you."

So saying, he mounted the little fellow with Frankie on the pony,
at which he was greatly content, if sister Wa-ta-wa would only walk
alongside.

Kate now turned around to Girty, took his hand in bo1:h of hers,
and with a look of tender gratitude in her kind blue eyes, that throbbed
along his every nerve, she feelingly exclaimed :

"How glad I am to see you again, Captain. Was too much flus-
tered to speak before. You've far more than kept your promise. You
only told me you had seen mother and would take me to her, and
here, in one short month, you bring her and father, Frank and Nell.
Oh, I can't yet believe it. You're too kind and good, and I'll never
forget it," and a teardrop stood in each soft eye.

"Pooh ! pooh ! Kate, I never — you need — it's just nothing at all.
' Twas all a chance like. You wait till I kin do something for you,
Ge-ru-sa-lem ! " replied Girty, looking red and very much frightened.

"Indeed, Captain, I've been thinking so much of what you said ; you
don't know. Every day I kept a looking and looking for you, but it
seemed as if you'd never, never come."

"By Jove, Kate, I'm confounded glad to hear you say so," answered
Girty, in a pleasant fluster. "I bet you I came as soon as I could."

"Yes, and after thinking so much of getting away and seeing moth-
er, then to have the whole of them come on me all at once. I was for
a while stunned — couldn't say a word, or make a motion until you
spoke out and told Moluntha, it was father and mother. Then it
seemed as if I had to scream or die."

3o8 SIMON GIRTY.

'' Oh, it was your mother you were thinking of all the time, was
it?" said her companion, plainly looking his disappointment.

" Ye-e-s ; but I'm glad to see you, too, my kind friend. But I must
go. You'll come and ee us to-night, captain, won't you?"

"I'll be around, never ear," absently answered Girty, not feeling
as hopeful as before.

He could not banish the thought that his chance of securing Kate
as a wife would have been far better if her rescue from the savages had
depended entirely on himself. Fear and gratitude are not the best
foundations to base a matrimonial alliance on, but they are helpful too,
in a pinch, and so thought Girty.

Kate had grown to be a charming as well as a beautiful girl. Her
wealth of golden curls, her clear, fresh complexion, her frank, pleasant
blue eyes and her fine figure and graceful carriage, made her a strong
contrast to the dark-eyed, black-haired and olive-complexion ed Indian
girls. She was greatly admired and petted among the Shawnees, and
shortly afterwards had the reputation of being the prettiest girl in
Detroit. She did not speak English quite so smoothly as we have
written it for her, but there was only a slight hesitation at times. One
does not forget a language in three years, besides there were always
captives and English-speaking residents at Wappatomica with whom
she had occasional practice.

We have not pretended to give the joyful, ejaculatory snatches of
conversation that occurred between Kate and her strangely- found rela-
tives. Not one of them could as yet fully realize the strange discovery.
They would gaze and gaze at the engaging young maiden, so quickly
grown from girlhood to womanhood, and seem to devour her with
their eyes, but they felt too deeply and tenderly for much talk. She
was dressed altogether in Indian costume, only with a little more-
taste, and with garments more richly ornamented than usual, as well
became Moluntha's daughter.

CHAPTER LXXVII.

A GRAND COUNCIL, AND WHAT CAME OF IT.

The Shawnees had gone on to the town as soon as the first discov-
ery was made, and spread the startling news. Consequently when our
family party reached Wappatomica, they found it in a great state of
excitement. All the people were out in force, and many were the cu-
rious glances cast at Simon Girty and the new-comers.

An Indian village is much like any other in respect to gossip, and
many were the groups of tawny females and garrulous quid mmcs that
hummed and buzzed around that evening. They discussed everything
— Girty's battle and defeat, Wa-ta-wa's parents and the two children,
the corning council, and, most probably — for Indian maidens are as
quick at discerning courtships as are their more civilized white sisters
— Girty's love venture.

Among the first persons who advanced to greet them, dressed in a

A GRAND COUNCIL, AND WHAT CAME OF IT. 309

British uniform, and strutting along with considerable pomp and a
swelling air, was Col. Alexander McKee, the notorious Indian Super-
intendent and tory renegade, who had fled from Fort Pitt in '78, with
(rirty and Matthew Elliott. He was high cockolorura among the Mad
River Shawnees, had married a squaw, and lived with his half-breed
family in a comfortable house of hewn logs and shingle roof, outside
the town. He claimed Girty, promising him to. use all his influence
in having the whole Malott family allowed to go to Detroit.

Next came to greet them Is'aac Zane, a brother of the Wheeling
Zanes, and also — strange to say — having an Indian family and a popu-
lar, respectable householder of that Indian town.

He also promised Girty his influence with the Indians to secure the
release of the Malott family, and insisted upon taking all of them save
Kate, who was to remain with Moluntha until the decision of council,
to his own home.

That evening the overjoyed parents spent with Kate at Moluntha's
lodge. The next day they rambled with her through the woods or by
the margin of the Mad River. They even took two meals with
Moluntha, and at length so won upon the Grenadier Squaw by their
courtesy and gentleness, that her opposition was completely disarmed.

Girty was kept busy the whole day perfecting his plans, visiting the
chiefs, explaining and excusing his defeat and winning over adherents.
Although living and generally operating with Pomoacan and the Hu-
rons, Girty was a very prominent leader and had great influence with
both Shawnees and Delawares.

It was an interesting sight, too, to note how Moluntha's children
raternized with Frankie and Nelly. Indeed, these latter were about,
as much Indian in looks, manner and complexion as the former.
They had been captives now three years ; jabbered away in Indian as
well as any of them, and waded in the river for mussels, practiced
with bow and arrow, and scooped for minnows with as much zest as
any of them.

In all these sports, Lawba — a singularly bold, bright and interesting
boy of some twelve years old — led the way. It was amusing to see
him appoint himself little Nelly's protector.

Moluntha was evidently quite proud of this son and was as much
amused watching his old-fashioned ways and assuming airs as were
Mr. and Mrs. Malott. This Lawba in after years became a very dis-
tinguished and interesting character, lived long among the whites and
was universally known on the border as Captain Logan.

At one time during the day, Lawba had led his little band of admir-
ing followers into the woods. to shoot mud-turtles with an old musket
his father had lent him. There they found a ring of Indian gamins
about a sad, sickly-looking white captive, of about eight years old, by
the name of Jonathan Alder. He had fallen into the river and was
nearly strangled, while the crowd of children were either threatening
or ridiculing him for his misadventure. Lawba rushed in and trounced
one of the bigger boys for his rudeness, and took the forlorn, home-
sick captive under his own protection. They brought him to Chief
Moluntha's lodge, who approved Lawba's conduct an"l had the poor
boy's garments changed and sent him home.

3IO SIMON GIRTY.

The next day came the grand council. By Indian law and custom
the white family of Malotts were prisoners, and one of them, Kate,
was the much-loved, adopted child of their chief Sachem, and public
opinion was angrily divided as to the propriety of giving them all up
at Girty's instance. The whole town was in a ferment. The massacre
of the Moravians such a short time previous had greatly embittered all
the Ohio Indians against the whites. The Shawnees, a fierce, cruel
and blood-thirsty tribe, was especially hostile and implacable.

All thronged, therefore, to the Council House, some to take part
*n the proceedings, the rest to watch and discuss the course of events.
It was an unusually large and capacious building, some fifty yards long,
twenty-five yards broad and about sixteen feet high, and built of split
poles covered with bark. Every warrior was admitted, but only the
chiefs and leading "braves" — accounted such from the number of
scalps or prisoners they had taken — had the privilege of a vote or of
speaking.

At first a grave and dignified silence prevailed. It would not com-
port with the dignity of a council to do anything in haste or in anger.
Every face wore a calm and untroubled expression. The attitude of
each was one of repose and deliberation. In the eyes of some of the
younger and more hot-blooded of the crowd a close observer might
have detected a lurking devil — the quenchless, untamable fire of savage
hate and ferocity.

After the pipe had made its round, the chief Sachem, Moluntha,
arose, and in calm, grave, measured words, stated the object of the
council, and asked for the opinions of his people. The speeches then
commenced, some assenting, others protesting against the release of so
large a lot of prisoners, especially following so hard upon the severe
defeat of Captain Girty, and the dreadful punishment of their own
"braves."

All eyes at once rested on Girty, who sat on a high log in front, in
company with Colonel McKee and Isaac Zane. His face was carefully
masked, his attitude respectful, and studiously removed from anything
like defiance. He had been busy the preceding day using all his arts
to influence various speakers, for he knew well that by the speeches
the deciding votes were controlled. He appeared well, very well.
He had procured a new suit of buckskins. His eye looked bold and
confident. One arm was in a sling, and a pair of epaulettes orna-
mented his shoulders. The volley of curious or indignant looks which
were at once flashed at him he bore quietly, unflinchingly. A little
spot of crimson that quickly mounted to each cheek was the only evi-
dence of anger or mortification at the allusion to his defeat. He was
now to be stirred more deeply.

The excitement was evidently growing. Eyes commenced to glow,
voices to become excited, faces to look passionate. And now a lithe,
nervous, fiery-tempered chief by the name of the Black Snake, shot up.
He was well called, for his eyes were small and glistening, his body
was flexible and sinuous, and his voice was emitted with a sort of a
sibillant noise like a serpent's. He was indignantly opposed to free-
ing— even to taking any prisoners. So they had long ago their
orders froni Detroit, but they did not obey. He inveighed upon the

THE GRAND COUNCIL CONCLUDED — ITS RESULT. 3H

"Long Knives" with words of scorn and withering invective, and
accused them of being robbers, drunkards, murderers. He then in-
dulged in a lofty flight of fervent, impassioned rhetoric concerning the
late wholesale massacre of the Moravians, and was in favor of shedding
blood for blood.

His hot, jerky, vehement utterances had a prodigious effect. You
could see it by the gleaming eyes, note it on the swarthy faces, dis-
cover it under the restless, nervous manner. It was plainly stirring up
a perfect whirlwind of emotion. The hearts of the younger and more
hot-blooded mm of war commenced to seethe like cauldrons.

Tarrhe, the Crane, a noted Huron chief, being present, was now,
out of compliment, called on for his voice. He was calm, suave, and
unctuous of speech and manner, and endeavored to throw oil upon
the troubled waters. His nation were opposed to the torture of
prisoners, which had long been abolished. They would not obey the
British orders from Detroit to " take no more prisoners." He hur-
riedly ran over the circumstances of the Malott capture, separation
and reunital, and would let them all go free ; if not for their own sakes,
then for the sake of Captain Girty, who had long been a firm and
unswerving friend to the redman and a terribly hostile foe to the
" pale-faces."

"The Crane" had scarcely finished ere Blue Jacket — one of the
bravest and most promising of the young Shawnee war chiefs, and
afterwards famous as the leader of all the combined Indians at Wayne's
decisive battle of the Fallen Timbers — leaped to his feet and com-
menced an artful, plausible and yet terribly effective discourse, in
which ridicule, sarcasm and scathing invective were happily blended.
He took the same course as the Black Snake, and was so severe and
stinging in his sarcastical flings and taunts at Girty and his late
disgraceful defeat, that the Renegade was lashed and goaded almost
to fury.

CHAPTER LXXVIII.

THE GRAND COUNCIL CONCLUDED — ITS RESULT.

When Blue Jacket sat down, Simon Girty arose, carefully restrain-
ing his passion, an-d commencing calmly yet growing in force and
power and fervency each minute. He recounted his services and
those of his two brothers among the Indians; spoke of his undying
hate to the "Long-Knives," and of the repeated instances in which
he had exhibited it ; gradually approached the late expedition, show-
ing what he had done and why he had failed ; and thus rising with the
occasion, advancing to the front, and looking boldly around the
assembly, he hurled back the imputations of his accusers and revilers
with scorn. When had any ever seen him flinch from danger, or turn
his back to the foe ? He then softened down, and, taking a more
humble attitude and assuming a more quiet tone, he alluded to the
original capture of the Malotts ; his long and fruitless efforts to recover
the children ; his mysterious recapture of the mother, and then the

312 SIMON GIRTY.

almost miraculous discovery of first the two children, then Kate, Mo-
luntha's adopted daughter, and then the father, so crazed by the loss
of his whole family, that, although a mild, gentle, and peaceable man,
he had actually fled alone to the rocks and grown to be an Indian
hater, and was the bold, deadly and terrible avenger, simply because
he loved his family and was sure it had all been slaughtered by the
Indians.

He then described how Malott had fallen upon and injured Black
Hoof ; how been rescued from the stake and fiery tortures by his own
wife, and how, afterwards, when he discovered his great error, he had
insisted on going to Black Hoof to ask pardon for his violence. That
great chief, weak and pale from his wounds and bruises, was present.
His heart was too brave and good to harbor injustice, and he would
call upon him now to confirm his own words.

Girty then sat down quietly on a back seat. His speech was the
tnost artful, eloquent and passionate of his life. His feelings had been
hurt, his pride wounded, his reputation assailed ; and he had defended
himself with energy, and with that earnestness that carries conviction.

There was a general ugh ! ugh ! when he had concluded, and all
eyes were turned expectantly upon Black Hoof, one of the bravest,
most prominent and most eloquent of their tribe.

Black Hoof, leaning upon his rifle, rose up with some difficulty and
made a strong, forcible speech in behalf of his friend, Captain Girty.
He defended him from hostile attacks. He had approved his plans
and witnessed his bravery. He had been unfortunate in the late strug-
gle, but through no fault of his, and had fought like a hero He then
actually surprised all by a manly and generous defense of Malott — the
very man who had caused him all his bodily harm. The "pale-face"
had been mistaken, but had frankly confessed it, and they were now
brothers.

This speech might have been called "a clincher." It is true that
Big Capt. Johnny, as he was called — a huge, hideous-looking chief ot
colossal size and of ribald, vituperative tongue, got up and essayed to
stem the tide of opinion ; but his words were listened to with impa-
tience. He was evidently "only beating the air." Two or three mi-
nor chiefs, of scowling visage and savage temper, followed in the same
line ; but it was patent to the very dullest that the battle had been
fought and won.

Colonel McKee and Isaac Zane now made a few modest and sensi-
ble remarks, urging the release of this wonderfully-reunited family, and
asserting that such an act would be highly pleasing to De Peyster, the
Governor of Canada, who had himself taken a great interest in Mrs.
Malott's efforts to recover her children, and he trusted the vote would
be almost unanimous.

The last speaker was the good and greatly-beloved Moluntha. He
was a very powerful, dignified orator, and his words ever carried
great weight ; but now, especially, when all knew that by giving up an
adopted daughter, whom he ardently loved, he was by all odds making
the greatest possible sacrifice, he was heard with unusual feeling and
attention. His words were few and delivered with sadness. He dis-
cerned the work of the Great Spirit in so mysteriously preserving and

THE GRAJJD COUNCIL CONCLUDED — ITS RESULT. 313

Uniting this family after so many years of separation ; and, although
his heart would suffer, he and his wives had already given Wa-ta-wa up
to those whom she remembered with love, and who had a better right
to her than he could claim.

Moluntha closed amid the most impressive silence. The vote was
almost unanimous, and even that assembly of stoics, schooled as they
were to suppress emotion, could not refrain from a most tumultuous
outburst of feeling. They broke from the Council House like a noisy,
unruly school of children. The news flew from hut to cabin, until the
whole town was in a hubbub.

Numerous dances were inaugurated that night, in one of which Wa-
ta-wa was persuaded to take part, and the feasting and revelry were
carried far into the night, Girty appeared now at his very best. He
was ever his own worst enemy. When in liquor he was fierce, stormy,
vengeful, devilish. He took care, therefore, on the present occasion
to abstain entirely. He moved around in high feather, using all his
arts and gifts to cajole and conciliate.

The next day was spent in preparing for the long and fatiguing
journey to Detroit. Girty wished to avoid Half King's town, and
purposed taking the due north trail to Maumee Bay. From Zane and
McKee he procured additional horses enough to mount the whole
party. The one captured from Shepherd he presented to Moluntha,
at the same time bestowing many gifts upon his wives.

On the following morning an early start was made. The little fam-
ily cavalcade, preceded by a few friendly Indians and two traders
returning to Detroit, was accompanied for many miles by Moluntha
and his boy Lawba, and when the time came for a final parting, it
seemed as if the affectionate little fellow could not and would not be
comforted. The old chief, too, was quite sorrowful, and could scarce
restrain his feelings. With tears in his eyes, he folded Wa-ta-wa to his
brawny bi e ist ; patted her on the head and then turning suddenly,
seized his boy by the hand and strode off without once looking back.

We need not follow the travelers. Suffice it to say, that after the
usual incidents of a wilderness ride on horseback, they all arrived
safely in Detroit, and were visited by Schuyler de Peyster, its com-
mandant. There we will leave them.

Mr. Malott bore his journey well, his wound rapidly healing, each
day bringing him an increase of strength and happiness. His mind,
so long harassed and disordered by his lonely and desolate life, and
the wasting, consuming passions which filled his heart, was restored in
time, and became again clear and tranquil.

And Girty, too ! that singular paradox ! that blending of man and
demon ! No one, on this long and trying journey, could have been
kinder, gentler or more thoughtful. Every want seemed to be antici-
pated ; every comfort supplied. To the children he was tender and
patient ; to Kate considerate ; to her parents respectful. He may be
said to have been his own antithesis. Who, that knew the Renegade's
wild and stormful life, thickly studded with desperate, vengeful deeds,
and so tempestuous with terrible outbreaks of passion, would have
recognized him in the eager-eyed, soft-voiced, tender-hearted com-
panion of women and children.

314 SIMON GIRTY.

It was love, the enchanter, that wrought this miracle. It subdues
the flintiest heart and exalts the most depraved character. Mr. and
Mrs. Malott entertained for him an ever-increasing regard ; while
Kate — well, what shall we say of Kate ? Can we wonder at or blame
her if, in her lone and unattractive life, surrounded for years by the
rude, coarse, swarthy children of the wilderness, she looked upon
Girty as a being greatly superior to her surroundings and associations ;
as one who had rescued her from bondage, and restored her to her
family; who had never been anything but kind, loving and affection-
ate to her. She — just blooming into womanhood — had only seen the
best and most winning traits of his character, and felt flattered by his
too evident preference for her. Pray, why should she not love him ?

CHAPTER LXXIX.

A GRAND OLD-TIME CIRCULAR HUNT.

The joy and delight of the whole Wheeling settlement at the safe
return of the victors and the rescue of the captives, was great and uni-
versal. Nothing could be more hearty or ungrudging than the
attentions bestowed upon Major Rose and Captain Brady. They
seemed to be the welcome guests of the whole people. All vied with
each other in contributing to their comfort and entertainment.

Major Rose had but a brief time to stay. It was the 15th of May
when the boating party left Fort Pitt, and it was the evening of the
2ist when they arrived at Fort Henry; all the events which we have
been so long narrating having occurred within the compass of one
busy crowded week.

The important expedition against Sandusky was to start from Mingo
Bottom on the 25th, and Rose must go with it. He and Dr. Knight
were the two selected by General Irvine, of Fort Pitt, in order, as it
were, to lend it an official sanction.

Only then three days left. They must hurry indeed. The major,
therefore, had buf little idle time on his hands. A series of boat rides,
horse races, rifle matches, "rides to the hounds," hunting excursions
and other manly open-air sports peculiar to the border of that time,
were gotten up in his honor.

Brady's wound was rapidly healing under the skilful ministrations
of Mrs. Ebenezer Zane, and in some of these entertainments he was
glad to participate. When his leg wound would not allow of this, he
always had the pleasant company of ladies and gentlemen of a
culture and refinement very unusual on a rough and exposed
frontier.

Miss Swearingen was his frequent companion. Their late forced
trip into a hostile Indian country had thrown them almost constantly
together, and under circumstances, too, best calculated to excite all the
tenderest emotions of the heart. Brady had long been hopeful, but
lately he had found time and occasion to speak his feelings and was

A GRAND OLD-TIME CIRCALAR HUNT. 315

glad to occupy the relation of accepted lover to the gentle and accom-
plished Drusilla Swearingen.

The last day of Major Rose's stay was signalized by a grand deer
drive — or "circular hunt," as it was styled in the backwoods — gotten
up in his honor, and in which the whole male part of the community,
and many of the females intended to participate. The preceding
evening had been busy with the hum of the various discussions and
preparations, the gathering of dogs and horses, the cleaning of rifles
and providing of patches, powder and bullets.

The morning opened superbly. The air was delicious ; crisp, fresh
and breezy. A. heavy white fog — which lay over river, island and
valley like a heavy pall, was lazily lifting under the fervid beams of a
glorious sun. 'Twould be a "rale yaller day/' the boisterous and
weather-wise darkeys prognosticated.

The crowd which started out so blithely, with such glad and vocif-
erous clamor and shouts of merriment, was truly a large and motley
one. There were Mrs. Zane, and the Misses Lydia, Betty, and Dru-
silla on horsefback, accompanied by Drusilla's father, "Injun Van," as
he was called, one of Morgan's famous riflemen ; all the Zanes's, Major
Rose, Mr. Shepherd and father ; all the numerous scouts and hunters
of the settlement, and then a crowd of whites and blacks on foot or
on horseback — everybody in fact who could raise a rifle, a knife, or
a weapon of any sort.

What a gay and boisterous "meet" it was, to be sure, and when
Lydia gave forth a melodious, echoing blast on her hunting-horn and
leaped forward on her spirited steed, what a din and rush ! what a
clatter of horses, medley of voices, and yelping of dogs followed in
her wake !

Every dog in the whole place was afoot : Music and Zane's pack
of hounds snuffing the keen air and tugging at their leashes, followed
by a barking, snarling, yawping mob of all kinds, sizes, colors and
conditions of dogs ; those used to hunt the bear and panther, the
coon and possum, and " mongrel puppy, whelp and hound, and curs
of low degree."

These " circular hunts" were a peculiar institution of the frontier,
and were managed thus. A large tract of suitable game woods was sur-
rounded by lines of hunters afoot or on horseback, with such intervals
that each was within seeing or hailing distance of his neighbor to
right or left. A captain with four subordinates, always mounted, were
chosen. At a given signal the immense circle, with a great noise of
horns, shoutings, barking of dogs, etc., commenced to advance to-
gether towards a common centre.

Sometimes lines of trees were " blazed " from the circumference to
this given centre as guides. At the place of starting a circular line
was "blazed," and at half or three-quarters of a mile from the centre
another. On the arrival at the first ring, the advancing line halted till
the master of the hunt made a circuit and saw all the men equally dis-
tributed and every gap closed. By this time deer and other animals
could frequently be seen rushing about in mad affright from line to
line.

At a given signal, the ranks moved forward to the second ring.

3l6 SIMON GIRTY

generally drawn around a ravine, swamp or pond, Here, if the drive
has been a success, the sport becomes truly exciting. Deer in clusters
may be seen, panting and terrified, sweeping on winged feet around
the ring ; flocks of turkeys are forced to take wing and to hasten be-
yond the fatal circle ; may be cats, bears, or even panthers would be
enclosed, and then various rushes to escape create intense excitements
at various points on the line.

As the charmed circle narrows, the deers become wild and desperate
through terror and cannot be confined. They now make mad dashes
for the line, and with incredible swiftness and audacity. If the men
are resolute and thickly planted, the bucks will fiercely attack them or
take flying leaps over their heads.

Sometimes the sport is varied by purposely leaving open gaps, when
the escaping animals have to run the gauntlet of many sure and un-
erring marksmen. After the game has been either mostly killed or
escaped, a few of the best marksmen and dogs "beat up" the re-
maining ground and rout out all that may remain concealed, or that
may be lying wounded. This done, all advance with glad shouts to
the centre, bringing the dead with them, and a count and distribution
is made. It is surprising what a quantity of deer, bear and other
" varmint " were exterminated by those grand hunts. When some large
thicket, swamp, or other favorite habitat of the bear has thus been
surrounded, as many as twenty or thirty would be killed at a time.

The present hunt was projected somewhat on that fashion. Large
game had been pretty well killed or chased off near the settlement ; but
about four miles down the Ohio there was an ample range of both
open and close forest, embracing rocky glens, heavily-thicketed swales,
a densely wooded marsh or morass with matted undergrowth, meads
of sweet grass used as " deer pastures," and tangled coverts used as
"deer beds," There was not force enough at or about Fort Henry to
completely surround this famous game resort, but one side of it fronted
the Ohio, ending with an abrupt bluff of some fifteen feet that over-
hung the beach, while the farthest side rested on a deep, rocky ravine,
the thither wall of which was a steep and insurmountable cliff.

The plan, therefore, was to place a cordon of hunters about two
sides, extending to the cliff in one direction and to the river bluff on
the other. Several large canoes filled with hunters or idle spectators
of both sexes, proceeded down the Ohio to guard the river front ;
while Drusilla, Brady, and Killbuck were seated in a sort of a
large flat-bottomed skiff, the latter two being yet disabled from
wounds.

It was still early when the point of divergence was reached. All
the dogs and hounds were carefully held in the rear and kept as quiet
as possible, while the two horns of the line commenced to bear off to
take their allotted positions. Col. Zane had been chosen " master of
the hounds," and Kenton, McColloch, Van Swearingen and Jonathan
Zane leaders of the lines.

Major Rose rode his own fleet mare this day, while Lydia Boggs and
Betty Zane ambled along on either side mounted on much quieter and
more manageable nags. They were dressed in neat, close-fitting hunt-
ing costumes, with light rifles slung to their backs. Their eyes fairly

A GRAND OLD-TIME CIRCULAR HUNT. 317

sparkled with eagerness, and the flush of excitement was on their lips and
cheeks. Betty was unusually full of frolic and complaisance/ and the
Major, drawing thence a favorable augury, was in his very gayest and
most exuberant spirits. Indeed such an intoxicating air and inspirit-
ing scene would have enlivened even a paralytic. It was enough "to
create a soul under the ribs of death."

Major Rose had the selection of his own stand. After waiting about
twenty minutes, until all had ample time to take position, he rode
forward with his fair companions to a slight eminence, and rested
under a huge gum tree, which stood on the flank of a slight dale.
Here they could not only command a large view of the hunt, but
would be more likely to have some easy shots, since a well-used deer
" run-way," lay down the glade at their side. Although partly con-
cealed themselves among some dogwoods and wild-plums, the forest
in front was like a gentleman's park, almost all large trees, with but
little undergrowth. Adown the long leafy arcades, the delighted eye
could have uninterrupted range. Beautiful woodland vistas opened
out on all sides.

Lew Wetzell, with his long jetty curls, could be seen creeping off*
to the right, and Andy Foe was seen crouching low among a clump of
paw-paw and checkerberry bushes, within hailing distance on the left.
The three nags stood together. Everybody had scattered to line, save
Col. Zane's Scip, a darkey Nimrod, with protuberant eyes and a
double row of flashing ivories, whose chief business seemed to be
pinching the ears of a couple of whimpering coon dogs, to keep them
quiet. " Hi, yi, heah, yar growler i Golly, but you jes better sing
mighty low, kase ef maussa Eber hear, he get shet o' ye mighty quick.
Tink we out arter possums now? Ya, ya, ya!"

All at once, about half a mile off to the right, could be heard the clear,
mellow, winding notes of a hunting horn, followed immediately by
the deep, bugle bay of Music, and then by the ough, ough, ough, ough-
ing of the whole pack as they gave tongue, and broke into a continuous
chorus, which filled the surrounding hills with echoes.

The hounds were at last cast off", and the hunt had commenced.

Then the horses pricked up their ears. Black Bess gave a start and
commenced to paw the sod, and champ her bit. Her eyes seemed
filled with a tameless, though not vicious fire. Scip ejaculated with a
gasp, " Lor-a-massy, dat's dat Music! Golly. Massa Rose, I done
hold dese dogs no longer. Muss lefif em go," and off" they started
with a currish bark and howl. Lydia and Betty had been engaged,
when the horn sounded, in watching the braggart gambols of a couple
of squirrels, who with whisking tails and a certain frolic grace, were
chasing each other through a neighboring tree-top. The horn startled
the girls. Their hearts beat like drums. Lydia was a sight worth
seeing just then. She looked as she sat erect upon her restive steed,
like a young Diana.

" With head upraised and look intent,
And eye and ear attentive bent,
And locks flung back and lips apart.
Like monument of Grecian art."

31 8 SIMON GIRTY.

Only for a moment ! Raising her horn to her lips, she blew a few
sweet answering notes, and cried out with eagerness, " Tally ho ! Tally
ho ! Major, we'll have warm work soon ! Just listen to the deep
baying of the hounds ! What delightful music !"

"They seem coming towards us," exclaimed Betty, impatiently.
"Come, Major! shall we go on? You see even old Scip couldn't
stand it longer, but has slipped off after his dogs "

" Better stay where we are," said Rose, " and watch this runway.
The hunt is coming this way, and we won't lack chances after awhile.
Rest quiet as possible, if you please."

CHAPTER LXXX.

THE HUNT DRAWS NEAR STIRRING SCENES.

" I was with Hercules and Cadmus, once.
When in a wood of Crete they bay'd the bear
With hounds of Sparta: never did I hear
Such gallant chiding ; for, besides the groves,
The skies, the fountains, every region near
Seem'd all one mutual cry : I never heard
So musical discord, such sweet thunder." — Shakspeare.

True enough ! While all were listening intently to the multitudi-
nous clamor of the dogs, and the distant cracks of rifles which com-
menced to sound from various portions of the ring suddenly the
large ears, then the tapering head, and then the slender, tawny body
of a panting doe could be seen coming out from behind a little mott
of timber directly ahead. It presented a graceful picture, as it paused
for an instant with startled look, its delicate head uplifted in a ques-
tioning attitude. The sounds of the approaching hounds had roused
her from her -matted, secluded covert. She had :

" Spii ng from her heathery couch in haste,
But ere her fleet career she took.
The dew-drops from her flank she shook ;
A moment gazed adown the dale,
A moment snuffed the tainted gale,
A moment listened to the cry.
That thickened as the chase drew nigh."

" Heavens, what an elegant picture," exclaimed Rose, in admira-
tion. "Shoot quick, young ladies, the wind is from us, and she's
commencing to snuff the breeze, and show alarm."

" I fear from her troubled, wistful look around," softly and breath-
lessly answered Betty, " that she has lost her faw.ns. Listen to that
mournful mother's cry! I am sure of it now. I can't shoot."

" Nonsense, Bet, what sentimentalism ; she's running off," impa-
tiently exclaimed Lydia, as she hastily threw up her rifle, and cracked
away. The startled creature gave one lofty spring, straight up in

THE HUNT DRAWS NEAR STIRRING SCENES. 319

the air; and then cut off to the right, in a series of rapid, springy
bounds.

'' A miss ! a plain miss !" exclaimed Lydia, in extreme mortification.
" As fair a quarry as ever stood to be shot at. Lend me your rifle,
Major, and I'll follow her."

She had not gone fifty }ards before another rifle crack was heard
from the right

" It's Lew Wetzell," cried Betty, excitedly. "Look, look Major,
he's wounded her, and is following on foot. There ! there ! He's
caught her. She's a dead deer. Well, I don't care; never could
shoot at a doe with fawns; besides this is not the season for deer."

"Your tenderness does you credit. Miss Zane," said Rose, "I'm
afraid your example is not much followed in the backwoods.''

" Indeed, it is not. Major. The hunters all have different 'bleats'
for various kinds of weather, and ages of fawns, and they thus allure
the poor does to their fate. I once ' bleated ' a doe, but it looked
so wistful and tenderly that I couldn't shoot. I'm extravagantly
fond of hunting. Major, but I never could and never will take mean
advantage of a mother's love for her young. It's a dastardly trick.
Come, Lyddy, let's get on. The woods are just full of noise, and the
ring's away ahead."

The three now rode on a few hundred yards, and took up a new
position. The deer could frequently be seen in the distance, wildly
careering to and fro, crossing each others' paths, standing for a mo-
ment in confused, terror-stricken clusters, and then, as a new burst
from the dogs would come, bounding wildly off again.

The sport was growing intensely exciting and bewildering. The
crack, crack, crack of the rifles, as the maddened animals would ap-
proach the line or try to break through it ; the shrill war-cry of the
frightened eagle and the loud winnowing of wings; the din and
clamor arising from barks howls and bays from all sorts of dogs ; the
rush and racket in various directions as a fox or wolf would try to
slink past the horses when a wild-cat, or some other '-varmint"
would be treed. All this thrilling tumult and babel of confusion
worked our little party — whose progress alone we dare venture to note
— into a very fever of excitement. The chafing horses could no
longer be restrained.

" Come on ! Come on ! or we'll lose all the fun," cried Lydia, as
she gave her fretting horse the I'eins.

" Hist! hist ! look straight ahead of you, there's a crowd of does,"
said Rose, in a low voice.

They had just mounted a slight eminence. Before them was a
sequestered little dell — a woody dingle, through the centre of which
rippled a slender runlet. Right in the centre a group of trembling
and bewildered deer stood confused and terror-stricken, closely hud-
dled together, snorting and whistling in affright.

*' Does !" rang out the sharp-eyed Betty. " They're mooly bucks
that have shed their horns, and are scarce worth killing at this season.
Poor dappled fools ! Where's all your antlered pride now ?"

" What a shabby-looking lot, Major ! and they feel just as mean
and cowardly as they look. A crowd of bucks about a six months

320 SIMON GIRTY.

hence, would be as dangerous and desperate as a lot of bull buffaloes ;
but now ! pah ! just look how I'll scatter them. As they run, you
two shoot ;" and down upon the affrighted pack, with a clarion-like
whoop and hurra rushed the ardent young Diana, on her too willing
steed. The poor bucks — who, when their horns are cast — crowd
peaceably together, sad and dejected, in the more secluded parts of
the forest — gave one shrill whistle, and were off and away, scurrying
along amid a hazel and paw-paw thicket, with magnificent springs,
revealing their backs and white flags at every leap, " They stood not
upon the order of their going, but went at once." The whole three
rifles flashed almost together.

"I've stung mine," cried Betty, with excitement, " he dropped his
flag at once. Look, now, how it droops as he runs ! Hurra ! hurra !
I'll have him in a jiffey," and after him she goaded her horse into full
speed. ''And I've killed mine," joyfully cried the Major, as he rode
down to where one of the bucks lay quivering in the last agonies of
death, its horny, polished hoofs tearing up the sod. The dew of the
morning was still glittering on his tawny coat. His eyes, soft and
bright, were cast upwards, as if appealingly.

"Not so sure about that. Major," cried Lydia with quickness, a
bright flush on her cheeks, " couldn't miss two shots in one hunt, and
I'm sure I drew bead on that very buck. He started from under that
dog-wood, and I know it's the one, because he had that white spot on
his haunch. I aimed at his flank. Better give up. Major"

" Of course I won't dispute the kill, Miss Lydia, but it's confounded
odd, too, for I'll swear I aimed at the same buck, and I'm considered
no slouch either with a good rifle, and this is Brady's ' spit-fire,' that
I borrowed this morning."

"Yes, Major," laughed the positive and provoking young beauty
" but it wasn't Brady who sighted it, ha ! ha ! ha ! But we'll settle it
at once. You hand me Bess' reins and go examine for yourself."

"Oh, no, I'll yield gracefully," laughed Rose, but in a constrained
sort of manner.

" Not a bit of it," said Lyddy, positively. " If I didn't kill that
deer, I don't want to claim it. Come, sir, please satisfy yourself, and
I'll hold Bess — if I can, for she's dancing about as if she was all nerves,
and 's got an eye as sharp and fierce as a Bald Eagle's."

Rose dismounted, bent closely over the carcass and found a bullet
hole in the flank from which some little blood had issued, and through-
which the fatal hurt had evidently been delivered.

"Well, Major?"

"Well, Miss Boggs," said Rose, bowing gracefully, " I see where
the lead entered. It's right in the flank, and as you say you aimed
there, your shot must have done the mischief."

"That's what your lips say, Major," laughed Lyddy, good humored-
ly, " but your eyes and manner still look as if they doubted it. Now
look about that bullet hole under the hair and see if you can find any
more wounds."

" Well, yes," answered Rose, after carefully brushing up the hair, " I
notice several cuts or scratches and a much smaller hole."

"Just as I thought. Major," said Lyddy, smilingly. "You'll have

THE HUNT DRAWS NEAR — STIRRING SCENES. 32 1

to look somewhere else for ^y^^wr bullet. Better to horse again. The
hounds are getting fearfully near."

"Halloo, here's anof/ier huWet hole in the neck," cried Rose, still
anxious to save his reputation. "May be that's — " He hesitated.

"Yours, you would or ought to say," laughed Lyddy. " Yes, but
that didn't kill the deer, and you'll find no other holes or scratches
about it. Quick, Major, take Bess, or he'll break away from me !
Now what did you load with ?"

" What an odd query, Miss Boggs ; with bullet to be sure."

"Well, Major, the buck's mine," quietly answered Lyddy, as she
touched up her palfrey, "/loaded with a bullet and three buck-shot.
Mark the spot, so we can gather the meat after the hunt ! But where's
Betty all this time? and what huge beast is that I hear clattering up
the run ?"

" Good heavens ! it's Miss Zane's horse, and without her, too ! what
can have happened," cried Rose in alarm, as Betty's horse, riderless
and apparently in great terror, dashed up and past them.

" Oh, Major," cried Lyddy, "something dreadful has happened; I
feel it. Let's hasten !"

The little glade deepened and became wilder as they advanced.
They hurried on ! The valley now became a rocky glen, very much
crowded with a luxuriant growth of matted bushes and choked up
with huge rocks. They had not ridden more than a quarter of a mile
before they saw Betty lying prostrate on the ground, and under a
clump of wild plum trees. Rose put spurs to his horse, dashed up
with all possible speed, and leaped to the ground. The young girl
was leaning on her elbow, her hair dishevelled, a stain of blood upon
her temples, her cheeks all blanched and bloodless, and her eyes
strained forward gazing intently towards some large rocks lying on the
other side of the glen.

" My God, Miss Zane, what has happened ! have you been thrown !
are you much hurt ! Here, take a sip of this !" and Rose offered her
a pocket bottle of whiskey, and stood all in a tremble of anxiety be-
side her.

Betty never removed her eyes from the spot she was gazing at with
a fascinated, spell-bound stare, but raising her finger and pointing in
that direction, her chalky lips parted but could only utter, " There !
Look there !"

Rose was much distressed. He handed the reins of his mare — who
seemed strangely agitated and kept snorting and moving restively
about — to Lyddy, who had now ridden up, and whispered, " Poor
girl ! she's been thrown and I'm afraid is out of her senses. Keep
calm now, Miss Lyddy, and I'll mount her on my mare ! Ho there,
Bess ! stand still ! what in the devil's the matter with you."

" What is that. Major, lying by that rock yonder? There ! there !
right under that laurel thicket." Rose turned and looked, and then
stooped and gazed long and steadily. The big drops gathered on his
brow. His whole form trembled for a moment, not so much for him-
self, but for the poor, defenceless girl lying by his side. He was true
and fearless, but he was no hunter. The sight that met his dazed eyes
would have appalled a more experienced woodsman than himself.
21

322 SIMON GIRTY.

With yellow eyes aflame, his two fore-paws resting on a deer's car-
cass, his whiskered muzzle stained with blood, and his tail slowly shak-
ing to and fro with a sort of trembling, quivering motion, there sat a
huge and ferocious panther. He is now gazing savagely at his unwel-
come visitors, muttering low growls of wrath, and crouching up his
hind legs ready for a spring.

"God help us!" faintly cried Lyddy, almost ready to drop from
her horse in turn ; " its a horrible panther. Oh, Major, what will be-
come of Betty \"

Rose was now beginning to recover his dazed senses. The helpless
situation of the being most dear to him in life, and his own exposure
almost within single leap of the most dangerous beast of the American
wilds, had momentarily unnerved him. He had never before seen a
])anther amid his native fastnesses — much less fought one. He had to
act promptly. It was well for all that the ravenous beast had tasted
blood, and had enough before him to keep him busy.

" I dare not shoot," he hoarsely and rapidly whispered, through his
clenched teeth. " It might only wound and enrage him. Vou must
help me, girl ! Hold the mare still, if you can, close by the head,
while I lift Betty to her back. Keep your rifle cocked and aimed.
He'll growl before the spring. We must then fire together, and God
send us true aim."

Rose hastily patted the mare's neck in a vain attempt to quiet her,
pulled her around in front of the fainting Betty, saw that his knife
was all ready, and leaned his cocked rifle against the saddle. He now
cast a wary glance at the glaring, gleaming eyes of the panther, and
then stooped to lift Betty, who was as limp and limber as any rag.
He had his hands under her arms and was bracing himself for a
mighty eff"ort,, when he heard Lydia's low, startled cry, " God save us !
it's coming. I see it gathering for a spring^ It was lashing its tail and
growling dreadfully. Let us shoot, Major !"

Rose dropped his precious burden on the instant and snatched his
rifle.

'* Shoot ! girl., shoot! aim at the head !"

Crack went Lyddy's piece just as the savage beast was crouching for
the spring. Out he bounded, high into the air, with a frightful, blood-
curdling roar. Rose's bullet took him fair in his white breast just as
he was flying through the ain Dropping his rifle and drawing his knife
he then advanced and stood calm and resolute for the attack.

It was needless. The savage beast uttered a sharp cry of agony and
came down on his side with a thud, roaring, writhing, and tearing up
the grass in a perfect frenzy of pain and rage. He tried, with one last
despairing eff'ort and amid sullen growlings, to make one more leap.
In vain ! His strength was spent and his life sped. His eyes closed,
his powerful limbs stiffened out, and he lay stone dead.

Rose emitted one hard, long-drawn breath, which showed the inten-
sity of his suppressed emotions, and turned to his companions. Betty
had fainted. Lyddy was next thing to it. The mare was standing
stock still, nostrils distended, covered with sweat, and trembling in
every limb.

"Thank God, my brave girl, it's dead and we've killed our first

THE HUNT DRAWS NEAR — STIRRING SCENES. 323

panther. For pity's sake don't fail me now, but let us restore Miss
Zane."

Just at this juncture two loud hurras were heard close by, and up
dashed, on Betty's runaway horse, Lew. Wetzell, his long hair stream-
ing behind him. He had caught the frightened steed as it was dashing
bewildered through the woods, feared some misfortune, and discover-
ing the tracks of the other horses down into the glen, had hurried up
at the two rifle cracks.

When Lew suddenly came upon the scene which we have essayed
so imperfectly to depict, he stood speechless with amazement — the
dead panther, the form of Betty Zane stretched lifeless upon the sod.
Rose kneeling beside it, and Lydia just awakening from her terrible
shock — it all seemed like some horrid dream.

He was awakened by the glad, proud tones of Rose's voice.

*' It looks far worse than it really is, Wetzell, but we've had a pretty
hot time of it. If this hunt can show any nobler game than ours, I
would like to see it. What do you think of that tawny beauty there ?
Won't that pelt make a royal couch? "

" Dog my cats, Major, if I can bottom this ere, nohow," said Wet-
zell, wonderingly, while walking up to the dead panther. " Ham Kerr
and me's hunted this neck o' woods for this 'ere very critter for nigh
two seasons gone, and now comes along a dandy officer, with stripes
adown his trowserloons, and tassels onto his shoulders, but who can't
tell a bar from a buffler, and foregathers him first pop. Ya-a-s," he
continued, meditatively, while taking one broad paw of the panther,
and scanning him all over admiringly, "he is a beauty, and no mis-
take, claw my back with wildcats ef he be'ent. Great Ju-pe-ter, isn't
he a sweet'ner — got teeth like a timber saw, claws like harrow teeth,
and a coat — ^just look at it, 'Major ! it shines and shimmers like a bull tur-
key's breast in the sun, and's as soft as Mrs. Eb. Zane's Sunday satin
gownd. Here's fwo crimson stains. Major, one in head and one in
breast ', ye must have loaded up quicker' n the shake of a deer's tail."

" That head wound," remarked Rose quietly, " is Miss Boggs',
mine" —

" What ! " almost shouted the young scout, as he sprang to his feet,
"is that little Lyddy's doin's? Jehoshaphat, why didn't ye tell that
afore," and striding rapidly up to her as she now sat bathing Betty's
brow — who, just awakened from her faint and rapidly regaining her
color, was sitting supported by a buckeye tree — he doffed his skin
cap, and blurted out :

" Miss Lyddy, I'm tarnation fond of ye, I am. Ye're a regular
clip ; as gritty and gamey as a kotched eagle. Blamed ef Brady him-
self could a made a cleaner hit. 'Twas a center shot, a-a-a" — struggling
to find an expression worthy of the occasion and his profound admi-
ration— " 'Twas a sockdolager of a nine strike, shoot me dead if
'twasn't ! "

" Thank you, Lew," laughed Lyddy, proud of her feat and highly
amused at the enthusiasm of the rough woodsman, " don't wish to
shoot you, or any body, or any thing, after /Aai^game. Think I'll now
retire on my laurels. Where did I strike the horrid beast?"

" Plump between his yaller peepers, Lyddy, and to think that I've

324 SIMON GIRTY.

growed up with ye, since ye were knee high to a duck, and never
knowed the big heart that beat under yer tight little bodice."

"Nonsense, no flattery, Lew; 'twas only an accident. If it had
not been for poor Bet, here, I would have run off like a deer. Ugh !
am too frightened, Major, even to go over and look at the beast.
Like Macbeth 'I'm afraid to think on what I have done, look on't
again I dare not'."

"Waal, how did it all come around, anyway?" queried Wetzell.

" I only know half the story," said Lyddy, " Betty'll have to tell
the rest, if she's able."

" Well," said Betty, with a shudder and closing her eyes as if to
shut out the frightful scene, " when I saw I had badly wounded my
deer, I spurred my horse down the run after it ; I was so excited that I
scarce noted that the glen began to grow deeper, and wider, and rough-
er. The poor buck began to limp badly. I was not far behind when
just as it was slowly passing those rocks there, out bounded that dread-
ful animal with a frightful growl, and fastened on the deer's haunches,
bearing it to the ground. My horse shi^d at the sudden sight and noise.
I became weak and faint, lost my balance, and fell to the earth not more
than ten paces off the spot where the panther was tearing away at the
deer, and drinking his blood. He paused twice and looked at me
with his bloody chops, and gave a low muttering growl, and then
would make a loud, purring sort of noise. What with the shock from
my fall, and the nearness of the monster, I was completely petrified —
couldn't stir hand nor foot, could only gaze at him in a sort of stupor.
I was completely at his mercy, and expected he'd spring upon me
every moment."

"And he would a done it, too, mighty keen and savage," inter-
rupted Wetzell," ef his jaws hadn't been stuffed with afresh kill. You
made an all-fired narrow escape, Miss Zane."

"I know it and feel it, and thank you both from my very heart,"
said Betty earnestly, extending a hand each to Lyddy and Rose.
" When the clatter of your horse's feet were heard, Major, the panther
gave me a savage glare and growl, as if it were I who made the noise,
and then dragged the deer off among those rocks, where you found
them."

" Waal, but about the shooting," said Wetzell, excitedly, "who
killed the painter, and who fired first ? "

" It was I, said the sparrow, with my bow and arrow, and I killed
cock robin," laughed Lyddy, saucily, "You must not be so curious.
Lew. I'll write out the whole story for you. But 1 think we both
fired first, and both killed the 'painter.' I took him on a rest and the
Major on the wing, but bless me what a terrible din and racket those
dogs do keep up. I really believe they're coming down this
hollow."

" How's the hunt coming on, Wetzell?" asked the Major,

" Oh, it's 'bout done, now. Them dogs are only flanking and
skrimmishing on their own hook. Never seed such a powerful grist
o' varmint and feathered critter in all ray born days. It makes a heap
o' differ when yer hunting woods alone and when you've got an army
of men and dogs. They jist turn and rout out everything bigger nor

THE HUNT DRAWS NEAR STIRRING SCENES. 325

a tumble-bug, and the whul timber's jest as full as it can chuck of God-
a-mighty's makings.

" The turkeys trotted it as long as they dared and then gave up
drumsticks and took to wings. The niggers have killed three or four
cats. They came hissing and spitting along, and scurried up trees like
greased lightning, making the bark and splinters fly, I kin tell ye.
Andy Poe's crowd's got one bear, but he's a snorter. He was chased
out of a gum tree — had been stealing honey, the rascal. He came
down a running, broad end first, and wabbled off purty tolerable spry
for this ravine; I 'spect. The dogs, howsumdever, soon brought him
to bay, back up agin a tree, and there he sat on his hunkers for more'n
twenty minutes, cuffing and bowling over the dogs like nine pins.

" Eb. Zane's Scip's had one cur's skin torn into ribbons, and his
bow-legged hound. Beauty, — so called bekase he is so rantankerous
ugly — ^has been scalped and done for, and I'm dog-gonned glad of it,
as he's the most everlasting night-howler in the whul settlement. Oh,
they've jest had stacks and slathers o' fun with foxes, wolves, coon,
possum, deer, and as for rabbits, ginger ! they jest ran into the dogs'
mouths and asked to be chawed up. Why, Major, ye know Black
Pete's half-breed, Tige, that wouldn't streak anything but rabbits
■ — oh, no, what am T thinking of, course _>w^ don't know him, but Miss
Betty there does — well, he just got so all-fired stuck up this day, that
he wouldn't look cross at a rabbit, but nothing would do him but cats,
yes, cats, the onery cross-eyed jerk, but he got catched at last, for he
turned up jest the very wrongest and peskiest sort of a cat, one of
those cologny, rose-scented kind, and — "

"Here comes the dogs; I knew it," interrupted Lydia, ''just lis-
ten ! Mercy on me, what a deafening din ! "

** Yaas, and them dogs are drefful mad, too ; it's no common game
they're after. Best mount yer nags, girls ! Dogs change voice when
they meet a rale varmint. They put on a sharp, eager growl, and
rough up their har like a shellbark hickory. Mebbe it's a bar."

While Rose and the girls were mounting, Wetzell advanced a few
steps in front, his rifle lying in the hollow of his left arm, andwatched
the coming pack.

" Here they come, pell-mell, helter-skelter, higgledy-piggledy, and
devil take the hindermost " — shouted Wetzell excitedly. ''Hullo,
v/hat's that critter scooting it in front ! Eh ! What ! Great guns,
J.Iajor, mind yer eye, I tell you. Here comes a she-painter, as I'm a
living sinner. It's the dead un's mate."

All was now confusion and dismay. Every rifle was empty but
Wetzell's, but he was a host in himself, and stood firm as a rock, and
cool as a cucumber. Rose commenced to load quick as he could, but
was so nervous that his ramrod slipped from Ijis fingers.

The panther came bowling along in front, her eyes on fire ; her sides
panting ; her gaunt body fairly smoking. She was coming at a kill-
ing pace, a great pack of jumping, howling, barking, snapping dogs
close behind her.

As she came abreast of our party, Wetzell caught her blazing eye.
She commenced a quick rush towards him, but seemed to change her
mind, and turned back again into her course. She had suddenly seen

326 SIMON GIRTY.

her mate stretched at full length, stiff and stark, right across her path.
She bounded towards him with a peculiar cry of recognition. She
stood stock still in her tracks, snuffed a moment, pushed his body
with her nose, and then set up a singular howl of distress.

Just at this moment Wetzell drew a bead and shot. The panther
gave a sudden lurch, uttered a sullen growl of pain and wrath,
and with a dangling leg was sneaking off behind the rocks, when the
hounds were on her in a bunch, and leaped forward to the attack.
The noise was fearful ; the struggle fierce and desperate. The pan-
ther sat, with savage mouth distended, upon its haunches, back to the
rock.

Only the most courageous of the dogs rushed in, and they were torn
up and tossed off with dreadful wounds. One angry wipe from her
paw would tumble an adversary to grass bleeding and disabled.
Music, the staunch Irish hound, was the strongest and fiercest of her
assailants. Regardless of peril, he rushed repeatedly at the panther's
throat, and once succeeded in pinning her for a full half minute.

The panther could not reach the dog either by paw or teeth, but
kept closing and clashing its horrid jaws like a fox-trap. With a pow-
erful wrench it broke loose from Music's grip, made a savage dash at
him, and the ^^oor dog fell back with head crunched, and back and
sides frightfully mutilated.

The curs and half breeds made up in noise what they lacked in
pluck. They dared not assault the live beast, but they threw them-
selves with wondrous vigor upon the dead one, and would have torn
it into shreds had not Wetzell, Kenton and other of the scouts who
had come up, whipped and beaten them off.

The dogs were punished so dreadfully that it was high time to close
the desperate combat. Wetzell stepped up to within a few paces, took
deliberate aim and delivered his lead right between the eyes. The
panther leaped high in the air, gave a frightful, savage cry, and fell
back among the dogs, a quivering corpse. They crowded on it in
such numbers and with such incredible ferocity, that it was with the
greatest difficulty the body could be rescued.

The hunt was now fairly over, and with results even beyond what
were expected both as to number and variety. Of deer there were
seventeen, including one huge buck which, with many others, had
broken through the lines and boldly leaped over the high river bluff
into the Ohio. It was pursued by Brady's boat, and made a gallant
struggle for life, being only captured through the skill of Killbuck.

The largest and most important yield of the day, however, was from
"drawino-" the creek swamp, a great refuge for bear. This was the
last spot to be surrounded, and as for hours the bear which had been
put up had naturally taken that direction, the excitement towards the
end of the hunt had been intense. The clamor of guns, dogs and
hunters was prodigious. Many of the single battles with the dogs
were fierce and protracted, but at last all the noble spoil but three,
which had burst through the lines and made good their escape, were
hors (ill combat, counting no less than thirteen. When all the hunters
had been recalled by the horns to a selected spot, and the game, big
and little, had been there collected, a stirring and animated spectacle

A LOVE PASSAGE AND ITS ISSUE. 327

was presented. Huge fires were built ; some of the bear and deer were
skinned and barbecued, while the choicer parts were spitted on wooden
stakes, and there was one universal scene of sizzling, dripping broils,
the air being fragrant with savory odors. The rabbits, possums, etc.,
which had been too much mutilated were thrown to the dogs, that wer^
as busy and noisy as their masters.

This woodland feast continued for hours and was followed at the
settlement in the evening by shooting matches for the largest speci-
mens of the game. Altogether it was a day frequent enough in those
old pioneer times, but which could scarcely find a parallel in these
modern days.

CHAPTER LXXXI.

A LOVE PASSAGE AND ITS ISSUE.

It would have been difficult for one who now saw them together for
the first time, to decide whether Lydia Boggs or Betty Zane occupied
most of Major Rose's thoughts. He was oftenest with the former —
used to take forest rambles and make cave excursions, or scour the
beech wood on long, mad rides with her, Lydia mounted on Black
Bess and he on Liverpool. Her dash, spirit and abandon charmed
him, and he seemed never to tire of her free joyous laugh, or her odd
and self-willed ways.

But a close observer would occasionally note a distraction of
thought in Rose. When with Lydia he merely passed the time ; but
with Betty, he thought and felt more. He was less at his ease, but
more to his liking. His occasional anxious looks, fits of moodiness
and embarrassed expressions betrayed the lover, but not the accepted
lover. He was on insecure footing. You could discern it in his voice,
his looks, his manners. Her behaviour to him was too wayward
and capricious to give him assurance. At times he was assured by her
frankness and gaiety; then repelled by her indifference. He was
plainly on tenter hooks with her; would aspire to climb, but that he
feared to fall; would speak the words to decide his fate, but dreaded
the result. Even this varying suspense was better than a cruel reverse.
She had ever been kind, gentle, and amiable, it is true; but then
again there was a something so frank, so unconstrained, and so un-
embarrassed in all her conduct towards him that he feared — he could
not help it. He knew he possessed her respect, her esteem, her grate-
ful friendship; he wanted more, but watched in vain for those infalli-
ble signs by which lovers detect, or think they do, a tenderer feeling.

If she loved him, such was his conclusion, she was a most artful
adept at concealing her real feelings. There were many painful pauses
and embarrassments in their conversation. He was moody, nervous,
melancholy; she, unusually — we may say — unnecessarily gay and
rattling, cunningly avoiding all dangerous subjects, and seemingly
anxious to steer clear of all conversational traps and pitfalls.

The evening before his departure, they were seated on a moss-

328 SIMON GIRTY.

covered log, and the conversation gradually drifted around to the
coming expedition, and then to his parting on the morning.

" Oh, but you'll be back again to see us soon, won't you, major?
You've made so many friends here; and .Lydia, and Drusilla, and —
and all we prisoners feel so grateful for your attentions and services."

Major Rose was silent for a moment, and commenced nervously
twitching up the grass with his foot. ''Shall I speak and end this
cruel suspense?" was the query he was trying to answer. With a great
gulp he managed to stammer out :

"No — no. I don't think I'll be back, unless — unless Miss Zane
wishes it especially."

She looked frightened. It was coming now.

"Miss Zane," she answered pleasantly, "will always be glad to see
Major Rose — she has reason to-be ever grateful to him."

He cast a quick, eager glance at his companion, and said softly, but
earnestly,

"Miss Betty, gratitude is a cold, dutiful sort of a feeling. I would
have something warmer, from the heart. You ought to know it by
this time. You must have seen — have Lit that my feelings for you
are far more than those of mere friendship."

He watched her keenly, anxiously. Her face was cast down, a
vivid blush mantling her cheeks. At last she said, in a low but kind
voice :

" Major Rose, I will not affect to misunderstand you, I have seen
that you entertained very warm feelings towards me — far warmer than
I deserved ; yes, than I — than I — why should I not speak frankly at
this hour ? — than I wished. You must have seen that I have not en-
couraged them."

" I have and I have not, Miss Zane," said the major, ruefully. "At
times I've thought you had a warm regard for me, and then again it
seemed as if you would avoid me."

*' Not avoid, major ; don't say that, please. I was anxious, though,
that you should not be disappointed, that — well I can't say more with
due maidenly modesty."

"You know, Miss Zane, that I'm a foreigner; that — that — you
may have heard how I came to be General Irvine's aide, and may
look upon me as one who dare not take his own name, or reveal his
origin or connections — in a word, as an adventurer. I assure you '*

" Entirely needless, major. You have the bearing, the manners,
and the conduct of a gentleman, and so think all who know you. I
do, of course, believe that John Rose is not a foreign but an assumed
name, and that there is some strange mystery about you ; but, believe
me, I have never desired to pry into your affairs — have neither the
right nor the curiosity."

"And yet, Miss Zane, it is proper that I should say frankly to you
— not as any motive to a change of feeling, but simply as a duty to
one whom I esteem so highly — that my name is not John Rose, that
my family is one of the very best in Europe, that I am a person of
high rank, and "

"Major," interrupted Betty, kindly, "these revelations are of your
own making. I shall keep your secret, but my esteem for you is based

A LOVE PASSAGE AND ITS ISSUE. 329

on what I know and have seen and heard of you. If you were a
prince in disguise, it would neither debase nor elevate you in my re-
gard."

** You have several times, Miss Zane, alluded to certain fits of
glooni and abstraction under which I have the misfortune to labor,
and have, pleasantly, to be sure, warned me that I was making life un-
happy for myself and for those whom "

"I beg, major, that you will not say more on this score. It was
only on your own account that I ever ventured to allude to this. I
supposed, of course, they had connection with your mystery, and "

'*0h, they have, they have, indeed, my friend," pleaded Rose,
feelingly. *' I am an innocent sufferer. I am not only an exile from
ray country, my friends and my dear family, but I am a shedder of
blood. I have killed an adversary in a duel. I am a tender-hearted
man, probably a weak and foolish one. Miss Zane, and although this
duel was forced upon me, not in my own interest, or to protect my
own honor, but in behalf of a revered uncle who was too old and
feeble to resent a gross insult, yet still. Miss Zane, there's blood on
my skirts. I feel it. It has weighed on me like an incubus. It haunts
me day and night, and at times 1 am wretched indeed. Have pity on
me."

Rose had risen abruptly, and was pacing to and fro before the
astonished girl in great agitation, and with tears welling from his eyes.

Betty was so amazed at this violent outbreak that she could not
utter a word. At last she said, softly and sympathetically :

"Major, you are — I am — this is indeed painful and unexpected. I
had no idea — I am at a loss what to say, or how to console. Believe
me "

" It is over, Miss Betty. I have been simple and childish. Pardon
me, and do me the justice to believe that I did not mention all this
with any desire or expectation of changing your leelings. It was just
forced out of me. It is so hard to love another, and not to be loved
in return — to think that I am compelled to the unwelcome duty of
appearing under false colors and with a feigned name, that — that — I
thought — but no matter what I thought. The dream is over. My
hopes are crushed. The blow is a hard one on me, and yet I am
bound in truth and hpnor to say that it is not entirely unexpected.
You have treated me fairly — have never deceived me. There is only
one thing more I would beg of you."

" My dear friend," said Betty, quickly and heartily, so relieved
now that all was thoroughly understood between them, and that she
could keep her place in his highest esteem, "anything you can
ask and that I can in reason grant, be assured that I will grant it; and
as for what you have been pleased to tell me to-night, I shall keep it
inviolably sacred, secret as the grave."

" Thanks, Miss Betty ; my query is this. I have sometimes thought
that your affections were not your own to bestow, that you were "

"Major," interrupted Betty, quickly and haughtily, "this is truly
unkind — more, it is "

" Nay, now Miss Zane, you must hear me through. It is not unkind,
but it would be a very, very dear consolation for me to know that

33° SIMON GIRTY.

this resolve of yours is not on account of my own unworthiness ; that
if your heart were free to give, I might have possessed it. I will not
ask you to speak one word, but will take your silence as an intimation
that I might have won your heart under other, under more favorable
circumstances."

A most embarrassing silence ensued. The test to which Betty was
exposed could not be avoided without painful explanations. She sat
with her eyes cast down for a few moments, a blush of scarlet suffusing
her whole face and neck. At last she said, in low tones :

^' Had we not better rejoin our friends?"

Major Rose walked silently by her side, tried hard to talk on various
subjects, excused himself from entering Colonel Zane's house, and
bade her, with her hand to his lips and in a whirlwind of suppressed
emotion, farewell forever.

CHAPTER LXXXII.

A GRAND BORDER MUSTER AND BATTLE.

At the first break of dawn quite a numerous party started up the
river for Mingo Bottom, the general rendezvous and starting point of
the Sandusky expedition.

The Yellow Creek scouts, headed by Andy Poe, came first, followed
by Major Rose, mounted on his fine mare which Lydia Boggs had
steadily declined to accept ; Simon Kenton, alias Butler, on his way
back east, to verify the wonderful news brought him by Brady ; and
lastly, Jonathan Zane, who was to act as guide to the expedition. A
small body of Wheeling scouts brought up the rear.

On arriving at " Mingo ford," they found that most of the volun-
teers had already crossed the river, and were encamped on Mingo Bot-
tom, a rich and extensive plateau on the Ohio, a scant three miles
below the present city of Steubenville. It was a very lively and excit-
ing scene which there greeted the eyes of our party. An election for
the position of the commandant was just then going on, Colonel Wm.
Crawford, from the Youghiogheny, beating Colonel David Williamson,
the notorious leader of the Moravian forces and massacre, by five votes.
Major Rose and Dr. Knight were to serve respectively as aide to Craw-
ford, and as surgeon to the force — both having been detailed, by Gen-
eral Irvine, of Fort Pitt, for that purpose.

The rest of the day was spent in idling or preparations for the mor-
row. The Half King's home on the Sandusky, distant about one
hundred and seventy miles, was the object of the expedition. It was
thought the trip could be made in seven days, and that the savages,
by means of the great secrecy which had been maintained, would be
taken completely by surprise. Fatal mistakes, both !

The formidable cavalcade, numbering no less than four hundred
and eighty men — the very flower of the border, and mounted on the
best and fleetest horses — moved early the next morning over the river
bluff, and were immediately enshrouded in the vast wilderness. The
fourth evening they encamped amid the desert ruins of New Schoen-

A GRAND BORDER MUSTER AND BATTLE. 331

brunnen, the upper village of the Moravians, feeding their horses from
the ungathered crops of the previous year.

Here they routed up and pursued two savages, who, however es-
caped. All hope of secrecy was now abandoned, and nothing remained
but to press on with all possible vigor. Five days later they reached
the Sandusky near the present town of Crestline. Not an Indian seen
since leaving the Muskingum ! Was this a propitious or an ominous
sign ?

Soon after, according to the statements of Zane and Slover, the
two guides, they were approaching the Wyandotte town, but strange
that no signs of Indian occupation could be seen. Further on an
opening in the woods is discovered. It is the town they seek. The
horses are spurred into a rapid trot.

To the utter amazement and consternation of all, every hut was
found deserted ; nothing but a dreary solitude all around. The guides
looked at the leaders with blank dismay in their faces. They had not
the faintest suspicion that the year before the Half King had moved
his town some eight miles lower down the Sandusky.

A halt was called at once, and a council of officers anxiously delib-
erated over the perplexing situation. It was the opinion of both Zane
and Crawford that a return to the Ohio should be immediately made,
as the absence of Indians and other suspicious signs made it high-
ly probable that the savages were withdrawing before them and con-
centrating their forces. It was finally concluded that the force should
move forward that day, but no longer.

The company of light horse rushed rapidly forward, and soon reach-
ed a beautiful woody island in the midst of a prairie which seemed to
invite them out of the fierce heats of the June sun. They pause and
rest, but finally strike out again into the open.

All at once they suddenly came in view of the enemy running direct-
ly towards them. Aha ! Shaken up at last ! Listen to those yells
and whoops ! The skulking copperheads ! A fleet horseman flies
to the rear to apprise Crawford, and all at once is bustle and
animation.

We may explain here what not a single soul of that expedition then
knew. Instead of their movement being kept secret, it was closely
watched by a sleepless foe from the very first moment of its inception.
Ever since the Gnadenhutten massacre, watchful Indian spies had
been kept all along the border. The news of the present movement
had been carried by fleet runners to the various allied tribes; and
their towns were working like hives of angry bees.

Not, however, until the Muskingum was passed, could the savages
determine where the dread blow was to fall. Runners were then at
once despatched to Detroit for immediate aid. The tocsin of alarm
was sounded in all the towns of the Shawnees on Mad River, the Dela-
wares on the Tymochtee, and the Hurons on the Sandusky. The
squaws and children were quickly hurried to a safe place of retreat,
and all the braves commenced to paint and plume for the war path.

It was, then, the combined Delaware force of Pipe and Wingenund,
amounting to two hundred, that Crawford's videttes had encountered.
These were just waiting for four hundred Wyandottes, under their

332 SIMON GIRTY.

great war-chief, Shaus-sho-toh. Together they already outnumbered
Crawford's troops, but this was by no means the whole.

The news of the discovery of redskins was received by the grumb-
ling Americans with the most lively satisfaction. They leaped to
their horses, hurriedly looked to their weapons, rapidly fell into line
and spurred briskly forward.

Now the superior genius of Major John Rose first began to exhibit
itself. As the opposing forces drew near to the dread conflict, his
keen, dark eyes flashed with excitement ; his demeanor was calm, cool
and confident. As he scoured along on hi« blooded rnare from point
to point, carrying the orders of the commander, his intrepidity and
fine martial appearance attracted all eyes and won all hearts.

The foe was now seen directly in front, taking possession of the
grove on the prairie so lately abandoned by the light horse. A quick
forward movement attended with hot, rapid firing soon drove the
enemy out again into the open. The savages then attempted to occu-
py a skirt of woods on the right flank, but were at once prevented by
Major Leet's command.

The renegade. Captain Elliott, who now made his appearance as
commander-in-chief, ordered The Pipe and his Delawares to flank
to the right, and attack Crawford in the rear. This manoeuvre was
executed boldly and skillfully, nearly proving fatal to the Americans.

The action now became general, and the firing was hot, close and
continued, but the Americans maintained their position. The enemy
skulked much behind the tall grass, and could only be picked off" by
sharpshooting. Big Captain Johnny, a huge Indian chief, nearly
seven feet high, and of frightful ugliness, was very conspicuous in this
struggle ; so, also, was Simon Girty, who, seated on a white horse of
powerful stride, could both be seen and heard in different parts of the
field, cheering his Indians to the encounter.

At dark the enemy's fire slackened, and Crawford's force was much
encouraged. They did not, until long afterwards, know that their
safety lay in forcing the fight, Elliott's and Girty's in delay.

At length the foe drew off for the night, leaving Crawford in posses-
sion of the grove about which the battle had raged, and known in
history as "Battle Island." The day had been sultry, and the vol-
unteers suffered dreadfully from thirst. No prisoners were taken on
either side, but quite a number of the Americans had been killed or
wounded.

Both parties lay on their arms the whole night, kindling large fires
in front, and then retiring some distance to the rear, in order to pre-
vent night surprises.

Early the next day the battle was renewed, but only at long shot,
and so continued during the whole day, but Crawford's position was
plainly growing worse, and more untenable each hour, while that of
the enemy was just contrariwise. Crawford wished to compel closer
and more decisive fighting, but his men were exhausted by the heat and
thirst, or sickened by bad water, and it was finally concluded to lay
by and then attempt a night attack.

A RETREAT AND A BATTLE — CRAWFORD MISSING. 333

CHAPTER LXXXIII.

A RETREAT AND A BATTLE — CRAWFORD MISSING.

A wonderful and disastrous change, however, soon set in. Then
confidence soon turned to doubt, and doubt to dismay. Towards
evening an outlying sentinel discovered a troop of horse approaching
on a brisk trot in the direction of the Wyandottes.

They were Butler's British Rangers, and we now know, were from
Detroit, although none of Crawford's men knew then, if they did ever,
where they were from. That British aid could come from Detroit, or
from any other point, was never so much as dreamed of by any. It
was now supposed they must have descended from Maumee or San-
dusky Bay,

The tidings came to the Americans with startling and stunning
force. A council of war was called at once. Even while they were de-
liberating, a large reinforcement of Shawnees from Mad River, about
two hundred strong, was observed moving along in full view on their
flank, and taking position with the Delawares, so that the trail our
scouts followed ran along between two hostile camps. All over the
prairie, too, small squads of the enemy could be seen pouring in from
various directions.

Matters began to look desperate. British cavalry, with a cloud of
yelling savages, on one side, and a strong force of Shawnees on the
other. They were clearly outnumbered, two to one, and every hour
was adding to their inferiority.

A retreat that night was instantly and unanimously resolved upon.
It was to commence at nine o'clock, in four divisions. The dead were
hastily buried, and litters were prepared for the dangerously wounded.
Meanwhile the desultory firing was continued. The loud, hoarse
voice of Girty was frequently heard in various directions directing and
locating his different forces, and it became at once patent to the very
dullest comprehension that he was preparing for an overwhelming and
irresistible attack the next day.

At dark the outposts were withdrawn as quietly as possible, and
the whole body was put in motion. Unfortunately the enemy early
discovered the movement, and at once opened a hot fire. Many
became panicky, and the retreat grew confused and precipitate.

It is a delicate matter for even trained veterans to retire in face of a
superior and victorious army. With raw volunteers an orderly with-
drawal is almost impossible. Great wonder, dark as was the night,
that this hasty retreat did not degenerate into an utter rout ; but,
thanks to the officers, some order was preserved.

A great blessing was it that the enemy was also in confusion and some
alarm. They were not so sure that a retreat was intended, and were
fearful of a feint or night attack, a style of fighting that redmen never
indulge in if it is possible to avoid.

Unfortunately a number of horses now became hopelessly bogged in
a swamp, and had to be abandoned. The rear suffered severely,
while many parties became detached from the main body and straggled

334 SIMON GIRTY.

off, blindly groping their way through the black, tangled woods.
Only about three hundred were found together next morning.

The unpleasant discovery was now made that Colonel Crawford, the
commander, was missing, with his son, son-in-law and nephew ; also
Slover, the guide, and Dr. Knight, the surgeon. None had heard of
them, and knew not whether killed, wounded or straggling. Colonel
Williamson now took command and aided constantly and most effi-
ciently by Major Rose, strove to bring order out of confusion.

It would require a volume to relate the various adventures and vi-
cissitudes, or the sad and cruel fate that befell individuals and groups
of stragglers. Some of them are intensely exciting and interesting.
We can only follow the main body, which marched steadily and rap-
idly along all that day. The British cavalry and a body of mounted
Indians hovered in their rear, but did little damage.

That afternoon, as they were nearing the woods which bounded the
Sandusky Plains on the east, the enemy began to press hard on their
rear, and undertook a rapid flank movement on either side, with the
design of cutting off all retreat, or of forcing a disastrous combat on
the plain, before the shelter of the woods could be secured.

Our resolute little force was driven to bay just at the entrance of the
forest, and doggedly faced about, their pursuers — all mounted but with
no artillery — overlapping them on both sides, and painfully superior
both in number and equipments.

Williamson and Rose exerted themselves to the utmost to organize
a spirited and efficient defence. The latter, especially, flew from rank
to rank, cheering and encouraging all by his skill, his coolness and his
intrepidity. " It is not too much to say," wrote Butterfield in his
admirable and exhaustive account of Crawford's Expedition, "that
the undaunted young foreigner was the good angel of the American
forces." " Stand to your ranks, boys," were his inspiring words
sounding along the lines; ''stand to your ranks, take steady aim, fire
low, and don't throw away a single shot. Remember ! every thing
depends upon your steadiness."

The enemy attacked vigorously in front, flank and rear, but in less
than an hour were forced to give way, and were driven off at every
point.

The battle over, a driving storm swept along with unusual fury,
wetting all the arms and drenching the troops to the skin. They con-
tinued the retreat, the enemy rallying their scattered force and follow-
ing hard after.

Their firing became at last so galling that a complete panic would
have resulted had it not been for the almost superhuman efforts of
Major Rose, who enjoined upon the wavering lines that they must
keep rank or not a soul of them would ever reach home. Order
was at length restored, every now and then the front company filing
to the left and taking position in the rear, thus giving each company
its turn in covering the retreat.

Next morning, however, the enemy reappeared and hung for a
while in the rear, capturing and tomahawking two of the scouts ; but
just then, fortunately, the pursuit was abandoned. The last hostile
shot was fired near where Crestline, O., now stands. Neither savage

COLONEL CRAWFORD S CAPTURE AND ADVENTURES. 335

nor ranger was afterwards seen during the retreat ; but many stragglers
found their way back to the lines, and were received with welcome
hurrahs.

The Muskingum was recrossed on the loth, and Mingo Bottom was
reached on the 13th, where some of the missing had arrived before
them. They immediately recrossed the Ohio and dispersed to their
several homes. Parties or single stragglers came in for days afterwards.
The total loss in killed, wounded and missing, it has since been dis-
covered, was less than seventy.

Col. Williamson, in his official report to General Irvine at Fort
Pitt, writes thus of his aid, the gallant Major Rose : " I must ac-
knowledge myself ever obliged to Major Rose for his assistance, both
in the field of action and in the camp. His character is inestimable,
and his bravery cannot be outdone."

Gen. Irvine, too, in his letter to Crawford's widow, says : " After
the defeat, Williamson and others informed me that it was owing, in
a great degree, to the bravery and good conduct of Major Rose that
the retreat was so well effected."

Thus ended this twenty days campaign in the western wilds. The
total failure of the expedition created incredible alarm and dismay
along the whole border, which was now left more defenceless than ever,
and for months after exposed to merciless marauds and scalping forays.

CHAPTER LXXXIV.
COLONEL Crawford's capture and adventures.

And where all this time was Colonel Wm. Crawford, the courteous
gentleman, the brave and gallant partisan officer, the daring defender
of the west, and the trusted, life-long friend of Washington.

Dr. Knight, in his thrilling account of his own escape, says he had
not gone over a quarter of a mile in the general retreat before he heard
Crawford calling out of the dark and confusion for his son, John ; his
nephew, William ; his son-in-law, Major Harrison, and on his friend,
Major Rose. Knight told him he thought they were all in front, and
promised to stand by him. They both waited and called for the ab-
sent men until all the troops had passed, when the Colonel said his
horse had given out, and he wished some of his best friends to stay by
him.

By this time they were near the marsh, where they saw some volun-
teers vainly struggling to disengage their horses from the oozy bog.
Crawford, Knight, and two others, now changed their route to the
north for a couple of miles, and then east, directing their course by
the north star.

They traveled all night, crossing the Sandusky. By daylight Craw-
ford's horse gave out and was abandoned. That afternoon they fell
in with Captain Briggs and Lieutenant Ashley — the latter severely
wounded — and went into camp. The next day they were quietly

;^;^6 SIMON GIRTY.

threading their way through the matted woods, when several Indians
started up within a few feet of Knight and Crawford.

As only three were at first discerned, Knight sprang behind a black
oak and was taking aim when the Colonel called twice to him not to
fire. One of the savages then ran up and struck Crawford's hand, and
another, whom Knight had formerly often seen, ran up to him, calling
him doctor.

The party had fallen into an ambuscade of Delawares, Wingenund's
camp being only a half mile off. Capt. Briggs had fired at the Indians
and missed; but all succeeded, for the present, in escaping but Knight
and Crawford, who were taken to the Indian camp. The scalps of
Briggs and Ashley were brought in soon after.

As may well be supposed, the rejoicings of the savages at their late de-
cisive victory had been immense. The allied forces retired to the Half-
King's town to celebrate the triumph with all sorts of dances, orgies
and ceremonies. The British horse were compelled to retire to Detroit
immediately, but the Indian women and children came out from
their hiding places, and the festivities were kept up for some time.
Among the spoils were numerous horses, guns, saddles, lashing ropes,
etc.

The first excitement over, a runner was sent to bring Crawford and
Knight on to Pipe's town on the Tymochtee. Their doom was already
sealed but they were kept in total ignorance of their fate. As before
stated, the burning and torture of prisoners was an obsolete custom
among the Wyandottes, and the Delawares did not dare to so put them
to death without permission from Pomoacan.

To obtain this the crafty Pipe resorted to a ruse. A runner, with
a belt of wampum was despatched to the Half King, with a message
to the effect that they had a cherished project to accomplish and did
not wish him to interfere, and that they would consider the return of
the wampum as equivalent to his pledged word.

The Half King was puzzled. He narrowly questioned the messen-
ger, who feigned ignorance. Final) v, supposing it must be some war
expedition against the border which the Delawares wished to under-
take, he returned the belt to the rxiessenger with these words : " Say
to my nephews they have my pledge !"

This was poor Crawford's death warrant. On June loth he and
Knight, with nine other prisoners, were all marched off on the trail
to the Half King's town. Crawford had been told that Simon Girty
— who had scarcely reached Detroit with the Malott family before
news of Crawford s expedition and Pomoacan's earnest appeal for im-
mediate aid summoned him away again — was at the Half King's
town. Girty was an old acquaintance of Crawford — some say a re-
jected suitor of one of his daughters — and at the latter's appeal he was
conducted under charge of two warriors to interview the Renegade.
The rest continued on.

Crawford saw Girty that night ; very little is known of the confer-
ence, but a Christian Indian, Tom Galloway by name, asserts that he
heard the whole talk, and that Crawford had made to Girty an ear-
nest appeal for his life, offering him a thousand dollars if he succeeded ;
and that Girty promised he would do all he could for him.

COLONEL CRAWFORD S CAPTURE AND ADVENTURES. 337

This being reported to Pipe and Wingenund only made them more
determined on his speedy death.

Girty also told the colonel that Major Harrison, his son-in law, and
young William Crawford, his nephew, were prisoners to the Shawnese,
but had been pardoned by them. True as to their capture, but false
as to their pardon. The prisoners at the Half King's town, soon after
Crawford's departure, were tomahawked and their heads stuck upon
poles. It is certain they were not tortured to death.

Knight and his fellow prisoners meanwhile had been taken on to
Old Town, and securely guarded during the night. Next day Pipe
and Wingenund approached them, the former with his own hands
painting all their faces black, a sure sign of intended death. Craw-
ford soon after came up, and now saw the two redoubtable Delaware
war-chiefs for the first time. They both came forward and greeted
him as an old acquaintance. Pipe telling him in his blandest and oili-
est manner that he would have him shaved (adopted), but at the same
time he. paitited him black !

The whole party now started for Pomoacan's town, the two chiefs
keeping Knight and Crawford in the rear. They soon had the inex-
pressible horror of seeing, at intervals of a half mile apart, the dead,
scalped bodies of four of their fellow prisoners. To add to their hor-
ror and dismay, they now diverged off into a trail, leading from
Pomoacan's hut directly to Pipe's town. Their very last hope now
died in their sad hearts.

On the little Tymochtee, where there was an Indian hamlet, they
overtook the other five prisoners, and all were ordered to sit on the
ground. Here a lot of squaws and children fell on the five prisoners
with incredible fury, and tomahawked and scalped them all. One
hideous old hag cut off the head of John McKinty, and kicked it about
over the grass. The boys came up to where the horror-stricken
Knight and Crawford were sitting apart, and frequently dashed the
gory and reeking scalps into their very faces.

Again they were driven forward, and were soon met by Simon
Girty and several prominent Indians, all mounted. Girty well know-
ing what fate had been decided for Crawford, had ridden across the
plains to Pipe's town — let us hope to save him, if possible.

Those who contend that Girty was nothing iDut a wild beast, assert
that he never interfered or intended to interfere; that he not only
consented to Crawford's death, but took a fiendish delight in witness-
ing it. Others, having quite as good means of information, strongly
assert that he did all he could for Crawford, but that that was not
much.

The Del awares were obstinately bent on making the " Big Captain,"
as they styled Crawford, a victim and an example. The late horrible
massacre of so many of their tribe on the Muskingum had rendered
them absolutely envenomed and pitiless, and it is probable that no
one — not even Pomoacan himself — could have saved Crawford.
Girty was an adopted Wyandotte, and any strong or persevering effort
on his part to defraud the zealous and infuriated Delawares of their
revenge would not only have subjected him to insult, but to personal
injury.

338 SIMON GIRTY.

Joseph McCutcheon, in an article on Girty in the American Pioneer^
asserts that he gathered from the Wyandottes themselves that Girty
offered a large sum of money to Pipe for Crawford, which the chief
received as a great insult, promptly replying :

" Sir, do you think I am a squaw ? If you say one word more on
the subject, I will make a stake for you and burn you along with the
White Chief."

Girty, knowing the Indian character, retired in silence.

McCutcheon also asserts that Girty had sent runners to Mohican
Creek and Lower Sandusky, where there were some white traders, to
come immediately and buy Crawford off. The traders came but were
too late, Crawford being then in the midst of his tortures.

Be all this as it may, if any efforts were made in Crawford's behalf,
they were totally ineffectual. As the two prisoners moved along al-
most every Indian they met struck them with their fists or with sticks.
Girty asked Knight if he was the doctor ; Knight said yes, and extend-
ed his hand ; upon which Girty called him a rascal and bid him

begone, and afterwards told him he was to go to the Shawneese towns.

CHAPTER LXXXV.
COL. Crawford's awful tortures.

We now approach the sad end of this mournful, cruel tragedy. The
other prisoners were dispatched promptly and without ceremony, but
for the "Big Captain" a more dreadful, appalling fate was reserved.
All the devilish and excruciating tortures which ever entered into
savage head to conceive were to be visited on the distinguished leader
of the ill-starred expedition.

Almost within sight of Pipe's Town, and amid a yelling, infuriated
crowd of over a hundred braves, squaws and boys, a huge fire was
kindled. It was late on the afternoon of Tuesday, June nth, 1782.
There were the two Delaware war chiefs, Pipe and Wingenund ;
Simon Girty and Captain Elliott, in the uniform of a British officer,
stood near. Dr. Knight was also a horrified and unwilling spectator
of the awful scene.

He and Crawford, stripped entirely naked and painted black, were
first ordered to sit down, when all at once the savages fell upon them
and belabored them most unmercifully.

Meanwhile a long stake had been firmly planted, to which the poor
colonel was fastened by a rope just long enough to allow him to either
sit down or take two or three turns around.

The wretched victim seeing all these awful preparations and the scowl-
ing distorted visages of the yelling and leaping demons about him,
called to Girty, and asked if the savages intended burning him. Girty
answered " yes," to which Crawford said he would strive to bear it all
with fortitude. Pipe, who of all present, seemed the most savage and
implacable, made one of his awfiil, stirring harangues, exciting his
motley audience to a perfect fury.

COL. CRAWFORD S AWFUL TORTURES. 339

Heckewelder, the Moravian missionary, relates that when Wingenund
afterwards came to Detroit, he was severely censured for not saving
the life of his old acquaintance. Col. Crawford. He listened calmly,
and then said to Heckewelder :

"These men talk like fools," and then turning to his accusers, he
said, in English: " If King George himself had been on the spot with
all his ships laden with treasures, he could not have ransomed my
friend, nor saved his life from the rage of a justly exasperated multi-
tude."

He never after would allude to the torture, but was full of grief, and
felt greatly hurt at those who censured him ; for he contended that the
Gnadenhutten massacre was a wanton and most atrocious insult to his
nation, and that the blood of those innocent Christians, so inhumanly
butchered, called aloud for vengeance.

Another circumstance Heckewelder asserts was much against the
prisoner. It was reported that the Indian spies, on examining the
camp at Mingo Bottom, after the expedition left, found on the peeled
trees these words, written with coal :

** No quarters to be given to an Indian, whether man, woman, or
child ! "

If such rumors were circulated among the savages, they must have
been done for effect, or were after-thoughts designed to excuse these
atrocious tortures. There is not a tittle of evidence going to prove
any such ferocious bravado, although doubtless a large proportion of
the volunteers were the same Indian haters who were out on the Wil-
liamson raid.

Heckewelder also gives a highly interesting account of a conversa-
tion alleged to have occurred just before the commencement of the
tortures, between Wingenund and Crawford, in which the former
solemnly asserted that by Crawford's making himself an accomplice of
the execrable miscreant Williamson, it was out of his power or that of
any of his friends to save him.

Upon Crawford's most solemn assurance that both he and all good
men not only condemned that atrocious slaughter, but that he was put
at the head of this expedition expressly to prevent any excesses of that
kind, and that it was not undertaken, as the Indians asserted, against
the remnant of the Christian Indians, but for a purely military pur-
pose, the chief said the Indians could not be made to believe such a
story, but that if Williamson had been taken, he (Wingenund) and his
friends might have effected something; but since that savage murderer
had run off, no man would dare to interfere; that the blood of the
slaughtered, the relatives of those massacred, and that the whole
nation cried aloud for revenge.

Heckewelder thus concludes: "I have been assured by respectable
Indians that at the close of this conversation, which was related to me
by Wingenund, as well as by others, both he and Crawford burst into
a flood of tears ; they then took an affectionate leave of each other,
and the chief immediately hid himself in the bushes, as the Indians ex-
press it, or retired to a solitary spot. He never afterwards spoke of
his unfortunate friend without strong emotions of grief, which I have
several times witnessed."

340 SIMON GIRTV.

Whether this conversation actually occurred ; whether it was the
coinage of Heckewelder or of Wingenund — and each presumption has
its adherents — must, at this late day, be left entirely to conjecture and
the probabilities of the case. Certain it is, the cruel tortures went
on.

The men now took up their guns and shot powder into Crawford's
naked body, from his feet up to his neck, to the number of full seventy
loads. They then crowded in on him, and must have cut off his ears,
since Dr. Knight saw the blood running in streams from both sides of
his head.

The circle of fire arose from small hickory poles, and was placed
several yards from the stake, so that the poor sufferer had not, like the
blessed martyrs of old, the consolation of a speedy, if a horrible death,
but by a hellish refinement of cruelty his tortures were designedly pro-
longed. It would not serve the purpose of these incarnate fiends to
have the victim become too soon insensate ; they must gall and sting,
beat and harass, rack and worry him by slow instalments.

Happy was the savage who could wreak upon the wretched sufferer
one pang or agony more exquisite or excruciating than the last ! who
could wring from his poor humanity a more profound groan, or who
could give his shrinking nerves or quivering flesh one added tor-
ment.

As Crawford began his weary rounds about the post, the yelling
fiends would take up the blazing fagots and apply them to his shrink-
ing, powder-scratched body. The squaws, more pitiless, if possible,
than the men, gathered up the glowing embers on broad peelings of
bark and cast them over his trembling body.

Oh, it was horrible — most horrible. No escape from these merciless
devils ; their leering, hideous faces presented on all sides, and very
soon the writhing martyr walked solely on a bed of scorching coals.

In the very midst of these awful orgies, Crawford called upon Girty
again and again to shoot him and end his misery. Girty, it is said,
replied he had no gun. He would not have dared to shoot even had
he been so disposed. He soon after came up to Knight, and bade him
prepare for the same death. He then observed that the prisoners had
told him that if he were captured by the Americans they would not
hurt him. He did not believe it, but was anxious to know the doc-
tor's opinion of the subject. He at the same time railed against
Colonel John Gibson, of Fort Pitt, l.s one of his most hated enemies,
and much more to the same purpose.

The unhappy doctor was so distressed at the poignant and excruci-
ating torments inflicted right before his very eyes upon his friend,
and by the near prospect of a similar awful fate, that, he says in his
" Narrative," he scarcely heard, much less answered.

Crawford was now nearly exhausted by his long-continued sufferings.
His flesh was becoming callous, his nerves dulled by excess of pain.
He bore all with heroic fortitude, uttering no cries, but calling in low,
sad tones on a merciful God to have pity on him and give him surcease
of suffering.

For nearly two hours longer he suffered every variety of inhuman
torture. Devils in hell could devise no more or no worse. At last,

COL. CRAWFORD S AWFUL TORTURES. 341

being almost spent, and his dull, deadened nerves no longer respond-
ing to any kind of torment, he lay down on his fiery bed.

The end was near at last. The immortal spirit was about taking
flight. The savages must hasten if they would inflict the last horrible
anguish. One rushed in, and with his keen blade drew around the
horrid circle, and pulled off the bleeding scalp of gray hairs. In vain !
He had escaped them !

No, not even yet ! A hideous old hag — with tigerish heart — had
just then an infernal inspiration. She hastily screeched herself up to
the insensate victim and threw a bark of burning embers on the raw,
throbbing, palpitating brain.

A pitiful groan announced the success of the monstrous device. The
fleeting soul was thus cruelly summoned back. The blind and stagger-
ing victim once more raised himself on his feet — once more began his
weary round. Burning sticks were again applied, but in vain, for the
flesh had now utterly lost all feeling.

Dr. Knight was not to have the consolation of witnessing his chief's
final triumph through death over his merciless foes, but was led away
from the dreadful scene. As he was driven along the next morning he
passed the cursed spot. He saw the charred remains of his beloved
commander lying among the embers, almost burned to ashes.

It was long a tradition among the Indians that Crawford breathed
his last just at sunset, and that after his death, his body was heaped
upon the fagots and so consumed, amid the delighted whoops and
leapings of his tormentors. It was a veritable "dance of death."

The touching, harrowing details of this awful death, as published by
Dr. Knight, was a terrible shock to the whole country. On the border
there was universal gloom, and a low, sullen muttering of revengeful
wrath. Crawford was such a prominent, popular leader, that the
"deep damnation of his taking off" was almost a national calamity.
No one felt it more keenly than Washington himself, who wrote as
follows: "It is with the greatest sorrow and concern that I have
learned the melancholy tidings of Colonel Crawford's death. He was
known to me as an officer of much care and prudence, brave, active,
and experienced. The manner of his death was shocking ; and I have
this day communicated to Congress such papers as I have regard-
ing it."

But the dolor and anguish of the sad and desolate widow, Hannah
Crawford, as she sat watching and waiting in her lonely cabin on the
Youghiogheny, who can describe ! She had parted from her husband
with a heavy, heavy heart. As one after another of the expedition
straggled back, how tearfully did she question, how anxiously did she
yearn for some tidings. Missed at the commencement of the retreat,
with her only and idolized son, her nephew and her son-in-law, was all
she could learn. Gone, all gone at one fell swoop ! After three weeks
of dread and intolerable suspense she heard of her husband's death.
Still later drifted to her the sickening details. It were better for her
future peace had his loss forever remained an unfathomable mystery.

"I well recollect," says Uriah Springer, "when I was a little boy,
my grandmother Crawford took me behind her on horseback, rode
across the Youghiogheny, and turned into the woods, when we both

342 SIMON GIPTY.

alighted by an old moss-covered white-oak log. * Here,' she said, as
she sat down upon the log, and cried as though her heart would break
— ' here I parted with your grandfather ! ' "

That tradition, current in western Pennsylvania, that Simon Girty
aspired to the hand of one of Crawford's daughters, but was denied, is
one of the many unauthentic and untraceable rumors afloat concerning
the mysterious' Girty. Sally Crawford, who married the lamented
Major Harrison, an officer of capacity and prominence, also lost in
this expedition, was a far-famed belle, and considered the most beauti-
ful young lady in all that district.

CHAPTER LXXXVI.

DR. knight's escape — slover's adventures.

The miraculous escapes of Dr. Knight and John Slover from the
Indians are replete with adventure and interest. We wish we had
room for a fuller sketch. The former, after Crawford's torture and
death, spent the night at Pipe's house and started early next
morning for the Shawnee towns on Mad river, some forty miles dis-
tant. His only guard was on horseback, who, after having once more
painted his prisoner black, drove the doctor before him. He was a
large, rough-looking, but very friendly savage, and Knight soon began
to ingratiate himself.

That night the gallant doctor attempted many times to untie him-
self, but the Indian was wary and scarce closed his eyes. At daybreak
he untied his captive and arose to mend the fire, and the wood-gnati
being very annoying. Knight asked him if he would make a big smoke
behind him. The savage said " yes."

Tlie little doctor soon picked up a short dog-wood fork, the only
stick he could find near, and slipping up behind his guide he smote
him on the head with all his force. The amazed redskin was so
stunned that he fell head foremost into the fire, but soon sprang up
and ran off, howling in a most frightful manner.

Knight seized the fellow's gun and ran after him some distance to
shoot, but he had pulled back the lock so violently as to break it, and
soon gave up the chase. He then took the Indian's effects and struck
straight through the pathless woods for home.

He changed his route several times to avoid all Indian trails and
parties. His gun could not be mended, and he had finally to throw it
away. He was nearly starved, but had neither food nor gun to shoot
any game. He came across plenty of wild unripe gooseberries, but
having his jaw nearly broken by a tomahawk blow, he could not chew.
He managed, however, to sustain life on the juice of a weed which he
knew to be nourishing. Not being able to kindle a fire the gnats and
mosquitoes nearly devoured him.

He soon, too, got bewildered in a vast swampy district, but still
kept straggling East. Game was very plenty, including elk, deer and
bear, but none for him. Save young nettles, the juice of herbs, a few

DR. KNIGHT'S ESCAPE — SLOVER'S ADVENTURES.

343

wild berries, and two young blackbirds and a terrapin which he de-
voured raw, he had no food. When all this strange provender diS'
agreed with his stomach he would chew wild ginger.

On the twentieth evening of his long and solitary wanderings, he
struck Fort Mcintosh, at the mouth of Big Beaver, and on the next
day reached Fort Pitt, greatly to the astonishment of all and to the
huge delight of General Irvine, with whom he was a great favorite.
He remained at Fort Pitt till the close of the war, and afterwards
moved to Kentucky.

The adventures of Slover, the guide, were much more varied and
exciting. He had lived among the Miami and Shawnees from his
early boyhood, and could talk their languages. When the retreat
commenced he, James Paull, Young, and five others, became mired in
the cranberry swamp. After floundering about for a long time they
finally emerged, only to plunge into another morass, where they had
to wait daylight.

They now struck an East trail and had nearly reached the Muskin-
gum, when they were ambushed by a Shawnee party, who had tracked
them all the way from the Plains. Two were killed by the first fire.
James Paull, notwithstanding a very bad burnt foot, bounded off and
made good his escape. Slover and the other two were made prisoners.
Singular to relate, one of the Shawnees, who had aided in Slover's
capture when a boy, now recognized him, calling him by his Indian
name of Mannucothe, and reproaching him severely for leading a party
against them. The other prisoners were now mounted on horses and
started off for Mad River, which they reached in three days.

Up to this point they had been treated kindly, but now all they met
glowered upon them in the most savage manner. The people of the
first Shawnee village assaulted them with clubs and tomahawks. One
of the captives was here painted black, but the savages forbade Slover
from telling him what it meant.

A runner having been sent to Wappatomica — the same town from
which Girty and the Malott family had so lately departed — the whole
population swarmed out to give them a hot reception with guns, clubs,
and hatchets. All three were ordered to run the gauntlet. If they
could reach the Council House, three hundred yards distant, they
would be safe.

The poor fellow who was painted black was made the chief target.
Men, women and children beat and fired loads of powder at him as he
ran naked, amid shoutings and beating of drums. He managed, how-
ever, to reach the Council House door, though in a pitiable plight.
He was slashed with tomahawks, his body singed all over, and holes
burnt into his flesh with the wadding.

He now thought himself safe. Fatal mistake ! He was dragged back
to another terrible beating and to a most cruel death. Slover saw his
body lying by the Council House, horribly mutilated and disfigured.
He also saw and recognized three other dead bodies, all black, bloody
and powder-burnt. They were all that remained of Major Harrison,
r'rawford's son-in-law, Wm. Crawford, his nephew, and Major John
McClelland, who had been fourth officer in command. The next day the
limbs and heads were stuck on poles, and the corpses given to the dogs.

344 SIMON GIRTY.

Slover's surviving companion was sent oft to another town to be
executed, while he himself was, that evening, brought into the log
Council House and carefully interrogated as to the state of the country,
the progress of the war, and the movements on the border. He spoke
three Indian tongues, and had the satisfaction of informing them of
Cornwallis' capture.

The next day Captain Matthew Elliott and James Girty, Simon's
brother, were present. The former assured the Indians that Slover had
lied about Cornwallis. James Girty, brother of Simon, and a bad,
drunken, violent bully, now had the audacity to publicly assert that,
when he had asked Slover how he would like to live again among the
Shawnees, he had answered that he would soon take a scalp and run off.

It began'to look black for poor Slover. This grand council lasted
fifteen days. The third day Alexander McKee commenced to attend.
He was grandly arrayed in a gold-laced uniform, but did not speak to
the captive.

Slover was not tied, and could have escaped, but had no moccasins.
Each night he was invited to the war dance, which lasted almost till
morning, but would take no part in the revels.

Dr. Knight's guard now arrived with a wound four inches long on
his head, and a truly marvelous story of a long and desperate strug-
gle he had with the doctor, whom he represented as a large, powerful
man, but whose fingers he had cut off, and to whom he had given two
terrible knife thrusts, which he was suie would prove fatal. Slover
told the Indians that the doctor was a small, weak man, at which they
were greatly amused.

The next day arrived the long-expected message and belt of wam-
pum from De Peyster of Detroit, the conclusion well expressing the
general tenor: " Take no more prisoners, my children, of any sort —
man, wom.an or child."

At a grand council held shortly after, at which eight tribes were
fully represented, it was decided that no more prisoners should be
taken, and that in case any tribe so did, the other tribes should seize
said captives and put them to death ; also, that war expeditions should
be made against Fort Henry, the Ohio Falls, (Louisville), and the
Kentucky settlements.

At another council his death by fire was resolved upon, and at the
same time twenty prisoners, just arrived from Kentucky, were put to
death.

Next day George Girty, an adopted Delaware and another brother
of Simon, surrounded Slover's cabin with about forty followers, bound
him, put a rope about his neck, stripped him naked, painted him black,
and took him about five miles off. Here he was beaten and shame-
fully abused, dragged to Mack-a-chack and bound to the stake, which
was in a part of the Council House not yet roofed.

Three piles of wood about this torture stake were fired, and the tor-
ments were about commencing, when a sudden storm arose, the rain
descended in a flood and drowned out the fire. The superstitious
savages stood silent and aghast.

SLOVER S MAD RIDE WETZELl's RUNNING FIGHT. 345

CHAPTER LXXXVII.

SLOVER's mad ride — WETZELL's RUNNING FIGHT.

A brief respite at least was secured ! The captive was untied and
seated on the ground, while wild leapings and frantic dances, punctu-
ated with blows, kicks, and tomahawk cuts, were continued until
eleven at night.

A chief by the name of Half Moon then asked Slover if he were
sleepy. Yes, he was. The savages wishing a whole day's frolic with
him on the morrow, he was graciously allowed to retire to a block-
house under charge of three ferocious, forbidding-looking warriors.

Poor Slover was bound with extraordinary precautions. His arms
were tied so tight, at wrists and elbows, that the thongs were buried
in the flesh. The strip about his neck, just long enough for him to
lie down, was fastened to a beam of the house. The three warriors
now began to taunt and harass him. Now, if ever, an escape was to
be attempted. Death, no matter how quick or by what means, was
far better than a whole day's tortures.

The sick and sore, but still undaunted captive feigned sleep. Would
his cruel persecutors never close their eyes ! Two now stretched
themselves for Test, but the third lit his pipe and recommenced his
mocking taunts. Slover obstinately kept his mouth closed.

At last— most joyful spectacle 1 — the third laid down and soon be-
gan to snore. No music sweeter to poor Slover, whose heart was beat-
ing like a muffled drum. Not an instant to lose, and well he knew it !
The heavy beads of sweat which gathered on his clammy brow were
witnesses not only of the intensity of his feelings, but of the violent
and extraordinary exertions to free his arms. They were so benumbed
as to be without feeling. He laid himself over on his right side, and
with his fingers, which were still manageable, and after a violent and
prolonged effort, he succeeded in slipping the cord from his left arm
over elbow and wrist.

One of the guards now got up to stir the fire. Slover lay dead as a
stone, sure it was all over with him ; but the sleepy savage soon lay
down again, and work was renewed. The arms free, the next attempt
was made on the thong about his neck. It was thick as his thumb,
and tough as iron, being made of buffalo hide.

The wretched man tugged and tugged. It remained firm. He
contrived to get it between his teeth, and gnawed it in a perfect
frenzy of despair. It budged not a finger's breadth. It was a hard
and cruel fate, but he had to give it up. The first gray lights of dawn
were beginning to penetrate the gloomy apartment. He sank back in
an agony of hopeless despair.

No. He would make yet one more effort. He inserted his hands
between the thong and his neck, and pulled and pushed with almost
superhuman strength. Oh, joy supreme, it yields ! it yields ! and he is
free at last. It vvas a noose, with several knots tied over it. The sud-
den reaction almost makes him faint. One quick look at the sleep-
ers about him, one cautious lift over their bodies, a few cat-like steps,

346 SIMON GIRTY.

and he stands under the still shining stars, free as the fresh air which
fanned and caressed his throbbing brow.

He now glided hurriedly through the town and reached a corn-field.
He nearly stumbled over a squaw and her children, lying asleep under
a tree. Making a circle about them, he reached the edge of the
woods. Here he stopped to untie his arm, which was swollen and dis-
colored from the tight ligature.

He felt better at once, and having observed a number of horses
feeding in a glade as he passed, he ventured to catch one. He was
as naked as the day he was born. Picking up an old quilt for a sad-
dle, and using his own rope bonds for a bridle, he managed to mount
the horse he had caught, and was off and away.

That was truly a ride for life. Slover's jaws were set, his teeth were
clenched, his eyes were fixed steadily on the east, and digging his
naked heels into the flanks of his horse — which, happily for him, proved
very fleet and staunch — he scurried along through open wood and past
grassy level.

" Over bank, bush and scaur;

'They'll have fleet steeds that follow,' quoth young Lochinvar.'*

The sun was but little over quarter high ere he reached the Scioto,
fully fifty miles off". Smoking hot, and bathed in sweat, the gallant
steed breasted that forest stream, and clattered up the thither bank.
On ! on they go ! No pause ! no rest ! His exasperated pursuers,
mounted on their fleetest horses, were pressing hard in the rear. It
was a killing pace, but a saving race.

By noon his gallant steed began to flag ; now it breathes hard and
fast ; now its eyes look staring and glassy; and now at three o'clock it
sinks to rise no more. No time to waste, even on a gallant horse like
that — faithful to the death. The naked rider at once springs to his
feet and runs as fast as hope and fear can drive him. Neither did he
cease his eff'orts with the dark, but pressed on, ever on, until at ten
o'clock, when, becoming extremely sick and faint, he sank down for
a little rest.

By midnight he was up and away again, threading his weary way by
moonlight. At the first streak of coming day he forsook a trail he
had found and followed all night, and plunged boldly into the track-
less wilderness. As he walked he endeavored, with his old Indian
habits, to conceal his trail, pushing back the weeds or bushes his
travel may have disturbed. He left no more trace than a bird.

All that day he forged stead4ly and uninterruptedly ahead, and the
setorid night had the happiness of resting by the waters of the Musk-
ingum. A marvelous journey, and accomplished with wonderful pluck
and endurance.

Think, reader, what a fearful undertaking it must have bean to run
naked through a wild, pathless, tangled forest, with vine, bush,
brier and thorn tree, stretching after to detain him. Nothing but his
ragged saddle cloth to protect him. The nettles stung his feet, the
briers and thorns pierced his bleeding limbs ; the vines and low trees
scraped his back, and the gnats and mosquitoes so tormented him that
he found no peace by day or rest by night. So intolerable was the

SLOVERS MAD RIDE — WETZELL S RUNNING FIGHT. 347

nuisance that he was obliged to carry a bundle of leafy branches to
keep them off.

The first food he took was a few berries on the third day ; but he
felt more weak than hungry. He now reached and swam the Musk-
ingum, and for the first time began to breathe securely. The next day
he followed the Stillwater valley, and the night after lay but a few
miles from Fort Henry.

In his published statement, Slover asserts he did not sleep one wink
the whole time, so annoying and blood-thirsty were the swarms of
gnats and mosquitoes.

He had now earned a rest. He reached the Ohio by Indian Wheel-
ing Creek, opposite the island, and descrying a man on it, he hailed
him, but so strange and savage was his appearance that he had great
difficulty in making him come to his relief. The surprise his appear-
ance caused at Ft. Henry, and the hospitable welcome he received
there, can more readily be imagined than described.

It was just at the close of the Crawford Expedition that Louis Wet-
zell is said to have performed his famous exploit of killing three In-
dians on the run. One of Crawford's volunteers, by the name of
Thomas Mills, straggled into Wheeling and persuaded Wetzell to re-
turn with him to Indian Spring, about nine miles from Wheeling, to
get a horse he had left there.

Approaching the place, they discovered the animal tied to a tree,
when Wetzell scented danger. Mills, however, walked up to secure
his beast, when a discharge of rifles followed from an Indian ambush.
Wetzell promptly broke through the Indians and bounded off at the
height of his speed. Four of the fleetest Indians followed in swift pur-
suit, whooping in exultation at the expected capture.

After a chase of half a mile, the foremost savage approached close
enough to cast his tomahawk, when all at once Wetzell turned, drew
a quick bead on him and shot him dead in his tracks. The young
scout had early taken pains to learn how to load his rifle when run-
ning at full speed — no mean accomplishment in the days of flint-lock,
barrel-loading rifles.

Making another run of a half mile, a second Indian rapidly bounded
up, and as Wetzell turned again to fire, the wily savage caught the
barrel of his gun, and a long and desperate struggle ensued. At one
time, the powerful redskin — strong as a bear and active as a panther —
brought Wetzell to his knee, and had nearly succeeded in wrenching
the rifle out of his adversary's hands, when Wetzell, by an extraordi-
nary effort, jerked the weapon out of the savage's hands, and thrusting
the muzzle close up against his neck, pulled the trigger, killing him
instantly.

■ The two remaining Indians had by this time come up ; but, spring-
ing forward again, Lewis managed to keep ahead until his unerring
rifle was again loaded. He now slackened his pace, and even stopped
once or twice, as if very much fatigued. Every time, however, that he
looked around, the crafty Indians treed.

After thus running a mile or so further, Ke reached an open piece of
ground, and, wheeling suddenly on his heels, the foremost fellow
leaped behind a tree, but one too small to cover his person. Wetzell

^348 SIMON GIRTY.

fired at once, dangerously wounding his foe. The remaining savage now
commenced beating a rapid retreat, yelling as he ran, " No catch dat
man ; his gun always loaded."

CHAPTER LXXXVIII.

A STRANGE CHIEF ALARMS FORT HENRY.

While all these stirring events were in progress, Captain Brady re-
mained at Colonel Zane's house convalescing from his wound. At
any other time an enforced absence from a border incursion would
have greatly chafed his adventurous spirit, but now he had been much
consoled by the society and attentions of Drusilla. Indeed, all three
of the girls had, in gratitude for his services in their behalf, done their
utmost to make his time pass agreeably.

They had succeeded, too, marvellously well, and now he was spend-
ing his last night among the hospitable people of Fort Henry. He was
to start next day with his old friend, Killbuck, for Fort Pitt, first
escorting Drusilla to her home on Short Creek, and they had just re-
turned from a delightful horseback ride through the woods, and were
sitting on the bluff at the southern end of the fort, gazing out upon
the river and all the charming surroundings.

It was just in the gloaming of the " cowled and dusky-sandaled eve,"
when the shadows were deepening and stealing over the landscape with
all their weird and magical witcheries. It was a scene of bewildering
grace and beauty, rendered more solemn and impressive to " two souls
with but a single sigh; two hearts that beat as one," by the holy hush
of all nature.

The twain were affianced lovers, and their spirits were closely en
rapport with the passive scene. Brady had just taken his partner's
hand, and was pouring into her willing ear some of the soft whisper-
ings of his overflowing affection, when, all at once, from the margin of
the woods close by, and just on the declivity of the hill on which
stood the fort, there came the sharp crack of a rifle, immediately fol-
lowed by a shrill and frightful war-whoop, or rather a quick series of
them.

The two sprang to their feet on the instant. Brady looked in the
direction of the clamor, and saw the head and body of a painted and
tufted Indian, partly concealed behind the trunk of a huge oak, and
apparently tossing his arms wildly to and fro, as if signalling to his
followers. The head of another Indian could be indistinctly observed
behind, as if skulking among the bushes. How many more there were
in the rear God only knew.

Brady was without arms. Indian attacks were now daily expected
on the border, and there had been for a day or two a greatly increased
watchfulness. The scout hastily caught the hand of the terror-stricken
Drusilla and dragged her along to the open sally port of the fort,
which was closed and barred behind them.

There was an immediate commotion in the fort. The great gates

A STRANGE CHIEF ALARMS FORT HENRY. 349

were shut with a bang. Those inside rushed for their rifles and leaped,
with shouts of defiance, to their stations in the bastions and behind
the port-holes. Those who were in the straggling village of cabins
around Zane's house hurriedly flitted to the chief gate at the eastern
side, and found refuge within the stockade.

It was evidently a complete surprise, and there was general confu-
sion. The Indian leader now stepped boldly from behind his tree, and
gave another terrific whoop, and then jumped up and down as if hugely
delighted at the lively sensation he was creating. He was, so far as
could be judged, a chief of large proportions, his face heavily barred
withjpaint, and a remarkably stiff and bristling war crest on his head.

"That seems a deuced queer war-whoop, Brady," remarked Captain
Boggs, who had just manned all the port-holes on that side. "I'm
pretty well to home on this border, but never heard a yell quite so
loud and brassy. Don't seem to be any mad in it."

" It is a most remarkable yell," answered Brady, quietly, now re-
covered from his flurry on Drusilla's account, but still standing by her
side. "The cursed yellow-hide must be either drunk or a crack-
bra' ned fool to so brave a whole tier of border rifles. Try him with a
ball or two."

" Waal," replied Boggs, "I'm beat. It isn't Injun ways, nohow.
Ef he isn't a decoy, he's crazy. Halloo ! Kerr, sonie six or seven of
you go around to the opposite end of the stockade, and keep a sharp
look-out. I expect a rush on that side. And now, boys, toss him a
plumper or two, to make him show his true colors."

No sooner said than done. The big redskin was now pretty well
behind his tree, giving an occasional jerky, spasmodic yell, but the
bulkiest part of his frame protruded somewhat, and a shower of bullets
flew about, scattering the bark in all directions, and one evidently,
judging from the quick jump and angry cry, hitting the mark intended.

The stalwart warrior now boldly leaped out in full view, shook his
brawny fist and tossed his crested head defiantly at the fort, shouting
out like the blast of a trumpet :

" Bad] scran to yiz, ye bowld, mismannerly blackguards ! is't a flag
o' truce you'd be mane enough to fire on. Phat the divil "

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed out Brady, at once relieved and greatly
amused. " Stop, boys, stop ! don't shoot for heaven's sake ! I thought
I knew that voice. It's the wild Irishman you've heard us speak of so
often. Wait till I hail him," and Brady leaped to the banquette.

By this time all the riflemen appeared above the stockades, looking,
some with wonder and some with amusement, at the Indian chief, who,
with plumed crest aloft and blanket thrown picturesquely over his
shoulder like an Italian bandit, strutted forward in a state of great in-
dignation, and muttering angrily to himself.

Brady, scarcely able to restrain himself from a loud guffaw at the
pompous airs and ludicrous appearance of the fellow, shouted out :

" Why, bless my soul and body, man, is that you, Larry ? Where
in the world "

" Och, be jabers, Captain Brady, if Brady it is, Larry me no Larrys
the day. It's a Big Medicine and great Miami chafe I be. Did ye
consate I wud surround yer old log fort that's all stuck up on ind, that

350 SIMON GIRTY.

ye'd pepper me wid balls and kape me bobbing like a jumping jack or
a parched pea, and juking around like a duck in a hailstorm. By all
the powers o' war, boys, but I'm heart ashamed av ye. Phat for did
ye not train yer big cannon on me to wunct?" and then in a lower
tone to some one beside him, " Whist ! Biddy, whist ! Lay low and
kape dark, I tell ye, or you and the gossoon will be knocked into
smithereens in half a crack uv a cow's thumb."

" And did you expect, Larry," laughed Brady, "to parade yourself
before a border fort in war times, dressed up in red-skin toggery and
yelling like a born savage, and have us open the gates and invite you
in ? Where did you come on the whisky ?"

"Whisky?" at once answered Larry, appealingly, and most ludi-
crously changing his whole manner. " Wull ye whisper the word
again, captin. Och, may the divil fly away wid me this blissed minnit
av I'v seen or tasted the crayture for a month av Sundays. Arrah,
captin, av ye've a heart anunder yer belt, give me a jorum hot enough
to curl a moustache and sthrong enough to float an iron wedge. I'm
so wake and deeshy-dawshy that you cud tie me wid a rotten cob-
web."

" Well, come into the fort then," laughed Brady, "and give an ac-
count of yourself. Where are you from, and how came you— but
who's that slouching there behind you ?"

" Come on, Biddy, darlint, you and the little shaver. Yer chafe's
come to his own agin. D'ye see the big crowd waiting to recave me?
Now don't get pale about the lungs, I'll stand by yez."

So saying, Larry advanced grandly and with swelling port, looking
as majestic as Julius Caesar himself. He extended his hand with a
magnificent air to Brady, who had gone outside to meet him, and who
could scarce restrain from smiling aloud at his inconceivably comical
appearance.

His red shock of hair had been shaved close to his head^save
that on the crown, which was drawn up into a flaming scalp-lock, trick-
ed out with beads and feathers. The paint had been laid on his face
in heavy streaks and bars of scarlet and vermillion, and behind the
hideous mask Larry's eyes twinkled like those of a negro minstrel.
His Irish dress had been completely changed for that of an Indian
chief's— leggins, moccasins, and all.

The various inmates of the fort now crowded about this'strange and
irresistibly ludicrous figure, and indulged in all sorts of quiet laughs
and jokes. Especially were all the darkies amused. Colonel Zane's
Sam showing his entire rows of flashing ivories and almost splitting his
sides with hardly-concealed jollity.

"I see how it is now, Larry," said Brady, confidentially, "there's
a woman in the case. I don't wonder you wished to put on a little
state before her; but excuse me if I say you look like the very devil."

The Irishman appeared a little haughty and affronted at this, but
seeing at once he could no longer keep up his grandiloquent style
where he was so well known, he drew Brady aside a step or two, and
said confidentially, and with a broad grin that would have made the
fortune of a circus clown :

" An' faith, captin dear, to tell yez the naked truth, I feel more

A STRANGE CHIEF ALARMS FORT HENRY.

35^

like the divil nor I look. My auburn hair's trussed up so tight that
dawnied ef I can snap my winkers at all, at all. Sure it araost tilts
me off my own throtters, an' the paint's so thick that, bad luck to me
av 1 kin ayther ate, yawn, or salute me schwateheart widout my face
all cracking into seams loike a pan of curdled milk. Bedad, but it's
fairly in torture I am ; but Net-to-way here seems to like it, and its
Mike-coon-i-caw that's my chafe's name — and shure it wos the Irishest
name of the lot given me to choose from. — "

"Well, Mike and I'm glad they gave you such an Irish handle —
who's this Net-to-way you've stolen away? She seems a very pretty
and modest girl. I hope you've — "

" Och, by me showl, but divil a bit's she stole ; but's a chafe's
daughter and loves me to disthraction from her heart out ; and^ glory
be to God, I pledge ye the word av an Irishman, and will schware it
by all the contints of Moll Kelly's primer, that the devine and im-
mortial passhun is-is-is-in short, is raysiprecated — or to spake it in
honest Irish, I love the sun-kissed Colleen down to my very marrow,
an' I'll marry her right out o' hand. Och, captin, she's as schwate
and modest as a rosebud, and has a voice loike a throstle or a mair-
maid. Blamed av I've iver seed "

"Oh, yes, yes, I know," laughed Brady; "I hope you will either
marry her or send her home. But who's the boy you've got there?"

*' Och, the divil whip the tongue out o' me, an' haven't I telled ye
yet. Faith, an' it's the chafest wonder of all. Sure he's no less than
widder Malott's gossoon, Harry, him that wur lost and "

"What !" said Brady, in great surprise; "you don't tell me so?
Why didn't ye say that before?"

" Och, captin, wur you iver in luve ? That's joost it, bedad. I'm
so harrished and mulfathered by that honey, there, that I'm a'most
disthracted — but phat for are yiz stanning there, grinning loike a
chesser cat, ye nagur ye. Have a moind, ye omadhoun, that ye don't
lape down year own mouth; an' shure it's big an' ugly enough."

This last sentence was not said to Brady, as might be supposed, but
was a gentle "aside" addressed to black Sam, who was gazing at
Larry as if spellbound, his eyes wide open and his huge mouth grin-
ning from ear to ear.

Brady now went up and spoke kindly to Nettoway and Harry, and,
withdrawing them from the curious crowd, and sending over to Zane's
house for Betty and Drusilla, told them and Larry to follow him, and
led the way directly to Captain Boggs' house inside the fort.

Just as they were stepping inside the door, Larry, whose staring
eyes had for some time been absorbingly fixed upon one of the crowd,
plucked Brady by the sleeve and said, mysteriously :

"Wud ye moind tellin' me, captin, phat for, in this dacint and
respiktable neighborhood, ye allow that faymale woman to be meand-
hering an' philandering around, as bowld as brass an' wid a stride
loike a grenadier, an' she all dressed out loike a man. It's rale hay-
thenish and — "

" What woman ! and what in the devil d'ye mean Larry ?"

"That imperdent hussy, wid the long black curls, it is I mane, wid a
butcher knife stuck in her belt, and toting a musket as long as herself."

352 SIMON GIRTY.

"Ha! ha! ha!" fairly shouted Brady, and seemingly convulsed
with merriment. " Come here, Miss Wetzell, and let me introduce
you to Larry Donahue, who takes you for a ' female woman.' "

" He does, does he," replied Lew Wetzell — the best and toughest
scout, and the biggest dare-devil of his age on the border — and, giving
Larry's hand a vice-like grip, which made the bones fairly crunch, and
the tears come into his eyes :

" Waal, ef there's a choice atween hars," he continued, in his deep,
gruff bass voice, " I reckon I'd rayther grow this" — drawing his long,
luxuriant tresses through his hands — "than that ere," pointing to
Larry's stiff and rubescent scalp-lock, which, covered with bear's fat,
stood up like the crow feathers of a rooster, or more like the crest of
a Hussar's plumed hat. " Ef the Irish chief thinks I'm a woman I'll
allow him the liberty of a loving hug, and we'll blamed soon see who'll
have the first fall in the wrastle. What d'ye say, Paddy ?"

" Och, be aff wid ye, ye nataral," said Larry, indignantly, greatly
shocked and still puzzled about the sex of his companion. " Deil the
bit do I want to meddle wid the loikes o' you. Yer as loike a dock
as a daisy, an' shure it's head or harp betwixt the whedder yez are a
mon or a woman. Av yer a faymale, yer not uv the koind I loike, and
av' yer a mon, by me sowks, ye'd best hunt up a barber to wonct," and
with this parting shot Larry stepped inside, leaving Wetzell to the
chaffing of the listening crowd.

CHAPTER LXXXIX.

Larry's escape as told by himself.

The wonder and delight of Larry's old fellow-captives, to hear not
only of his escape but of Harry Malott's discovery, and the presence
of both at Fort Henry, attended by a comely and modest Indian dam-
sel was, as may be supposed, very great. They soon flocked to the
Commandant's house, plied the whole three new-comers with ques-
tions, and then took Net-to-way and Harry in charge.

Larry, who duly received his noggin of whisky, and was in great
glee therefrom, became the hero of the circle, and they laughed till
they cried at his consequential airs and odd, quaint descriptions of
his double courtship and adoption. We need only take up his narra-
tion from the time the new-found Harry was taken home to Chillicothe
by Wa-cous-ta.

" Faix, my frinds," continued Larry, with a merry twinkle in his
eye, " that wor the dampest and moistiest time that I drawed the lit-
tle 'un out uv the wather. You cud have wrung Net-to-way out loike a
dish rag, and I wor wet as a sponge ; but shure it makes me powerful
dhry the telling uv it till ye. My throttle feels loike I wor a chew-
ing uv ship's biskit and washing it down wid sawdust."

The hint was taken, and Larry resumed more briskly:

" God save ye kindly, Misther Shepherd, for remimbering the dhry
and the powdhery. Now that ye've wetted my whissle I'll clack on

LARRY S ESCAPE AS TOLD BY HIMSELF. 353

more fluintly belike. The younker had scarce gone over to Chille-
— phats-his-name — whin the dape sacret betwixt us drawed Biddy —
which it is the short and schwate for Net-to-way, as I kape minding
uv ye — closter thegither, and we billed and cooed and pelavered more
industriously than iver.

" But, och hone ! och hone ! the widder Fat Bear — bad fate to her,
but she was a rale heart-scald to me. She grew keen and sarching as
the north wind, an' that luving loike that I was in a consthant throng
and flurry o' the lip business.

" Blissed av I iver passed forninst her but, by the same token, she
puckered up her lips inviting-loike, and cast butthery glances at me
like a dying catfish. By the hokey, 'twas enough to sicken a cat. I
ain't asily stumped in my professhun, be dad, but Wa-ba-sha rayther
crowded things too much and too fastly. She niver let me rest until
I fixed the very next Sunday for the christening and the marriage,
and the wee tallow-complected papooses began to take all manner
ov imperdent liberties wid me, as ef I was already their proper
dad.

"But Biddy and me had our own sacret moments of consolashun
and rollickzation. Troth and indade, av it hadn't been for the schwate
comfort ov her voice and rose-bud lips, I would have been, more beto-
ken, a cold and stiffened shoeacide. Be jabers, the sly little minxwur
more forninst me marryin' wid the aunt than I wor mysilf, an' niver
remimber I being schwater on any gurril than she wor on me.

" On Sunday there wor a tirrible hullibaloo in the village. Barrin'
the whisky ye'd thought there wor a wake. All the yellow-skins sur-
rounded the shebeen and carried me on their shoulthers down to the
Council House. Here they sthripped me and — saving the young
leddies' presence — clapped on me a clout-cloth, and then shaved off
most all my gorgious hair, till my sconce was clane and shiney as a
pumpkin, and only laving a swaping tail or top-knot, which, begorra,
they grased and trussed out, jest as you see it, and thin, the saints be
about us, they handed me over to a lot o' grinning and misbehaving
squaws and girls — as loike as pays in a pod — who led me, laughing and
poking foon at me, down into the wather.

" While I wor spachless wid amazement, and wor exposthulating
wid the mischavious monkeys, would you belave it, Misthress Boggs,
one ov the ugliest ov them — more betoken that she had a stuttering,
and vishyous eye and a snaggled tusk for a tooth — all to wuncet trip-
ped up my throtters, an' me niver misthrusting her at all, at all, and
down came Larry Donahue that was — and Mike-coon-i-caw that is —
plump into the wather,

" Och, bejabers, but to hear the wicked shouts and laughs of them
baythen faymales : it almost cruddles my blood to think ov it this
minnit. I wor in the clutches — an' may the Lord remimber them fur
it— uv a lot of muskular mairmaids that scratched me loike cats and
kneaded me as I wor so much dough, an' me widout a rag to me back
or a tack to me feet, an' that shamed that I blushed all over l-ed as a
lobster, and I could a joost stayed under foriver and a day, and herd-
ed wid the mute and iimercent little fishes.

"And blamed, too, ef there didn't stand widder Fat Bear on the
23

354 SIMON GIRTY.

bank, wid her fishy eyes cocked up loike two poorap handles, and
houlding her fat sides wid the laughing.

" 'S-s-cat,' sez I. *I won't,' S'-z she, and shure an' the ould bag-
gage began shaking loike any bowl full of jelly. Tear an' ages but it
joost stirred my mad right up. By the mortial, sez I, all misalla-
neouslyto myself, sez I, I'll be even wid ye fur wunst, av I afther was
to go to the eternity of misery, and wid dat I breaks loose from the
amphibious wather-nymphs, streekit to the shore, caught Wa-ba-sha in
me own luving two arms and soused her, schraming and kicking loike
Lanty McGuire's pig, into the wather.

" She wur fairly blue-moulding for joost sich a tratement. * No
more o' yer tantrims and figaries,' sez I, 'for me, Wa-ba-sha,' sez I.
Niver did mortial eyes behold a corpulint and middle-aged faymale so
rantankerated. She fairly howled and hissed with the mad, and spat
at me loike a wild cat, but shure all the onlookers wor moightily
plazed and laughed and whirroed, while this damp mother of four
mahogany children, och hone ! och hone ! guv me such murthering
looks and bustled up to her lodge, wid her feathers trailing loike a
wet hen's.

*' When the white blood — more betoken because it's all red — was all
claned intirely out o' me, I wor taken up to the Council House agin
and put into these illegant garmints, for the which I was powerfully
plazed, seeing that my ould vintilation duds wor torn and tatthered
from the woods'and so much knocking about. My name was changed
to Mike-coon-I-caw, which manes to say, I'm tould, that I have hair
broight loike the sun.

" Then they lathered my face, handed me a dudheen wid some vil-
lanous sumach and kinnekenick for tobacco, guv me a gun with flint
and tomahawk, stuffed me wid bear's mate, venison and hominy, and
so, be the powthers uv war, I became a moighty chafe av the Miamis.
But by the rib uv the grate St. Pathric hisself av that second time wtt-
ting hasn^t made me all dhry again. Ye must tip me another noggin,
Mister Sliepherd, Just to kape the furst in company."

''But, Larry," laughed Betty, "I'm anxious to know what Waba-
sha did after that."

" Indade, an' Misthress, so wur myself, but I'm joost coming to
that, d'ye moind. Begorra, I had my musgivings about Wa-ba-sha in
quensequence uv her bath, and afther all the lashings of ating and
dhrinking — but nare a drap of speerits, nothing but wather outside uv
me and wather inside uv me — I made haste very slowly to the back
ind uv the ould shanty, and crept in tinderly as a cat in pattens.

"Och! phiDilew, phillilew, but the ould file made a sorry and
grafe-stricken picter, and was sour as a crab, and cross as the tongs. I
smoiled as angelic and innercent-loike as a babby off to the fairyland
of dhrames, but she looked at me crooked as the hind leg uv a dog,
and asked me uv I wor leady for the marriage.

"An' shure, why not, machree, darlint, sez I, iver so bland-like
and tossing her wun uv my schwatest and most deludhersum smiles,
something loike this," and here Larry's painted face gave a hideous
grin, which caused an irrepressible burst of merriment. " Och ! by
me sowks, I tells ye 'twas as war r-rm and plisint as a noggin o' whis-

Larry's escape as told by himself. S§^

Icey wid a froth on it like foam ; 'twas enough to draw a could corpse
up on its elbow, but she only ups and sez, sez she, wid an eye, Mis-
thress Boggs, as cowld as a frog's, and a face as sour as a pan of but-
thermilk, ' Next sun, you be Wa-ba-sha's chafe or you die. She see
you hab two scalps. Me hab bofe and sell dem to pale face trader
and get heap wampum.'

" ' Honor bright,' ses I, moighty meek and smoiling-like, 'I'll be
there, my loving paycock, but dount be so tinder and ardint till afther
the banns, an' I'll now make bowld to go and git ready.'

"Av you'll belave me, young leddies, I was powerful wake — wake as
skimmed milk. Ye cud ha' tilted me over wid a jackstraw ; yes, wid
a fedder. My ruby hair — what wor left uv it — wud have stud up
straight on my head if so be it cud have got higher nor stiffer than it
wor, for, d'ye see, it wor my two crowns the ould rhionoceros meant
to sunder into two scalps and make a horrible spekkelation uv. I wor
all through other and taken very bad, I tells ye, and hunted up Net-
to-way dridfully suddint.

" 'Och ! Biddy, darlint,* sez I, *an' sure it's all over wid us,' and
I ups and tells her the whole story, and we mixed our tears and our
kisses thegether — more specially the latter — till we felt consoled, and
then we forecasted and concoctid our schames and kisses and made
up, and I sent her off all sacretly and promiskuously by herself to
Chille-phats-his name to tell the wee gossoon to mate us at the mouth
uv the creek that night, an' now here's jest the plan we consated, or
that she consated, and I wagged my scalp-lock in silynt approval.

" Netty — an' it makes no bit o' differ whether ye call her that or
Biddy, seeing that they are all wun in Irisli — wor a moighty clever
and handy lass at untwisticating all hard knots. She's as full o' good
modher wit as an egg's full o' mate, and knew the wuds as well as a
humming bird does, and cud steer her way, bedad, thro' all the tangles
as straight as any bizzy bee to its hoive. Och ! schwate good luck to
the winsom moderless orphling, but whin ye know her as I do ye'll be
rale took up wid her cunning, schaming, machinating ways and con-
trivings. Faith I wor that awkward alongside o* her that she used to
laff in my greenhorn uv a face at all my lift-handed plottings til I was
fam to leave all to her own wee self, and wud fetch and carry for her
loike a blind man's dog. Shure it was only in word blather that I
wor her shuparier, and ye know bravely that my tongue iver hangs
loose and wags as nimbly as a grayhound's fut, consumin' a bit the
less.

" Well, wud ye iver consate, now, that this little, lissom, black-eyed
thrifle had ivery thing reddy for a suddint start.' She knew Aunt Wa-
ba-sha, bad cess to the vishyus ould crocodile, wor in dead earnest,
and whiniver it wor go, go it wor, and at wunct, and small chance for'
long prayers, and she had a big canoe wid four sweepers hid away
under the bushes, and a lot o' jerk and bear meat and hominy inside
and joost bided for the wur-r-d.

" It wor black as a wolfs throat whin the sly and desateful little
minx came slipping back into the shabeen, looking for all the
wor-r-rld as meek and innercent as a cat that's been a stealing crame.
I hadmade it all up wid the corpulint widder, and wor doing my

356 SIMON GIRTY.''

very purtiest to conshole and desave wid blarney and kisses, and such-
like deludhers, whin I caught a glint and a sparkle o' Biddy's eye,
sharp as a gimlet, and broight as shate lightning."

" Bedad, it struck me all uv a thrimble from toe to crown — or ray-
ther from moccasin to scalp-lock — for all the wor-r-rld loike the shock
of an eclicktic bathery, fur it meant, as plain as tho' her two lips had
spuk the words, ' Net-to-way's all riddy, and don't ye think yer rayther
overdoing it wid the widder Fat Bear?' So wid that I eased off a
bit, kep a clost watch on Biddy's two eyes, and waited for orders."

"And you don't tell me, Larry," here interrupted Lydia, "that
the absurd girl put full confidence in you and your promises, and was
ready to run off, she knew not where?"

" Bedad, ef she didn't thin, Misthress Boggs, consumin' the less,
and for why should she not ? ' She niver misthrusted me, because she
saw the gospil truth in my two peepers. The little sun-kissed broo-
nette wor far better nor I wur all out an' out inny day. I cud see
that wid only one eye and not half try. She had noorsed me up
from death's dure, and because her tinder woman's heart took pity on
me, and flatthered me by chusing a stranger uv a different color, and
because she wor willing to trust me to the very inds of the wur-rld,
was it fur Larry to desaive the guileless crayture and misuse her
trust. Och ! troth and be jabers, Larry Donohue's no sich a nion."

"Good for you, Larry!" interrupted Drusilla, warml_,'. "I always
thought you were a faithful, true-hearted fellow, and now I know it ;
you're just right in staying by her who staid by you."

"The tip o' the morning an' the complements uv the saison to ye,
Misthress Swearingen, and to be sure I'm roight; but wun more of thim
tongue-ticklers, captain, av youplaze, and I'm aff on the homestritch."

Larry took another modest sup, smacked his lips, and went on.

"Faix, an' they say that one * swallow doesn't make a summer,*
but by the hokey, capting, a few swallows o' that sarching, rib-roast-
ing sthuff hates up the very cockles o' my heart, and makes it warm
and plisint summer all over me ; but where wor I , oh, yis — well,
Netty slept in the same room wid her she aunt, and in a little she
made off as if fur a visit to a naybur, and afther I had forgathered all
for the morrow wid Wa-ba-sha, I slipped outside the shanty, making
no more fuss than would my own shadder.

" By the powers, but shure it wor a wunder how that little puss,
Biddy, had plotted and schamed all. We had at first talked of run-
ning off on ' shanks mare ' by the woods, and making straight for this
place, but my wakeness, the thrubble about food, and the surety of
getting cotched, knocked the throtters from anunder that plan.

'* Then we planned to go a horseback across to the mouth of the
Muskingum, and there thry for to find a canoe ; but we were greatly
feared to chance that for it would be so easy tracking and overtaking
us with the Malott younker along, that we bade good-bye to that, too.
The only thing lift us thin, be jabers, was to go all the way by wather,
and remimbering your words, Brady, that 'water laves no trail,' I
was just poiping hot for that, although it made the route twict as
long. But it were safer and secreter for all, especially for the wee lad-
die and easier to carry ateables.

Larry's escape as told by himself. 357.

"And now, be the mortial, there wor the canoe all ready for the
word ' go.' It tuk the consate out ov me intirely, an' so it did, to
watch the trickiness ov that young schamer ; sure Biddy it is I mane.
The artful little jade— and troth it's only byway o' blarney I say it —
had scarce cleared the shanty before she made me mount on a horse
she had trapped and kept ready, while she ups on another. We both
made our fut tracks as plain as cud be, an' faix that wor asy as rollin'
off a log wid mine, for I ginerally leave a spoor loike an ilephant's.

" Thin we walked — the horses I mane — thin trotted, and thin gal-
loped straight off to the east, until we pulled up forninst a big bend
of Scippo creek. We thin waded our horses up the strame's middle
until we hap'd on a big tree that had fallen across the creek. On this
I was ordered to roost.

" Phat, now, be hokey, does the cunning little deludher, do, but
get out on this timber and whip out of her dress some thorn switches
and thongs, with all the sharp prickly nettles and things she had for
uome days been getting ready, and tie them about the horses so that
when they would commence to run, these pricks and hard thorns
would act like spurs and drive them on ; the harder the horses would
go the worse they'd jag and sting.

" She then walked along the tree, leading both horses, to the east
side, and giving each some sharp, sudden raps, off they went pell-
mell, helter-skelter, like mad. Share we could hear them tearing
through the woods at a great rate.

"'Biddy,' says I, ketching av her two hands very respictful, but
giving her a warm kiss of admiration on the lips, ' it's a jewel ye are,
Biddy, and faix they'll have to rise up airly who'd git the lead of ye;
and what nixt, darlint ?"

" * Hus-h-h, Larry,' said the sly puss, wid finger on lip — for it wor
Larry I'd teached her to call me, and it corned that pat and schwate
from her lips sure you'd be shurprised. * Hus-h-h, Larry ! mustn't
talk : redman have big ears. You do like Biddy.'

'"Faith an' I do thin, wid all the veins o' my heart an' ,' but

jist thin off the little fairy whisked her wee moccasins, and trussed up
her skin leggins, and slipped into the shallow wather on the fur side
o' the creek, laving me spacheless wid surprise. I hushed meself to
oncet and joost did that very same by her orders, and the two bodies
ov us waded adown and adown the strame, makin' no more noise than
a sportive fish, till we comed til the canoe, which we climbed into
from the tail ind.

" In less time, begorra, than ye cud say St. Patrick's day in the
mornin', we were fioatin' slyly past the lines of shanties, and the
witching gurril a standing at the forrard wid finger on lip and look-
ing for all the wurrld loike a wather-witch, or a marble stater of
Liberty."

358 SIMON GIRTY.

CHAPTER XC.
STORY OF Larry's escape continued.

''Well, Larry," said Brady admiringly, "that was a pretty cute
plan of Net-to-way's, and worthy of a far older head. You see the
redskins would have known you were on the horses, would have
tracked them to the tree, and would naturally follow after them
through the woods, but could not well have seen to do this until the
next morning. So that if the beasts ran far enough, and if no other
trace was left, you ought to have gained almost a day."

"Troth and your joost right, captain, ivery word, an' presactly
phat the lassie telled me she'd counted on ; an' you niver seed such a
happy Biddy as when wee Harry Malott answered to her hail at the
mouth of the creek, and we dragged the little curly-head on board,
and got fairly out into the Scioto. Biddy she cried and laughed, and
hugged him up, and I laughed and cried and hugged 'em both up,
but chafely her, more betoken that she was the bigger and needed uv
it more.

"But there was no time to wasthe in foolin', an' so we both took
paddles and wrought our way steady, kaping right amid stream.
Soon little Harry, who was merry as a kitten and chatty as a catbird,
curled hisself on a blanket in the bow and went sound asleep.

" Towards morning, when it wor broad moonlight, and I wor some
used to the paddle, I fought sore with Net-to-way to snug down and
take some slape, which, at last, she did, and caught some cat naps.
Och, shwate mudher o' Heaven but 'twas the proud man Larry Dono-
hue, wor that night to look at the loikes o' that wee swate heart all
snuged up in one ind of the canoe, an' smoiling in her.dhrames
loike any babby. Shure an' I'd be worse nor a heathen to '

*' I hope, Larry," interrupted Shepherd, " you got out into the
Ohio safely? The mouth of the Scioto is a famous place for Indian
camps, and a favorite point from which to attack Ohio boats."

" Be my faix, Misther Shepherd, sorra speck o' danger wor there,
though Netty was wondrous suspicionful. She had an eye loike an
aigle, and would kape long looking up and down the river and on all
sides. We wud have rached the Ohio by daylight, but the last twenty
miles the Scioto zigzags through the bottoms loike a worm fence, and
is crooked as a ram's horn. It moinded me of dhrinking Pat Mooney
that uset to take so long to get home from Donnybrook Fair, but who
always swore that it wasn't the length uv the way that bothered him,
but, bad scran to it ! 'twas the breadth uv it.

"We first soighted the Ohio when the sun was about three hours
high, and Captin Biddy — more by token it was hersilf that wor the
knowingest of all, and watched and provided iverything — wouldn't
lave us break our fast till out into the big river. We then made
straight for the Kentuck side, and for the first time began to breathe
free.

" Shure, now, me leddies, but it wud be good as a play to hear of
the thricks and twists and dayvices uv that Injun girrul to get clean

STORY OF LARRY S ESCAPE CONTINUED. 359

offwud me and the gossoon; how she blinked in here, and made a
run there. Netty could sight a canoe farder than hawk a bird.
Sometimes we'd lie by for hours, and make it up by night, and she
all the time so watchful and plisint and cunning. Begorra but it was
a marvel. Och ! but it wor the weary, longsome journey ! More
nor two weeks uv this botheration hiding and twisting, wid nothing
but chape wishy-washy wather to drink, and sometimes that bare of
food, that ef we hadn't snared some birds and fish, by the hokey !
we'd a starved. I wor feared at first to fire a gun, and mostwise to
light a fire ; but wunst above the Kanawha, I seed an illegant buck
throtting along wid his nose to the wind, and never saying nothing
to nobody, when I ups wid my rifle, and whin the machine wor oppo-
site the animal I chanced a shot, and the crayture fell. I hadn't
shooted any since the toime, ye moind it well, Misthress Boggs, when
I brought down your horse for a buck at the fire-hunt on Big Beaver,
and faith, I don't know which wor now the most surprised, the deer
or mysilf. Howly Joseph ! but that wor a God sind to us, for the
nimble-witted Biddy had larned a way of scratching out a hole and
making an illegant little oven widout any shmoke at all at all.

" I thin shot a gobbling bull turkey and a thrifle of a bear's cub,
and hanged ef we didn't live for a toime loike foighting-cocks ; but
in quensequence uv our havin' no salt, I wouldn't have guv a rusty
rasher of bacon, flanked wud a primin' of good mountain dew, for
the whole batch of frish mate."

"And were you never chased by Net-to-way's people all this time,
Larry ?" said Shepherd, wonderingly.

"By the grate- toe of St. Pether I'll be bound we wor; and shure I
thought I'd towld ye uv that. It wor the first evening on the Ohio,
when Biddy — that, by the immortal St. Pathric ! seemed to have eyes
in all parts of her wise little noddle — on looking back, sighted a
crowd of canoes, filled with savidges, a-craping an' a-staling up along
the shore forninst us. ' Wa-kous-ta and The Moose,' sez Biddy, a
koind of froightened beloike. 'Phat's to be done now, Biddy, dar-
lint?' sez I. 'Whist! whist! Larry,' sez she, 'and we'll paddle
canoe into dat leetle, leetle run.' * Good,' sez I. And faith an' we
did it, and Biddy slipped the boat ahind uv a screen of leaves and
willows that she fixed so nateral loike that it wud a- fooled Ould
Horney hisself.

" There we waited and waited till the six canoes corned in sight. ' A
half-dozen eggs to ye, Misther Waukousta,' sez I, bowld and indepen-
dent loike, as they slunk past, ' an' six uv them rotten. Ef you're
sharper than little chafe Net-to-way here, ye must git up airly in the
mornin'.' This wor what's called a soli-loquoy.

" So afther dark we slippit out into the river again, and, wud ye
belave it, crept past a foire in a dape ravine, about which these same
bamboozled Injuns were wagging their toes and fooling away their
time. We paddled all the night and then laid by in a little run as
loike the tother as two peas in a pod ; but we niver seed them more,
and now here we are all safe and sound. But, by the blissed apossles,
Misther Shepherd, but I'm dhry as a powtherhorn wid so much
tongue-clacking."

360 SIMON GIRTY.

''Truly a well-earned escape, Larry," said Brady, approvingly,
** and your sweetheart has a sharp head piece on her shoulders ; but
what are ye going to do with her now — not marry her ? '

"By the Poiper that played afore Moses, that's joost phat I'll do,
and from my heart out — divil a thing less. Bad scran to ye, Brady,
shure ye wudn't have me play the mane villan wid the loikes o' her;
to decave and desart her whin she luved and thrusted me, and's
brought me, loike a wee fairy that she is, through a thousand dangers.
She's moine till death, and far better nor I desarve. Av the schwate
Misthress Swearingen, there — and be me song I kin see wid half an
eye that it's all right nowbetwuxt you twain — wud have so trated you,
d'ye think ye cud have shut the dures uv yer heart forninst her, and
left her all out in the cowld ?"

" Larry Donohue forever!" shouted Lydia, amid the general merri-
ment which Larry's personal allusion had made. " Spoken like an
honest man, and so say we all."

*'And \ first of all," continued Brady, in some confusion. "I
would have thought you a scoundrel, Larry, if you would have wished
to do otherwise, for, from what we have seen and heard of Nettoway,
she is a modest, worthy and amiable young girl; and when is the mar-
riage to be?"

" By the mortial, captin, the sooner it is, the bether I'll loike it.
Av there's no praste to the fore here, troth an' I'll thrust ennymon of
God that can handle a prayer buke and tie a matrymonial noose."

"Oh, girls !" cried Lydia, clapping her little hands in the greatest
glee; "a wedding! a wedding ! that'll be just elegant. We' //take
care of Netty, Larry, and see that she has everything necessary."

"Faith, an' I'm obleeged to ye, young leddies, wid a heart and a
half. I'll lade aff the soshyul sports, and, by all the schwates o' rosin,
av I be'ent mooch mistaken, there'll be some couples of yez that I
know that'll be following hard afther "

"But what," interrupted Brady from the blushing group, "is to be-
come of your brother m Kentuck whom ye came out in search of?"

" Och, botheration about my vagabond brother," laughed Larry.
" I'll bother no more afther him. Av he can't hunt me up I'll niver
wasthe more time chasing him. I'm foinding, be jabers, that Ameri-
ka's a moighty big counthry, an' here's as foine a speck uv it as Tve
ever seed, and so I'll joost set up housekaping hereabouts. I'll get
me a dirthy acre or so, knock me up a shanty, gather a few slips uv
pigs and some chickens, and it'll go hard wid me if the Donohue
family won't soon howld up their heads wid the best of ye."

This announcement of Larry's was received with the greatest ap-
plause. It was just the very thing, thought all. The three girls now
went out to get Netty and Harry, and to make all arrangements for a
speedy wedding.

The news soon spread about the settlement. Larry's story, his
doings and sayings, were handed from mouth to mouth, and he, as
usual, became universally popular. He was always surrounded with a
laughing crowd, and could now be seen hob-nobbing with " Mad Ann
Bailey," or now cracking jokes with even that long-haired " faymale
woman," Lew Wetzell.

STORY OF Larry's escape continued. 361

A wedding on the Virginia border at that time was, according to
"Doddridge's Notes," a grand and prolonged frolic, and attended
with most novel and remarkable ceremonies, in which the whole
neighborhood took part. The groom was conveyed to the cabin of
the bride — and in that sparsely-settled country the houses were fre-
quently miles apart — by a mounted procession of the male and female
friends of both parties.

This wedding "march" was often oddly interrupted by the narrow-
ness and obstructions of the horse-paths through the woods — fallen
trees and grape vines mischievously thrown across the way. Some-
times an ambuscade was formed by the wayside, and a Sudden dis-
charge of firearms took place, causing shrieks among the girls, stam-
pedes among the horses, and a busy and laughing pursuit of the beaus
attendant. If a wrist or ankle were sprained by falls, it was tied with
a handkerchief, and no more thought of it.

The marriage ceremony preceded the backwoods dinner, which was
a bountiful feast of beef, pork, fowls, fish, deer and bear meat, invaria-
bly accompanied with plenty of whisky.

Then commenced the dancing of reels and jigs until all, fiddlers and
guests, were completely tired out. Frequently this feasting and danc-
ing lasted several days, until the whole company were so exhausted
with the violent exercise and loss of sleep that many days of rest were
required.

Frequently neighbors or relations who were not invited took offence,
and the singular revenge made of cutting off the manes, foretops and
tails of horses belonging to the wedding company.

After the marriage, all the friends united to settle the young couple
in the world by building their cabin. The materials were prepared
and the foundation laid on the first day. On the second the cabin
was raised, and then this hastily-constructed domicile being rudely
furnished with slab tables, three-legged stools, wooden or pewter
dishes, etc., the house-warming, consisting of a dance, occupying a
whole night, and attended by feasting and drinking, took place.

It may well be supposed that this bountiful style of wedding ac-
corded most fully and exactly with Larry's ideas. He desired to
have "lashings of ating and dhrinking," and would have been well
content if the dancing, feasting and merry-making could have been
extended for a month.

Well, this wedding shortly came off, and lasted a whole day and
night. We wish we had time to describe it and its many incidents
more fully, for it was one long remembered in that settlement.
Colonel Zane had freely offered his house for the grand occasion,
while the three ladies who had been Larry's fellow-captives, fitted out
the bride, who looked very pretty and bewitching — 'a schwate, modist
woodland flower," were the words used by Larry on the occasion.

Larry at once adopted the scout's dress of the border, and so had to
make but little change in his chiefs apparel, but he was dreadfully wor-
ried and "mulfathered" by the scandalous condition of his shaved
head. The scrubby red hair had grown out like the stubble of a
mown wheat field, and he was forced to cut off his flaming scalp-lock
to match, and be married in a coon-skin cap.

362 SIMON GIRTV.

When Lew Wetzell, with his silky, flowing curls, reaching almost to
his knees, came up to Larry after the ceremony, and asked him why
he kept that fright of a coon-skin on, the groom could scarce keep
his hands off the scout. The negro fiddlers, too, pestered and anger-
ed him a great deal, but still "all went merry as marriage bells"
usually do, and afterwards the whole neighborhood turned in, built
and furnished a comfortable log cabin, and so two of our characters
commenced their house-keeping.

Our wild Irishman is caught at last, and stands a fair chance of
being converted into a staid, sober, contented family man. It is not
our fault if the fiery energy and impetuosity of his character have
placed him ahead of others of his and our friends who started ahead of
him in the hymeneal race. But we are by no means done with him yet

CHAPTER XCI.

THE BATTLE OF THE BLUE LICKS.

Suppose three months to have passed since the events above related.
Of our characters, Drusilla Swearingen is now at her father's house on
Short creek, and with her Captain Brady, who after his visit to Fort
Pitt, had taken several scouts with Killbuck. Major Rose is back at
Fort Pitt, still acting as aid to General Irvine, and living in his house-
hold. Save a little more abstraction and moodiness than usual, none
even of his intimates could have guessed the heart trouble he had
passed through during his late absence from the fort.

Nothing of note had happened on the Wheeling border since Lew
Wetzell's tragical adventure, already related, with the four Indians.
In other directions, however, the failure of the Crawford expedition
was producing its legitimate fruit. Besides a plentiful outcrop of
wasting marauds and individual or family murders, several raids had
occurred on a much more extensive scale concerning two of which we
will make passing mention.

Hannahstown, the county seat of Westmoreland — which then com-
prised all south-western Pennsylvania — was, on July 14th. attacked
and burnt to the ground by abody of about two hundred Indians, said
to have been under the lead of one of the Girty brothers, and coming
from the Allegheny river by way of the Kiskiminitas.

The inhabitants all took refuge in the fort close by, which success-
fully withstood a vigorous attack, lasting until after night. The
savages killed and captured quite a number of persons and slaughtered
or drove off many horses and cattle, but finally left, laden with plunder.

They also surprised Miller's Station near by, where a wedding was
in full progress. A number of the panic-stricken party were made
prisoners, including the groom and bride, and a lady guest with her
two young and beautiful daughters.

These last were afterwards surrendered to the British in Canada,
and excited much attention for their beauty and sympathy from their

THE BATTLE OF THE BLUE LICKS. 363

misfortunes. One of them, Marion by name, so touched the heart of
an English officer, that he soon after married her.

News, too, had lately arrived at Fort Henry of an important move-
ment of the savages against the Kentucky border, and particularly of
the unsuccessful assault on Bryant's Station by a body of six hundred
savages, led by Simon Girty, which was followed a few days after by
the bloody and terribly-disastrous " Battle of the Blue Licks," fought
August 19th, at which Girty defeated with dreadful slaughter, the
force under Todd, Boone, Twigg and McGary.

Bryant's Station, near Lexington, Kentucky, had resisted all Girty's
assaults. He himself had on the first day been struck down by a rifle
ball, his life being saved by the leaden messenger having been dead-
ened by a piece of thick sole leather which happened to be in his
pouch at the time.

Finding little could be done without artillery, and that the princi-
pal chiefs were in favor of raising the siege, Girty mounted a large
stump near one of the fort gates and thought to try the effect of nego-
tiation. He assured the heroic little band, numbering less than fifty,
that resistance against his six hundred savages would only be madness;
that he was hourly expecting reinforcements with artillery ; that if the
fort were taken by storm he could not save their lives from the enrag-
ed savages ; but if they surrendered at once, he gave them his honor
that not a hair of their heads would be injured.

The garrison listened in silence to Girty's speech, many of them
looking very blank at the threat of approaching artillery; but a brave
and high-spirited young fellow, by the name of Reynolds, yelled out
in answer to Girty's query " whether the garrison knew him ?" that
he "was very well known; that he himself had a worthless cur, to
which he had given the name of ' Simon Girty' in consequence of his
striking resemblance to the renegade of that name ; that if he had ar-
tillery or reinforcements he might bring them up and be ; and

that if he or any of his naked, painted scoundrels found their way into
the fort, they wouldn't use guns on them, but switches;'' and ending
by the boast that the whole country was rising to their aid, and that
if " he and his gang of cut-throats would not be gone, their scalps
would be soon drying in the sun."

Girty, it may be well supposed, retired with great disgust at this
bravado, but fearing that Reynolds' threats about the aid might be
true, he hastily decamped during the night with his whole force.

The very next day Boone, Todd and Twigg brought forces, amount-
ing in all to near two hundred men, in pursuit. Girty's trail was
broad and clear, many of the trees being hacked with tomahawks as
if inviting pursuit. As the impetuous pioneers reached the Licking,
the Kentuckians saw the enemy's rear leisurely ascending the rocky
ridge on the opposite bank.

A halt and a consultation of officers ensued. The veteran Boone
strongly urged a delay until Colonel Logan would come up with his
large force ; that he (Boone) knew well the ground across the river ;
that Girty outnumbered them three to one, and that he much feared
an ambuscade where two ravines ran together in such manner so as to
allow of a front and flank attack at the same time.

364 SIMON GIRTY.

Opinion was divided, and while they were engaged in hot and anx-
ious discussion, the rash and hair-brained mad-cap. Colonel Hugh
McGary, a desperado of the most reckless and headlong courage, who
could never endure the sight of an enemy without instant battle-*-
brought matters to a crisis by giving a loud war-whoop, waving his hat
above his head, dashing his horse into the stream, and shouting out
" Let all who are not cowards follow me ! "

The effect was electrical. Pell-mell, hurry-scurry, the mounted men
dashed into the Licking, the footmen surging in among them in one
tumultuous mass. Up the other side they madly dashed, the yelling
and furious McGary far in the van.

No scouts were sent out ahead or on either side. Officers and men
infected with uncontrollable ardor by the boiling passion of one fiery
man, were alike demented. It was the same old story so often repeated
in the history of Indian warfare. Now the fatal spot where the two
ravines headed, mentioned by Boone — that experienced old Indian
fighter —was reached. Here the van suddenly halted, being violently
attacked by an Indian force in ambush. The centre and rear now rush
up. The fire soon becomes terribly destructive. A murderous hail
ploughs through the exposed ranks on all sides.

It is Braddock's Fields over again. The enemy's flanks extend, en-
closing their victims in a net. Scarce a redskin to be seen, and the
whites, officers and men, huddled together like sheep, without sense or
order. The officers fall on all sides — Todd and Trigg; Harland,
McBride and Boone's son already killed.

The savages now extend their lines to cut off return. This is noted
at once, and a disorderly retreat is compelled. The savages leap out
after them with appalling blood-curdling yells and with their keen
tomahawks deal destruction on all sides, making cruel slaughter.

The retreat soon degenerated into a most disorderly rout. It was
no longer a command, but a rabble. The horsemen fled wildly back
to the river, and mostly made good their escape, but the foot, and
more especially the van, which were deepest enmeshed in the fatal net,
suffered horribly — were almost destroyed.

The slaughter in the river was deplorable. The ford was abso-
lutely choked with horse, foot and yelling savages. The pursuit was
continued full twenty miles, although there was comparatively little
loss after leaving the river.

Later in the evening the panting, exhausted remnant arrived at
Bryant's station. The disastrous news soon spread, and the whole
land was covered with mourning. Over sixty men of that force — and
most of them the very hope and flower of Kentucky — were killed.
On the very same day Colonel Logan arrived at Bryant's station at the
head of no less than four hundred and fifty gallant men.

He resolved to advance, and the next day reached the bloody
field of defeat. The foe was gone! There lay the bodies of
the victims still unburied and almost unrecognizable, with immense
flocks of buzzards disturbed from their horrid feast, soaring over the
ground.

A number of bodies lay in the ford partly consumed by fishes. The
whole were collected and interred. The savages were by that time

DEATH OF m'COLLOCH — LEW WETZELL's FEATS. 365

across the Ohio and on the road to the Chillicothe towns. Nothing
at present renaained but retreat and study of revenge.

Shortly after Gen. Rogers Clark made a return invasion with a thou-
sand men against the Piqua towns on the Miami ; but it was, in com-
parison, a barren victory, as all the Indian towns were found deserted,
and but little injury, beyond the wasting of the crops, etc., was
inflicted.

CHAPTER XCII.

DEATH OF m'cOLLOCH — LEW WETZELL's FEATS.

As stated, however, no movement in force had yet taken place on
the Wheeling border. Slover had, indeed, brought, and Isaac Zane
had sent, word that an attack on Fort Henry was part of the pro-
gramme resolved upon in the Mad River Tribal Council, and scouts
were constantly kept out ; but, with the exception of a few trifling
forays and depredations, nothing very alarming had yet occurred. We
will allude only to such incidents as affect any of our dramatis personce.
About the last of July, Major Sam. McColIoch, and his brother, John,
hearing that "Indian signs" had been noted in the neighborhood,
took horse from Van Metre's Fort and rode down nearly as far as
Wheeling. Returning up the Ohio, they had passed " Girty's Point "
— a terminal projection on the river hills, so called from its being the
Renegade's favorite route of attack and retreat in Virginia — when all
at once there burst upon their startled ears a deadly discharge of rifles
from a matted copse that bordered their path.

The peerless and intrepid Major fell to rise no more. By the same
volley John's horse was also killed ; but he, leaping to the horse of
his murdered brother, sprang off at a gallop. After riding about fifty
yards, he turned in his saddle and found a crowd of savages breaking
cover, and their leader brandishing a knife and bending over the Major's
body to take his scalp.

Quick as a flash, John's rifle was aimed and discharged, bringing
the chief down. He then sprang ofi" and reached Van Metre's in
safety.

The next day a party went out to bring in the major's body, which
they found entire, except the scalp and heart. Some years after an
Indian confessed that he was of the party, and that although John
McColloch had killed a great captain they had killed a greater, and
that the major's heart had been divided among them and eaten, so that,
as he said, "We be bold like Major McColloch."

Shortly after this sad event, a man and boy had, at different morn-
ings, gone out from Fort Henry, lured by a wild turkey call, which
was a frequent and very fatal Indian decoy on the frontier. They
never returned. This "call," which although put in the mouth of
every border hunter of the day, cannot well be imitated on paper,
seemed always to come from the direction of a rocky cliff on the
"horse shoe" of Wheeling Creek.

Lew Wetzell was not long in concluding where this noisy gobbler

366 SIMON GIRTY.

was concealed. He had often entered a spacious rocky cavern in the
face of that hill, hanging at least sixty feet over the creek, and the
entrance to which was at that time almost completely hidden by a
tangled growth of vines and overhanging foliage.

So slipping out before dawn the next day, he stealthily made a rapid
detour and stationed himself, with cocked rifle, directly above the
mouth of the cavern.

He had not waited more than a half hour, before the red-crested
and gaily-plumed gobbler, in the shape of a tufted, painted Indian
warrior, came out on a little ledge before the cave, gave a wary,
searching glance around from his commanding perch, and then cran-
ing out his neck, issued a low chuckle, followed by a loud, clear chug-
a-logga, chug-a-logga, chug-a-logga-chug, in a most singular succession
of gutturals poured forth in a crowded volume.

Wetzell's responsive chuckle was altogether internal and inaudible,
but none the less triumphant. Drawing a careful bead at the gobbler's
smooth and polished sconce, crack went his unerring rifle, and his
gobblership was doubled up like a jack-knife and never chuckled more.

At another subsequent scout after " Injun sign," Wetzell took shel-
ter in the loft of a deserted cabin on the peninsula of Wheeling creek,
and was preparing himself for a snug night's sleep when to his utter
dismay, six Indians, hideous in their war paint, stealthily entered the
cabin below, one after another, and striking a fire, commenced pre-
paring their evening meal.

Wetzell was as near a fright as such a singularly reckless desperado
could ever get, but cocking his rifle and drawing his keen scalping
knife, he waited for the first intimation of his discovery, determined
to leap down among them and sell his life as dearly as possible.

Fortunately the redskins were weary with. their long day's tramp,
and without exploring the loft, lay down and were soon fast asleep.
Wetzell patiently waited until they were locked in deepest slumber,
crawled noiselessly down, slunk stealthily out of the door, and hid
himself at a convenient distance.

At the earliest streak of dawn, a huge, burly savage stepped out of
the door, gave a sleepy stretch and yawn, which was instantly changed
into a dreadful groan as he dropped a corpse from the unerring bullet
of the daring young borderer. His heart's blood was still gushing and
staining the dewy grass ere his destroyer had breasted the hill which
separated him from the fort. The murderous band took no scalps
that trip.

It was just such menaces and stirring incidents as these that kept
that frontier in perpetual alarm during all that summer. At no time,
however, was there felt such complete security as on September the
8th. It was a Saturday, and Hambleton Kerr and Peter Neisewanger
had just come in from a long and careful scout over the Indian
country — which commenced just across the Ohio — and reported not
the slightest trace of a hostile redskin. The next day was a Sabbath
of complete rest.

On Monday morning, early, Andrew Zane and Larry — now grown
to be a thriving and reputable settler of Fort Henry — were returning
from Catfish (Washington, Pa.,) with a fresh supply of liquor. Pro-

DEATH OF m'cOLLOCH — LEW WETZELL's FEATS. 367

bably never in all his life had Larry felt so exultant as he jogged his
horse along the well known " trace," mounted on a bag for a saddle,
in each end of which was snugly stowed away a full keg of " mountain
dew."

He had just reached the brow which overlooked the fort and all its
lovely surroundings, including his own humble cabin, and had taken
a long and admiring gaze about, when, in the exuberance of his
spirits he thus addressed his companion :

" Och, be me sowks, Misther Zane, but it makes a moighty big
differ, an' so it does, whedder a Paddy bes a thramping vagabone, or
a sober, respiktable family mon, wid his own bit shebeen an' a thrue,
tinder-hearted wife to iverbid him wilcome to his own dure. Bedad,
sir, but Larry Donahue's been knocked about ould Ireland loike a
fut ball — from Dublin to Galway, and from Skibbereen to Ballyhillin
— iver since he wor the hoith o' yer leg."

*' Why, Larry," laughed his companion, *' you're getting devilish
sentimental all at once. You mustn't take your marriage so hard."

"Phat! hard is it?" replied Larry, earnestly. " An' shure it's
joking ye be. Faith, thin, I wouldn't call King George himself my
onckle. Be the hokey, I've joost been sthraining my brace uv winkers
to kotch glint uv Misthress Donohue, the scwatest, purtiest and luving-
est faymale that I've iver cockit eyes on, and that knowing an' invoit-
ing loike that — schwate good luck to her — she can trick ye up the
matther uv a hot poonch or toddy, or a rasher of bacon and eggs, or a
pan uv innocent corn dodgers as nate an' handy as iny Irish lass that
iver peeled praties.

*' God luve her, shure I'm far from faulting the wee tanned nymph
uv the wuds, but she's one wakeness I can't mend her uv. She'll niver
be soshul loike wid the pigs and chuckens, but kapes slammin' the
dure in their very faces, and shure it's not homesome to me av there's
not a chicken a clucking, or a snip uv a pig a grunting aroond my
bid ; and thin she loikes wild mate betther nor tame, corn betther nor
praties, and cloth leggins betther nor linsey-woolsey petticotes, but
whin all's said and done, she's a good and darlint woife, and wuU be
the makin' o' me, I can plain see that ; but shure it's dhry clacking,
Misther Zane, an' two kegs o' the rale ginooine sthuff a waggin anun-
der me. I'll pull out wunct more the wee bit peg, and we'll wet our
whissles wid this sthraw that I iver kapes convanyunt loike."

The two men descended from their nags, took off the bag, and
while Larry was getting out the keg with a peg in it, Zane's quick eye
was attracted by something peculiar lying under a clump of bushes
right off the trail. He went to the spot and picked up an old mocca-
sin. Larry took his swig, smacked his lips, and exclaimed :

" By the wig 'o the grate Chafe Justice, Misther Zane, but that's a
sarching and toothsome artickle. It's sthrong enough to make a pig
shquale. Troth, an' it wouldn't take more nor three noggins o' that
to make a mon as dhrunk as a wheelbarrow; but, saints be about us,
phat's that durty ould foot-wrap you've picked up? "

"Come here, Larry?" said Zane, in quick, anxious tones, looking
warily about among the trees ; "something mighty suspicious about
here. This is a Huron moccasin ! See how dark and soft it is I The

363 SIMON GIRTY.

skin's dressed with deer hairs, and the beads are the new English pat-
tern. And look, under that low dogwood are some new hide cuttings.
There's been a far-away Injun squatting there watching this trail, sure's
your born. He's traveled far and has had to make a new moccasin.
Come, let's bury the whiskey under these bushes and gallop to the
fort."

It was done in a moment, and the two soon clattered down the hill
and delivered their news. The returned scouts laughed at their fears,
said they had just ransacked the whole Indian country, and there
wasn't a yaller-hide within a day's tramp. They poked much fun at
Larry's scouting, and called him a " green-horn." Larry began to
think he was, too, and soon a large party started back with him to get
the whiskey, and enjoy a grand spree. In this kind of business Larry
certainly was their superior, and became their willing leader.

On their way back they stopped at Indian Spring, a short distance
from the fort, and were having a right jolly time with the Catfish
spirits, when all at once alarm guns were heard from two scouts, who
had been sent to " Zane's Island," and at the same moment a large
body of Indians could be seen crossing Wheeling Creek, just above
backwater, then traversing the bottom and then advancing in a circuit,
to mount the elevated plateau upon which stood Fort Henry.

How was this ! a numerous and formidable foe not only over the Ohio,
but across Wheeling Creek, before a man of them was discovered. It
argued well for the skill and craft of the leader, whoever he was, for
he must havadivided up his command into small parties, and avoided
all the regular trails.

All was instant confusion and alarm. There was an immediate rush
made by the revelers and all the families from the various cabins into
the fort. There was hurrying and bustle within the stockade.

The great gates were thrown to ; the magazine and storehouse opened
and hasty preparations were made for defence. Lead, guns, toma-
hawks, scalping-knives, spears and every kind of weapon were dragged
from their concealment, and the women, Lydia Boggs and a certain
Betsy Wheat, a perfect amazon in strength and warlike spirit, leading
the van.

At the first intimation of danger, Captain Boggs, the commandant,
mounted the fleetest horse and scurried furiously off towards the settle-
ments of Cross, Short and Buffalo Creeks for aid. It was needed badly,
and quickly. Lew Wetzell and some of the best scouts were absent.
There Were only about thirty men and boys to defend that most im-
portant border-station, and some of these sick or wounded. All the
rest were women and helpless children.

In the absence of Captain Boggs the command was given to a brave
and resolute man by the name of Copeland Sullivan, who, with two
assistants, had, but a short time previous to the enemy's appearance,
landed at the river bank with a pirogue loaded with cannon-ball from
Fort Pitt, and designed for General Rogers Clark, at Louisville. Sul-
livan at once won the confidence of the whole garrison by his coolness
and efficiency.

Major Sam. McColloch's Famous Leap Down Wheeling Hill.

BIE PAQI 350.

SIMON GIRTY LAYS SIEGE TO FORT HENRY. 369

CHAPTER XCIIL

SIMON GIRTY LAYS SIEGE TO FORT HENRY.

We have said that the inmates of the cabins outside the palisades
deserted them for the fort. There was one most notable exception.
At the first siege of Fort Henry, in '77, five years previous, Colonel
Ebenezer Zane's home had been destroyed, his buildings burned and
all his cattle killed.

He therefore resolved that, in case of another siege, he would stay
by his property and defend it to the last. His house was, like all the
others then on the border, built of thick logs and bullet proof. Some
attention had been given to increasing and perfecting its defences, and
here the colonel with his sister Betty, his brother Silas, two brothers
by the name of Greene and his black Sam, were stationed with what
was deemed an ample supply of ammunition.

The enemy were now anxiously awaited, in order that their charac-
ter and number might be determined. The strangers did not tarry,
but soon turned the southeast corner of the fort and deployed out on
the cleared interval between the south end of the stockade and the
wooded declivity overlooking Wheeling Creek and its "bottom."

First appeared the sturdy, square-built, determined-looking leader,
dressed in full scout's costume, immediately followed by a company,
some fifty in number, known as the British Rangers, with the English
flag gallantly floating above them, headed by a noisy fife and drum,
and commanded by Captain Pratt, gorgeously apparreled in full uni-
form. Behind this company were irregularly massed a motley crowd
of savages to the number of about two hundred.

Simon Girty, for it was no less a person than our old acquaintance
who had the command of all the forces, now signalled, the music to
cease, advanced towards the fort, in full view of its few but gallant de-
fenders, and formally demanded a surrender, promising the best pro-
tection King George could afford.

The summons was instantly rejected by Sullivan, amid the shouts
and taunts of those who lined the stockades. The enemy now retired
around the bastion to the east side — all save Girty, who, mounted on a
stump and waving a little white flag, argued for the immediate delivery
of the fort, in order to save the shedding of blood, and said he would
not be responsible for the control of his followers, should he be obliged
to take the place by storm. He and his savages, both white and red,
were defied to do their utmost, and Girty himself was loaded with
every variety of opprobrious epithet.

Just as he was angrily turning on his heel, a stalwart figure in full
scout's dress, leaped upon the palisades and shouted out with stentor-
ian voice : " Bide a bit, av ye plaze, Misther Girthy ; d'ye moind him
that's spaking to ye ! "

Girty, very wrathful at being so m{stered\>j a common scout, turned

in some astonishment at the familiar voice, gazed steadily at Larry's

commanding form, and sneered out : " Don't think I ever saw you

before, my man, unless you're the wild and blathering Irishman that I

37° SIMON GIRTY.

once caught, and hoped I had seen the last of. Your brogue and
tongue sound like his."

"Och, bad fate to ye, Girthy, but it's a durthy birrd that fouls its
own nest. Verra sorra I be, ye blackguard, that ye hail from ould
Ireland, but, by all the powers o' war, I am that same Irishman,
Larry Donahue, at yer service, and I make bowld to tell yiz that ye've
trated me rale scandluss and ondacint, and that I bear yet in me
breast the bite o' yer lead."

"And why didn't it kill ye, as I meant?" snarled out the Renegade.

"Be jabers, thin, an' shure I don't know," grinned Larry, good-
naturedly, scratching his short, stubby hair, '•' av it wasn't that I'm
kept over to take the concate intirely out uv Simon Girthy. It's no
malice I bear ye, ye ould tory, more betoken that ye've holpen me to
a schwate wife ; but before the whole fort here I now banther ye, in all
fairity, to foight a jual wid me — choosing yer own weapons — fists,
single-stick, shillalay, knife, pistol, rifle or tomahawk. Tip me the
word, mon, an' I'm down to yiz."

Loud cheers and laughs went up from the fort at Larry's novel way
of settling disputes, and Girty, in great disgust, turned to walk away,
only saying, "Ye'll find, men, before all's over, that ye've made a
blunder by insulting a king's officer with a blathering bog-trotter, and
as iox yoii, ye fool, go to the devil, will ye ! "

"Aye, faith and tliat wuU I, and av ye been'l him, bedad yer his
neardest relation, Av yer no coward, ye bluidy traithor, sthay for
me ! " and much to the surprise of all Larry suddenly, tomahawk in
hand, vaulted his body over the stockade, constructed of perpendicu-
lar logs about seventeen feet high, hung himself down by his hands,
and then dropped.

A wonderful commotion ensued at this dare-devil act. Larry's feet
had scarce touched earth before Net-to-way appeared in his vacant
place, screaming for him to come back. Sullivan ordered him to do
the same. Others ran to open the sallyport. But Larry's wrath was
up in arms at Girty's contemptuous epithets, and, soon as he could pick
himself up, he ran forward to meet his hated foe.

Girty could scarce believe his eyes when he saw this reckless exploit
of Larry's. Had you been near the outlaw then, you would have seen
a vicious fire leap into his wary eyes, and heard a low chuckle of de-
light, ending in " The cursed marplot meant it after all."

As stated, all this took place on the south side of the fort, where
the ground between it and the declivity which stretched down to the
creek "bottom" had been completely denuded of trees. Towards
this descent Girty, as if half afraid to meet his pursuer's furious on-
slaught, led the way.

Larry, in spite of the warning cries from the ramparts, and not see-
ing a single foe in sight, swiftly followed, hoping to overtake and cap-
ture the outlaw before he reached the woody declivity. Just as Girty
was within a single step of the brow of the hill, he turned with a
snarling laugh, and exclaimed :

" Ha ! ha ! ha ! Ye thought, ye blatherskite, I was as big an ass as
yourself, did ye ? You're too fresh caught a paddy to match a Girty.
Now for my turn !"

SIMON GIRTY LAYS SIEGE TO FORT HENRY. 371

"He whistled shrill,
And he was answered from the hill
On right, on left, above, below,
Spring up at once the lurking foe,
And every tuft of bush gives life
To ^ainied warriors armed for strife."

As the Renegade made his bound down the descent, he cried out in
Indian : " Don't harm the crazy numskull, but save him for the tor-
ture," and Larry rushed right into the arms of his deadly foes. They
seemed to swarm out of the grass and brush on every side and leaped
upon the astounded Irishman like a pack of hungry wolves upon a
wounded buck.

Poor Larry was borne to the earth on the instant. A dozen scouts,
headed by Ham Kerr, had made a rush from the sallyport for his rescue,
but the lookout from the elevated cannon-platform had detected a
large number of savages crouching just beyond the crest of the hill,
and shouted out an anxious warning.

What were a dozen against a hundred ! They turned and bounded
for the gate. The baffled savages now leaped upon the plateau, and
uttering a terrific yell, sent after them a cloud of whistling bullets,
which pattered against the tough white-oak pickets and closing gate
like hail. Our rash and unfortunate Irishman was the only victim of
Girty's well-planned decoy.

The Renegade, with that devilish shrewdness which marked his career,
had shown but little over a third of his force, and on. that side of the
fort, too, which alone admitted of an ambush. A hundred picked
Indians had been artfully concealed on the pitch of the hill, just beyond
its crown and on the very edge of the forest.

Girty's design had been to decoy the whole garrison after him, and
thus return with interest the fatal ambush which the Wheeling scouts
had sprung on him at Killbuck Creek. Larry's blundering rashness,
however, had defeated his stratagem and saved the garrison. Girty
was, therefore, the more infuriated at him.

A perfect calm now ensued. Girty retired his whole force to his
camp about the Indian Spring. The little garrison had already an
awakening as to the number and quality of their foes, and anxiously
redoubled their efforts to put the stockade in the best possible condi-
tion for defence.

Poor Larry, for a time after his capture, lay like a log, stunned,
mortified and dejected. The thongs which cut so sharply into his
flesh were as nothing to the mental pangs he felt at being so cruelly-
deceived, and so easily trapped. What would become of Nettoway,
and what would the whole fort think of his rash folly.

The experienced borderers generally, save a few madcaps like Poe,
Wetzell, Kenton, McGary and McColloch, were " daring where daring
was the wiser part — prudent when discretion was valor's better self,"
and Larry had sense enough to see that he had acted with foolish
bravado, which was very far from good sense. However, as he lay
there brooding over his discomfiture, he began to perceive the design
of the ambush, and soon felt a certain pride and content that his folly
had probably saved the fort.

372 SIMON GIRTY.

He was shortly afterwards picked up by a detail of soldiers and
carried, by a circuit, along the side of the hill towards the camp. As
he was borne, sad, dejected, and with closed eyes, past a crowd of
smoking Indian chiefs, one of them who had not been with the ambus-
cade party, suddenly rushed forward, clutched him by his short red
hair, and cried out with great vehemence, in broken, very broken
English :

"Ugh! you vely much — tief! Wat for you steal Nettoway and
Tutelu. Where be dem now, hey ? Muss talk soon ur me kill and
scalp.'

It was Wa-kous-ta. He had given Larry a very rude shock, jarring
and irritating his whole nervous system, bringing his eyes, with a sud-
den snap, to a wide stare, and flushing his face with anger.

" Af{ wid ye now, ye owdashus vagabone ! " he cried, with great
disgust and indignation. " By the mortial, av ye don't immadeyutely
lift yer dirthy talons from my pate, I'll make an onplisint corpse uv
yiz. An' phat know I of yer haythen names, Nettoway and Tutelu ?
Shure the foremost — and may the Lord be betune her and harm — is
my own woman, Biddy, and the hindermost, bedad, was furst stoled
by you, and it's yerself, ye blackguard, that's the rale thafe of the
wur-r-rld. Ough ! Ough ! Ough ! bad scran to ye, sojors, and wud
ye Stan' by, grinning loike so many rat thraps, and see a Christyun
mon lugged and wooled by a nakid haythun, wid a sconce smoother
nor a copper biler Fair play's a iewall, says I, be jabers ; ayther
kape the painted divil aff, or guv me hands an' feet and let me to him.
I'll whup him as asy as kiss my hand."

The soldiers had now, with some difficulty, forced the chief off, and
set Larry under a tree on the edge of the British camp. He would
have been fairly boiling over with indignation, had not his rude en-
counter with Wa-kou3-ta given him his first hope of escape from his
hard fate.

CHAPTER XCIV.

GIRTY AND LARRY HAVE A TILT.

As Larry was thus ruminating, " chewing the cud of sweet and bitter
fancy," and as his eyes brightened as his heart lightened, Simon Girty
sauntered scowlingly up to him, glared silently at his captive for some
little time, Larry looking down and aifecting not to take the slightest
notice of his presence.

"Ha! ha! ha I ye meddling Irish idiot," he sneered out at last,
with one of his most rasping and exasperating chuckles. " Ye've made

a d n purty mess of it, haven't ye ? What will I do with you now,

ye blatherskite ! "

" An' shure, Girthy," replied Larry, with modest demeanor and
low, even tones, for he had carefully deliberated on his policy ; " an'
ay you don't know that, be me sowl, I'll be sore bothered to larn ye.
How wud it sarve to sind me back to the fort as a tirrible warning.
Be the powers, captin, but it wud surphrize them intirely."

GIRTY AND LARRY HAVE A TILT. 373

Girty scanned the prisoner, scarce able to understand his easy indif-
ference. At last he blurted out : " I see you captin me now, at last.
By heavens, it's best for ye. I really don't know sometimes whether
ye are knave or fool."

** Say fool, av it plaze yiz betther, Girthy, for upon my faix that
same I be to purtind to match wits wid a dape won like yerself. An'
shure, mon, but yer a moighty deludher."

**0h, none o' yer blarney with me," said Girty, snappishly. ''That
fetch won't work. I fairly hate yer grinning chops and insulting ways.

You've completely ruined two ambushes for me, and now by

you've got to die. I tvon^lht eternally put out by an ornery, low-lived
thing like you. I'll do this for ye, though : I'll not let the reds tor-
ture ye, but you may choose yer own death."

" Begorra, thin, an' I'm mooch obleeged to yiz," said Larry, easily
and pleasantly. "Troth, an' av I can die my own way I'm much
loike Lanty O'Roony — uv the O'Roonys, County Down, ye mind —
who had wuncet the same offer, and said an' av 'twere left to him,
'twas uv ould age he'd rayther choose; but av that's too slow, Girthy,
shure it's choked wid honey I'd be, so sind to the fort for Mistress
Donohue, an' let her smodder me wid kisses. I'm convaynent for
the sakerfice. But I'm not much feared uv yer killing me. Simon
Girthy daren't do it ! There's that in the fort 'ull kape him "

"What, you born idiot," growled Girty, his wrath again mounting
fast J "'dareft't do it! We'll see ! Ye bantered me once to-day:
I'll take no second. Ho, there ! Sergeant Dekker ! have a file o' mus-
kets at the spring in half an hour. If ye've any will or prayers or
requests to make, Larry, best make them now. I won't be too hard
on ye."

'* Only one question to ax," said Larry, demurely. *' Where's
Misthress Malott and her daughter that I've heern were found? "

" What's that to you, you prying busy-body ?" aswered Girty,
crabbedly.

" Faith an' sure not much. Bedad it's more jw^rbizzness nor mine,
Girthy ; but ye towld me to ax quistions, and, bad cess to ye, ain't
I dooing the same ? "

Girty could not help being surprised and interested, and at last con-
descended, in a sulky voice, to say :

" They're both at Detroit, and Kate Malott's now my own wife.
Have ye anything to say agin it ? "

** Whirroo and murther ! " exclaimed Larry, now feeling more joy-
ful and confident. *' Och, no objiction the laste bit in the wur-r-ld,
av the leddy's not forninst it ; but are ye speaking God's truth now,
Girthy?"

" Odd questions for a dying sinner," sneered Girty. " Don't ye
believe me ? Was married near three months since, just after Craw-
ford's defeat. Mr. Malott gave away the "

" Misther Malott, an' who the divil's him, Girthy ? "

" Don't you know, you goose ? It's too long a story to tell now ;
but he's the one your cussed party called the Hermit."

"Phat! the Harmit ! Howly Joseph ! an' ye don't mane that !
Blissed martyrs, but shure he's the quare spook, inyhow. I niver seed

374 SIMON GIRTY.

him near, but I've barkened the others spake uv his wild eyes and tell
uv uncombed hair. Well, well, and he's the "

" Yes," promptly interrupted Girty, tiring of these questions ; " the
whole family's together now but Harry, and we don't despair of even
finding hvn some day."

*' Didn't I tell yiz, Girthy ! " now spoke Larry with the greatest
delight and confidence, a broad grin on his face, " that you wouldn't
kill the Donohue ! Shure Pve found the little shaver, Harry,
my "

'' What ! " said Girty, starting up as if he'd been shot and catching
Larry by the throat. " Ye lie ! ye villain, ye lie ! it's only a fetch to
git out o' my clutches. Ye never saw him ! ye never will see him !
Tell me all ! all ! or I'll throttle ye to death ! "

" Blissid Vargin, yer at — it — now, ye — chru — el — murtherer ! "
gasped Larry, fairly growing black in the face. "Let up! ye born
divil, or ye' 11 ne'er hear more ! "

Girty now relaxed his hold, looking somewhat confused. Soon as
his helpless victim recovered breath he gasped out, indignantly:

" An' ye call yerself a mon, Girthy ! Shame on ye ! ye moight as
well try a fall wid a baby. Do but onshackle me wunst an' I'll bate
ye all out an' out in a brace o' shakes."

Larry, however, soon allowed himself to be pacified by Girty's ex-
cuses, and continued : " Sakes above, mon, but I'm feared to tell yiz
more good news ; it gives ye such choking feelings ; but it's thrue as
that I'm tied hand and fut — and begorra, ye can't dispute that, inny-
how, seeing that yer still there unhurted — that I've found Harry, an'
have him safe in yonder fort — frisky as a kitten."

" I can't believe it," said Girty, in great astonishment. " If it's
true, 'twill be good for you, I promise ; if not, 'twill be just the other
way. How do ye know it's him ? "

"On my faix but I'll prove it ye, av ye'll but squat and kape yer
clutches to yer-silf. But, as father Lafferty used to say afore a sarmint,
' I nioost prayface my discoorse ' by telling till ye a dape sacret that's
mixed up wid my shtory. Av ye^ie been indushtrious, Girthy, these
powthery toimes o' war, indade, thin, not to be outdone by my bet-
thers, an' so have I, for I'm joost as much marrhied as ye are," and
here Larry winked and glinted at Girty with such an irresistibly
comical leer on his phiz, that even he had to return grin for grin.

" Married, Larry !" he exclaimed, incredulously, " and you a prison-
er ! Curse me ef I don't believe ye'd dance a jig on yer own coffin.
Who took pity ox\. you, and when did ye find time to court?"

" Och, be jabers, wud ye' have me sit spoiling and a moulding away
till the moss growed on me back, and a purty and lissome lass loike
Nettoway joost consumin' wid luve for — "

"Nettoway?" interrupted Girty, more surprised than before; "an
Injun squaw ! Why, man, that's worse and worse."

" Divil a bit uv it ; for throth I'm rale marrhied by both book and
praycher, and to a purty gur-rl that's as broight as the blissed sunshine,
an' that's iver singing away loike a throstle ; but I'll tell ye the whole
sthory about her and the gossoon," and Larry now rapidly ran
over his late adventure, leaving no doubt whatever in Girty's

GIRTY AND LARRY HAVE A TILT. 375

mind that the lad was Malott's long lost Harry, and his own brother-
in-law.

" Strange story all this, Larry," he said, at last; " but I'll keep my
word with you, honest. I must have Harry if I have to swap you for
him "

"Bedad, a very sinsible remark," said Larry, oracularly, and
plainly much relieved ; " and it's the Lord's own doings, too. We've
all joost been putting uv our heads thegither — for the wee lad, d'ye
moind, is a great pet wid the whole fort — how we'd get him to you
and his modher, that myself and the young leddies knew so well,
when along you come with a bloody faction at yer heels. 'Talk uv
the divil and wun uv his imps appears' — but shure Biddy an' me'U
miss the little mon moightily. He's loike an' own child to us, is
Harry, and as for Biddy an' him, shure you'd think they were fed
from the same breast. Och, hone ! och, hone ! though the young
divil's no more nor knee high to a duck, he's joost the sun o' the
shanty, that's phat he is !"

Sergeant Dekker now stepped up and touched his hat to Girty, say-
ing: " The men are ready at the spring captain, with rifles loaded
as you ordered."

"All right, sergeant," said Girty, "but I've changed my mind.
Let them go back to camp."

The sergeant marched off, wondering.

" You see, Larry, said Girty, rising briskly, and commencing to
untie Larry's thongs, " you've made a deuced narrow escape. Reckon
I'll have to let you off" this time. My Injuns will make a pother about
it, too, but I'll risk it, for you'll be back again soon. It's onpossible
that fifty can stand long agin four hundred, and I don't believe, if
my count's right, that you have more than forty- eight."

This last was said with apparent indifference, but with a sly, eager,
inquiring look at Larry as if expecting an answer. Larry was shrewd
enough to see this in a moment, and was at once on his guard. Girty
had mentioned a fighting force in the fort more than double the actual
number. It was the former's duty to augment it ; so he said, in the
most innocent and unsuspicious manner possible :

"I owe ye a good turn, Girthy, for this day's doins, an' I'd joost
whisper to ye that av your spies have but counthed forty-eight, they've
been dhrunk as David's sow. We've the best men uv the border,
too."

Girty looked annoyed.

" But you have no cannon and we have."

" Be me song, thin, Girthy, ye must have hid them oncommun
clost, for none uv us cotched a glint o' them. I'll not argify the
matther wid ye, but, by the powers, av they can't show two barkers
for yer ivery wun, my name's not Larry, and the sthorehouse and
magoozin's joost that full uv lead and powther and muskits, that the
dures can't be shut. Take an honest mon's advice, Girthy, for wunct,
for betwixt you and me, ye'll have the biggest conthract ye've iver
had in gitting behind thim logs."

Girty bit his lip, greatly deceived by Larry's innocent looks and
apparent friendliness. He ventures one shot more.

376 SIMON GIRTY.

"They can't surely get any aid, for we've taken their messenger."

It was sad news to Larry that Captain Boggs was taken, but casting
a sly look at^Girty's face, he found reason to doubt the fact, so he
said :

"And faith it'll be bad news to the fort boys that one of their ex-
prisses has been took. Av I may be so bould, phat kind uv a mon
was the wun ye kotched ?"

"A fine, smart, active young scout," said the Renegade, boldly.

" Phat a tirrible whopper," thought Larry to himself, for the only
messenger that had left the fort for aid was Captain Boggs, the fort
commandant, and he an old, square-set, gray-headed man, but he
answered demurely :

" Och, by the powers, that moost have been young Mike Wheat
yeVe cotched ; an' shure but his poor modher will be heart-sorry to
hear it. The other chap was a far oulder mon, wid a build like a
buffalo ; but you moost know, Girthy, it wud be moighty mane and
unfair jn the loikes o' me to be blathering the sacrets o' the fort. I
joost minded to put ye on yer guard. Ye'll surely not ax me inny
furdher. ' '

Girty darted a quick, suspicious, scrutinizing glance at Larry's face,
but all there looked so calm, so bland and innocent, that he took
alarm at once. If Larry's news were true, he must not lose a moment.

"Well, I've no more time to fool !" he jerked out snappishly, as
if he was slinging each word at his companion. "Go back to the
fort and send the boy to me ! I'll have to trust )'ou, I suppose, but if
you once deceive, I'll catch and torture ye if I lose every man I've
got."

Larry chuckled to himself at this evidence of his having again out-
witted the outlaw, but merely answered :

" Och, divil the wun o' me' 11 go at all, at all. I'll niver stir a stump
so long as grass grows or wather runs on inny such dirthy bizzness.
Ye moost captin' that job yerself, Girthy. Bad scran to ye, but
'twould be a purthy thing to have the Whaling people think that the
Donohue cud be making a mane spekkelashun out uv the wee laddie,
and all to save his own worthless carcass. By the great rock of Ca-
shal av I wudn't bide here till my poll was grizzled afore I'd do inny
such ondacent mismannerly thrick."

"You tarnal fool, what d'ye mean! " roared Girty; "but stay, I'm
going to make another and last summons, and will manage both to-
gether."

CHAPTER XCV.

SIMON GIRTY ENCOUNTERS LYDIA BOGGS.

Just then Captain Pratt, of the Queen's Rangers, came up, and said :
" Captain Girty, here comes a white flag from the fort carried by a
woman and a boy."

"A white flag, and carried by a woman? it's an open insult! By

SIMON GIRTY ENCOUNTERS LYDIA BOGGS. 377

'the eternal I think they might have trusted Simon Girty enough to
send their leader. I hope though, they've agreed to my terms."

"Schwate modher of heaven!" exclaimed Larry, stretching up on
tiptoe and looking towards the fort in surprise and alarm; "av it
beent purty Misthress Boggs and the wee Harry. Tear an' ages, phat
the devil's broke loose?"

'•What's that ! " said Girty, angrily, but with a certain confusion,
too, as if well remembering his once shooting at the fair fugitive as she
was swimming the Ohio; "that pert, sassy, little jade that so defied
and flurted me to my very face. I'll not receive her ! Here, Pratt,
call up a squad of your rangers and do the prettys to the leddy."

The young officer was glad enough to comply. The men were
drawn up in file, and Captain Pratt advanced some few yards to meet
the flag of truce.

Lydia and little Harry — for it was indeed they — advanced quickly
and confidently toward the spot. Tlie boy looked somewhat frightened
as he saw the staring savages who, gathered around in groups,
were gazing with intense earnestness at the strangers, and especially
did he cling tightly to his protector's dress when he caught the gleam-
ing eyes, of Wa-kous-ta, his Indian father, who seemed about to rush
forward and snatch him.

Lydia, neatly and becomingly dressed, and with a bright flush of ex-
citement kindling her eyes and mantling her fair cheeks, walked
steadily along, looking neither to right nor left, holding Harry tight-
ly by the hand, and occasionally stooping to address him some encour-
aging words. If the spirited young girl felt alarm at the knots of
grim, stern looking savages she was obliged to pass, she showed it not,
but bowing gracefully to Captain Pratt, she said, in quick, nervous
tones :

" Do I address the leader of the forces come against our settlement?"

"I am one of the leaders," answered Captain Pratt, politely, evi-
dently greatly struck with the unusual grace and beauty of his fair in-
terlocutor. "Captain Girty stands there to the rear."

" Excuse me, sir, but the matter that brings me here is one that in-
terests Mr. Girty alone."

"Captain Girty has himself delegated me — Miss Boggs, I believe
your name is — to receive you and hear your message."

",'And yet, sir, I must insist on seeing him, if you please," said
Lydia, in a prompt but decided tone.

"All right, Miss Boggs, I'll send him to the front."

"Confound her impudence — suppose I'll have to face her," said
Girty, on hearing her demand, and for the first time removing his
eager, ardent gaze from the boy Harry.

He came up with more of a bold stride and swagger than would
have been the case had he felt quite at his ease.

" Well ma'am, I'm told you want to see me. What is it ? "

Lydia looked at the Renegade quietly, but with an undefined smile
of sarcasm on her pretty and piquant face, and then bowing with dig-
nity, said, in meaning tones :

" I believe, Captain Girty, we've met before."

" Are ye Miss Boggs ? " said Girty, with an affected carelessness.

378 SIMON GIRTY.

" Yes, yes, believe we have. Ha ! ha ! ha ! Ye didn't stay long with',
us. We were almost too rough for yer fine ladyship, eh?

"Yes, somewhat. I felt more at home with the people about here ;
but you used some pretty far-reaching arguments to persuade me to
stay. Captain. You sent some swift messengers after me, didn't you,
Captain ? "

" Ha ! ha ! ha ! only done to fright ye. Jiminy, but didn't that
mare swim, though ! " answered the outlaw, striving to conceal his
confusion under her frank, earnest eyes and direct queries by an af-
fected laugh — only throttle-deep, how ever.

" Not half so fast as you swore, Captain," retorted Lydia. "You
ran through your cursings like a litany. The air was fairly blue with
them, but your volley of oaths hurt no more than your volley of bul-
lets. But I'm not here to recall pleasant recollections, but am on im-
portant business."

"Yes," said Girty, more briskly and cheerfully now that he was off
the tenter hooks. " I hope your people are now willing to listen to
reason, and to make no useless resistance. You wouldn't have the
slightest chance. Miss Boggs, not the slightest." |

"There might be two opinions about that," said Lydia, promptly;'
''but I'm not authorized to mention anything like surrender! Don't!
think it was ever so much as thought of by a single — "

" Well, then, in God's name," replied the disappointed Girty, hotly,
" what are you here for ? "

" You seem on very familiar terms with the Deity, Captain," con-
tinued Lydia, coolly and with one of those pleasant smiles which are
so galling and exasperating, but which offer no excuse for open re-
sentment. "I have hesird that you have more claims to call below
than above for jour help; but, in brief, my business is simply to
know whether you will exchange Larry there, whom I am glad to see
unharmed, for this boy, whom I suppose you know."

"Oh, is that all?" sneered Girty, now very much nettled; "well,
why didn't you say so at once ? A 7nan would have out with his busi-
ness and been gone long since, but a woman's too glad to get any and
every chance to waggle her tongue, especially when at some one else's
expense, that she don't know when to stop. Ye may know that the
Irishman and I have arranged that long ago, so that, if that's your
business, it's done, and ye can march back again. Come here, Harry,
where ye belong," he continued, holding out his hand to the boy.

"Before I let him go, Girty," said Lydia, " please tell me where
Mrs. Malott is, and whether you'll promise to be kind to Harry whom
we all love so much."

" Don't need any promise, ma'am. He'll be in first-rate hands, and
Mrs. Malott's in Detroit, and is now my mother-in-law."

" What ! " said Lydia, with unaffected surprise. " You don't mean
to say you're married to Kate Malott ? "

" I ^o mean it and'U stick to it. What could I do? Ha ! ha ! ha !
You ran away from me, or it might have been otherwise ; why make
objections now."

This was said coarsely and loudly, with an air that meant " I'm
even with you at last."

SIMON GIRTY ENCOUNTERS LYDIA BOGGS. 379

Lydia colored to the very roots of her hair with vexation, but only
said, with curling lip:

"/don't object, God knows, except on the poor girl's account;
it's a mere question of taste. If Larry is free to come, permit him now
to go back with me."

Then stooping to assure Harry, she told him that Girty was now
his brother, would treat him kindly, and that he would soon see his
mother and all his brothers and sisters. She did not then know of the
existence of his father.

Poor little Harry, so mysteriously knocked about for years, burst in-
to a flood of tears, and seemed as if he could not give up so many
friends to go to that stern, loud-laughing stranger, but at last, see-
ing Larry approaching, the little fellow tearfully kissed Lydia for the
last time, and with open arms ran to meet that older and better friend.

Larry caught the little fellow to his breast and hugged and kissed
liim with the tenderest affection. Then walking up to Girty, he put
the lad in his arms, asking with moistened eyes, to be ever good and
kind to the " curly-pated little shaver."

Girty took Harry gently, kissed him, and tried all he could to soothe
the lad and divert his attention, while Larry, amid the cheers of the
British and the wondering of the silent, onlooking savages, joined
Lydia, to be again received with other rounds of hearty cheers from
the fort.

Not a half hour passed before Girty appeared and made a second
formal demand for surrender, swearing that, if again refused, the fort
would be stormed and every soul massacred. . He was answered with
shouts of defiance and told to remember Col. Crawford's dreadful fate.

It was now sundown. The assailants had no time to waste, and
opened on the fort in dead earnest and from all sides.

We have already stated that Fort Henry was one of the most sub-|
stantial structures of the kind in the West. It was planned by
General Clarke, and was a parallelogram in shape, the longest side
overlooking the Ohio, which there runs directly south. It had a bas-
tion on each corner and the captain's house in the centre, which was
two stories high and with top so arranged as to serve for firing the one
small cannon from. The pickets were, as stated, about seventeen feet
high and ran all about the fort, enclosing a space of about one acre.
Its enceinte included also several cabins, a store-house, magazine, etc.

Such a fort as that, although completely bullet-proof, would have
been knocked into splinters in a short time had the enemy cannon,
but they had not, and Girty was afterwards VA to disbelieve that part
of Larry's story of the fort's having any. They could see one
mounted on the captain's house, but thought it a wooden dummy, for
a year or two before, the Fort Henry people did attempt to make a
wooden cannon, whif h fact Girty learned, after he had seen Larry,
from one of his men.

As the enemy advanced, therefore, they showed small fear of this
little French piece, but dared the besieged to shoot. Sullivan, who
had charge of this gun, waited until the enemy had approached quite
close, and just as Pratt and Girty were shouting and pressing up their
motley force in close order, the priming was touched off, and bang

380 SIMON GIRTY.

went the little '* bull-dog," cutting a passage through the hostile ranks
and filling up the sounding hills with its reverberating echoes.

If the sound were not sufficient the effect was, and Captain Pratt,
who had heard guns before, leaped behind a tree, and shouted :

"Stand back! stand back! by heavens there's no wood about
that ! "

The Indians were now more wary, and sought cover wherever pos-
sible. Girty divided up his force into small parties, and violently
stormed the fort from various quarters. He next attempted to fire it ;
and thus the whole of that anxious, terrible night was passed. Two
only of the bastions could be used, and these, so small was the force,
had to be occupied by turns.

All the females, Lydia Boggs at the head, were constantly engaged
cooling or loading the rifles for the men. They had no intermission
and no time to feel the sensation of fear.

Betsy Wheat, before mentioned, a woman of unusual size and
strength, and of indomitable courage, did much to stimulate the de-
fenders to extraordinary efforts and to nerve up the drooping spirits of
the fatigued and despondent. She seemed to be everywhere at once,
and her loud, stern voice urging on the laggard and uttering loud
shouts of defiance to those outsida, did much to encourage the little
Spartan band of heroes. She had cause for energetic effort, for her
husband and four sons were within the precincts of that rough log
stockade.

CHAPTER XCVI.

GIRTY's novel cannon — BETTY ZANE's FEAT.

Girty had early seen the great importance of cannon, and being
anxious to force a surrender before any aid could reach the fort, he
was driven to his wits' end how to effect a breach. That once done
he could pour in his fierce horde of savages and soon make an end of
all resistance. They had early discovered Sullivan's piroque filled
with cannon-balls, but of what use without a cannon to fire them !

A sudden thought struck his fertile brain. There was a well-
equipped blacksmith shop, belonging to the Reikart brothers, stand-
ing without the walls, and provided with bars of iron, heavy chains,
etc. Why not make a cannon of wood, bored to suit Sullivan's balls,
and level it against the great gate ?

No sooner thought than done. A huge tree-trunk was split and cut
out with tomahawks, and the pieces spliced together again with chains
and hoops of bar iron. A touch-hole was burned out, and at last the
formidable gun was done and ready to open for them a yawning way.

Both whites and reds had watched the work's progress with ever in-
creasing excitement. They clustered about with intense expectation.
The wooden monster now lies prone ; its hollow throat receives the
heavy load of powder and ball, and it is carefully trained against the
massive gate. The man stands ready with the lighted brand, the force
selected to make the rush are massed to one side, breathless and eagerly

GIRTY'S novel cannon — BETTY ZANE's FEAT. 38 1

expectant. An instantaneous hush falls upon both sides. All de-
pends on that great impromptu gun.

Ready! aim! fire! and fizz I whiz! boom! chebang ! goes the
whole contraption with a dull heavy sound, like a blast, sending
pieces of wood, iron, and simple gaping savages high into the air, and
dealing death and dismay to all around.

A wild shout of triumph bursts forth from the ramparts. A long
pause and a dead silence ensues outside. The discomfited enemy are
picking up their dead and wounded.

Some time later a large number of the savages entered the loft of a
log-cabin on the north side of the fort and commenced their custom-
ary yells and dances and making night hideous with their horrid
clamor. Various attempts were made to dislodge them with plenti-
ful discharges of grape, but all were ineffectual.

At length the chief gunner, John Tait — a few weeks after killed and
partly eaten by savages near Grave creek — loaded up with ball and
took a more careful aim. The missile, probably more by '* luck than
good guidance," cut off a chief sleeper of the cabin, and let the
whole structure down with all its contents. That dance came to a
sudden termination, and the "light fantastic toers," drew back in
dismay.

Thd French piece was fired off that night not less than sixteen times,
the assailants being thereby fully convinced that there was no "Quaker
gun " about it.

Despairing of accomplishing more by various stratagems, by rushes
on the gate, and by picking off the wary defenders, shot at through
the port-holes, the enemy now resorted to fire. More than twenty
organized attempts were made by heaping up bundles of hemp against
the walls, to fire the fort or else make a breach.

In vain ! the hemp was too wet, and the sleepless, watching de-
fenders too vigilant. Dry wood and other combustibles were then
tried, but with the same result; and at last the dreary night was
dragged through, and another day dawned on the spent and over-
wrought little garrison. The baffled foe retired to the Indian Spring
to recruit their strength and concoct new stratagems.

The weary little band of heroes now lay down by turns to snatch a
little needful rest after their extraordinary exertions. Those who re-
mained awake were ceaselessly occupied in moulding bullets, renew-
ing flints, strengthening the pickets, etc., etc. The besiegers were
nearer a breach than they knew. Lydia Boggs, who was busy with
scarce any intermission during the whole of the siege, used to relate
in after life that the pickets were so much decayed in places that they
could not have withstood a united pressure of the enemy. At one
time several at the northwest corner suddenly gave way and fell, but
owing to a heavy growth of peach trees just outside, the fact was not
noted by the foe.

We may briefly allude to one little episode during these firings.
Larry was that night stationed on the river rampart, a side so well
protected by nature that it was negligently guarded.

He thought he saw the forms of several savages rolling up a bale of
hemp from below the bluff. He hunted up Ham Kerr and related his

382 SIMON GIRTY.

suspicions. The two hurried to the spot. Yes, there the fellows were
sure enough, working away like beavers.

Larry, with that unthinking recklessness which ever distinguished
him, bantered his companion to jump right down upon the assailants as
soon as they would get directly under the walls ; but Kerr was too
wary, but said he would " larn Larry a trick worth two o' that."

He now hastily ran to the store-room, procured a rope, which he
arranged like a lasso, and wafting till one of the Indians was stooping
down to fire the hemp, he carefully and skillfully dropped the noose
over his head and body, then tightened it with a sudden jerk.

He and Larry now commenced to haul in the line. The ughs, the
struggles and contortions, and the cries for help, when the savage
found himself by some mysterious agency first dangling in the air and
then mounting steadily aloft, were ludicrous in the extreme.

But when a light was brought, and the painted head first appeared
above the stockade, and the reddy's rolling eyes first caught sight of
the two sportsmen who were seeking to land their fish safely, the
mingled expressions of rage, horror and disgust pictured on that
astounded savage's face, are beyond the power of pen to describe.
The two fishermen were so convulsed with the irresistible comicality of
the whole scene that they came near dropping their game ; but at last
Larry caught him by his scalp-lock^ and he was at once secured and
lodged in the guard-house.

We have already stated that Colonel Eb Zane, with a portion of his
family, his slave Sam, and two brothers by the name of Green, re-
mained in his own bullet proof and loopholed cabin a short distance
east of the fort. These five brave men and skillful marksmen main-
tained an obstinate defence, and made any and every approach so
galling and fatal, that they were even able to save some of the cabins
on either side.

Their fire, however, had been so incessant and protracted, that the
stock of powder gave out entirely during the first night. The enemy's
temporary withdrav/al the next morning afforded the only chance of a
renewal. Unless a new supply could be obtained from the fort, from
which they were completely isolated, all was lost.

An anxious council was called, and various plans suggested. It
would be a most perilious undertaking, and the chances of success few
indeed. Colonel Zane would not order any to the hazardous business,
but submitted the supreme necessity to their courage and devotion.
Silas Zane and black Sam both volunteered, and while they were try-
ing to decide to whom should belong the desperate enterprise, a
"forlorn hope," as it were, Betty Zane, with a true heroism and devo-
tion which has never been surpassed, spoke up with rare spirit and de-
cision and claimed the honor.

The proposal was rejected at once, but she instantly pressed her
determination with redoubled earnestness, and was deaf to all remon-
strance. She passionately argued that the foe was numerous and the
defenders few, and that every man's life was of inestimable value, and,
while rapidly making her preparations, concluded thus :

" Now Eb, you needn't say another word, for go I must and go I
will. The trip is not near so risky as it looks. The savages are chiefly

GIRTY'S novel cannon — BETTY ZANE's FEAT. 383

scattered about towards the north side, while I will run round to the
south sally-port; besides, they'll scarce suspect anything from a mere
girl, and will, donbtless, let me pass unchallenged. But should I be
captured, or even shot " — and here the face of the fair young enthu-
siast, like that of Joan d'Arc, was glorified with a radiance almost
angelic — " can I not better be spared at such a desperate crisis than
one of you ? Don't you see?"

" No, indeed. Bet ; I do not see," answered Colonel Zane, gravely.
"The lurking savages might spare you on account of your sex; but
suppose they didn't, and shot down my own dear sister, how would I
feel? Would much rather go myself."

" That 7uoidd be a sharp thing, brother, wouldn't it ! When all the
red skins know you, and would be glad to pierce your heart with a
hundred bullets, leaving Elizabeth a widow and all your children
fatherless. No ! no ! I'll go. We women of the border must learn to
do and dare. Have we not heard of the heroic example set last month
by the women of Bryant's Station, who all, old and young, marched
calmly and in single file down to a spring, the path to which .they
knew to be ambushed the whole way by a gang of cruel, bloodthirsty
demons, and all for the sake of water to drink ! And shall I hesitate,
brother, when so much more is at stake ? Come now ; here's an apron
for the powder. I'll be back in a jiffy."

Betty Zane had her way. A signal was made to the fort to have the
south sally-port ready. The intrepid young girl stepped out of the
unbarred door and bounded across the interval with the speed of a
deer.

The Indians who were stationed behind trees, stumps, cabins, etc.,
warily watching the gates and portholes for a chance shot, were amazed
and paralyzed at the apparition, only exclaiming, contemptuously,
*' squaw! squaw ! "

Before they could recover from their daze Betty had reached the
gate. It opened to receive her, and she was for the present beyond all
harm. The wearied little garrison were inspirited by this heroic self-
sacrifice, and crowded about the beautiful girl with admiring com-
ments. Her apron was speedily filled with powder, and she was now
ready for the return.

This was infinitely more perilous than the first venture. Her safety
then might have been due to surprise, to absence of suspicion, to some
sudden freak of savage chivalry, but would these causes operate now,
when the ladened apron proclaimed the object of her hardy enterprise?

The gate is again softly opened. Not a redskin is in sight. Out
once more darts the fearless and unflinching girl, bearing, as it were,
about her person the lives of a whole household.

Ah, but this time she goes not unchallenged. Her errand is at once
revealed to many wary, gleaming eyes. A volley of rifle balls from
the lurking foe greets her presence. A number of fierce and cruel
savages leap out from cover, and with frightful yells and upraised tom-
ahawks, rush forward in pursuit. One, more swift and reckless than
the rest, pauses for an instant to cast at her his fatal weapon.

But she who has dared so much for others is not herself left defence-
less at this appalling crisis of her life. A hurtling volley of bullets

384 SIMON GIRTY.

rains forth from both fort and Zane's house. The audacious savage,
riddled with unerring balls, drops in his very tracks ; the tomahawk
falls harmless from his nerveless hand; the rest of the gang retire
baffled and discomfited, and Betty, breathless aud unscathed, springs
into the arras of her anxious brother.

CHAPTER XCVII.

LARRY CATCHES A TARTAR — SIEGE RAISED.

The warfare was now mainly confined to sharpshooting on both
sides. Girty devised several stratagems during the second day, but
they were invariably detected and defeated by the incessant watchful-
ness of the inmates. Eyes were peering forth from every hole, and
not a savage could expose his person for a moment but the deadly
bullets would search him out.

Towards evening the fire in every direction seemed to languish, and
finally a total cessation took place. The harassed defenders now ex-
changed congratulations on the belief that the enemy had abandoned
the siege and were retiring.

Just about dusk a more noisy demonstration than usual from the
north and east sides again put them on the alert. It was generally
thought that an assault with the combined force was intended.

Sullivan, however, and others more wary and experienced, judged
such an ostentatious announcement of an attack looked suspicious,
,and not at all in accordance with redskin craft. They argued that
' the attack might be expected from the side directly opposite. A care-
ful lookout was therefore kept. The keen-eyed Hambleton Kerr
thought he could descry, amid the thickening gloom of evening, a
large number of dusky forms skulking along the edge of the hill on
the south side, and thence extending along the river bank.

Every woman in the fort who could fire a gun, was now stationed
on the side from which the noisy firing came, and ordered to keep up
a continual bustle and firing in answer. Meanwhile all the best marks-
men were stationed so as to command the approaches to the big gate
on the south. The only fear was from the enemy forcing one of the
entrances.

A brief, anxious pause now ensues. A low cluck of alarm is then
heard from Kerr. " They are coming," and every porthole "coign
of vantage" is ready with its rifle.

A swarm of crouching, swarthy figures are now seen arising from
their lurking places behind the river bluff, and towards the woods
another dark cloud, ready to rush forward at the proper time. They
are carrying some long, heavy object, with which doubtless to force
the main gate. Girty's low voice is now clearly heard urging them,
in Delaware, not to lose a moment, but let drive when all the whites
are at the other side.

Fatal mistake ! The whole garrison are just around that very gate.
Every rifle covers its quarry. The word fire is given just as the sav-

LARRY CATCHES A TARTAR SIEGE RAISED. 385

ages are running forward with the battering ram for its first powerful
blow.

A fearful volley is now poured forth. Forms are seen to drop. The
massive gate-driver is deserted at once. Now it falls with a thud to
the ground, and now the baffled savages — those who can — limp and
slink away to their hiding places.

A loud, ringing cheer of triumph from the fort makes the welkin
ring, and awakens the echoes of the surrounding hills.

Firing and alarms were still kept up all that night, but no formi-
dable attack was made, nor could be made until morning. This the
feeble and exhausted little band knew, and took great rest and com-
fort in the knowledge, for by that time surely Captain Boggs would be
on hand with an ample force to relieve them. He ought to have been
there long ere that.

About an hour after the signal repulse of the enemy from the south
gate, and when all but two sentinels — Coony Stroop and Larry Dono-
hue — had retired from that side, a dark form stealthily emerged from
the woods and worked its way up to the sallyport. The wide-awake
Irishman — who had borne his full share of the wearying fatigues of
the siege, and had contributed greatly to encourage all by^ his great
cheerfulness and ready, reckless courage — was walking proudly, rifle
on shoulder, along his nz.rxow banqiieiie, casting an occasional watchful
glance towards the woods.

All at once he espied this crouching figure, which looked more like
a bear than a human being. Bringing his piece to a present, he chal-
lenged the object, whatever it was, as follows :

" Halt, be jabers ! No step furder ! Who the divil are yiz, any-
how, and phat are yiz skulking there for ? "

The figure continued approaching, mumbling out some imtelligible
jargon in English to " open de gate."

" Open the gate, is it, ye night owl, an' aye, shure, I'll open wun
through yer inwards, ye snaking redskin, wid yer outlandish gibberish,"
and with that bang went the musket, and the dark unknown gave a
half suppressed groan, and went limping off.

"Here, Cooney," shouted Larry, "I've sure kilt something an'
moost bag my kill. Who knows — the Lord forgive me — but it's ould
blackguard Girty hisself," and Larry jumped down from his perch, un-
barred the gate, and rushed forth. He soon came back out of the
darkness, dragging with him a huge bulk of a person, whom he had
jerked roughly through the gate and closing it with a bang.

" Who is it ? Who have you there, Larry ? " were the queries from
a knot of scouts who had been attracted by the shot and noise.

" Och, divil the wun o' me knows who he is, at all, at all, but I first
shot him and then flanked and surrounded him. I'm thinking he's
Girty hisself, who knows, but he's so hurted he's amost frightened to
death, and only can say, ' Oh, Larry Massa, Larry Massa ! ' "

" Give me a glint at him," said Ham Kerr, coming forward.
" Girty, the devil, ha ! ha ! ha ! " he roared out. " He's dlackas, the
devil, sure enough, for.he's a nigger."

"A naygur, is it ? " ^aid Larry with a comical look of disgust and
annoyance on his face. " Och ! blood an' ounds, an' I suspicioned
25

^86 SIMON GIRTY.

he war a grate chafe painted. An' what brings ye here, ye black
thafe ? Wag yer tongue, ye ebony idol, or I'll not leave enough uv ye
to physic a snipe."

" Oh, lorry, Massy! " cried the alarmed darkey, "I jes' done tell
ye from de very fust I'se mos' gone dead wid de scare. Oh, Maussa,
Maussa, I'se feared you'se done for old Pomp dis time. I's Captain
Pratt's niggah, shuah, and is desarted."

"Desarted, is it, ye nagur," said Larry suspiciously ; " a purty story !
I'll go bail now you're but a slithering spy, ye hatch of Satan. Come
wid me, ye blackguard, to Miss Lyddy's crib, an 'av I've kilt ye in-
tirely, shure ye moost fault yer ownself wid all yer craping, sacret, cir-
cumventing ways. I'm a dead shot, bedad, an' shure av I hadn't mis-
doubted ye it's bored through an' through you'd be this blissid minit."

The fellow was now dragged to the guardhouse and carefully ex-
amined by Sullivan, but he steadily persisted in his story and begged
for his life, revealing a good deal of information about the besiegers
and their plans. Appearances, however, were against him. His
wound was dressed, but the precaution taken to hand-cuff and^ halter
him, and he was given in charge of Lydia Boggs. She used to assert,
long afterwards, that she was ready at any time to tomahawk him had
he attempted to escape.

The assault was continued, although in a harmless, desultory man-
ner, all night ; but in the morning the savages were found killing
cattle, burning cabins, &c. About ten o'clock the Indian spies who
had been sent out to watch the approach of any reinforcements, uttered
some long, peculiar whoops, which the experienced scouts in the fort
explained to be a signal for decamping. Scarcely had the echoes^ of
these yells died away before the entire hostile array was seen running
hastily towards the Ohio.

A glad and ringing shout went up from that little band of heroes,
and in less than an hour after. Captains Boggs, Brady and Swearingen
and Williamson, with seventy mounted riflemen from the adjacent
stations, rode rapidly up to the relief of the fort. The enemy, how-
ever, were by this time far distant on their retreat.

''They had folded their tents like the Arabs
And silently stole away."

After raising the siege, a division of them visited the settlements on
Short and Buffalo Creeks ; but, by this time the settlers, warned by
Captain Boggs, were securely gathered in block houses. The savages,
however, surrounded Rice's Fort, on the latter stream, and demanded
a surrender, saying:

''Give up! Give up! too many Injun ! Injun too big! No kill!
no kill ! "

The brave and sturdy frontiersmen, however, thought differently,
and boldly defied them, shouting, " Come on, ye cowards ! We are
ready for you. Show us your yellow hides and we'll hole them for
you."

This was but a bold game of bluff, however, for there were but six
men to make a defence, the rest having crossed the mountains for salt
and provender.

CONCLUSION. 387

The savages now lay by until night, and then set fire to a large barn
which stood close by the fort, and by its light poured in a constant fire
until two o'clock the next morning, when not being able to make an
impression they hastily decamped.

One of the defenders was shot in the head through a port-hole, but
the enemy had to leave behind four bodies in exchange.

Although redskin marauds and depredations continued against the
back settlements for twelve years longer — down to the decisive victory
over the Indians by Mad Anthony Wayne, in 1793 — yet no expedition
in force was ever after undertaken against Fort Henry or surrounding
stations. The lesson there received was long remembered. Without
cannon they knew they could accomplish nothing.

CHAPTER XCVni.

CONCLUSION.

Quiet being at length restored to the border, we will now, lest we
should seem to " prattle out of fashion," gather up the scattered threads
of our narrative and give conclusions.

Girty had spoken truly in stating he had married Kate Malott, just
after the Crawford expedition. The groans of the poor, tortured
colonel had scarce died out of his ears, ere he again wended his course
to Detroit. There he found great rejoicing, and it was amid the fes-
tivities consequent upon the late victory, that his marriage took place.

Schuyler de Peyster, and his suite, honored the occasion with their
presence. Notwithstanding Kate's love and trust, however, the happi-
ness of her parents was not without alloy. Their hopes were mingled
largely with fears for Kate's future. Mr. Malott, especially was full of
anxiety. His gratitude to Girty for services rendered himself and
family, and for the rescue of Kate from what seemed a hopeless cap-
tivity, could not blind his eyes to the fact that, besides being a rabid
tory and a renegade, Girty was a wild, restless, turbulent character — a
man of strong, and in times of drink, of unbridled passions.

The whole family now lived for a short time in peace and quiet,
Girty making but one or two occasional excursions among the Ohio
Indians. During the fall, as stated, he led more distant and important
expeditions against the Kentucky and Ohio settlements. On his return
from the Wheeling raid, bringing with him little Harry, the joy of the
Malott family was complete.

Although peace was nominally declared between England and
America the next year, it was not until 1796 that Detroit and other
British posts were actually surrendered. The most of this long period
of fourteen years was a perpetual struggle with jealous and warlike
Indian tribes, aided by the British.

Detroit was the chief centre of all hostile movements. Thence did
the savages receive not only their chief inspiration and instructions,
but their supplies of arms, ammunition, etc. Thence Girty, Elliott,

388 SIMON GIRTY.

and McKee issued at all seasons, fomenting bad feelings, stirring up
perpetual animosities and organizing formidable resistance,

Down to the year 1790, when the Indian war broke out with in-
creased violence, Girty was largely occupied in trading with the sav-
ages, and lived at various localities among them, chiefly at Girty's
Point, on the Maumee river, five miles above Napoleon. Quite a
number of places in Ohio, however, bear his name.

The ill-fated expeditions of General Harmer, in 1790, and of Gen-
eral St. Clair, in 1791, found him busy with his old associates, Elliott
and McKee, in the council and in the field, and wielding much influ-
ence among the savage tribes. At their grand council held after St.
Clair's disastrous and overwhelming defeat, Girty was the only white
man permitted to be present, and his voice and influence were for con-
tinuing the war. At St. Clair's defeat he was present, and took an
active part, receiving a severe sabre cut on the head. He is said to
have found and recognized the body of General Richard Butler, second
in command.

At another grand Indian conference held in 1793 Girty still thun-
dered for war, and was especially active in organizing and marshaling
forces against Wayne in 1793. -^^ ^^^ present at the decisive battle
of the Fallen Timbers, fought the next year, which forever crushed
the power of the confederate Indian tribes, and ended in the Treaty
of Greenville, which at last brought peace.

Girty now sold his trading establishment on the St. Mary's River,
located at a place called Girty's town — now St. Mary's — and went
back to Detroit, where his growing family lived.

He seemed to be perpetually haunted by the fear of falling into
American hands ; and when Detroit was finally yielded by the British
in 1796, and the boats^ laden with our troops, came in sight, it is said
he could not wait for the return of the ferry-boat, but plunged his
horse into the Detroit river and made for the Canada shore, pouring
out a volley of curses, as he rode up the opposite bank, upon the
American officers and troops.

He now settled quietly down on a farm near Maiden, Canada, on
the Detroit river, about fifteen miles below the city, and we hear no
more of him until the war of 1812. During the invasion of Canada
he followed the course of the British retreat, but returned to his family
at Maiden, and died in 1815, aged i^ear seventy years, and totally blind.

William Walker saw him at Maiden in 1813, and describes him as
being broad across the chest, with strong, round, compact limbs, and
apparently endowed by nature with great powers of endurance.

Mr. D. M. Workman, of Ohio, says: "In 1S13, I went to Maiden
and put up at a hotel kept by a Frenchman. I noticed in the bar-
room a gray-headed and blind old man. The landlady, who was his
daughter, a woman of about thirty years of age, inquired of me, ' Do
you know who that is? " pointing to the old man. On my replying
'No,' she rejoined, ' It is Simon Girty.' He had then been blind
about four years. In 1815, I returned to Maiden, and ascertained
that Girty had died a short time previous. Girty was a man of extra-
ordinary strength, power of endurance, courage and sagacity. He
was in height about five feet ten inches, and strongly made."

CONCLUSION. 3S9

Do my readers ask whether Girty lived happily with Kate Malott ?
We have little information on this point. History is completely
silent — we may add, totally ignorant — as to this marriage. Our in-
formation on this subject is derived from Lyman C. Draper, Esq., the
most reliable and best informed historian now living regarding wes-
tern border history. He writes us that Girty took to hard drinking
some time after his marriage, and for several years he and his wife
lived apart. They raised, however, quite a large family. Mr. Draper
saw one daughter, and some of the grandchildren ; as also other de-
scendants of the Malott family which likewise settled in Western
Canada, and says they were " fine, worthy people, and some of the
females quite attractive and intelligent."

Mr. Draper also writes us : " Our border histories have given only
the worst side ofGirty's character. He had redeeming traits. He was
uneducated — only a little above the average Indian I infer. He did
what he could, unless infuriated by liquor, when, as Heckewelder
states, he was boisterous, and probably dangerous. He certainly be-
friended Simon Kenton, and tried to save Crawford, but could not.
In the latter case he had to dissemble somewhat with the Indians and
a part of the time appear in their presence as if not wishing to be-
friend him, when he knew he could not save him, and did not dare
to shoot him, as he himself was threatened with a similar fate."

This opinion of Girty is confirmed by our own researches, and so
we have endeavored to draw his character, " nothing extenuating, and
setting down naught in malice."

Lydia Boggs and Moses Shepherd were married at Wheeling, and
both became very distinguished characters, not only on the Western
border, but in Washington. He became a prominent merchant, con-
tractor and country gentleman, and she, a woman of great force,
energy and influence, distinguished for her beauty, wit and social
rank, one of the leading and reigning women of her times, and a liv-
ing epitome of Western progress.

Shortly after marriage the happy couple took up their residence at
the forks of Wheeling creek, some eight miles east of Wheeling, and
near by Shepherd's Fort, erected by her husband's father during the
Indian wars.

Colonel Shepherd was a large contractor on the National Road,
which passed through the Shepherd estate, and early in the present
century erected a spacious and elegant stone mansion on a beautiful
promontory dividing Wheeling creek. This sumptuous home — " Elm
Grove " it was named, standing amid stately elms and maples — soon
became historic, not alone for the generous and munificent hospitality
dispensed there for over a half a century, but for the number of illus-
trious men that visited and were entertained there.

Of the distinguished guests who were in the habit of enjoying the
baronial hospitabty of Colonel and Mrs. Shepherd we may mention
Clay, Benton, Governor Edwards, Philip Doddridge, and many other
prominent statesmen and men of letters. On one occasion President
Monroe became their guest. Henry Clay stopped often on his way
to or from Washington. He used to send his servant in advance with
a note apprising the Colonel and his lady of the approach of himself

and family, and inquiring whether it would be convenient to entertain
them.

Many others of the guests brought their families, and the ungrudg-
ing and bounteous hospitality with which all were entertained was
something that, in the rude and plain simplicity of a Western border,
savored of Oriental magnificence.

The mansion was constructed with especial design for the generous
hospitality of which it was to become the centre. On such occasions
the entire upper part was thrown into one spacious drawing-room,
which, with all the other apartments, was finished and furnished in the
best style of the day, the tapestry being manufactured especially for
the room.

In recognition of the invaluable services of Henry^ Clay — the pro-
jector and steadfast friend of the National Pike — a costlyand elaborate
monument to the great statesman was erected at great expense, in full
view of the mansion and near the pike. There it still stands, but
greatly wasted and ravaged by " decay's effacing fingers," as well as
by the vandalisms of party rancor.

Col. Shepherd's accounts as contractor remained long unsettled,
and for many, many years he and his fashionable wife resided at
Washington during the sessions of Congress. She dressed magnifi-
cently, entertained sumptuously, and moved in the most fashionable
court circles of the day. Within recent years she decorated one
whole side of her spacious drawing-room with the attire in which she
led the beau monde of other days. Her wardrobe was a veritable
curiosity in its way.

Colonel Shepherd died in 1833, but the widow kept up her annual
pilgrimages to the capitol. It was during one of these visits that she
met General Cruger, of New York, to whom she was soon after mar-
ried, this bride of over seventy being then described as "gay, proud
and ambitious. Her eye was undimnied, and her cheeks glowed with
the beauty of fifty."

General Cruger died in I843, ^^^ was "gathered to his fathers,"
but still the widow's Washington visits continued, and Dr. Wills De
Hass, her biographer, asserts that he met her there in 1850 and escort-
ed her to President Taylor's levee. "She was then eighty-six years
of age, and not one of the least observed on that brilliant occasion."

No wonder that Clay used to style her " One of the Corinthian
columns of the Republic," and to predict that she would live to be a
hundred. She lived to surpass the prophecy, only succumbing to the
arch destroyer so late as November, 1867, aged one hundred and
three.

During her protracted and eventful life she ever displayed the same
strong, brave, positive, energetic traits. Her's was a character of un-
usual force and resoluteness. Whether as a barefooted girl swimming
the Ohio river to Boggs' island for her cows ; as a beautiful maiden
moulding bullets and loading rifles at the siege of Fort Henry ; as a
thrifty woman of business, riding on horseback, with her saddle pock-
ets lined with silver, all the way to Philadelphia, or as a venerable
widow taking sole charge of an immense country estate ; running mills,
shops and other improvements \ managing her slaves and dependants.

CONCLUSION.

391

she was ever the same — a woman of wit, courage, sagacity, resolution
and unflagging industry.

When almost a hundred years old, suit was brought by some of the
third generation of those waiting for her immense estate, on the
ground that she was superannuated and incompetent to manage her
affairs. Did this frighten her ? Not a whit of it ! She bustled into
Wheeling, managed her own case, and gained it with ease, proving by
a ** cloud of witnesses" that her large estate was better fenced, more
productive, in finer order, and her dependants more comfortably
cared for than any farm in Ohio county.

Neither marriage of Mrs. Cruger was blessed with children. She
was of a square, compact physique, of great equanimity of spirits ;
shrewd, wide-awake and full of lively talk and repartee ; lived frugally,
was scarcely ever ill, and would never permit any of her relatives to
reside with or wait on her.

Altogether a wonderful old lady ! No wonder she began to think
all mortal but herself. She never made a will ; clung tenaciously to
life, and lived as if she thought her property was to remain, as she
frequently said, "mine, all mine forever!"

The marriage of Captain Brady with the gentle Drusilla Swearingen
also occurred not very long after the siege of Wheeling. Her father
afterwards settled just above the present town of Wellsburg, W. V.
erecting a blockhouse there, and Brady settled at West Liberty,W.
Va.

In introducing this character it was stated that he was but twenty-
six years old, and that for " a full score of years after he was the
savages' fell destroyer." We could fill a volume with the daring and
wonderful exploits of this keen-eyed and lion-hearted Indian tracker.
In woodcraft even Boone was not his equal, and in reckless daring
Lew Wetzell was scarcely his superior. He ever avoided beaten
paths and the borders of streams, and never was known to leave his
track behind him. He was often vainly hunted by his own band, by
whom he was almost worshiped.

Beaver valley, Pa., was the scene of many of his most stirring ad-
ventures. The most remarkable, perhaps, of his many feats, was his
marvelous leap of twenty-eight feet across the Cuyahoga river, where
its mad, boiling current was confined within a rocky gorge, and his
subsequent successful concealment in a lake, wholly submerged under
water, while breathing through the hollow stem of a lily, or some other
water plant.

We have been assured that the tender heart of Drusilla suffered un-
told agonies by reason of her husband's reckless and exposed life.
His scouts generally lasted two or three weeks at a time, and every
hour beyond the period fixed for his return would be torture to her.
Their meetings after such protracted absences were very affecting.
Brady died in'g5 at West Liberty, leaving two sons, both now deceased.

And who was the mysterious Major John Rose, and what became of
him, our readers may be tempted to inquire ? We hasten to answer,
for the life and services of this gallant gentleman have only lately be-
come a highly interesting part of American history.

After the war he left Fort Pitt, and served for a time as secretary of

392 SIMON GIRTY.

the Council of Censors, and was afterwards engaged in adjusting
General Irvine's accounts with the Government at Philadelphia. This
done to the General's complete satisfaction, the Major wrote him that
he expected to leave for Europe the next week, but would write again
before he sailed.

This good-bye letter came in due time, and in it the Major returned
heartfelt thanks for the kind and generous treatment he had ever re-
ceived from General Irvine and family, and expressed regret that he
had so long kept an important secret from his benefactor. He then
disclosed the interesting fact that his name was not John Rose, but
Gustavus H. de Rosenthal, a Baron of the empire of Russia. He had
left Russia because of having killed within the precincts of the Em-
peror's palace, a nobleman in a duel brought on by a blow which his
antagonist had given to an aged uncle in his presence. He had then
fled to England and thence to the United States, taking service in the
Continental army, and finding his way to Fort Pitt in the manner
already detailed. Through the mediation of his family, the Emperor
Alexander had at last pardoned him and graciously permitted^ his re-
turn, and now he was about embarking for Amsterdam.

By the kindness of Dr. William A. Irvine of Warren county,
Pennsylvania, and a grandson of General Irvine of Fort Pitt, we have
had the pleasure of inspecting a series of highly interesting letters re-
ceived by the Irvine family from Baron de Rosenthal, then advanced
to the dignity of Grand Marshal of Livonia. These letters are mainly
dated at Revel, Russia, and abound in expressions of the warmest af-
fection and gratitude to General Irvine for his kind and generous
treatment of him. He seems to have been anxious for the "Eagle
and Order of Cincinnati," to which he was entitled, and adds: "The
first man himself [meaning the Emperor] has been asking about it, and
desires that I should wear it."

In one of date March ist, 1823, he wrote about the value of a tract
of land in Venango county, Pa., granted by the state of Pennsylvania,
in consideration of his valuable services, and had not yet given up
hopes of making a trip to America.

Since commencing our story, we learn that a power of attorney had
been received in Venango county, so late as 1859, from the heirs of
Sir Gustav Heinrich de Rosenthal, Captain of the Knighthood of the
Province of Esthonia, in Russia, with authority to sell and convey
these lands, which of late years have become quite valuable.

Baron de Rosenthal seems to have recovered from his early Ameri-
can attachment, since his final letter, dated August 4, 1806, announces
that out of five children, but three lived, and of these the oldest daugh-
ter was married ; the youngest daughter was at boarding-school at St.
Petersburg, and his son was studying law at Moscow.

The Bjron de Rosenthal died in 1830, and so the name of this
brave and patriotic Russian must be added to those of Lafayette,
Steuben, Pulaski, DeKalb, and the galaxy of noble foreigners who
made haste to peril their lives in our Revolutionary struggle.

Of Killbuck we need only state that he lived to be quite an old
man, and ever remained the warm and attached friend of the Ameri-
cans. At the time we take him up, he was about forty-five years old,

CONCLUSION. 3P3

having been — although himself a Delavvarean — born in Pennsylvania,
in 1737. Killbuck was baptized in 1788, and then proceeded to'
Princeton College to be educated, taking the name of Mr. Henry
Gellelemend. He died at Goshen, Ohio, in 1810. Killbuck was a
very common name among the Ohio chiefs, but none of them was so
noted for his virtues and services, or so respected for his many esti-
mable qualities as the one who figures in our romance.

Of the beautiful and spirited Betty Zane we have but meagre in-
formation to furnish. Her long life was of a quiet, domestic charac-
ter, passed chiefly in Wheeling, a neighborhood where she remained
long single and yet lived to bury two husbands. We have within a
year or so conversed with one of her grandsons, and she has left many
descendants throughout Western Virginia and Eastern Ohio.

And now, having safely brought our characters through all these
perils, we reluctantly take leave of our patient readers, with the hope
that our story, which to us has been a labor of love, will not have
proved either unpleasant or unprofitable.

" The web is wove; the woof is spun."

[finis.]

OUR

Western Border.

ITS

LIFE, FORAYS, SCOUTS,

COMBATS, MASSACRES, RED CHIEFS,

ADVENTURES, CAPTIVITIES, PIONEER WOMEN,

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO;

CONTAINING THE CREAM OF ALL THE RARE OLD BORDER CHRONICLES,
(now long OUT OF PRINT AND ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO PROCURE,) TO-
GETHER WITH A LARGE AMOUNT OF FRESH AND ORIGINAL MATTER
DERIVED FROM AUTHENTIC SOURCES, THE WHOLE WORK EMBRACING
STRANGE AND THRILLING NARRATIVES OF CAPTIVITIES, DARING
DEEDS, DESPERATE CONFLICTS, EXCITING ADVENTURES, PER-
SONAL PROWESS, AND AIMING, BY JUDICIOUS SELECTIONS,
TO PRESENT THE FULLEST, MOST VARIED, AND MOST
RELIABLE PORTRAYAL OF BORDER STRUGGLE AND
ADVENTURE YET PUBLISHED.

'Trnth. is Stranger than IFictioin.

CAREFULLY WRITTEN AND COMPILED BY

CHARLES Mcknight,

Author of "Old Fort Duquesne," and "Simon Girty.

IliLUSTHATED BY THE VEEY BEST AB.TI8TS.

PUBLISHED BY

J. C. Mc CURDY & CO.,

PHILADELPHIA, CINCINNATI, CHICAGO, AND ST. LOUIS,
1880.

Extracts from "OUR WESTERN BORDER.'

ANNOUNCEMENT.

In order to make this volume more complete and satisfactory, its Publishers
have incorporated, without change, a few illustrations and biographical sketches
from "Our Western Border" — same author and publishers as Simon Girty —
the fullest and most reliable work on American Border Life, struggle and ad-
venture ever yet published. These supplementary Historic Sketches relate to
the chief characters in Simon Girty, there being only added a complete and
well rounded biography of Daniel Boone, the greatest and most popular of all
western hunters and pioneers.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by CnARLES McKniGht,
la the office of the Librarian of Congress, Washington, D. C.

Daniel Boone Alone in the Wilderness.

SEE PAOE 259.

Chapter IV.

DANTFJ. BOONE, PIONEER OF KENTUCKY*

Here once Boone trod — the hardy Pioneer,

The only white man in the wilderness.
Oh, how he loved, alone, to hunt the deer;

Alone at eve his simple meal to dress.
So mark upon the tree, nor print nor track
To lead him forward or to guide him back ;
He roved the forest — king, by main and mights
Looked up to the sky, and shaped his course arit;ht.
In hunting shirt and moccasin arrayed ;
With bear-skin cap and pouch and trenchant blade ;
How carelessly he leaned upon his gun I
Sceptre of the wild that hath so often won. — Ji". W. T^omat.

American History presents no character of such fascination and pop-
ularity as that of Daniel Boone, the pioneer hunter of Kentucky; and
this, not simply because he was a daring and adventurous woodsman,
or because the free life of the wilderness has ever its special charms and
romance, but because of the singular modesty, simplicity and guileless-
ness of the man's character. Like all truly brave men, Boone had a
vast amount of quiet, unostentatious force. No man was freer from a
boastful, vaunting spirit. It is likewise gross error to consider him as
nothing but a daring hunter, whose life was passed in constant conflict
with wild beasts or with still more savage Indians. Although an unlet-
tered man, Boone must occupy a higher plane in our history than that;
he was a pioneer, a leader and a masterful director, as well as a hunter,
and was as closely connected with civilization and its beneficial achieve-
ments as he was with the woody solitude and the perils of varied adven-
^Jre. He is chiefly admired because he is the completest and most ad-
mirable specimen of the class to which he belonged.

George Boone, his grandfather, came to this country from England,
bringing with him nine sons and ten daughters, the very kind of family
men needed to populate the boundless wastes of America. Daniel
Boone was the son of Squire Boone; was born in Berks county, Pa., in
1734, but the family soon moved to the South Yadkin, N. C. Daniel

254 Our Western Border.

was then about nineteen, a fine, active, stalwart man, exceedingly fond
of roving in the surrounding forests, and particularly skilled with the
rifle. But little is known of his early manhood, as he has modestly for-
borne to say anything of himself, saving so far as he is connected with
Kentucky. We know for certain, however, that he took great delight
in long and solitary wilderness excursions, and was early enamored of
the untrammeled freedom of the boundless forests.

Of his romantic courtship and marriage, we will treat elsewhere, when
we come to sketch the life of his most excellent wife, Rebecca. For
some time he lived happily with her on the banks of the Yadkin, occa-
sionally disturbing the toiling monotony of his farmer's life by long hunt-
ing rambles. For instance, Ramsay's Tennessee gives a fac-simile of a
rude inscription drawn by Boone on a tree in that State, announcing
his killing of a bear in 1760, at the age of twenty-six. In '64 he had
even stood within the eastern border of Kentucky and bathed in the
waters of the Cumberland. It was while viewing the vast herds of buf-
falo from a spur of the Cumberland mountains, that he exclaimed:
"I am richer than the one mentioned in Scripture who owned the cat-
t'e of a thousand hills, for I own the wild beasts ot more than a thou-
sand valleys."

Kentucky as it Was in the Olden Time.

In '67 Findley, the first white man who ever explored Kentucky, re-
turned from his solitary vagabondizing and gave such glowing accounts
of that magnificent country — its hills and valleys ; its park-like forests ;
its dense canebrakes and — above all to affect a zealous hunter — its ex-
haustless variety of game, from the beaver to the buffalo, that Boone's
ardor was kindled and he determined to visit the new Eldorado an J
Paradise for hunters, in person. That Kentucky at that early day pre-
sented irresistible attractions for the adventurer, can readily be judged
from the accounts of all who traversed it. Captain Imlay, who, in
early times, visited it in the Spring, and was enraptured with the pano-
rama of bewildering beauty which everywhere met his eye, wrote:
" Everything here assumes a dignity and splendor I have never seen in
any other part of the world. Here an eternal verdure reigns and the
brilliant sun piercing through the azure heavens, produces in this pro-
lific soil an early maturity truly astonishing. Flowers full and perfect as
if they had been cultivated by the hand of a florist, with all their capti-
vating odors and with all the variegated charms which color and nature
can here produce, decorate the smiling groves. Soft zephyrs gently
breathe on sweets and the inhaled air gives a voluptuous glow of health

Kentucky as it Was in the Olden Time. 255

and vigor that seems to ravish the intoxicated senses. The sweet song
sters of the forest appear to feel the influence of the genial clime, and
in more soft and modulated tones warble their tender notes in unison
with love and nature. Everything here gives delight, and we feel a
glow of gratitude for what an all-bountiful Creator has bestowed upon
us."

Filson, another visitor of the long ago, wrote : *' The soil is of a loose,
deep, black mould without sand — in the best lands about two feet deep
and exceedingly luxuriant in all its productions. The country is well
timbered, producing large trees of many kinds, and to be exceeded by
no country in variety " — among others, sugars, coffee, pawpaw and
lioney locusts. Of the fine cane, so famous for its buff'alo paths ; its
plenteousness of bear and other wild game, and its ranges for cattle, he
says : " This plant grows from three to twelve feet high; is of a hard
substance, with joints at eight or ten inches distance along the stalk,
from which proceed leaves like those of the willow. There are many
canebrakes so thick and tall that it is difficult to pass through them.
Where no cane grows there is an abundance of wild rye, clover and buf-
falo grass, covering vast tracts of country, and affording excellent food
for cattle. Here are seen the finest crown-imperial in the world ; the
cardinal flower so much extolled for its scarlet color ; and all the year,
excepting the Winter months, the plains and valleys are adorned with a
variety of flowers of the most admirable beauty. Here is also found
the tulip-bearing laurel tree, or magnolia, which is very fragrant and
continues to blossom and seed for several months together. By casting
an eye over the map and viewing round the heads of Licking from the
Ohio, and round the heads of the Kentucky and Dick's rivers, and down
Green river to the Ohio again, one may view within that compass of
above a hundred miles square, the most extraordinary country on which
the sun has ever shone."

This is a glowing but not an overdrawn picture of Kan-tuck-ee as she
was of old, robed in all her primeval beauty. Others have said that
the herbage was of such lushness and exuberance that you could track
a man through it at a run on a fleet horse. Indeed, we opine, that few
of our day can realize the surpassing richness and luxuriance of favored
portions of the virgin western wilderness. For instance Spencer, in his
Narrative of Captivity, says :

" Our western Winters were much milder, our Springs earlier and
our Autumns longer than now. On the last of February, some of the
trees were putting forth foliage; in March the red bud, the hawthorn
and the dog wood, in full bloom, checkered the hills, and in May the
ground was covered with the May apple, bloodroot, ginseng, violets and

256 Our Western Border.

a great variety of herbs and flowers. Flocks of paroquets were seen,
decked in their rich plumage of green and gold. Birds of every specie;
and hue were flitting from tree to tree, and the beautiful red bird and
the plaintive dove could be seen, and the rumbling drum of the par-
tridge or the loud gobble of the wild turkey, heard from all sides.
Here might be seen the clumsy bear, doggedly running off; there the
timid deer watchfully resting, cautiously feeding, or, aroused from hi?
matted thicket, gracefully bounding off. It seemed an earthly paradise,
and but for the apprehension of the wily copperhead, silently coiled
beneath the leaves ; the horrid rattlesnake, who, however, more chival-
rous, apprised one of his danger, and the still more fearful and insidious
savage, who, crawling upon the ground or noiselessly approaching
behind trees and thickets, sped the deadly shaft or fatal bullet, you
might have fancied you were in the confines of Eden or the borders oi
Elysium."

The author of Miami County Traditions says: "The country all
aiound the settlement presented the most lovely appearance; the earth
was like an ash-heap for mellowness and notliing could exceed the luxu-
riance of primitive vegetation ; indeed, our cattle often died from excess
of feeding, and it was somewhat difficult to rear them on that account.
The white weed, or bee harvest, as it is called, so profusely spread now
over our bottoms and woodlands, was not then seen among us ; the
sweet annis, nettles, wild rye and pea vine, now so scarce, then every-
where abounded. They were almost the entire herbage of our bottoms;
the last two gave subsistence to our cattle, and the first, with other nutri-
tious roots, were eaten by our swine with the greatest avidity. In tlie
Spring and Summer months, a drove of hogs could be scented at a con-
siderable distance from the flavor of the annis root."

Is it any wonder, then, that the early hunters became enamored oi
these western Edens, so prodigal of sweetness as to throw an atmos-
phere of fragrance even about a drove of vulgar unsavory swine ! But
our readers must forgive this tempting side ramble. Revenons a nos
moutons.

To one of Boone's tastes, the scenes so enthusiastically described by
Findley presented charms not to be longer resisted, so joining, in 1769,
Findley and four others of like mind and tastes with himself, he left his
family on the Yadkin and pushed boldly for the West. We cannot, of
course, in a work as this, essay to give the details of a life like Boone's,
so absolutely crowded with personal adventure, and so must content
ourselves with a most meagre outline of his future happenings.

On the 7th of June they reached Red river, and from a neighboring
eminence were enabled to survey the vast plain of Kentucky. Here

Boone Captured for the First Time and Escapes. 257

they built a cabin, in order to afford them a shelter from the rain^.
which had fallen in immense quantities on their march — and remained
in a great measure stationary until December, killing a great quantity
of game immediately around them. Immense herds of buffalo ranged
through the forest in every direction, feeding on the leaves of the cane
or the rich and spontaneous fields of clover. On the 2 2d of December,
Booiie and John Stuart, one of his companions, left their encampment^
and following one of the numerous paths which the buffalo had mada
through the cane, they plunged boldly into the interior of the forest.
They had as yet seen no Indians, and the country had been reported as
totally uninhabited. This was true in a strict sense, for although the
southern and north-western tribes were in the habit of hunting here as
upon neutral ground, yet not a single wigwam had been erected, nor
did the land bear the slightest mark of having ever been cultivated.
The different tribes would fall in with each other, and from the fierce
conflicts which generally followed these casual rencontres, the country
had been known among them by the name of " //^^ dark and bloody
ground r^

Boone Captured for the First Time and Escapes.

The two adventurers soon learned the additional danger to which
they were exposed. While roving carelessly from canebrake to cane-
brake, and admiring the rank growth of vegetation, and the variety of
timber which marked the fertility of the soil, they were suddenly
alarmed by the appearance of a party of Indians, who, springing from
their place of concealment, rushed upon them with a rapidity that
rendered escape impossible. They were almost instantly seized, dis-
armed and made prisoners. Their feelings may be readily imagined.
They were in the hands of an enemy who knew no alternative between
adoption and torture, and the numbers and fleetness of their captorj
rendered escape by open means impossible, while their jealous vigilance
seemed equally fatal to any secret attempt. Boone, however, was
possessed of a temper admirably adapted to the circumstances in which
he was placed. Of a cold and saturnine, rather than an ardent dispo-
silion, he was never either so much elevated by good fortune or de-
pressed by bad, as to lose for a moment the full possession of all his
faculties. He saw that immediate escape was impossible, but he en-
couraged his companion, and constrained himself to follow the Indians
in all their excursions with so calm and contented an air, that theii
vigilance insensibly began to relax.

On the seventh evening of their captivity, they encamped in a thick
17

258 Our Western Border.

canebrake, and, having built a large fire, lay down to rest. The party
whose duty it was to watch, were weary and negligent, and about mid-
night Boone, who had not closed an eye, ascertained from the deep
breathing all around him that the whole party, including Stuart, were
in a deep sleep. Gently and gradually extricating himself from the
Indians who lay around him, he walked cautiously to the spot where
Stuart lay, and having succeeded in awakening him without alarming
the rest, he briefly informed him of his determination, and exhorted
him to arise, make no noise, and follow him. Stuart, although ignorant
of the design, and suddenly aroused from sleep, fortunately obeyed
with equal silence and celerity, and within a few minutes they were be-
yond hearing. Rapidly traversing the forest, by the light of the stars
and the barks of the trees, they ascertained the direction in which the
camp lay, but upon reaching it on the next day, to their great grief,
they found it plundered and deserted, with nothing remaining to show
the fate of their companions ; and, even to the day of his death, Boone
knew not whether they had been killed or taken, or had voluntarily
abandoned their cabin and returned. Here in a few days they were
accidentally joined by Boone's brother and another man, who had fol-
lowed them from Carolina, and fortunately stumbled upon their camp.
This accidental meeting in the bosom of a vast wilderness, gave great
relief to the two brothers, although their joy was soon overcast.

Boone and Stuart, in a second excursion, were again pursued by
savages, and Stuart was shot and scalped, while Boone fortunately
escaped. As usual, he has not mentioned particulars, but barely stated
the event. Within a few days they sustained another calamity, if pos-
sible still more distressing. Their only remaining companion was
benighted in a hunting excursion, and, while encamped in the woods
alone, was attacked and devoured by the wolves.

The two brothers were thus left in the wilderness alone, separated by
several hundred miles from home, surrounded by hostile Indians, and
destitute of everything but their rifles. After having had such melan-
choly experience of the dangers to which they were exposed, we would
naturally suppose that their fortitude would have given way, and that
they would instantly have returned to the settlements. But the most
remarkable feature in Boone's character was a calm and cold equanim-
ity, which rarely rose to enthusiasm, and never sunk to despondency.
His courage undervalued the danger to which he was exposed, and his
presence of mind, which never forsook him, enabled him, on all occa-
sions, to take the best means of avoiding it. The wilderness, with all
its dangers and privations, had a charm for him which is scarcely con-
ceivable by one brought up in a city, and he determined to remain

Boone Captured for the First Time anp Escapes. 259

alone, whilst his brother returned to Carolina for an additional supply
of ammunition, as their original supply was nearly exhausted.

"I was," he says, "left by myself, without bread, salt or sugar,
without the company of my fellow-creatures, or even a horse and dog."

His situation, we should now suppose, was in the highest degree gloomy
and dispirited. The dangers which attended his brother on his return
were nearly equal to his own ; and each had left a wife and children,
which Boone acknowledged cost him many an anxious thought. But
the wild and solitary grandeur of the country around him, where not a
tree had been cut, nor a house erected, was to him an inexhaustible
source of admiration and delight ; and he says himself, that some of the
most rapturous moments of his life were spent in those lonely rambles.
The climate was superb. The forests were magnificent with their exu-
berance of rustling foliage, and in sunny openings lay verdant savannas
covered with the lushest of grasses and perfectly enameled with flowers.
Upon these and along several streams and extensive canebrakes, im-
mense herds of the unwieldy buffalo could be seen rolling along. The
majestic trees were festooned with vines, from which, in early Autumn,
hung grapes as luscious as those of Eshcol. In fact, it was a *' land of
Canaan, flowing with milk and honey." The utmost caution was neces-
sary to avoid the savages, and scarcely less to escape the ravenous hun-
ger of the wolves that prowled nightly around him in immense numbers.
He was compelled frequently to shift his lodging, and by undoubted
signs, saw that the Indians had repeatedly visited his hut during his
absence. He sometimes lay in canebrakes, without fire, and heard the
yell of the Indians around him. Fortunately, however, he never en-
countered them, although he took long rambles all over Northern Ken-
tucky.

On the 27th of July, 1770, his brother returned with a supply o!
ammunition on two well-laden horses ; and with a hardihood which ap
pears almost incredible, they ranged through the country in every direc-
tion, and without injury, until March, 1771. They then returned to
North Carolina, where Daniel rejoined his family, after an absence of
three years, during nearly the whole of which time he had never rasted
bread or salt, nor seen .the face of a single white man, with the excep-
tion of his brother, and the friends who had been killed. He here
determined to sell his farm and remove with his family to the wilderness
of Kentucky — an astonishing instance of hardihood, and we should
even say indifference to his family, if it were not that his character h:is
uniformly been represented as mild and humane as it was bold and
fearless.

260 Our Western Border,

Boone Moves his Family to Kentucky — Loses a Son.

Accordingly, on the 25 th of September, 1771, having disposed of all
the property which he could not take with him, he took leave of his
friends and commenced his journey to the west. A number of milch
cows and horses, laden with a few necessary household utensils, formed
the whole of his baggage. His wife and children were mounted on
horseback and accompanied him, every one regarding them as devoted
to destruction. In Powell's valley, they were joined by five more
families and forty men well armed. Encouraged by this accession of
strength, they advanced with additional confidence, but had soon a
severe warning of the further dangers which awaited them. When
neat Cumberland Mountain, their rear was suddenly attacked with great
fury by a scouting party of Indians, and thrown into considerable con-
fusion. The party, however, soon rallied, and being accustomed to
Indian warfare, returned the fire with such spirit and effect, that the
Indians were repulsed with slaughter. Their own loss, however, had
been severe. Six men were killed upon the spot, and one wounded.
Among the killed was Boone's eldest son — to the unspeakable affliction
of his family. The disorder and grief occasioned by this rough recep-
tion, seems to have affected the emigrants deeply, as they instantly
retraced their steps to the settlements on Clinch river, forty miles from
the scene of action. Here they remained until June, 1774, probably
at the request of the women, who must have been greatly alarmed at
the prospect of plunging more deeply into a country upon the skirts of
which they had witnessed so keen and bloody a conflict.

At this time Boone, at the request of Governor Dunmore, of Virginia,
conducted a number of surveyors to the falls of Ohio, a distance of
eight hundred miles. Of the incidents of this journey, we have no
recoid whatever. After his return he was engaged under Dunmore,
until 1775, in several aTairs with the Indians, and at the solicitation of
some genT-emen of North Carolina, he attended at a treaty with the
Cherokees, for the purpose of purchasing the lands south of Kentucky
river.

It was under the auspices cf Colonel Henderson that Boone's next
visit to Kentucky was made. Leaving his family on Clinch river, he
set out, at the head of a few men, to mark out a road for the pack-horses
or wagons of Henderson's party. This laborious . and dangerous duty
he executed with his usual patient fortitude, until he came within fifteen
miles of the spot where Boonsborough afterwards was built. Here, on
the 2 2d of March, his small party was attacked by the Indians, and suf-

Capture of Boone's Daughter and the Calloway Girls. Z6\

fered a loss of four men killed and wounded. The Indians, although
repulsed with loss in this affair, renewed the attack with equal fury on
the next day, -fend killed and wounded five more of his party. On the
ist of April, the survivors began to build a small fort on the Kentucky
river, afterwards called Boonsborough, and, on the 4th, they were again
attacked by the Indians, and lost another man. Notwithstanding the
harassing attacks to which they were constantly exposed, (for the In-
dians seemed enraged to madness at the prospect of them building
bouses on their hunting grounds,) the work was prosecuted with inde-
fatigable diligence, and on the 14th was completed.

Boone instantly returned to Clinch river for his family, determined
to bring them with him at every risk. This was done as soon as the
journey could be performed, and Mrs. Boone and her daughters were
the first white women who stood upon the banks of the Kentucky river,
as Boone himself had been the first white man who ever built a cabin
upon the borders of the State. The first house, however, which ever
stood in the interior of Kentucky, was erected at Harrodsburg, in the
year 1774, by James Harrod, who conducted to this place a party of
hunters from the banks of the Monongahela. This place was, there-
fore, a few months older than Boonsborough. Both soon became dis-
tinguished, as the only places in which hunters and surveyors could find
security from the fury of the Indians.

Within a few weeks after the arrival of Mrs. Boone and her daugh-
ters, the infant colony was reinforced by three more families, at the head
of which were Mrs. McGary, Mrs. Hogan and Mrs. Denton. Boons-
borough, however, was the central object of Indian hostilities, and
scarcely had his family become domesticated in their new possession when
they were suddenly attacked by a party of Indians, and lost one of their
garrison. This was in December, 1775.

Capture of Boone's Daughter and the Calloway Girls.

In the following July, however, a much more alarming event oc-
curred. Boone's daughter, Jemima, in company with Betty and Fanny
Calloway, crossed the Kentucky river in a canoe, and while amusing
themselves along the leafy bank by splashing the water about with their
paddles, they were seen by five lurking savages. One of them, stealthily
gliding into the stream, seized the tying rope and succeeded in noise-
lessly dragging the canoe into a little leafy nook out of sight of the fort.
The loud shrieks of the now terrified girls quickly alarmed the family.
The small garrison was dispersed in their usual occupations; but Boone
hastily collected a small party of eight men, and pursued the enemy.

262 Our Western Border.

So much time, however, had been lost, that the Indians had got several
miles the start of them. The pursuit was urged through the night with
great keenness, by woodsmen capable of following a trail at all times,
and on the following day they came up with them. The attack was so
sudden and furious, that the Indians were driven from the ground be-
fore they had time to tomahawk their prisoners, and the girls were recov-
ered without having sustained any other injury than excessive fright and
fatigue. Nothing but a barren outline of this interesting occurrence
has been given. We know nothing of the conduct of the Indians to
their captives, or of the situation of the young ladies during the short
engagement, and cannot venture to fill up the outline from imagination.
The Indians lost two men, while Boone's party was uninjured.

From this time until the 15th of April, 1777, the garrison was inces-
santly harassed by flying parties of Indians. While ploughing their
corn, they were waylaid and shot; while hunting, they were chased and
fired upon; and sometimes a solitary Indian would creep up near the
fort, in the night, and fire upon the first of the garrison who appeared
in the morning. They were in a constant state of anxiety and alarm,
and the most ordinary duties could only be performed at the risk of
their lives. On the 15th the enemy appeared in large numbers, hoping
to crush the infant settlement at a single blow. Boonsborough, Logan's
Fort and Harrodsburg were attacked at one and the same time. But,
destitute as they were of artillery, scaling ladders, and all the proper
means of reducing fortified places, they could only distress the men,
alarm the women and destroy the corn and cattle. Boonsborough sus-
tained some loss, as did the other stations, but the enemy, being more
exposed, suffered so severely as to cause them to retire with precipita-
tion.

No rest, however, was given to the unhappy garrison. On the 4th
of July following they were again attacked by two hundred warriors,
but the enemy were repulsed with loss. The Indians retreated, but a
few days afterwards fell upon Logan's station with great fury, having
sent detachments to alarm the other stations, so as to prevent the ap-
pearance of reinforcements at Logan's. In this last attempt they dis-
played great obstinacy, and as the garrison consisted only of fifteen
men, they were reduced to extremity. Not a moment could be allowed
for sleep. Burning arrows were shot upon the roofs of the houses, and
the Indians often pressed boldly up to the gates, and attempted to hew
them down with their tomahawks. Fortunately, at this critical time,
Colonel Bowman arrived from Virginia with one hundred men well
armed, and the savages precipitately withdrew, leaving the garrison
almost exhausted with fatigue and reduced to twelve men.

Boone's Fight with Two Savages. ^03

Boone's Fight with Two Savages — He is taken Captive.

A brief period of repose now followed, in which the settlers endea-
vored to repair the damages done to their farms. But a period of heavy
trial to Boone and his family was approaching. In January, 1778, ac-
companied by thirty men, Boone went to the Blue Licks to make salt
for the different stations, and used to go out to hunt for them regularly.
One day, according to Flint, his biographer, he had wandere;d some
distance from the river, and suddenly encountered two savages. He
could not retreat, and so slipped behind a tree, and then exposed him-
self to attract their aim. The first shot, and Boone dropped at the flash
as if killed. To make the second throw away his shot, he again exposed
part of his person. The eager savage instantly fired, and Boone evaded
the shot as before. The two Indians were now, with nervous hands,
attempting to reload. Boone now drew a fatal bead on the foremost,
and he fell, pierced to the heart. The two antagonists now advanced —
Boone flourishing his knife and the savage his tomahawk — to the dead
body of the fallen Indian. Boone placed his foot on the body, and
received the tomahawk on his rifle. In the attitude of striking, the un-
wary savage had exposed his body, in which the remorseless knife was
plunged to the hilt.

On the 7th of February following, while out hunting, he fell in with
one hundred and two Indian warriors, on their march to attack Boons-
borough. He instantly fled, but being nearly fifty years old, was un-
able to contend with the fleet young men who pursued him, and was a
second time taken prisoner. As usual, he was treated with kindness
until his final fate was determined, and was led back to the Licks, where
his men were still encamped. Here his whole party, to the number of
twenty-seven, surrendered themselves, upon promise of life and good
treatment; both of which conditions were fai hfuUy observed.

Had the Indians prosecuted their enterprise, they might, perhaps, by
showing their prisoners and threatening to put them to the torture,
have operated so far upon the sympathies of the garrison as to have ob-
tained considerable results. But nothing of the kind was attempted.
They had already been unexpectedly successful, and it is their custom
after either good or bad fortune, immediately to return home and enjoy
the triumph. Boone and his party were conducted to the old town of
Chillicothe, where they remained till the following March. No journal
was written during this period, by either Boone or his party. We are
only informed that his mild and patient equanimity wrought powerfully
'ij)on the Indians; that he was adopted into a family, and uniformly

264 Our Western Border.

treated with the utmost affection. One fact is given us which shows his
acute observation and knowledge of mankind. At the various shooting
matches to which he was invited, he took care not to beat them too
often. He knew that no feeling is more painful than that of inferiority,
and that the most effectual way of keeping them in a good humor with
him, was to keep them in a good humor with themselves. He, there-
fore, only shot well enough to make it an honor to beat him, and found
himself an universal favorite.

On the loth of March, 1778, Boone was conducted to Detroit, when
Governor Hamilton himself offered ;^ioo for his ransom; but so strong
was the affection of the Indians for their prisoner, that it was positively
refused. Several English gentlemen, touched with sympathy for his
misfortunes, made pressing offers of money and other articles, but
Boone steadily refused to receive benefits which he could never return.
The offer was honorable to them, and the refusal was dictated by rather
too refined a spirit of independence. Boone's anxiety on account of
his wife and children was incessant, and the more intolerable, as he
dared not excite the suspicion of the Indians by any indication of a
wish to rejoin them.

Upon his return from Detroit, he observed that one hundred and
fifty warriors of various tribes had assembled, painted and equipped for
an expedition against Boonsborough. His anxiety at this sight became
ungovernable, and he determined, at every risk, to effect his escape.
During the whole of this agitating period, however, he permitted no
symptoms of anxiety to escape him. He hunted and shot with them,
as usual, until the morning of the i6th of June, when, taking an early
start, he left Chillicothe and directed his route to Boonsborough. The
distance exceeded one hundred and sixty miles, but he performed it in
four days, during which he ate only one meal. He appeared before
the garrison like one rising from the dead. His wife, supposing him
killed, had transported herself, children and property to her father's
house, in North Carolina ; his men, suspecting no danger, were dis-
persed to their ordinary avocations, and the works had been permitted
to go to waste. Not a moment was to be lost. The garrison worked
day and night upon the fortifications. New gates, new flanks and
double bastions, were soon completed. The cattle and horses were
brought into the fort, ammunition prepared, and everythmg made
ready for the approach of the enemy within ten days after his arrival.
At this time, one of his companions in captivity arrived from Chilli-
cothe, and announced that his escape had determined the Indians to
delay the invasion for three weeks.

During this interval, it was ascertained that numerous spies were

Severe Siege of Boonsborough. 265

traversing the woods and hovering around tlie station, doubtless for the
purpose of observing and reporting the condition of the garrison.
Their report could not have been favorable. The alarm had spread
very generally, and all were upon the alert. The attack had been de-
layed so long that Boone began to suspect that they had been discour-
aged by the report of the spies ; and he determined to invade them.
Selecting nineteen men from his garrison, he put himself at their head,
and marched with equal silence and celerity against the town on Paint
Creek, on the Scioto. He arrived, without discovery, within four miles
of the town, and there encountered a party of thirty warriors on their
march to unite with the grand' army in the expedition against Boons-
borough. Instantly attacking them with great spirit, he compelled
them to give way with some loss, and without any injury to himself.
He then halted, and sent two spies in advance to ascertain the con-
dition of the village. In a few hours they returned with the intelli-
gence that the town was evacuated. He instantly concluded that the
grand army was on its march against Boonsborough, whose situation, as
well as his own, was exceedingly critical. Retracing his steps, he
marched day and night, hoping still to elude the enemy and reach
Boonsborough before them. He soon fell in with their trail, and
making a circuit to avoid them, he passed their army on the sixth day
of his march, and on the seventh reached Boonsborough.

Severe Siege of Boonsborough — Indian Stratagems Foiled.

On the eighth the enemy appeared in great force. There were nearly
five hundred Indian warriors, armed and painted in their usual manner,
and what was still more formidable, they were conducted by a Canadian
officer, well skilled in the usages of modern warfare. As soon as they
were arrayed in front of the fort, the British colors were displayed, and
an officer with a flag was sent to demand the surrender of the fort, with
a promise of quarter and good treatment in case of compliance, and
threatening "the hatchet," in case of a storm. Boone requested two
days for consideration, which, in defiance of all experience and com-
mon sense, was granted. This interval, as usual, was employed in
preparation for an obstinate resistance. The cattle were brought into
the fort, the horses secured, and all things made ready against the com-
mencement of hostilities.

Boone then assembled the garrison and represented to them the con-
►iition in which they stood. They had not to deal with Indians alone,
but with British officers, skilled in the art of attacking fortified places,
sufficiently numerous to direct, but too few to restrain their savage

266 Our Western Border.

allies. If they surrendered, their lives might and probably would be
saved ; but they would suffer much inconvenience, and must lose all
their property. If they resisted, and were overcome, the life of every
man, woman and child would be sacrificed. The hour was now come
in which they were to determine what was to be done. If they were
inclined to surrender, he would announce it to the officer ; if they were
resolved to maintain the fort, he would share their fate, whether in life
or death. He had scarcely finished, when every man arose and in a
firm tone announced his determination to defend the fort to the last.

Boone then appeared at the gate of the fortress, and communicated
to Captain Duquesne the resolution of his men. Disappointment and
chagrin were strongly painted upon the face of the Canadian at this
answer; but endeavoring to disguise his feelings, he declared that Goy-
error Hamilton had ordered him not to injure the men if it could be
avoided, and that if nine of the principal inhabitants of the fort would
come out into the plain and treat with them, they would instantly de-
part without further hostility. The insidious nature of this proposal
was evident, for they could converse very well from where they then
stood, and going out would only place the officers of the fort at the
mercy of the savages — not to mention the absurdity of supposing that
this army of warriors would "ireat,'" but upon such terms as pleased
them, and no terms were likely to do so, short of a total abandonment
of the country. Notwithstanding these objections, the word "treat,"
sounded so pleasantly in the ears of the besieged, that they agreed at
once to the proposal and Boone himself, attended by eight of his men,
went out and mingled with the savages, who crowded around them in
great numbers, and with countenances of deep anxiety.

The treaty then commenced and was soon concluded. What the
terms were, we are not informed, nor is it a matter of the least import-
ance, as the whole was a stupid and shallow artifice. This was soon
made manifest. Duquesne, after many very pretty periods about ^'bien-
faisa?ice and hiimanite,^^ which should accompany the warfare of civil-
ized beings, at length informed Boone, that it was a singular custom
with the Indians, upon the conclusion of a treaty with the whites, for
two warriors to take hold of the hand of each white man. Boone
thought this rather a singular custom, but there was no time to dispute
about etiquette, particularly as he could not be more in their power
than he already was ; so he signified his willingness to conform to the
Indian mode of cementing friendship. Instantly, two warriors ap-
proached each white man, with the word "brother" upon their lips,
but a very different expression in their eyes, and grappling him with
violence, attempted to bear him off. " Go 1" shouted Blackfish tc his

Indian Stratagems Foiled. 267

savages. The whites probably expected such a consummation, and all
at the same moment sprung from their enemies. The struggle was vio-
lent, but of short duration. Bjone and his fellows tossed the savages
from them, and in the midst of rifle balls from the fort and of bullets,
tomahawks and arrows from the foe, the heroic little band escaped into
the fortress and securely barred the gate, all being uninjured save
Boone's brother. Squire.

The attack instantly commenced by a heavy iire against the picket-
ing, and was returned with fatal accuracy by the garrison. The Indians
quickly sheltered themselves, and the action became more cautious and
deliberate. Finding but little effect from the fire of his men, Duquesne
next resorted to a more formidable mode of attack. The fort stood on
the south bank of the river, within sixty yards of the water. Com-
mencing under the bank, where their operations were concealed from
the garrison, they attempted to push a mine into the fort. Their ob-
ject, however, was fortunately discovered by the quantity of fresh earth
which they were compelled to throw into the river, and by which the ^
water became muddy for some distance below. Boone, who had re-
gained his usual sagacity, instantly cut a trench within the fort in such
a manner as to intersect the line of their approach, and thus frustrated
their design. The enemy exhausted all the ordinary artifices of Indian
warfare, but were steadily repulsed in every effort. Finding their num-
bers daily thinned by the deliberate but fatal fire of the garrison, and
seeing no prospect of final success, they broke up on the ninth day of
the siege and returned home. The loss of the garrison was two killed
and four wounded. On the part of the savages, thirty-seven were killed
and many wounded, who, as usual, were carried off. This was the last
siege sustained by Boonsborough. The country had increased so rap-
idl) in numbers, and so many other stations lay between Boonsborough
and the Ohio, that the savages could not reach it without leaving ene-
mies in the rear.

In the Autumn of this year Boone rei-urned to North Carolina for his
wife and family, who, as already observed, had supposed him dead, and
returned to her father. There is a hint in Mr. Marshall's history, that
the family affairs, which detained him in North Carolina, were of an
iinpleasant character, but no explanation is given. In the Summer of
1780 he returned to Kentucky with his family, and settled at Boons-
borough. Here he continued busily engaged upon his farm until the
6th of October, when, accompanied by his brother, he went to the
Lower Blue Licks, for the purpose of providing himself with salt. This
spot seemed fatal to Boone. Here he had once been taken prisoner by
the Indians and here he was destined, within two years, to lose hia

268 OxjR Western Border.

youngest son, and to witness the slaughter of many of his dearest
friends. His present visit was not free from calamity. Upon their re-
turn, they were encountered by a party of Indians, and his brother,
who had accompanied him faithfully through many years of toil and
danger, was killed and scalped before his eyes. Unable either to pre-
vent or avenge his death, Boone was compelled to fly, and by his supe-
rior knowledge of the country, contrived to elude his pursuers. They
followed his trail, however, by th6 scent of a dog, that pressed him
closely, and prevented his concealing himself. This was one of the
most critical moments of his life, but his usual coolness and fortitude
enabled him to meet it. He halted until the dog, baying loudly upon
his trail, came within gunshot, when he deliberately turned and shot
him dead. The thickness of the wood and the approach of darkness
then enabled him to effect his escape.

During the following year Boonsborough enjoyed uninterrupted
tranquility. The country had become comparatively thickly settled,
and was studded with fortresses in every direction. Fresh emigrants
with their families were constantly arriving ; and many young unmar-
ried women, (who had heretofore been extremely scarce,) had ventured
to risk themselves in Kentucky. They could not have selected a spot
where their merit was more properly appreciated, and were disposed of
very rapidly to the young hunters, most of whom had hitherto, from
necessity, remained bachelors. Thriving settlements had been pushed
beyond the Kentucky river, and a number of houses had been built
where Lexington now stands.

The year 1781 passed away in perfect tranquility, and, judging from
appearances, nothing was more distant than the terrible struggle that
awaited them. But during the whole of this year the Indians were
meditating a desperate effort to crush the settlements at a single blow.
They had become seriously alarmed at the tide of emigration, which
rolled over the country and threatened to convert their favorite hunt-
ing ground into one vast cluster of villages. The game had already
been much dispersed j the settlers, originally weak and scattered over the
south side of the Kentucky river, had now become numerous, and were
rapidly extending to the Ohio. One vigorous and united effort might
still crush their enemies, and regain for themselves the undisputed pos-
session of the western forests. A few renegade white men were min-
gled with them, and inflamed their wild passions by dwelling upon the
injuries which they had sustained at the hands of the whites, and of the
necessity for instant and vigorous exertion, or of an eternal surrender
of every hope either of redress or vengeance. Among these the most
remarkable was Simon Girty. Runners were dispatched to most of the

Defeat of Captain EsTr^i.. 269

northwestern tribes, and all were exhorted to lay aside private jealousy
and unite in a common cause against these white intruders. In the
meantime, the settlers were busily employed in opening farms, marry-
ing and giving in marriage, totally ignorant of the storm which waa
gathering upon the lakes.

Defeat of Captain Estill — A Well-fought Action.

In the Spring of 1782, after a long interval of repose, they were
harassed by small parties, who preceded the main body, as the pattering
and irregular drops of rain are the precursors of the approaching
storm. In the month of May, a party of twenty-five Wyandqts secretly
approached Estill's station, and committed shocking outrages in its
vicinity. Entering a cabin which stood apart from the rest, they seized
a woman and her two daughters, who, having been violated with cir-
cumstances of savage barbarity, were tomahawked and scalped. Their
bodies, yet warm and bleeding, were found upon the floor of the cabin.
The neighborhood was instantly alarmed. Captain Estill speedily col-
lected a body of twenty-five men, and pursued their trail with great
rapidity. He came up with them on Hinkston fork of Licking, imme-
diately after they had crossed it, and a most severe and desperate con-
flict ensued. The Indians at first appeared daunted and began to fly,
but their chief, who was badly wounded by the first fire, was heard in
a loud voice, ordering them to stand and return the fire, which was
instantly obeyed.

The creek ran between the two parties, and prevented a charge on
either side, without the certainty of great loss. The parties, therefore,
consisting of precisely the same number, formed an irregular line, within
fifty yards of each other, and sheltering themselves behind trees or logs,
they fired with deliberation, as an object presented itself. The only
manoeuvre which the nature of the ground permitted, was to extend
their lines in such a manner as to uncover the flank of the enemy, and
even this was extremely dangerous, as every motion exposed them to a
close and deadly fire. The action, therefore, was chiefly stationary,
neither party advancing or retreating, and every individual acting for
himself. It had already lasted more than an hour, without advantage
<yn either side or any prospect of its termination. Captain Estill had
lost one-third of his men, and had inflicted about an equal loss upon
his enemies, who still boldly maintained their ground and returned his
fire with equal spirit. To have persevered in the Indian mode of fight-
ing, would have exposed his party to certain death, one by one, unless
all the Indians should be killed first, who, however, had at least an

270 Our Western Border.

equal chance with himself. Even victory, bought at such a price, would
have afforded but a melancholy triumph; yet it was impossible to
retreat or advance without exposing his men to the greatest danger.

After coolly revolving these reflections in his mind, and observing
that the enemy exhibited no s}mptoms of discouragement, Captain
Estill determined to detach a party of six men, under Lieutenant
Miller, with orders to cross the creek above, and take the Indians in
flank, while he maintained his ground, ready to co-operate as circum-
stances might require. But he had to deal with an enemy equally bold
and sagacious. The Indian chief was quickly aware of the division of
the force opposed to him, from the slackening of the fire in front, and,
readily conjecturing his object, he determined to frustrate it by crossing
the creek with his whole force, and overwhelming Estill, now weakened
by the absence of Miller. The manoeuvre was bold and masterly, and
was executed with determined courage. Throwing themselves into the
water, they fell upon Estill with the tomahawk, and drove him before
them with slaughter. Miller's party retreated with precipitation, and
even lie under the reproach of deserting their friends and absconding,
instead of occupying the designated ground. Others contradict this
statement, and affirm that Miller punctually executed his orders, crossed
the creek, and, falling in with the enemy, was compelled to retire with
loss.

Estill's party, finding themselves furiously charged, and receiving no
assistance from Miller, who was probably at that time on the other side
of the creek, in execution of his orders, would naturally consider them-
selves deserted, and when a clamor of that kind is once raised against a
man, (particularly in a defeat,) the voice of reason can no longer be
heard. Some scapegoat is always necessary. The broken remains of
the detachment returned to the station, and filled the country with con-
sternation and alarm, greatly disproportioned to the extent of the loss.
The brave Estill, with eight of his men, had fallen, and four were
wounded — more than half of their original number.

Tills, notwithstanding the smallness of the numbers, is a very remark-
able action, and perhaps more honorable to the Indians than any one
on record. The numbers, the arms, the courage and the position of
the parties were equal. Both were composed of good marksmen and
skillful woodsmen. There was no surprise, no panic, nor any particu-
lar accident, according to the most probable account, which decided
the action. A delicate manoeuvre, on the part of Estill, gave an ad-
vantage, which was promptly seized by the Indian chief, and a bold
and iiijisterly movement decided the fate of the day.

Tile news of Estill's disaster was quickly succeeded by another, scarcely

GikTY's Desperate Attack on Bryant Station. 271

less startling to the alarmed settlers. Captain Holder, at the head of
seventeen men, pursued a party of Indians whc had taken two boys
from the neighborhood of Hoy's station. He overtook them after a
rapid pursuit, and in the severe action which ensued, was repulsed with
the loss of more than half his party. The tide of success seemed com-
pletely turned in favor of the Indians. They traversed the woods in
every direction, sometimes singly and sometimes in small parties, and
keot the settlers in constant alarm.

GIRTY'S DESPERATE ATTACK ON BRYANT STATION.

At length, early in August, the great effort was made. The allied
Indian army, composed of detachments from nearly all the northwestern
tribes, and amounting to nearly six hundred men, under the lead ot
Simon Girty, the notorious renegade, commenced their march from
Chillicothe, under command of their respective chiefs, aided and in-
fluenced by Girty, M'Kee, and other renegade white men. With a se-
crecy arid celerity peculiar to themselves, they advanced through the
woods without giving the slightest indication of their approach, and on
the night of the 14th of August, they appeared before Bryant's station,
as suddenly as if they had risen from the earth, and surrounding it on
all sides, calmly awaited the approach of daylight, holding themselves
in readiness to rush in upon the inhabitants the moment the gates were
opened in the morning. The supreme influence of fortune in war, was
never more strikingly displayed. The garrison had determined ta
march on the following morning, to the assistance of Hoy's station,
from which a messenger had arrived the evening before, with the intel-
ligence of Holder's defeat. Had the Indians arrived only a few hours
later they would have found the fort occupied only by old men, women
jind children, who could not have resisted their attack for a moment.
As it was, they found the garrison assembled and under arms, most of
them busily engaged throughout the whole night, in preparing for an
early march the following morning. The Indians could distinctly hear
the bustle of preparation, and see lights glancing from block-houses and
cabins during the night, which must have led them to suspect that their
approach had been discovered. All continued tranquil during the night,
and Girty silently concerted the plan of attack.

The fort, consisting of about forty cabins placed in parallel lines,
stood upon a, gentle rise on the southern bank of the Elkhorn, a few

272 Our Western Border.

paces to the right of the road from Maysville to Lexington. The gar-
rison was suppHed with water from a spring at some distance from the
fort, on its northwestern side — a great error in most of the stations,
which, in a close and long-continued siege, must have suffered dread-
fully for the want of water. The great body of Indians placed them-
selves in ambush within half rifle shot of the spring, while one hundred
select men were placed near the spot where the road runs after passing
the creek, with orders to open a brisk fire and show themselves to the
garrison on that side, for the purpose of drawing them out, while the
main body held themselves in readiness to rush upon the opposite gate
of the fort, hew it down with their tomahawks, and force their way into
the midst of the cabins.

At dawn of day, the garrison paraded under arms, and were prepar-
ing to open their gates and march off, as already mentioned, when they
were alarmed by a furious discharge of rifles, accompanied with yells
and screams, which struck terror to the hearts of the women and chil-
dren, and startled even the men. All ran hastily to the picketing, and
beheld a small party of Indians exposed to open view, firing, yelling
and making the most furious gestures. The appearance was so singular,
and so different from their usual manner of fighting, that some of the
more wary and experienced of the garrison instantly pronounced it a
decoy party, and restrained their young men from sallying out and at-
tacking them, as some of them were strongly disposed to do. The op-
posite side of the fort was instantly manned, and several breaches in
the picketing rapidly repaired.

The Heroism of the Kentucky Women.

Their greatest distress arose from the prospect of suffering for water.
The more experienced of the garrison felt satisfied that a powerful
party was in ambuscade near the spring, but at the same time they sup-
posed that the Indians would not unmask themselves until the firing
upon the opposite side of the fort was returned with such warmth as to
induce the belief that the feint had succeeded. Acting upon this im'
pression, and yielding to the urgent necessity of the case, they sum-
moned all the women, without exception, and explaining to them the
circumstances in which they were placed, and the improbability that
any injury would be offered to them until the firing had been returned
from the opposite side of the fort, they urged them to go in a body to
the spring, and each to bring up a bucketful of water. Some of the
ladies, as was natural, had no relish for the undertaking, and asked why

The Heroism of the Kentucky Women. 273

the men could not bring water as well as themselves ! observing tihat
they were not bullet-proof, and that the Indians made no distinction
between male and female scalps.

To this it was answered that women were in the habit of bringing
water every morning to the fort, and that if the Indians saw them engaged
as usual, it would induce them to believe that their ambuscade was un-
discovered, and that they would not unmask themselves for the sake of
firing at a few women, when they hoped, by remaining concealed a few
moments longer, to obtain complete possession of the fort ; that if
men should go down to the spring, the Indians would immediately sus-
pect that something was wrong, would despair of succeeding by ambus-
cade, and would instantly rush upon them, follow them into the fort, or
shoot them down at the spring. Tlie decision was soon over. A few
of the boldest declared their readiness to brave the danger, and the
younger and more timid rallying in the rear of these veterans, they all
marched down in a body to the spring, within point blank shot of
more than five hundred Indian warriors !

Some of the girls could not help betraying symptoms of terror, but
the married women, in general, moved with a steadiness and composure
which completely deceived the Indians. Not a shot was fired. The
party were permitted to fill their buckets, one after another, without in-
terruption, and although their steps became quicker and quicker on
their return, and when near the gate of the fort, degenerated into
rather an unmilitary celerity, attended with some little crowding in
passing the gate, yet not more than one-fifth of the water was spilled,
and the eyes of the youngest had not dilated to more than double their
ordinary size.

Being now amply supplied with water, they sent out thirteen young
men to attack the decoy party, with orders to fire with great rapidity,
and make as much noise as possible, but not to pursue the enemy too
far, while the rest of the garrison took post on the opposite side of the
fort, cocked their guns, and stood in readiness to receive the ambus-
cade as soon as it was unmasked. The firing of the light parties on the
Lexington road was soon heard, and quickly became sharp and serious,
gradually becoming more distant from the fort. Instantly Girty sprang
up, at the head of his five hundred warriors, and rushed rapidly upon the
western gate, ready to force his way over the undefended palisades.
Into this immense mass of dusky bodies the garrison poured several
rapid volleys of rifle balls with destructive effect. Their consternation
may be imagined. With wild cries they dispersed on the right and
left, and in two minutes not an Indian was to be seen. At the same
time, the party who had sallied out on the Lexington road, cama
18

274 Our Western Border.

running into the fort at the opposite gate, in high spirits, and laughing
heartily at the success of the manoeuvre.

A regular attack, in the usual manner, then commenced, withoul
much effect on either side, until two o'clock in the afternoon, when a
new scene presented itself. Upon the first appearance of the Indians
in the morning, two of the garrison, Tomlinson and Bell, had been
mounted on fleet horses and sent to Lexington, announcing the arrival
of the Indians and demanding reinforcements. UpoM their arrival, a
little after sunrse, they found the town occupied onl> by women and
children and a few old men, the rest having marched, at the intelli-
gence of Holder's defeat, to the general rendezvous at Hoy's station.
The two couriers instantly followed at a gallop, and overtaking them
on the road, informed them of the danger to which Lexington was ex-
posed during 'heir absence.

The whole ^jarty, amounting to sixteen horsemen, and more than
double that number on foot, with some additional volunteers from
Boone's station, instantly countermarched, and repaired with all pos-
sible expedition to Bryant's station. They were entirely ignorant of
the overwhelming numbers opposed to them, or they would have pro-
ceeded with more caution. Tomlinson had only informed them that
the station was surrounded, being himself ignorant of the numbers of
the enemy. By great exertions, horse and foot appeared before
Bryant's at two in the afternoon, and pressed forward with precipitate
gallantry to throw themselves into the fort. The Indians, however, had
been aware of the departure of the two couriers, who had, in fact,
broken through their -line in order to give the alarm, and expecting the
arrival of reinforcements, had taken measures to meet them.

Running a Uloodv Gauntlet — Girty Chaffed by Reynolds.

To the left of the long and narrow lane, where the Maysville and
Lexington road now runs, there were more than one hundred acres of
green standing corn. The usual road from Lexington to Bryant's ran
parallel to the fence of this field, and only a few feet distant from it.
On the opposite side of the road was a thick wood. Here more than
three hundred Indians lay in ambush, within pistol shot of the road,
awaiting the approach of the party. The horsemen came in view at a
time when the firing had ceased and everything was quiet. Seeing no
enemy, and hearing no noise, they entered the lane at a gallop, and
were instantly saluted with a shower of rifle balls from each side, at the
distance of ten paces. At the first shot, the whole partj set spurs to

Running a Bloody Gauntlet. 275

their horses, and rode at full speed through a rolling fire from either
Bide, which continued for several hundred yards, but owing partly to
the furious rate at which they rode; partly to the clouds of dust raised
by the horses' feet, they all entered the fort unhurt. The men on foot
were less fortunate. They were advancing through the cornfield, and
might have reached the fort in safety but for their eagerness to succor
their friends. Without reflecting that, from the weight and extent of
the fire, the enemy must have been ten times their number, they ran up
with inconsiderate courage to the spot where the firing was heard, and
there found themselves cut off from the fort, and within pistol shot of
more than three hundred savages.

Fortunately, the Indian guns had just been discharged, and they had
not yet leisure to reload. At the sight of this brave body of footmen,
however, they raised a hideous yell, and rushed upon them, tomahawk
in hand. Nothing but the high corn and their loaded rifles could have
saved them from destruction. The Indians were cautious in rushing
upon a loaded rifle with only a tomahawk, and when they halted to load
their pieces, the Kentuckians ran with great rapidity, turning and dodg-
ing through the corn in every direction. Some entered the wood and
escaped through the thickets of cane, some were shot down in the corn-
field, others maintained a running fight, halting occasionally behind
trees, and keeping the enemy at bay with their rifles, for, of all men,
the Indians are generally the most cautious in exposing themselves to
danger. A stout, active young fellow, was so hard pressed by Girty
and several savages, that he was compelled to discharge his rifle, (how-
ever unwillingly, having no time to reload it,) and Girty fell. It hap-
pened, however, that a piece of thick sole-leather was in his shot-pouch
at the time, which received the ball, and preserved his life, although the
force of the blow felled him to the ground. The savages halted upon
his fall, and the young man escaped.

Although the skirmish and race lasted for more than an hour, during
which the cornfield presented a scene of turmoil and bustle which can
scarcely be conceived, yet very few lives were lost. Only six of the
white men were killed and wounded, and probably still fewer of the
enemy, as the whites never fired until absolutely necessary, but reserved
their loads as a check upon the enemy. Had the Indians pursued them
to Lexington, they might have possessed themselves of it without resist-
ance, as there was no force there to oppose them; but after following
the fugitives for a few hundred yards, they returned to the hopeless siege
of the fort.

It was now near sunset, and the fire on both sides had slackened. The
Indians had become discouraged The'*" loss in the morning had been

276 Our Western Border.

heavy, and the country was evidently arming, and would soon be upon
them. They had made no impression upon the fort, and without artil-
lery could hope to make none. The chiefs spoke of raising the siege
and decampmg, but Girty determined, since his arms had been unavail-
ing, to try the efficacy of negotiation. Near one of the bastions there
was a large stump, to which he crept on his hands and knees, and from
which he hailed the garrison. "He highly commended their courage,
but assured them that further resistance would be madness, as he had
six hundred warriors with him, and was in hourly expectation of rein-
forcements, with artillery, which would instantly blow their cabins into
the air; that if the fort was taken by storm, as it certainly would be,
when their cannon arrived, it would be impossible for him to save their
lives; but if they surrendered at once, he gave them his honor that not
a hair of their heads should be injured.

"He told them his name, inquired whether they knew him, and assured
them that they might safely trust to his honor." The garrison listened
in silence to this speech, and many of them looked very blank at the
mention of the artillery, as the Indians had, on one occasion, brought
cannon with them, and destroyed two stations. But a young man by
the name of Reynolds, highly distinguished for courage, energy and a
frolicsome gaiety of temper, perceiving the effect of Girty's speech, took
upon himself to reply to it. To Girty's inquiry of "whether the gar-
rison knew him?" Reynolds replied, " that he was very well known — ■
that he himself had a worthless dog to which he had given the name (A
'Simon Girty,' in consequence of his striking resemblance to the man
of that name. That if he had either artillery or reinforcements, he

might bring them up and be . That if either himself or any of the

naked rascals with him found their way into the fort, they would dis-
dain to use their guns against them, but would drive them out again with
switches, of which they had collected a great number for that purpose
alone; and, finally, he declared that t/iey also expected reinforcements
. — that the whole country was marching to their assistance, and that if
Girty and his gang of murderers remained twenty-four hours longer
before the fort, their scalps would be found drying in the sun upon the
roofs of their cabins."

Girty took great offence at the tone and language of the young Ken-
tuckian, and retired with an expression of sorrow for the inevitable de-
struction which awaited them on the following morning. He quickly
rejoined the chiefs, and instant preparations were made for raising the
siege. The night passed away in uninterrupted tranquility, and at day-
Hght in the morning the Indian camp was found deserted. Fires were
Btill burning brightly, and several pieces of meat were left upon their

The Disastrous Battle of "The Blue Licks." 277

roasting sticks, from which it was inferred that they had retreated a short
time before daylight.

Early in the day reinforcements began to drop in, and, by noon, one
hundred and sixty -seven men were assembled at Bryant's station. Col-
onel Daniel Boone, accompanied by his youngest son, headed a strong
party from Boonsborough; Trigg brought up the force from the neigh-
borhood of Harrodsburg, and Todd commanded the militia around
Lexington. Nearly a third of the whole number assembled was com-
posed of commissioned officers, who hurried from a distance to the scene
of hostilities, and, for the time, took their station in the ranks. Of
those under the rank of Colonel, the most conspicuous were. Majors
Harland, McBride, McGary, and Levi Todd, and Captains Bulger and
Gordon. Of the six last-named officers, all fell in the subsequent battle
except Todd and McGary. Todd and Trigg, as senior Colonels, took
the command, although their authority seems to have been in a great
measure nominal. That, however, was of less consequence, as a sense
of common danger is often more binding than the strictest discipline.
A tumultuous consultation, in which every one seemed to have a voice,
terminated in a unanimous resolution to pursue the enemy without
delay.

It was well known that General Logan had collected a strong force in
Lincoln, and would join them at farthest in twenty-four hours. It was
distinctly understood that the enemy was at least double, and, accord-
ing to Girty's account, more than treble their own numbers. It was
seen that their trail was broad and obvious, and that even some indica-
tions of a tardiness and willingness to be pursued had been observed
by their scouts, who had been sent out to reconnoitre, and from which
it might reasonably be inferred that they would halt on the way — at
least, march so leisurely as to permit them to wait for the aid of Logan.
Yet so keen was the ardor of officer and soldier, that all these obvious
reasons were overlooked, and in the afternoon of the i8th of August,
the line of march was taken up, and the pursuit urged with that precip-
itate courage which has so often been fatal to Kentuckians. Most of
the officers and many of the privates were mounted.

The Disastrous Battle of "The Blue Licks."

The Indians had followed the buffalo trace, and, as if to render their
trail still more evident, they had chopped many of the trees on each
Bide of the road with their hatchets. These strong indications of tardi-
ness, made some impression upon the cool and calculating mind of
Boone, but it was too late to advise retreat. They encamped ihat night

278 Our Western Border.

in the woods, and on the following day reached the fatal boundary of
their pursuit. At the Lower Blue Licks, for the first time since the
pursuit commenced, they came within view of an enemy. As the mis-
cellaneous crowd of horse and foot reached the southern bank of Lick-
ing, they saw a number of Indians ascending the rocky ridge on the
other side. They halted upon the appearance of the Kentuckians,
gazed at them for a few moments in silence, and then calmly and lei-
surely disappeared over the top of the hill.

A halt immediately ensued. A dozen or twenty officers met in front
of the ranks, and entered into consultation. The wild and lonely as-
pect of the country around them, their distance from any point of sup-
port, with the certainty of their being in the presence of a superior
enemy, seems to have inspired a seriousness bordering upon awe.
All eyes were now turned upon Boone, and Colonel Todd asked his
opinion as to what should be done. The veteran woodsman, with
his usual unmoved gravity, replied, " that their situation was critical
and delicate — that the force opposed to them was undoubtedly numer-
ous and ready for battle, as might readily be seen from the leisurely
retreat of the few Indians who had appeared upon the crest of the hill;
that he was well acquainted with the ground in the neighborhood of the
Lick, and was apprehensive that an ambuscade was formed at the dis-
tance of a mile in advance where two ravines, one upon each side of the
ridge, ran in such a manner that a concealed enemy migh assail them
at once both in front and flank, before they were apprised of the danger.

'* It would be proper, therefore, to do one of two things : either to
await the arrival of Logan, who was now undoubtedly on his march to
join them; or, if it was determined to attack without delay, that one-half
of their number should march up the river, which there bends in an
elliptical form, cross at the rapids, and fall upon the rear of the enemy,
while the other division attacked in front. At any rate, he strongly
urged the necessity of reconnoitering the ground carefully before the
main body crossed the river." Such was the counsel of Boone. And
although no measure could have been much more disastrous than that
which was adopted, yet it may be doubted if anything short of an im-
mediate retreat upon Logan, could have saved this gallant body of men
from the fate which they encountered. If they divided their force, the
enemy, as in Estill's case, might have overwhelmed them in detail — if
they remained where they were, without advancing, the enemy would
certainly have attacked them, probably in the night, and with a cer-
tainty of success. They had committed a great error at first in not
waiting for Logan, and nothing short of a retreat, which would have
been considered disgraceful, could now repair it.

The Disastrous Battle of *' The Blue Licks.'* 279

Boone was heard in silence and with deep attention. Some wished
to adopt the first plan — others preferred the second, and the discussion
threatened to be drawn out to some length, when the boiling ardor of
McGary, who could never endure the presence of an enemy without in-
stant battle, stimulated him to an act which had nearly proved destruc-
tive to his country. He suddenly interrupted the consultation with a
loud whoop, resembling the war cry of the Indians, spurred his horse
into the stream, waved his hat over his head and shouted, " Let all who
are not cowards follow me ! " The words and the action together, pro-
duced an electric effect. The mounted men dashed tumultuously into
the river, each striving to be foremost. The footmen were mingled
with them in one rolling and irregular mass. No order was given and
none observed. They struggled through a deep ford as well as they
could, McGary still leading the van, closely followed by Majors Har-
land and McBride.

With the same rapidity they ascended the ridge, which, by the tramp-
ling of buffalo for ages, had been stripped bare of all vegetation, with
the exception of a few dwarfish cedars, and which was rendered still
more desolate in appearance by the multitude of rocks, blackened by
the sun, which were spread over its surface. Upon reaching the top
of the ridge, they followed the buffalo traces with the same precipitate
ardor — Todd and Trigg in the rear ; McGary, Harland, McBride and
Boone in front. No scouts were sent in advance — none explored either
flank — officers and soldiers seemed alike demented by the contagious ex-
ample of a single man, and all struggled forward, horse and foot, as if
to outstrip each other in the advance.

Suddenly, the van halted. They had reached the spot mentioned by
Boone, where two ravines headed on each side of the ridge. Here a
body of Indians presented themselves, and attacked the van. McGary's
party instantly returned the fire, but under great disadvantage. They
were upon a bare and open ridge — the Indians in a bushy ravine. The
centre and rear, ignorant of the ground, hurried up to the assistance of
the van, but were soon stopp'='d by a terrible fire from the ravine that
flanked them. They found themselves enclosed as if in the wings of a
net, destitute of a proper shelter, while the enemy were, in a great
measure, covered from their fire. Stil', however, they maintained theii
ground.

280 OxjR Western Border.

Boone's Son Killed — Thrilling Incidents — Reynolds' Capture.

The action now became fierce and bloody. The parties gradually
closed, the Indians emerged from the ravine, and the fire . became
mutually destructive. The officers suff"ered dreadfiilly. Todd and
Trigg, in the rear — Harland, McBride, and young Boone, in front,
wiere already killed. The Indians gradually extended their line, to
turn the right of the Kentuckians, and cut off their retreat.

This was quickly perceived by the weight of the fire from that
quarter, and the rear instantly fell back in disorder, and attempted to
rush through their only opening to the river. The motion quickly
communicated itself to the van, and a hurried retreat became general.
The Indians instantly sprang forward in pursuit, and falling upon them
with their tomahawks, made a cruel slaughter. From the battle ground
to the river, the spectacle was terrible. The horsemen generally
escaped, but the foot, parti(!ularly the van, which had advanced farthest
within the wings of the net, were almost totally destroyed. Colonel
Boone, after witnessing the death of his son Israel, and many of his
dearest friends, found himself almost entirely surrounded at the very
commencement of the retreat. Several hundred Indians were between
him and the ford, to which the great mass of the fugitives were bending
their flight, and to which the attention of the savages was principally
directed. Being intimately acquainted with the ground, he, together
with a few friends, dashed into the ravine which the Indians had occu-
pied, but which most of them had now left to join the pursuit.

After sustaining one or two heavy fires, and baffling one or two small
parties, who pursued him for a short distance, he crossed the river be-
low the ford, by swimming, and entered the wood at a point where
there was no pursuit, returning by a circuitous route to Bryant's station.
In the meantime, the great mass of the victors and vanquished crowded
the bank of the ford. The slaughter was great in the river. The ford
was crowded with horsemen and foot and Indians, all mingled together.
Sr<r*^ were compelled to seek a passage above by swimming — some,
.vho could not swim, were overtaken and killed at the edge of the water.
A. man by the name of Netherland, who had formerly been strongly
suspected of cowardice, here displayed a coolness and presence of mind
equally noble and unexpected. Being finely mounted, he had out-
stripped the great mass of fugitives, and crossed the river in safety. A
dozen or twenty horsemen accompanied him, and having placed the river
between him and the enemy, showed a disposition to continue their flight,
without regard to the safety of their friends who were on foot and still

Thrilling Incidents — Reynolds' Capture. 281

struggling with the current. Netherland instantly checked his horse,
and in a loud voice called upon his companions to halt — fire upon the
Indians, and save those who were still in the stream. The party in-
stantly obeyed — and, facing about, poured a fatal discharge of rifles
upon the foremost of the pursuers. The enemy instantly fell back from
the opposite bank, and gave time for the harassed and miserable foot-
men to cross in safety. The check, however, was but m.omentary. In-
dians were seen crossing in great numbers above and below, and the
flight again became general. Most of the foot left the great buffalo
track, and, plunging into the thickets, escaped by a circuitous route to
Bryant's.

But little loss was sustained after crossing the river, although the pur-
suit was urged keenly for twenty miles. From the battle ground to the
ford the loss was very heavy ; and at that stage of the retreat there oc-
curred a rare and striking instance of magnanimity, which it would be
criminal to omit. The reader cannot have forgotten young Reynolds,
who replied with such rough and ready humor to the pompous summons
of Girty, at the siege of Bryant's. This young man, after bearing his
share in the action with distinguished gallantry, was galloping with sev-
eral other horsemen in order to reach the ford. The great body of the
fugitives had preceded them, and their situation was in the highest de-
gree critical and dangerous.

About half way between the battle ground and the river, the party
overtook Captain Patterson, on foot, exhausted by the rapidity of the
flight, and, in consequence of former wounds received from the Indians,
so infirm as to be unable to keep up with the main body of the men on
foot. The Indians were close behind him, and his fate seemed in-
evitable. Reynolds, upon coming up with the brave officer, instantly
sprang from his horse, aided Patterson to mount upon the saddle, and
continued his own flight on foot. Being remarkably active and vigor-
ous, he contrived to elude his pursuers, and, turning off fronj the main
road, plunged into the river near the spot where Boone had crossed,
and swam in safety to the opposite side. Unfortunately he wore a pair
of buckskin breeches, which had become so heavy and full of water as
to prevent his exerting himself with his usual activity, and while sitting
down for the purpose of pulling them off, he was overtaken by a party
of Indians and made prisoner.

A prisoner is rarely put to death by the Indians, unless wounded or
infirm, until their return to their own country ; and then his fate is de-
cided in solemn council. Young Reynolds, therefore, was treated kind-
ly, and compelled to accompany his captors in the pursuit. A small
party of Kentuckians soon attracted their attention, and he was left in

282 Our Western Border.

charge of three Indians, who, eager in pursuit, in turn committed him
to the charge of one of their number, while they followed their com-
panions. Reynolds and his guard jogged along very leisurely — the for-
mer totally unarmed, the latter with a tomahawk and rifle in his hands.
At length the Indian stopped to tie his moccasin, when Reynolds in-
stantly sprung upon him, knocked him down with his fist, and quickly
disappeared in the thicket which surrounded them. For this act ot
generosity. Captain Patterson afterwards made him a present of two
hundred acres of first-rate land.

Late in the evening of the same day, most of the survivors arrived at
Bryant's station. The awful tidings spread rapidly throughout the
country, and the whole land was covered with mourning. Sixty of the
very flower of Kentucky had been killed in the battle and flight, and
seven had been taken prisoners, of whom some were afterwards put to
death by the Indians, as was said, to make their loss even. This ac-
count, however, appears very improbable. It is almost incredible that
the Indians should have suffered an equal loss. Their superiority of
numbers, their advantage of position, (being in a great measure shel-
tered, while the Kentuckians, particularly the horsemen, were much ex-
posed,) the extreme brevity of the battle, and the acknowledged bold-
ness of the pursuit, all tend to contradict the report that the Indian loss
exceeded ours. We have no doubt that some of the prisoners were
murdered after arriving at their towns, but cannot believe that the
reason assigned for so ordinary a piece of barbarity was the true one.
Still the execution done by the Kentuckians, while the battle lasted,
seems to have been considerable, although far inferior to the loss which
they themselves sustained.

Hugh McGary's Fiery Character and his Defence.

Todd and Trigg were a severe loss to their families, asid to the
country generally. They were men of rank in life, superior to the or-
dinary class of settlers, and generally esteemed for courage, probity
and intelligence. The death of Major Harland was deeply and univer-
sally regretted. A keen courage, united to a temper the most amiable,
and an integrity the most incorruptible, had rendered him extremely
popoilar in the country. Together with his friend McBride, he accom-
panied McGary in the van, and both fell in the commencement of the
action. McGary, notwithstanding the extreme exposure of his station,
as leader of the van, and consequently most deeply involved in the
ranks of the enemy, escaped without the slightest injury. This gentle-
man will ever be remembered as associated with the disaster of which

Hugh McGary's Fiery Character and his Defence. 283

he was the immediate, although not the original, cause. He has al-
ways been represented as a man of fiery and daring courage, strongly
tinctured with ferocity, and unsoftened by any of the humane and gen-
tle qualities which awaken affection. In the hour of battle, his pres-
ence was invaluable, but in civil life, the ferocity of his temper rendered
him an unpleasant companion.

Several years after the battle of the Blue Licks, a gentleman of Ken-
tucky, since dead, fell in company with McGary at one of the circuit
courts, and the conversation soon turned upon the battle. McGary
frankly acknowledged that he was the immediate cause of the loss of
blood on that day, and, with great heat and energy, assigned his rea-
sons for urging on the battle. He said that in the hurried council
which was held at Bryant's, on the i8th, he had strenuously urged
Todd and Trigg to halt for twenty-four hours, assuring them that, with
the aid of Logan, they would be able to follow them even to Chilli-
cothe if necessary, and that their numbers then were too weak to en-
counter them alone. He offered, he said, to pledge his head that the
Indians would not return with such precipitation as was supposed, but
would afford ample time to collect more force, and give them battle
with a prospect of success.

He added, that Colonel Todd scouted his arguments, and declared

that *' if a single day was lost the Indians would never be overtaken

but would cross the Ohio and disperse ; that now was the time to strike
them, while they were in a body — that to talk of their numbers was
nonsense — the more the merrier ! — that for his part he was determined
to pursue without a moment's delay, and did not doubt that there were
brave men enough on the ground to enable him to attack them with
effect." McGary declared, " that he felt somewhat nettled at the man-
ner in which his advice had been received ; that he thought Todd and
Trigg jealous of Logan, who, as senior Colonel, would be entitled to
the command upon his arrival ; and that, in their eagerness to have the
honor of the victory to themselves, they were rashly throwing them-
selves into a condition, which would endanger the safety of the
country.

"However, sir," (continued he, with an air of unamiable triumph,)
«* when I saw the gentlemen so keen for a fight, I gave way, and joined
in the pursuit as willingly as any; but when we came in sight of the
enemy, and the gentlemen began to talk of * numbers,' 'position,'

• Logan,' and * waiting,' I burst into a passion, d d them for a set

of cowards, who could not be wise unt*l they were scared into it, and
swore that since they had come so far for a fight, they should fight, or I
would disgrace them forever 1 That when I spoke of waiting for Logan

284 Our Western Border.

on the day before, they had scouted the idea, and hinted about
* courage' — that now it would be shown who had courage, or who were
d d cowards, who could talk big when the enemy were at a dis-
tance, but turned pale when danger v/as near. I then dashed into the
river, and called upon all who were not cowards to follow !" The
gentleman upon whose authority it is given added, that even then,
McGary spoke with bitterness of the deceased Colonels, and swore that
they had received just what they deserved, and that he for one was glad
of it.

On the very day on which this rash and unfortunate battle was fought
Colonel Logan arrived at Bryant's station, at the head of no less than
four hundred and fifty men. He here learned that the little army liad
marched on the preceding day, without waiting for so strong and neces-
sary a reinforcement. Fearful of some such disaster as had actually
occurred, he urged his march with the utmost diligence, still hoping to
overtake them before they could cross the Ohio ; but within a few miles
of the fort, he encountered the foremost of the fugitives, whose jaded
horses, and harassed looks, announced but too plainly the event of the
battle. As usual with men after a defeat, they magnified the number
of the enemy and the slaughter of their comrades. None knew the
actual extent of their loss. They could only be certain of their own
escape, and could give no account of their companions. Fresh strag-
glers constantly came up, with the same mournful intelligence ; so that
Logan, after some hesitation, determined to return to Bryant's until all
the survivors should come up. In the course of the evening, both horse
and foot were reassembled at Bryant's, and the loss was distinctly ascer-
tained.

Although sufficiently severe, it was less than Logan had at first appre-
hended ; and having obtained all the information which could be col-
lected, as to the strength and probable destination of the enemy, he
determined to continue his march to the battle ground, with the hope
that success would emboMen the enemy, and induce them to remain
until his arrival. On the second day he reached the field. The enemy
were gone, but the bodies of the Kentuckians still lay unburied, on the
spot where they had fallen. Immense flocks of buzzards were soaring
over the battle ground, and the bodies of the dead had become so
swollen and disfigured, that it was impossible to recognize the features
of their most particular friends. Many corpses were floating near the
shore of the northern bank, already putrid from the action of the sun,
and partially eaten by fishes. The whole were carefully collected, by
order of Colonel Logan, and interred as decently as the nature of the
ioil would permit. Being satisfied that the Indians were by this time

Hugh McGary's Fiery Character and his Defence. 285

far beyond his reach, he then retraced his steps to Bryant's station and
dismissed his men.

As soon as intelligence of the battle of the Blue Licks reached Colo-
nel George Rogers Clark, who then resided at the falls of Ohio,^ he
determined to set on foot an expedition against the Indian towns, for
the purpose, both of avenging the loss of the battle, and rousing the
spirit of the country, which had begun to sink into the deepest dejec-
tion. He proposed that one thousand men should be raised from all
parts of Kentucky, and should rendezvous at Cincinnati, under the
command of their respective officers, where he engaged to meet them
at the head of a part of the Illinois regiment, then under his command,
together with one brass field piece, which was regarded by the Indians
with superstitious terror. The offer was embraced with great alacrity ;
and instant measures were taken for the collection of a sufficient number
v)f volunteers.

The whole force of the interior was assembled, under the command
of Colonel Logan, and descending the Licking in boats prepared for
the purpose, arrived safely at the designated point of union, wnere they
were joined by Clark, with the volunteers and regular detachment from
below. No provision was made for the subsistence of the troops, and
the sudden concentration of one thousand men and horses upon a single
point, rendered it extremely difficult to procure the necessary supplies.
The woods abounded in game — but the rapidity and secrecy of their
march, which was absolutely essential to the success of the expedition,
did not allow them to disperse in search of it. They suffered greatly,
therefore, from hunger as well as fatigue ; but all being accustomed to
privations of every kind, they prosecuted their march with unabated
rapidity, and appeared within a mile of one of their largest villages,
without encountering a single Indian. Here, unfortunately, a straggler
fell in with them, and instantly fled to the village, uttering the alarm
whoop repeatedly in the shrillest and most startling tones. The troops
pressed forward with great dispatch, and, entering their town, found it
totally deserted. The houses had evidently been abandoned only a few
minutes before their arrival. Fires were burning, meat was upon the
roasting sticks, and corn was still boiling in their kettles. The pro-
visions were a most acceptable treat to the Kentuckians, who were well
nigh famished, but the escape of their enemies excited deep and universal
chagrin.

After refreshing themselves, they engaged in the serious business of
destroying the property of the tribes with unrelenting severity. Their
villages were burnt, their corn cut up, and their entire country laid
waste. During the whole of this severe but necessary occupation,

286 Our Western Border.

scarcely an Indian was to be seen. The alarm had spread universally,
and every village was found deserted. Occasionally, a solitary Indian
would crawl up within gunshot and deliver his fire; and once a small
party, mounted upon superb horses, rode up with great audacity, within
musket shot, and took a leisurely survey of the whole army, but upon
seeing a detachment preparing to attack them, they galloped off with a
rapidity that baffled pursuit.

Boone's Last Days — Driven to Missouri — Touching Scenes.

Boone accompanied this expedition, but, as usual, has omitted every-
thing which relates to himself. Here the brief memoir of Boone closes.
It does not appear that he was afterwards engaged in any public expe-
dition or solitary adventure. He continued a highly respectable farmer-
citizen of Kentucky for several years, until the country became too
thickly •settled for his taste. As refinement of manners advanced, and
the general standard of intelligence became elevated by the constant
arrival of families of rank and influence, the rough old woodsman found
himself entirely out of his element. The all-engaging subject of poli-
tics, which soon began to agitate the country with great violence, was
to him as a sealed book or an unknown language, and for several years
he wandered among the living groups which thronged the court yard or
the churches, like a venerable relic of other days. He was among
them, but not of them ! He pined in secret for the wild and lonely
forests of the west — for the immense prairie, trodden only by the buf-
falo or the elk, and became eager to exchange the listless languor and
security of a village for the healthful exercise of the chase or the more
thrilling excitement of savage warfare.

In 1792, he dictated his brief and rather dry memoirs to some young
gentleman who could write, and who garnished it with a few flour-
ishes of rhetoric, which passed off upon the old woodsman as a precious
morsel of eloquence. He was never more gratified than when he could
ait and hear it read to him, by some one who was willing, at so small an
expense, to gratify the harmless vanity of the kind-hearted old pioneer.
He would listen with great earnestness, and occasionally rub his hands,
smile and ejaculate, "all true! — every word true! — not a lie in it!"
He never spoke of himself unless particularly questioned; but this writ-
ten account of his life was the Delilah of his imagination. The idea of
"seeing his name in print," completely overcame the cold philosophy
of his general manner, and he seemed to think it a masterpiece of com-
position.

Boone's Last Days — Driven to Missouri. 287

A disastrous reverse increased his discontent. He had, after the Rev-
olution, collected much of his means to purchase land warrants, but
while on his way to Richmond, was robbed of the whole and left desti-
tute. Ignorant, too, of the niceties of the law, he found that even those
lands he had located and thought his own, were defective in title, and
so it came to pass that the old pioneer, although the first to explore the
magnificent domain of Kentucky, could at length claim of her soil only
the six feet that belonged to every child of Adam. Sore, wounded and
dissatisfied, but never, that we can hear, embittered, Boone forever left
Kentucky ; turned his back upon civilization and its legal chicanery :
settled for awhile with his faithful wife on the Kanawha in Virginia, and
finally joined his son Daniel in what is now Missouri, but what was then
part of the Spanish territory. The Spanish authorities at St. Louis gave
him a grant of land, and at length he found peace again and lived by
his traps and rifle, sending the spoils of the hunt to St. Louis.

He had left Kentucky in debt, but living in a time when it was not
considered exactly honorable to break up ** full handed," or to com-
pound with creditors at fifty cents on the dollar, he worked manfully
along until he had raised some money, and then once more appeared in
Boonsborough a stranger in a strange land. The honest old man sought
out his creditors, took each one's word for the amount of his indebted-
ness to him, and, after satisfying every claim, dollar for dollar, he
shouldered his trusty rifle and started again for his western home.

But marked changes were going on even in that remote wilderness.
His Avestern paradise was soon disturbed by intruders. The territory
had changed hands from Spain to France and then to the United States^
He now used to make long trapping and hunting excursions up the
Tvlissouri river and its tributaries. At one time he took pack-horses and
went to the Osage, taking with him a negro lad. Soon after preparing
his camp, he lay a long time sick. One pleasant day, when able to walk
out, he took the boy to a slight eminence and marked out his own grave,
enjoining the lad, in case of his (Boone's) death, to wash his body ani
wrap it in a clean blanket. He was then to dig a grave exactly as he
had marked it, drag his body and put it therein and then plant posts at
the head and foot, and mark the trees so the place could be found by
his friends. Special messages were then given about his horses, rifle.^
&c. All these directions were given, as' the boy declared, with entire
calmness and serenity.

He did not die then, however, but soon after became landless again.
His title was declared invalid and, at seventy-six, the venerable pioneer
was a second time left without one acre in all that boundless domain.
Cut this did not sour him. His sweetness of disposition still continued.

288 Our Western Border.

and with an enduring and touching faith, he sent, in 1812, a memorial
to the Kentucky Senate, asking their influence in form of a petition to
Congress to confirm his Spanish title to ten thousand acres. This was
done, much to Boone's satisfaction, most promptly and heartily, but
Congress hesitated, and at length, in 1814, gave him title to less than a
thousand.

While his claim was pending, the most terrible disaster of his life be-
fell the old man in the loss of his dear and most faithful wife, Rebecca.
He wept over her coffin as one who " would not be comforted." With
her he buried all his earthly affections. He left his own humble cabin
and took up his residence with his son, Major Nathan Boone. He now
returned to his forest rambles and hunting sports, and when about eighty-
two years old, he made a hunting excursion as far as Fort Osage on the
Kansas, one hundred miles from his dwelling. On all these distant ad-
ventures, he took with him a companion bound by written agreement,
tl-iat wherever he died, he was to convey and bury his body beside that of
his wife overlooking the Missouri.

In 1 81 9 a distinguished artist visited Boone at his dwelling near the
Missouri, for the purpose of taking his portrait, and found him in a
"small, rude cabin, indisposed and reclining on his bed. A slice from
the loin of a buck, twisted about the ramrod of his rifle, within reach
of him as he lay, was roasting before the fire. Several other cabins,
arranged in the form of a parallelogram, were occupied by the descend-
ants of the pioneer. Here he lived in the midst of his posterity. His
witiiered energies and locks of snow, indicated that the soujces of exist-
ence were nearly exhausted."

Boone died of fever on the 26fh of September, 1820, in the eighty-
seventh year of his age, and at the residence of his son-in-law in Flan-
ders, Calloway county. Mo., and was buried by the side of his wife. It
is said that when too old to hunt, he would seat himself, with his trusty
old rifle in hands and wrth eyes turned towards the forest, and thus gaze
wistfully for hours, living over again in memory, doubtless, the active
and stirring scenes of his youth and manhood beneath similar sombre
shades. When intelligence of his death reached the Missouri Legisla-
ture, an adjournment and the usual badge of mourning for thirty days
was voted.

In 1845 ^ committee, appointed by the Kentucky Legislature, visited
Missouri and had the bodies of the old pioneer and his wife, Rebecca,
removed to Frankfort, and on the 13th of September, 1845, the ashes of
the revered and illustrious dead were recommitted to Kentucky dust
amid the most solemn and imposing ceremonies. It was a great day in
Kentucky, and one iong to be held in sacred remerobrance. An im-

Two Characteristic Anecdotes of Daniel Boone. 289

mense concourse of citizens had assembled from all parts of the State.
The funeral procession was more than a mile in length. The hearse,
profusely, decorated with flowers and evergreens, was drawn by four
white horses and accompanied, as pall bearers, by such distinguished
pioneers as Colonel R. M. Johnson, General James Taylor, General R.
McAfee, Colonel John Johnston, of Ohio, and Colonel Wm. Boone, of
Shelby. The affecting funeral ceremonies were performed in a beauti-
ful hollow near the grave, the oration having been delivered by the
Hon. J. J. Crittenden.

It is a common error to suppose that Boone was a very ignorant,
illiterate man. He could both read and write, and his spelling was no
worse than that of his cotemporary, General George Rogers Clark, and
other prominent men of his day and generation. Governor Morehead,
in his commemorative address, says of Boone :

" His life is a forcible example of the powerful influence a single
absorbing passion exerted over the destiny of an individual. Possess-
ing no other acquirements than a very common education, he was ena-
bled, nevertheless, to maintain through a long and useful career, a con-
spicuous rank among the most distinguished of his cotemporaries. He
united in an eminent degree the qualities of shrewdness, caution, cour-
age and uncommon muscular strength. He was seldom taken by sur-
prise ) he never shrank from danger, nor cowered beneath the pressure
of exposure and fatigue. His manners were simple and unobtrusive —
exempt from the rudeness characteristic of the backwoodsman. In his
person there was nothing remarkably striking. He was five feet ten
inches in height and of robust and powerful proportions. His counte-
nance was mild and contemplative. His ordinary habits were those
of a hunter. He died as he lived, in a cabin, and perhaps his trusty
rifle was the most valuable of all his chattels."

Two Characteristic Anecdotes of Daniel Boone.

Boone, according to James Hall, was. once resting in the woods with
a small number of his followers, when a large party of Indians came
suddenly upon them and halted — neither party having discovered the
other until they came in contact. The whites were eating, and the sav-
ages, with the ready tact for which they are farrious, sat down with per-
fect composure, and also commenced eating. It was obvious they
wished to lull the suspicions of the white men, and seize a favorable
opportunity for rushing upon them. Boone affected a careless inatten-
tion, but, in an undertone, quietly admonished his men to keep their
hands upon their rifles. He then strutted towards the reddies unarmed
19

290 Our Western Border.

and leisurely picking the meat from a bone. The Indian leader, who
was somewhat similarly employed, arose to meet him.

Boone saluted him, and then requested to look at the knife with which
the Indian was cutting his meat. The chief handed it to him without
hesitation, and our pioneer, who, with his other traits, possessed con-
ttiderable expertness at sleight of hand, deliberately opened his mcuth
and affected to swallow the long knife, which, at the same instant, he
l^rew adroitly into his sleeve. The Indians were astonished. Boone
griped, rubbed his throat, stroked his body, and then, with apparent
sat:sfaction, pronounced the horrid mouthful to be very good.

Having enjoyed the surprise of the spectators for a few moments, he
made another contortion, and drawing forth the knife, as they supposed,
from his body, coolly returned it to the chief The latter took the point
cautiously between his thumb and finger, as if fearful of being contam-
inated by touching the weapon, and threw it from him into the bushes.
I'he pioneer sauntered back to his party, and the Indians, instantly dis-
patching their meal, marched off, desiring no further intercourse with a
man who could swallow a scalping knife.

From Collins' Kentucky we derive the following: One morning in
1777, several men in the fields near Boonsborough were attacked by In
dians, and ran towards the fort. One was overtaken and tomahawked
within seventy yards of the fort, and while being scalped, Simon Ken-
ton shot the warrior dead. Daniel Boone, with thirteen men, hastened
to help his friends, but they were intercepted by a large body of In-
dians, who got between them and the fort. At the first fire from the
Indians, seven whites were wounded, among them Boone. An Indian
sprang upon him with uplifted tomahawk; but Kenton, quick as a flash,
sprang toward the Indian, discharged his gun into his breast, snatched
up the body of his noble leader, and bore it safely into the fort. When
the gate was closed securely against the Indians, Boone sent for Ken-
ton: "Well, Simon," said the grateful old pioneer, "you have behaved
yourself like a man to-day — indeed, you are a fine fellow." Boone was
a "cemarkably silent man, and this was great praise from him.

Kentucky Sports — Boone Barking Squirrels by Rifle.

We have individuals in Kentucky, wrote Audubon, the famous nat-
uralist, that, even there, are considered wonderful adepts in the manage-
ment of the rifle. Having resided some years in Kentucky, and hav
ing more than once been witness of rifle sport, I shall present the re-
sults of my observation, leaving the reader to judge how far rifle shoot-
ing is understood in that State :

Kentucky Sports — Boone Barking Squirrels by Rifle. 291

Several individuals who conceive themselves adepts in the manage-
ment of the rifle, are often seen to meet for the purpose of displaying
their skill ; and, betting a trifling sum, put up a target, in the centre of
which, a common-sized nail is hammered for about two-thirds its length.
The marksmen make choice of what they consider a proper distance,
and which may be forty paces. Each man cleans the interior of his
tube, which is called wiping it, places a ball in the palm of his hand,
pouring as much powder from his horn as will cover it. This quantity
is supposed to be suflicient foi any distance short of a hundred yards*.
A shot which comes very close to the nail is considered that of an in-
different marksman ; the bending of the nail is of course somewhat bet-
ter ; but nothing less than hitting it right on the head is satisfactory.
One out of the three shots generally hits the nail ; and should the
shooters amount to half-a-dozen, two nails are frequently needed before
each can have a shot. Those who drive the nail have a further trial
among themselves, and the two best shots out of these generally settles
the affair, when all the sportsmen adjourn to some house, and spend an
hour or two in friendly intercourse, appointing, before they part, a day
for another trial. This is technically termed, " driving the nail.''^

Barkittg of squirrels is delightful sport, and, in my opinion, requires
a greater degree of accuracy than any other. I first witnessed this
manner of procuring squirrels while near the town of Frankfort. The
performer was the celebrated Daniel Boone. We walked out together
and followed the rocky margins of the Kentucky river until we reached
a piece of flat land, thickly covered with black walnuts, oaks, and
hickories. As the general mast was a good one that year, squirrels were
seen gamboling on every tree around us. My companion, a stout, hale,
athletic man, dressed in a homespun hunting shirt, bare legged and
moccasined, carried a long and heavy rifle, which, as he was loading,
he said had proved efficient in all of his former undertakings, and which
he hoped would not fail on this occasion, as he felt proud to show me
his skill. The gun was wiped, the powder measured, the ball patched
with six-hundred-thread linen, and a charge sent home with a hickory
rod We moved not a step from the place, for the squirrels were so
thick that it was unnecessary to go after them.

Boone pointed to one of these animals, which had observed us, and
was crouched on a bough about fifty paces distant, and bade me mark
well where the ball should hit. He raised his piece gradually until the
bead or sight of the barrel was brought to a line with the spot he
intended to hit. The whip-like report resounded through the woods
and along the hills in repeated echoes. Judge of my surprise, when I
perceived that the ball had hit the piece of bark immediately underneath

292 Our Western Border.

the squirrel and shivered it into splinters ; the concussion produced by
which had killed the animal, and sent it whirling through the air as if
it had been blown up by the explosion of a powder magazine. Boone
kept up his firing, and before many hours had elapsed, we had pro-
cured as many squirrels as we wished. Since that first interview with the
veteran Boone, I have seen many other individuals perform the same
feat.

The snuffing of a candle with a ball, I first had an opportunity of see-
ing near the banks of the Green river, not far from a large pigeon roost,
to which I had previously made a visit. I had heard many reports of
guns during the early part of a dark night, and knowing them to be
those of rifles, I went forward towards the spot to ascertain the cause.
On reaching the place I was welcomed by a dozen tall, stout men, who
told me they were exercising for the purpose of enabling them to shoot
after night, at the reflected light from the eyes of a deer or wolf by torch-
light. A fire was blazing near, the smoke of which rose curling among
the thick foliage of the trees. At a distance which rendered it scarcely
distinguishable, stood a burning candle, but which, in reality, was only
fifty yards from the spot on which we all stood. One man was within
a few yards of it to watch the eff"ect of the shots, as well as to light the
candle should it chance to go out, or to replace it should the shot cut it
across. Each marksman shot in his turn. Some never hit either the
snuff or the candle, and were congratulated with a loud laugh ; while
others actually snuff'ed the candle without putting it out, and were
recompensed for their dexterity with numerous hurrahs. One of them,
who was particularly expert, was very fortunate, and snuffed the candle
three times out of seven, while the other shots either put out the candle
or cut it immediately under the light.

Of the feats performed by the Kentuckians with the rifle, I might say
more than might be expedient on the present occasion. By the way of
recreation, they often cut off a piece of the bark of a tree, make a tar-
get of it, using a little powder wetted with water or saliva, for the bulls-
eye, and shoot into the mark all the balls they have about them, pick*
IDg them out of the wood again.

General Simon Kenton, alias Butler.

GENERAL SIMON KENTON, alias BUTLER.
He has a Battle and Thinks He has Committed Murder,

Tread lightly I This is hallowed ground. Tread reverently here I

Beneath this sod, in silence, sleeps the brave old Pioneer;

Who never quailed in darkest hour; whose heart ne'er felt a fear.

Tread lightly, then I and now bestcw the tribute of a tear.

For ever in the fiercest and the thickest of the fight.

The dusk and swarthy foemen felt the terror of his might.— IFm. Hubbard.

The most daring and adventurous of Boone's companions was the
far-famed Simon Kenton, who was born in Fauquier county, Virginia,
on the 15th of May, 1755, the ever-memorable year of Braddock's de-
feat. Of his early years nothing is known. His parents were poor,
and until the age of sixteen, his days seem to have passed away in the
obscure and laborious drudgery of a farm. He was never taught to
read or write, and to this is the poverty and desolation of his old age,
in a great measure, to be attributed. At the age of sixteen, by an un-
fortunate adventure, he was launched into life, with no other fortune
than a stout heart and a robust set of limbs.

It seems that, young as he was, his heart had become entangled in the
snares of a young coquette in the neighborhood, who was grievously
perplexed by the necessity of choosing one husband out of many lovers.
Young Kenton and a robust farmer by the name of Leitchman — William
Veach, according to Collins and McDonald — seem to have been the
most favored suitors, and the young lady, not being able to decide
upon their respective merits, they took the matter into their own hands,
and, in consequence of foul play on the part of Leitchman's friends,
young Kenton was beaten with great severity. He submitted to his
fate for the time, in silence, but internally vowed that, as soon as he
had obtained his full growth, he would take ample vengeance upon hii
rival for the disgrace he had sustained at his hands. He waited patient-
ly until the following Spring, when, finding himself six feet high and
full of health and action, he determined to delay the hour of retribu-
tion no longer.

He accordingly walked over to Leitchman's house one morning, and
finding him busily engaged in carrying shingles from the woods, he
stopped him, told him his object, and desired him to adjourn to a spot
more convenient for the purpose. Leitchman, confident in his superior
age and strength, was not backward to indulge him in so amiable a

894 Our Western Border.

pastime, and having reached a solitary spot in the woods, they both
stripped and prepared for the encounter. The battle was fought with
all the fury which mutual hate, jealousy, and herculean power on both
sides, could supply, and after a severe round, in which considerable
damage was done and received, Kenton was brought to the ground
Leitchman (as usual in Virginia) sprang upon him without the least
iK^ruple, and added the most bitter taunts to the kicks with which he
saluted him, from his head to his heels, reminding him of his former
defeat, and rubbing salt into the raw wounds of jealousy by triumphant
allusions to his own superiority both in love and war. During these
active operations on the part of Leitchman, Kenton lay perfectly still,
eying attentively a small bush which grew near him. It instantly oc-
curred to him that if he could wind Leitchman's hair, (which was re-
markably long,) around this bush, he would be able to return those
kicks which were now bestowed upon him in such profusion. The dif-
ficulty was to get his antagonist near enough. This he at length
effected in the good old Virginia style, viz.: by biting him en arriercy
and compelling him, by short springs, to approach the bush, much as a
bullock is goaded on to approach the fatal ring, where all his struggles
are useless. When near enough, Kenton suddenly exerted himself vio-
lently, and succeeded in wrapping the long hair of his rival around the
sapling. He then sprung to his feet, and inflicted a terrible revenge
for all his past injuries. In a few seconds Leitchman was gasping, ap-
parently in the agonies of death. Kenton instantly fled, without even
returning for an additional supply of clothing, and directed his steps
westward. This was in April, 1771.

During the first day of his journey, he traveled in much agitation.
He supposed that Leitchman was dead, and that the hue and cry would
instantly be raised after himself as the murderer. The constant appre-
hension of a gallows lent wings to his flight, and he scarcely allowed
himself a moment for refreshment, until he had reached the neighbor-
hood of the Warm Springs, where the settlements were thin and the
immediate danger of pursuit was over. Here, he fortunately fell in
with an exile from the State of New Jersey, of the name of Johnson,
who was travelmg westward on foot, and driving a single pack-horse,
laden with a few necessaries, before him. They soon became acquaint-
ed, related their adventures to each other, and agreed to travel together.
They plunged boldly into the wilderness of the Allegheny mountains,
and subsisting upon wild game and a small quantity of flour, which
Johnson had brought with him, they made no halt until they arrived at
a small settlement on Cheat river, one of the prongs of the Monon-
gahela.

General Simon Kenton, alias Butler. 296

Here the two friends separated, and Kenton (who had assumed the
name of Butler) attached himself to a small company headed by John
Mahon and Jacob Greathouse, who had united for the purpose of ex-
ploring the country. They quickly built a large canoe, and descended
the river as far as the Province's settlement. There Kenton became
acquainted with two young adventurers, Yager and Strader, the former
of whom had been taken by the Indians when a child, and had spent
jnany years in their village. He informed Kenton that there was a
country below, which the Indians called Kan-tuck-ee, which was a per-
fect Elysium : that the ground was not only the richest, and the vege-
tation the most luxuriant in the world, but that the immense herds o<'
buffalo and elk, which ranged at large through its forests, would appeal
incredible to one who had never witnessed such a spectacle. He added,
that it was entirely uninhabited, and was open to all who chose to hunt
there; that he himself had often accompanied the Indians in their
grand hunting parties through the country, and was confident that he
could conduct him to the same ground, if he was willing to venture.

Kenton closed with the proposal, and announced his readiness to
accompany him immediately. A canoe was speedily procured, and the
three young men committed themselves to the waters of the Ohio, in
search of the enchanted hunting ground, which Yager had visited in his
youth, while a captive among the Indians. Yager had no idea of its
exact distance from Province's settlement. He recollected only that he
had crossed the Ohio in order to reach it, and declared that, by sailing
down the river for a few days, they would come to the spot where the
Indians were accustomed to cross, and assured Kenton that there would
be no difficulty in recognizing it ; that its appearance was different from
all the rest of the world, &c.

Fired by Yager's glowing description of its beauty, and eager to
reach this new Eldorado of the west, the young men rowed hard for
several days, confidently expecting that every bend of the river would
usher them into the land of promise. No such country, however, ap-
peared ; and at length Kenton and Strader became rather skeptical as
to its existence at all. They rallied Yager freely upon the subject, who
still declared positively that they would soon witness the confirmation
of all that he had said. After descending, however, as low as the spot
where Manchester now stands, and seeing nothing which resembled
Yager's country, they held a council, in which it was determined to re-
turn and survey the country more carefully — Yager still insisting that they
must have passed it in the night. They accordingly retraced their steps,
and successively explored the land about Salt Lick Little and Big Sandy,
and Guyandotte. At length, being totally wearied out in searching foi

296 Our Western Border.

what had no existence, they turned their attention entirely to hunting
and trapping, and spent nearly two years upon the Great Kanawha, in
this agreeable and profitable occupation. They obtained clothing in
exchange for their furs, from the traders of Fort Pitt, and the forest
supplied them abundantly with wild game for food.

In March, 1773, while reposing in their tent after the labors of the
day, they were suddenly attacked by a party of Indians. Strader was
killed at the first fire, and Kenton and Yager with difficulty effected
their escape, being compelled to abandon their guns, blankets and pro-
visions, and commit themselves to the wilderness, without the means of
sheltering themselves from the cold, procuring a morsel of food, or even
kindling a fire. They were far removed from any white settlement, *nd
had no other prospect than that of perishing by famine, or falling a
sacrifice to the fury of such Indians as might chance to meet them.
Reflecting, however, that it was never too late for men to make an
effort against being utterly lost, they determined to strike through the
woods for the Ohio river, and take such fortune as it should please
heaven to bestow.

Directing their route by the barks of trees, they pressed forward in a
straight direction for the Ohio, and during the first two days allayed
the piercing pangs of hunger by chewing such roots as they could find
on their way. On the third day their strength began to fail, and the
keen appetite which at first had constantly tortured them, was succeeded
by a nausea, accompanied with dizziness and sinking of the heart, bor-
dering on despair. On the fourth day they often threw themselves
upon the ground, determined to await the approach of death — and as
often werq stimulated by the instinctive love of life, to arise and resume
their journey. On the fifth, they were completely exhausted, and were
able only to crawl, at intervals. In this manner, they traveled about a mile
during the day, and succeeded, by sunset, in reaching the banks of the
Ohio. Here, to their inexpressible joy, they encountered a party 0/
traders, from whom they obtained a comfortable supply of piovisions.

The traders were so much startled at the idea of being exposed to
perils, such as those which Kenton and Yager had just escaped, that
they lost no time in removing from such a dangerous vicinity, and in-
stantly returned to the mouth of the Little Kanawha, where they met
with Dr. Briscoe at the head of another exploring party. From hira
Kenton obtained a rifle and some ammunition, with which he again
plunged alone into the forest and hunted with success untii the Summer
uf '73 was far advanced. Returning, then, to the Little Kanawha, he
found a party of fourteen men, under the direction of Dr. Wood and
lliucock Lee, who were descending the Ohio with the view of joining

Herds op^ Elk and Buffalo. 297

Captain Bullitt, who was supposed to be at the mouth of Scioto, with a
large party. Kenton instantly joined them, and descended the river in
canoes as far as the Three Islands, landing frequently and examining the
country on each side of the river. At the Three Islands they were
alarmed by the approach of a large party of Indians, by whom they
were compelled to abandon their canoes and strike diagonally through
the wilderness for Greenbriar county, Virginia. They suffered much
during this journey from fatigue and famine, and were compelled at one
time (notwithstanding the danger of their situation,) to halt for four-
teen days and wait upon Dr. Wood, who had unfortunately been bitten
by a copperhead snake, and rendered incapable of moving for that length
of time. Upon reaching the settlements the party separated.

Kenton, not wishing to venture to Virginia, (having heard nothing
of Leitchman's recovery,) built a canoe on the banks of the Mononga-
hela, and returned to the mouth of the Great Kanawha, hunted with
success until the spring of '74, when the war, called sometimes Dun-
more's and sometimes Cresap's war, broke out between the Indian
tribes and the colonies, occasioned, in a great measure, by the murder
of the family of the celebrated Indian chief, Logan. Kenton was not
in the great battle near the mouth of the Kanawha, but, with the noto-
rious renegade, Simon Girty, acted as a spy throughout the whole of
the campaign, in the course of which he traversed the country around
Fort Pitt and a large part of the present State of Ohio.

When Dunmore's forces were disbanded, I^enton, in company with
two others, determined on making a second effort to discover the rich
lands bordering on the Ohio, of which Yager had spoken. Having
built a canoe and provided themselves abundantly with ammunition,
they descended the river as far as the mouth 01 Big Bone Creek, upon
which the celebrated Lick of that name is situated. They there disem-
barked, and explored the country for several days; but not finding the
land equal to their expectations, they reascended the river as far as the
ncvouth of Cabin Creek^ a few miles above Maysville.

Herds of Elk and Buffalo — Hendricks Burnt — Kenton's Fight.

From this point they set out with a determination to examine the
country carefully until they could find land answering in some degree
to Yager's description. In a short time they reached the neighborhood
of Mayslick, and, for the first time, were struck with the uncommon
beauty of the country and fertility of the soil. Here they fell in with
the great buffalo trace, which, in a few hours, brought them to the Lower
Blue Lick. The flats upon each side of the river were crowded with

298 Our Western Border.

immense herds of buffalo that had come down from the interior for the
sake of the salt, and a number of elk were seen upon the bare ridges
which surrounded the springs. Their great object was now achieved.
They had discovered a country far more rich than any which they had
yet beheld, and where the game seemed as abundant as the grass of the
plain.

After remaining a few days at the Lick, and killing an immense num-
ber of deer and buffalo, they crossed the Licking and passed through
the present counties of Scott, Fayette, Woodford, Clarke, Montgomery
and Bath, when, falling in with another buffalo trace, it conducted them
to the Upper Blue Lick, where they again beheld elk and buffalo in im-
mense numbers. Highly gratified at the success of their expedition,
they quickly returned to their canoe, and ascended the river as far as
Green Bottom, where they had left their skins, some ammunition and a
few hoes, which they had procured at Kanawha, with the view of culti-
vating the rich ground which they expected to find.

Returning as quickly as possible, they built a cabin on the spot where
the town of Washington, Ky., now stands, and having cleared an acre
of ground in the centre of a large canebrake, they planted it with In-
dian corn. Strolling about the country in various directions, they one
day fell in with two white men, near the Lower Blue Lick, who had los*
their guns, blankets and ammunition, and were much distressed for pro-
visions and the means of extricating themselves from the wilderness.
They informed them that* their names were Fitzpatrick and. Hendricks;
that, in descending the Ohio, their canoe had been overset by a sudden
squall; that they were compelled to swim ashore, without being able to
save anything from the wreck; that they had wandered thus far through
the woods, in the effort to penetrate through the country to the settle-
ments above, but must infallibly perish unless they could be furnished
with guns and ammunition. Kenton informed them of the small set-
tlement which he had opened at Washington, and invited them to join
him and share such fortune as Providence might bestow. Hendricks
consented to remain, but Fitzpatrick, being heartily sick of the woods,
msisted upon returning to the Monongahela. Kenton and his two
friends accompanied Fitzpatrick to "the point," as it was then called,
being the spot where Maysville now stands, and having given him a
gun, &c., assisted Mm in crossing the river, and took leave of him on
the other side.

In the meantime, Hendricks had been left at the Blue Licks, without
a gun, but with a good supply of provisions, until the party could return
from the river. As soon as Fitzpatrick had gone, Kenton and his two
friends hastened to return to the Lick, not doubting for a moment that

Hendricks Burnt — Kenton's Fight. 299

they would find Hendricks in camp as they had left him. Upon arriving
at the point where the tent stood, however, they were alarmed at
finding it deserted, with evident marks of violence around it. Several
bullet holes were to be seen in the poles of which it was constructed,
and various articles belonging to Hendricks were tossed about in too
negligent a manner to warrant the belief that it had been done by him.
At a little distance from the camp, in a low ravine, they observed 9
thick smoke, as if from a fire just beginning to burn. They did not
doubt for a moment that Hendricks had fallen into the hands of the In-
dians, and believing that a party of them were then assembled around
the fire which was about to be kindled, they betook themselves to their
heels, and fled faster and farther than true chivalry perhaps would jus-
tify.

They remained at a distance until the evening of the next day, when
they ventured cautiously to return to camp. The fire was still burning,
although faintly, and after carefully reconnoitering the adjacent ground,
they ventured at length to approach the spot, and there beheld the skull
and bones of their unfortunate friend. He had evidently been roasted
to death by a party of Indians, and must have been alive at the time
when Kenton and his companion approached on the preceding day. It
was a subject of deep regret to the party that they had not reconnoi-
tered the spot more closely, as it was probable that their friend might
have been rescued. The number of Indians might have been small,
and a brisk and unexpected attack might have dispersed them. Regret^
however, was now unavailing, and they sadly retraced their steps to
their camp at Washington, pondering upon the uncertainty of their own
condition, and upon the danger to which they were hourly exposed
from the numerous bands of hostile Indians who were prowling around
them in every direction.

They remained at Washington, entirely undisturbed, until the month
of September, when again visiting the Lick, they saw a white man, who
informed them that the interior of the country was already occupied by
the whites, and that there was a thriving settlement at Boonsborough.
Highly gratified at this intelligence, and anxious once more to enjoy .the
society of men, they broke up their encampment at Washington, and
visited the different stations which had been formed in the country.
Kenton sustained two sieges in Boonsborough, and served as a spy, wiih
equal diligence and success, until the summer of '78, when Boone, re-
turning from captivity, as has already been mentioned, concerted an
expedition against the small Indian towns on Paint Creek.

Kenton acted as a spy on this expedition, and after crossing the Ohio,
being some distance in advance of the rest, he was suddenly startled by

300 Our Western Border.

hearing a loud laugh from an adjoining thicket, wliich he was just about
to enter. Instantly halting, he took his station behind a tree, and waited
anxiously for a repetition of the noise. In a few minutes two Indians
approached the spot where he lay, both mounted upon a small pony,
and chatting and laughing in high good humor. Having permitted
them to approach within good rifle distance, he raised his gun, and aim-
ing at the breast of the foremost, pulled the trigger. Both Indians fell
— one shot dead, the other severely wounded. Their frightened pony
galloped back into the cane, giving the alarm to the rest of the party,
who were some distance in the rear. Kenton instantly ran up to scalp
the dead man and to tomahawk his wounded companion, according to
the usual rule of western warfare; but, when about to put an end to the
struggles of the wounded Indian, who did not seem disposed to submit
very quietly to the operation, his attention was arrested by a rustling in
the cane on his right, and turning rapidly in that direction, he beheld
two Indians within twenty steps of him, very deliberately taking aim at
his person.

A quick spring to one side, on his part, was instantly followed by
the flash and report of their rifles — the balls whistled close to his ears^
causing him involuntarily to duck his head, but doing him no injury.
Not liking so hot a neighborhood, and ignorant of the number which
might be behind, he lost no time in regaining the shelter of the woods,
leaving the dead Indian unscalped and the wounded man to the care of
his friends. Scarcely had he treed, when a dozen Indians appeared on
the edge of the canebrake, and seemed disposed to press on him with
more vigor than was consistent with the safety of his present position.
His fears, however, were instantly relieved by the appearance of Boone
and his party, who came running up as rapidly as a due regard for the
shelter of their persons would permit, and opening a brisk fire upon the
Indians, quickly compelled them to regain the shelter of the canebrake,
with the loss of several wounded, who, as usual, were carried off. The
dead Indian, in the hurry of the retreat, was abandoned, and Kenton
at last had the gratification of taking his scalp.

^oone, as has already been mentioned, instantly retraced his steps to
Boonsborough ; but Kenton and his friend Montgomery determined to
proceed alone to the Indian town, and at least to obtain some recom-
pense for the trouble of their journey. Approaching the village with
the cautious stealthy pace of the cat or panther, they took their station
upon the edge of a cornfield, supposing that the Indians would enter
il, as usual, to gather roasting ears. They remained here patiently all
day, but did not see a single Indian, and heard only the voices of some
children who were playing near them. Being disappointed in the hope

Kenion Passes Through Some Remarkable Adventures. 301

of getting a shot, they entered the Indian town in the night, and steal-
ing four good horses, made a rapid night's march for the Ohio, which
they crossed in safety, and on the second day afterwards reached Lo-
gan's fort with their booty.

Scarcely had he returned, when Colonel Bowman ordered him to take
his friend Montgomery, and another young man named Clark, and go
on a secret expedition to an Indian town on the Little Miami, against
which the Colonel meditated an expedition, and of the exact condition
of which he wished to have certain information. They instantly set out,
in obedience to their orders, and reached the neighborhood of the town
without bemg discovered. They examined it attentively, and walked
around the houses during the night with perfect impunity.

Kenton Passes Through Some Remarkable Adventures.

Thus far all had gone well — and had they been contented to return
after the due execution of their orders, they would have avoided the
heavy calamity which awaited them. But, unfortunately during their
nightly promenade, they stumbled upon a pound in which were a num-
ber of Indian horses. The temptation was not to be resisted. They
each mounted a horse, but not satisfied with that, they could not find
it in their hearts to leave a single animal behind them, and as some of
the horses seemed indisposed to change masters, the affair was attended
with so much fracas, that at last they were discovered. The cry ran
through the village at once, that the Long Knives were stealing their
horses right before the doors of their wigwams, and old and young,
squaws, boys and warriors, all sallied out with loud screams to save their
property from these greedy spoilers. Kenton and his friends quickly
discovered that they had overshot the mark, and that they must ride for
their lives ; but even in this extremity, they could not bring themselves
to give up a single horse which they had haltered ; while two of them
rode in front and led the horses, the Other brought up the rear, and
plying his whip from right to left, did not permit a single animal to
lag behind.

In this manner they dashed through the woods at a furious rate,
with the hue and cry after them, until their course was suddenly stopped
by an impenetrable swamp. Here, from necessity, they paused for a
few moments and listened attentively. Hearing no sounds of pursuit,
they resumed their course, and skirting the swamp for some distance, in
the vain hope of crossing it, they bent their course in a straight direc-
tion towards the Ohio. They rode during the whole night without rest-
ing a moment — and halting for a few minutes at daylight, they con-

302 OxjR Western Border.

tinued their journey throughout the day, and the whole of the following
night, and by this uncommon expedition, on the morning of the second
day they reached the northern bank of the Ohio, Crossing the river
would now ensure their safety, but this was likely to prove a difficult
undertaking, and the close pursuit which they had reason to expect,
rendered it necessary to lose as little time as possible. The wind was
high and the river rough and boisterous. It was determined that Ken-
ton should cross with the horses, while Clark and Montgomery should
construct a raft in order to transport their guns, baggage and ammuni-
tion to the opposite shore.

The necessary preparations were soon made, and Kenton, after forc-
ing his horses into the river, plunged in himself and swam by their side.
In a very few minutes the high waves completely overwhelmed him and
forced him considerably below the horses, which stemmed the current
much more vigorously than himself. The horses being thus left to
themselves, turned about and swam again to the shore, where Kenton
was compelled to follow them. Again he forced them into the water, and
again they returned to the same spot, until Kenton became so exhausted
by repeated efforts as to be unable to swim. A council was then held
and the question proposed: "What was to be done?" That the In-
dians would pursue them, was certain — that the horses would not, and
could not be made to cross the river in its present state, wa^ equally
certain. Should they abandon their horses and cross on the raft, or re-
main with their horses and take such fortune as heaven should send ?
The latter alternative was unanimously adopted.

Should they now move up or down the river, or remain where they
were ? The latter course was adopted. It was supposed that the wind
would fall at sunset, and the river become sufficiently calm to admit d
their passage, and as it was supposed that the Indians might be upoo
them before night, it was determined to conceal the horses in a neigh-
boring ravine, while they should take their stations in the adjoining
woods. A more miserable plan could not have been adopted. The day
passed away in tranquility, but at night the wind blew harder than ever,
and the waters became so rough that even their raft would have been
scarcely able to cross. Not an instant more should have been lost in
moving from so dangerous a post ; but, as if totally infatuated, they re-
mained where they were until morning — thus wasting twenty-four hours
of most precious time in total idleness. In the morning the wind
abated, and the river became calm — but it was now too late. Their
horses, recollecting the difficulty of the passage on the preceding day,
had become as obstinate and heedless as their masters, and positively
and repeatedly refused to take the water.

Kenton Passes Through Some Remarkable Adventures. 303

Finding every effort to compel them entirely unavailing, their mas-
ters at length determined to do what ought to have been done at first.
I'Lach resolved to mount a horse and make the best of his way down the
river to Louisville. Had even this resolution, however tardily adopted,
been executed with decision, the party would probably have been saved,
but, after they were mounted, instead of leaving the ground instantly,
they went back upon their own trail, in the vain effort to regain posses-
sion of the rest of their horses, which had broken from them in the last
effort to drive them into the water. They thus wearied out their good
genius, and literally fell victims to their love for horse-flesh.

They had scarcely ridden one hundred yards, (Kenton in the centre,
the others upon the flanks, with an interval of two hundred yards be-
tween them,) when Kenton heard a loud halloo, apparently coming
from the spot which they had just left. Instead of getting out of the
way as fast as possible, and trusting to the speed of his horse and the
thickness of the wood for safety, he put the last cap-stone to his impru-
dence, and, dismounting, walked leisurely back to meet his pursuers,
as if to give them as little trouble as possible. He quickly beheld three
Indians and one white man, all well mounted. Wishing to give the
alarm to his companions, he raised his rifle to his shoulders, took a
steady aim at the breast of the foremost Indian, and drew the trigger.
His gun had become wet on the raft, and flashed. The enemy were in-
stantly alarmed, and dashed at him.

Now, at last, when flight could be of no service, Kenton betook him-
self to his heels, and was pursued by four horsemen at full speed. He
instantly directed his steps to the thickest part of the woods, where there
was much fallen timber and rankness of underwood, and had succeeded,
as he thought, in baffling his pursuers, when, just as he was leaving the
fallen timber and entering the open woods, an Indian on horseback gal-
loped round the corner of the woods, and approached him so rapidly as
to render flight useless. The horseman rode up, holding out his hand
and calling out, ** brother I brother!" in a tone of great affection.
Kenton observed that if his gun would have made fire he would haye
"brothered" him to his heart's content, but, being totally unarmed, he
called out that he would surrender if he would give him quarter and
good treatment. Promises were cheap with the Indians, and he
showered them out by the dozen, continuing all the while to advance
with extended hands and a writhing grin upon his countenance, which
was intended for a smile of courtesy. Seizing Kenton's hand, he
grasped it with violence.

Kenton, not liking the manner of his captor, raised his gun to knock
bim down, when an Indian, who had followed him closely through the

304 Our Western Border.

brushwood, instantly sprang upon his back and pinioned his arms to hia
side. The one who had just approached him then seized him by the
hair and shook him until his teeth rattled, while the rest of the party
coming up, they all fell upon Kenton with their tongues and ramrods,
until he thought they would scold or beat him to death. They were
the owners of the horses which he had carried off, and now took ample
revenge for the loss of their property. At every stroke of their ram-
rods over his head, (and they were neither few nor far between,) they
would repeat, in a tone of strong indignation, " Steal Indian hoss 1 1
hey ! 1"

Their attention, however, was soon directed to Montgomery, who,
having heard the noise attending Kenton's capture, very gallantly has-
Sened up to his assistance; while Clark very prudently consulted his
own safety by betaking himself to his heels, leaving his unfortunate
companions to shift for themselves. Montgomery halted within gun-
shot, and appeared busy with the pan of his gun, as if preparing to fire.
Two Indians instantly sprang off in pursuit of him, while the rest at-
tended to Kenton. In a few minutes Kenton heard the crack of two
rifles in quick succession, followed by a halloo, which announced the
fate of his friend. The Indians quickly returned, waving the bloody
scalp of Montgomery, and with countenances and gestures which
menaced him with a similar fate. They then proceeded to secure their
prisoner. They first compelled him to lie upon his back and stretch
out his arms to their full length. They then passed a stout stick at
right angles across his breast, to each extremity of which his wrists were
fastened by thongs made of buffalo's hide. Stakes were then driven
into the earth near his feet, to which they were fastened in a similar
manner. A halter was then tied around his neck and fastened to a
sapling which grew near, and finally a strong rope was passed under his
body, lashed strongly to the pole which lay transversely upon his breast,
and finally wrapped around his arms at the elbows, in such a manner aa
to pinion them to the pole with a painful violence, and render him
literally incapable of moving hand, foot or head, in the slightesi
sianner.

Kenton Tries a Mazeppa Ride. 306

Kenton Tries a Mazeppa Ride — Escape and Recapture.

They tied his hands, Mazeppa Iik«

And set him on his steed.
Wild as the mustang of the plains.

And, mocl<ing, hade him speed.
Then sped the courser like the wind.

Of curb and bit all freed.
O'er flood and field ; o'er hill and dale.

Wherever chance might lead.

During the whole of this severe operation, neither their tongues nor
hands were by any means idle. They cuffed him from time to time,
with great heartiness, until his ears rang again, and abused him for "a

teef ! — a boss steal ! — a rascal!" and, finally, for a " d d white man!"

All the western Indians had picked up a good many English words

particularly our oaths, which, from the frequency with which they were
used by our hunters and traders, they probably looked upon as the very
root and foundation of the English language. Kenton remained in this
painful attitude throughout the night, looking forward to certain death
and most probable torture, as soon as he reached their towns. Their
rage against him seemed to increase rather than abate, from indulgence,
and in the morning it displayed itself in a form at once ludicrous and
cruel.

Among the horses which Kenton had taken, and which their original
owners had now recovered, was a fine but wild young colt, totally un-
broken, and with all his honors of mane and tail undocked. Upon him
Kenton was mounted, without saddle or bridle, with his hands tied be-
hind him, and his feet fastened under the horse's belly. The country
was rough and bushy, and Kenton had no means of protecting his face
from the brambles, through which it was expected that the colt would
dash. As soon as the rider was firmly fastened upon his back, the colt
was turned loose with a sudden lash, and dashed off like a dart throuoh
the briars and underbrush, but after executing many curvets and
caprioles, to the great distress of his rider but to the infinite amuse-
ment of the Indians, he appeared to take compassion upon his rider,
and falling into a line with the other horses, avoided the brambles en-
tirely, and went on very well. In this manner he rode through the day.
At night he was taken from the horse and confined as before.

On the third day they came within a {ew miles of Chillicothe. Here
the party halted and dispatched a messenger to inform the village of
their arrival, in order to give them time to prepare for his reception.
In a short time Blackfish, one of their chiefs, arrived, and regarding Ken-
ton with a stern countenance, thundered out, in very good English,
20

306 Our Western Border.

*' You have been stealing horses?" "Yes, sir." ** Did Captain Boone
tell you to steal our horses? " " No, sir ; I did it of my own accord."
This frank confession was too irritating to be borne. Blackfish made
no reply, but brandished a hickory switch, which he held in his hand,
and applied it so briskly to Kenton's naked back and shoulders, as to
bring the blood freely, and occasion acute pain.

Thus alternately beaten and scolded, he marched on to the village.
At the distance of a mile from Chillicothe, he saw every inhabitant of
the town, men, women and children, running out to feast their eyes
with a view of the prisoner. Every individual, down to the smallest
child, appeared in a paroxysm of rage. They whooped, they yelled,
they hooted, they clapped their hands, and poured upon him a flood of
abuse to which all that he had yet received was gentleness and civility.
With loud cries they demanded that their prisoner should be tied to the
stake. The hint was instantly complied with. A stake was quickly
fastened in the ground. The remnants of Kenton's shirt and breeches
were torn from his person, (the squaws officiating with great dexterity
in both operations,) and his hands being tied together and raised above
his head, were fastened to the top of the stake. The whole party then
danced around him until midnight, yelling and screaming in their usual
frantic manner, striking him with switches, and slapping him with the
palms of their hands. He expected every moment to undergo the
torture of fire, but that was reserved for another time. They wished
to prolong the pleasure of tormenting him as much as possible, and after
having caused him to anticipate the bitterness of death until a late
hour of the night, they released him from his stake and conveyed him
to the village.

Early in the morning he beheld the scalp of Montgomery stretched
upon a hoop, and drying in the air before the door of one of their
principal houses. He was quickly led out and ordered to run the gaunt-
let. A row of boys, women and men extended to the distance of a
quarter of a mile. At the starting place stood two grim-looking war-
riors, with butcher knives in their hands — at the extremity of the line
was an Indian beating a drCim, and a few paces beyond the drum was
the door of the council house. Clubs, switches, hoe handles and toma-
hawks were brandished along the whole line, causing the sweat involun-
tarily to stream from his pores, at the idea of the discipline which his
naked skin was to receive during the race. The moment for starting

arrived the great drum at the door of the council house was struck —

and Kenton sprung forward in the race. He avoided the row of his
enemies, and turning to the east, drew the whole party in pursuit of
him. He doubled several times with great activity, and at length, ob-

Escape and Recapture. 307

lerving an opening, he darted through it, and pressed forward to the
council house with a rapidity which left his pursuers far behind. One
or two of the Indians succeeded in throwing themselves between him
and the goal — and from these alone he received a few blows, but was
much less injured than he could at first have supposed possible.

As soon as the race was over, a council was held in order to deter-
mine whether he should be burnt to death on the spot, or carried round
to the other villages and exhibited to every tribe. The arbiters of his
fate sat in a circle on the floor of the council house, while the unhappy
prisoner, naked and bound, was committed to the care of a guard in
the open air. The deliberation commenced. Each warrior sat in
silence, while a large war club was passed round the circle. Those who
were opposed to burning the prisoner on the spot were to pass the club
in silence to the next warrior; those in favor of burning, were to strike
the earth violently with the club before passing it. A teller was ap-
pointed to count the votes. This dignitary quickly reported that the
opposition had prevailed; that his execution was suspended for the
present, and that it was determined to take him to an Indian town on Mad
river called Wappatomica. His fate was quickly announced to him
by a renegade white man, who acted as interpreter. Kenton felt re-
joiced at the issue, but naturally became anxious to know what was in
reserve for him at Wappatomica. He accordingly asked the white
man what the Indians intended to do with him upon reaching the
appointed place: "Burn you, G d d n you ! ! ! " was the fero-
cious reply. He asked no further question, and the scowling interpre-
ter walked away.

Instantly preparations were made for his departure, and to his great
joy, as well as astonishment, his clothes were restored to him, and he-
was permitted to remain unbound. Thanks to the ferocious intimation
of the interpreter, he was aware of the fate in reserve for him, and
secretly determined that he would never reach Wappatomica alive if
it was possible to avoid it. Their route lay through an unpruned for-
est, abounding in thickets and undergrowth. Unbound, as he was, it
would not be impossible to escape from the hands of his conductors ;
and if he could once enter the thickets, he thought that he might be
enabled to bafile his pursuers. At the worst, he could only be retaken —
and the fire would burn no hotter after an attempt to escape than be-
fore. During the whole of their march, he remained abstracted and
Bilent — often meditating an effort for liberty, and as often shrinking
from the peril of the attempt.

At length he was aroused from his reverie by the Indians firing off
their guns and raising the shrill scalp halloo. The signal was soon

308 Our Western Border.

answered, and the deep roll of a drum was heard far in front, an«
nouncing to the unhappy prisoner that they were approaching an In-
dian town where the gauntlet, certainly, and perhaps the stake, awaited
him. The idea of a repetition of the dreadful scenes which he had
already encountered, completely banished the indecision which had hith-
erto withheld him, and with a sudden and startling cry he sprang into
the bushes and fled with the speed of a wild deer. The pursuit was in-
stant and keen, some on foot, some on horseback. But he was flying
for his life — the stake and the hot iron, and the burning splinters
were before his eyes — and he soon distanced the swiftest hunter that pur-
sued him. But fate was against him at every turn. Thinking only of
the enemy behind, he forgot that there might also be enemies in front,
and before he was aware of what he had done, he found that he had
plunged into the centre of a fresh party of horsemen, who had sallied
from the town at the firing of the guns, and happened unfortunately to
stumble upon the poor prisoner, now making a last effort for freedom.
His heart sunk at once from the ardor of hope to the very pit of
despair, and he was again haltered and driven before them to town like
an ox to the slaughter house.

Upon reaching the village, (Pickaway,) he was fastened to a stake
near the door of the council house, and the warriors again assembled in
debate. In a short time they issued from the council house and, sur-
rounding him, they danced, yelled, &c., for several hours, giving him
once more a foretaste of the bitterness of death. On the following
morning their journey was continued, but the Indians had now become
watchful, and gave him no opportunity of even attempting an escape.
On the second day he arrived at Wappatomica. Here he was again
compelled to run the gauntlet, in which he was severely hurt; and
immediately after this ceremony he was taken to the council house, and
all the warriors once more assembled to determine his fate.

He sat silent and dejected upon the floor of the cabin, awaiting the
moment which was to deliver him to the stake, when the door of the
council house opened, and Simon Girty, James Girty, John Ward and
an Indian, came in with a woman (Mrs. Mary Kennedy) as a prisoner,
together with seven children and seven scalps. Kenton was instantly
removed from the council house, and the deliberations of the assembly
were protracted to a very late hour, in consequence of the arrival of tlia
last-named party with a fresh drove of prisoners.

Simon Girty Saves his Friend. 301

Simon Girty Intercedes and Saves his Friend.

At length he was again summoned to attend the council house, being
mformed that his fate was decided. Regarding the mandate as a mere
prelude to the stake and fire, which he knew were intended for him, he
obeyed it with a calm despair which had now succeeded the burning
anxiety of the last few days. Upon entering the council house he was
greeted with a savage scowl, which, if he had still cherished a spark of
hope, would have completely extinguished it. Simon Girty threw a
blanket upon the floor, and harshly ordered him to take a seat upon it.
The order was not immediately complied with, and Girty impatiently
seized his arm, jerked him roughly upon the blanket, and pulled him
down upon it. In the same rough and menacing tone, Girty then in-
terrogated him as to the condition of Kentucky. "How many men
are there in Kentucky?" "It is impossible for me to answer that ques-
tion," replied Kenton, " but I can tell you the number of officers and
their respective ranks — you can then judge for yourself." "Do you
know William Stewart?" "Perfectly well — he is an old and intimate
acquaintance." "What is your own name?" "Simon Butler !" re-
plied Kenton.

Never did the annunciation of a name produce a more powerful
effect. Girty and Kenton (then bearing the name of Butler) had
served as spies together in Dunmore's expedition. The former had not
then abandoned the society of the whites for that of the savages, and
had become warmly attached to Kenton during the short period of their
services together. As soon as he heard the name he became strongly
agitated, and, springing from his seat, he threw his arms around Ken-
ton's neck, and embraced him with much emotion. Then turning to
the assembled warriors, who remained astonished spectators of this ex-
traordinary scene, he addressed them in a short speech, which the deep
earnestness of his tone and the energy of his gesture rendered elo-
quent. He informed them that the prisoner, whom they had just con-
demned to the stake, was his ancient comrade and bosom friend; that
they had traveled the same war path, slept under the same blanket, and
dwelt in the same wigwam. He entreated them to have compassion
upon his feelings — to spare him the agony of witnessing the torture oi
an old friend by the hands of his adopted brothers — and not to refuse
so trifling a favor as the life of a white man, to the earnest intercession
of one who had proved by the most faithful service, that he was sin-
cerely and zealously devoted to the cause of the Indians.

The speech was listened to in unbroken silence. As soon as he had

310 Our Western Border.

finished, several chiefs expressed their approbation by a deep guttural
interjection, while others were equally as forward in making known theii
objections to the proposal. They urged that his fate had already been
determined in a large and solemn council, and that they would be act-
ing like squaws to change their minds every hour. They insisted upon
the flagrant misdemeanor of Kenton ; that he had not only stolen their
horses, but had flashed his gun at one of their young men — that it was
in vain to suppose that so bad a man could ever become an Indian at
heart, like their brother Girty — that the Kentuckians were all alike —
very bad people — and ought to be killed as fast as they were taken — .
and, finally, they observed that many of their people had come from a
distance solely to assist at the torture of the prisoner — and pathetically
painted the disappointment and chagrin with which they would hear that
all their trouble had been for nothing.

Girty listened with obvious impatience to the young warriors, who
had so ably urged against a reprieve — and starting to his feet, as soon
as the others had concluded, he urged his former request with great
earnestness. He briefly, but strongly, recapitulated his own services,
and the many and weighty instances of attachment which he had given.
He asked if he could be suspected of partiality to the whites ? When
had he ever before interceded for any of that hated race ? Had he not
brought seven scalps home with him from the last expedition ? and had
he not submitted seven white prisoners that very evening to their discre-
tion ? Had he expressed a wish that a single one of the captives should
be saved. This was his first and should be his last request : for if they
refused to him what was never refused to the intercession of one of
their natural chiefs, he would look upon himself as disgraced in their
eyes, and considered as unworthy of confidence. Which of their own
natural warriors had been more zealous than himself? From what ex-
pedition had he ever shrunk ? What white man had ever seen his back ?
Whose tomahawk had been bloodier than his ? He would say no more.
He asked it as a first and last favor ; as an evidence that they approved
of his zeal and fidelity, that the life of his bosom friend might be spared.
Fresh speakers arose upon each side, and the debate was carried on for
an hour and a half with great heat and energy.

Dur.ng the whole of this time Kenton's feelings may readily be
imagined. He could not understand a syllable of what was said. He
saw that Girty spoke with deep earnestness, and that the eyes of the
assembly were often turned upon himself with various expressions. He
felt satisfied that his friend was pleading for his life, and that he was
violently opposed by a large part of the council. At length, the war
club was produced and the final vote taken. Kenton watched its pro-

Simon Girty Saves his Friend. 311

gress with thrilling emotion, which yielded to the most rapturous
delight, as he perceived that those who struck the floor of the council
house were decidedly inferior in number to those who passed it, in
silence. Having thus succeeded in his benevolent purpose, Girty lost
no time in attending to the comfort of his friend. He led him to his
own wigwam, and from his own store gave him a pair of moccasins and
leggins, a breech-cloth, a hat, a coat, a handkerchief for his neck and
another for his head.

The whole of this remarkable scene is in the highest degree honorable
to Girty, and is in striking contrast to most of his conduct after his
union with the Indians. No man can be completely hardened, and no
character is at all times the same. Girty had been deeply offended with
the whites; and knowing that his desertion to the Indians had been uni-
versally and severely reprobated, and that he himself was regarded with
detestation by his former countrymen, he seems to have raged against
them from these causes, with a fury which resembled rather the paroxysm
of a maniac than the deliberate cruelty of a naturally ferocious temper.
Fierce censure never reclaims, but rather drives to still greater extremi-
ties ; and this is the reason that renegades are so much fiercer than
natural foes, and that when females fall, they fall irretrievably.

For the space of three weeks Kenton lived in perfect tranquility.
Girty's kindness was uniform and indefatigable. He introduced Ken-
ton to his own family, and accompanied him to the wigwams of the princi-
pal chiefs, who seemed all at once to have turned from the extremity of
rage to the utmost kindness and cordiality. Fortune, however, seemed
to have selected him for her football, and to have snatched him from the
frying pan only to throw him into the fire. About twenty days after
his most providential deliverance from the stake, he was walking in
company with Girty and an Indian named Redpole, when another In-
dian came from the village towards them, uttering repeatedly a whoop
of a peculiar intonation. Girty instantly told Kenton that it was the
" distress halloo," and that they must all go instantly to the council
house. Kenton's heart involuntarily fluttered at the intelligence, for he
dreaded all whoops, and hated all council houses — firmly believing that
neither boded him any good. Nothing, however, could be done to
avoid whatever fate awaited, and he sadly accompanied Girty and Red-
pole back to the village.

Upon approaching the Indian who had hallooed, Girty and Redpole
shook hands with him. Kenton likewise offered his hand, but the In-
dian refused to take it — at the same time scowling upon him ominously.
This took place within a few paces of the door of the council house.
Upon entering, they saw that the house was unusually full. Many chiefi

312 Our Western Border.

and warriors from the distant towns were present ; and their counte-
nances were grave, severe and forbidding. Girty, Redpole and Ken-
ton walked around, offering their hands successively to each warrior.
The hands of the first two were cordially received — but when poor Ken-
ton anxiously offered his hand to the first warrior, it was rejected with
the same scowling eye as before. He passed on to the second, but was
still rejected — he persevered, however, until his hand had been refused
by the first six — when, sinking into despondence, he turned oflf and
stood apart from the rest.

The debate quickly commenced. Kenton looked eagerly towards
Girty, as his last and only hope. His friend looked anxiuus and dis-
tressed. The chiefs from a distance arose one after another, and spoke
in a firm and indignant tone, often looking at Kenton with an eye of
death. Girty did not desert him — but his eloquence appeared wasted
upon the distant chiefs. After a warm debate, he turned to Kenton
and said, "Well, my friend! you must die/" One of the stranger
chiefs instantly seized him by the collar, and the others surrounding
him, he was strongly pinioned, committed to a guard, and instantly
marched off. His guards were on horseback, while the prisoner was
driven before them on foot with a long rope around his neck, the other
end of which was held by one of the guard. In this manner they had
marched about two and a half miles, when Girty passed them on horseback,
informing Kenton that he had friends at the next village, with whose
aid he hoped to be able to do something for him. Girty passed on to
the town, but finding that nothing could be done, he would not see bis
friend again, but returned to Wappatomica by a different route.

A Savage Axe Blow — Kenton Meets Chief Logan.

They passed through the village without halting, and at a distance of
two and a half miles beyond it, Kenton had again an opportunity of
witnessing the fierce hate with which these children of nature regarded
an enemy. At the distance of a few paces from the road, a squaw was
busily engaged in chopping wood, while her lord and master was sitting
on a log smoking his pipe and directing her labors, with the indolent in-
difference common to the natives, when not under the influence of some
exciting passion. The sight of Kenton, however, seemed to rouse him
to fury. He hastily sprang up, with a sudden yell, snatched the axe
from the squaw, and rushing upon the prisoner so rapidly as to give him
no opportunity of escape, dealt him a blow with the axe which cut
through his shoulder, breaking the bone and almost severing the arn>

Kenton Meets Chief Logan. 313

from the body. He would instantly have repeated the blow, had not
Kenton's conductors interfered and protected him, severely reprimand-
ing the Indian for attempting to rob them of the amusement of tortur-
ing the prisoner.

They soon reached a large village upon the head waters of the Scioto,
where Kenton, for the first time, beheld the celebrated Mingo Chief,
Logan, so honorably mentioned in Jefferson's Notes on Virginia. Lo-
gan walked gravely up to the place where Kenton stood, and the follow-
ing short conversation ensued : " Well, young man, these young men
seem very mad at you?" "Yes, sir, they certainly are." "Well,
don't be disheartened ; I am a great chief; you are to go to Sandusky —
they speak of burning you there — but I will send two runners to-morrow
to speak good for you." Logan's form was striking and manly — his
countenance calm and noble, and he spoke the English language with
fluency and correctness. Kenton's spirits instantly rose at the address
of the benevolent chief, and he once more looked upon himself as prov-
identially rescued from the stake.

On the following morning two runners were dispatched to Sandusky,
as the chief had promised, and until their return Kenton was kindly
treated, being permitted to spend much of his time with Logan, who
conversed with him freely and in the most friendly manner. In the
evening the two runners returned, and were closeted with Logan.
Kenton felt the most burning anxiety to know what was the result of
their mission, but Logan did not visit him again until the next morning.
He then walked up to him, accompanied by Kenton's guards, and, giv-
ing him a piece of bread, told him that he was instantly to be carried
to Sandusky ; and without uttering another word, turned upon his heel
and left him.

Again Kenton's spirits sunk. From Logan's manner, he supposea
that his intercession had been unavailing, and that Sandusky was
destined to be the scene of his final suffering. This appears to have
been the truth. But fortune, who, to use Lord Lovat's expression, had
been playing at cat and mouse with him for the last month, had selected
Sandusky for the display of her strange and capricious power. He was
driven into the town, as usual, and was to have been burnt on the fol-
lowing morning, when an Indian Agent, named Drewyer, interposed,
and once more rescued him from the stake. He was anxious to obtain
intelligence for the British commandant at Detroit, and so earnestly
insisted upon Kenton's being delivered up to him, that the Indians at
length consented, upon the express condition that after the required in-
formation had been obtained, he should again be placed at their discre-
tion. To this Drewyer consented, and without further difficulty, Ken-

314 Our Western Border.

ton was transferred to his hands. Drewyer lost no time in removing
him to Detroit.

On the road he informed Kenton of the condition upon which he
had obtained possession of his person, assuring him, however, that no
consideration should induce him to abandon a prisoner to the mercy of
such wretches. Having dwelt at some length upon the generosity of
his own disposition, and having sufficiently magnified the service which
he had just rendered him, he began, at length, to cross-question Ken-
ton as to the force and condition of Kentucky, and particularly as to
the number of men at Fort Mcintosh. Kenton very candidly declared
his inability to answer either question, observing that he was merely a
private, and by no means acquainted with matters of an enlarged and
general import ; that his great business had heretofore been to en-
deavor to take care of himself — which he had found a work of no small
difficulty. Drewyer replied that he believed him, and from that time
Kenton was troubled with no more questions.

His condition at Detroit was not unpleasant. He was compelled to
report himself every morning to an English officer, and was restricted
to certain boundaries through the day; but in other respects he scarcely
felt that he was a prisoner. His battered body and broken arm were
quickly repaired, and his emaciated limbs were again clothed with a
proper proportion of flesh. He remained in this state of easy restraint
from October, 1777, until June, 1778, when he meditated an escape.
There was no difficulty in leaving Detroit — but he would be compelled
to traverse a wilderness of more than two hundred miles, abounding
with hostile Indians, and affording no means of sustenance beyond the
wild game, which could not be killed without a gun. In addition to
this, he would certainly be pursued, and, if retaken by the Indians, he
might expect a repetition of all that he had undergone before, without
the prospect of a second interposition on the part of the English.
These considerations deterred him for some time from the attempt, but
at length his patience became uncontrollable, and he determined to
escape or perish in the attempt.

He took his measures with equal secrecy and foresight. He cautiously
sounded two young Kentuckians then at Detroit, who had been taken
with Boone at the Blue Licks and had been purchased by the British.
He found them as impatient as himself of captivity and resolute to ac-
company him. Charging them not to breathe a syllable of their design
to any other prisoners, he busied himself for several days in making the
necessary preparations. It was absolutely necessary that they should be
provided with arms, both for the sake of repelling attacks and for pro-
curing- the means of subsistence; and at the same time it was very diffi-

Butler Changes His Name to Kenton. 315

cult to obtain them without the knowledge of the British com-
mandant. By patiently waiting their opportunity, however, all these
preliminary difficulties were overcome. Kenton formed a close friend-
ship with two Indian hunters, deluged them with rum, and bought theit
guns for a mere trifle. After carefully hiding them in the woods, he
returned to Detroit, and managed to procure another rifle, with powder
and balls, from a Mr. and Mrs. Edger, citizens of the town. They
then appointed a night for the attempt, and agreed upon a place of ren-
dezvous.

All things turned out prosperously. They met at the time and place
appointed Avithout discovery, and, taking a circuitous route, avoided
pursuit, and traveling only during the night, they at length arrived
safely at Louisville, after a march of thirty days.

Thus terminated one of the most remarkable series of adventures in
the whole range of western history. Kenton was eight times exposed
to the gauntlet — three times tied to the stake — and as often thought
himself on the eve of a terrible death. All the sentences passed upon
him, whether of mercy or condemnation, seemed to have been only
pronounced in one council in order to be reversed in another. Every
friend that Providence raised up in his favor was immediately followed
by some enemy, who unexpectedly interposed, and turned his short
glimpse of sunshine into deeper darkness than ever. For three weeks
he was see-sawing between life and death, and during the whole time he
was perfectly passive. No wisdom, or foresight, or exertion, could
have saved him. Fortune fought his battle from first to last, and
seemed determined to permit nothing else to interfere. Scarcely had
he reached Kentucky when he was embarked in a new enterprise.

Butler Changes His Name to Kenton — His Last Years.

This was in July, '79, and, in a few days, the restless borderer sought
out new hazards and adventures, and, down to '82, was constantly eiv-
gaged, by turn, as scout, guide, hunter and officer. Having acquired
some valuable tracts of land, he concluded to make a settlement on Salt
river. Hearing now, for the first time, from his old Virginia home,
and that not only his father, but the rival whom he supposed he had
killed, were still living, a great load was lifted from his heart. He now
dropped the name of Butler and assumed his own proper name of Ken-
ton, and concluded to pay Virginia a visit.

His meeting with his venerable father was something like that between
the old Patriarch Jacob and his son Joseph, whom he had given up for
lost. Joseph, however, only sent for his father's family, but Simon

316 Our Western Border.

went for his, for after visiting all his old friends, his former rival in-
cluded, he gave such glowing accounts of Kentucky that the whole fam-
ily concluded to return with him. While, however, engaged in con-
structing a Kan-tuck boat at Redstone, on the Monongahela, his father
sickened and died. The rest made their way down the Ohio to Lime-
stone, (now Maysville,) which was the great point for entering Kentucky.

At his old camp near Maysville, Kenton soon commenced a flourish-
ing colony, but being located so near the hostile Indian country, just
across the Ohio, he had ever a constant, unintermittent warfare with the
savages. Their scalping and horse-stealing incursions were frequent,
and twice Kenton guided large retaliating parties into the very heart of
their country. He had learned from his old commander, General
Clarke, the efficacy of "carrying the war into Africa," and no blow was
delivered by the Indians but what there was a prompt and most effective
rejoinder. In '93, after many small but sanguinary hand-to-hand strug-
gles, Kenton ambushed at the river-crossing the last swarthy invaders
from the Ohio country, succeeding in killing six.

And so, after a bitter and most obstinate struggle of over twenty
years, Kentucky was forever lost to the redman. In their best blood, the
dogged pioneers had written their title to the soil, and now held it with
an iron and an unyielding grip. Kenton, with a valiant band of Ken-
tuckians, served as Major in "Mad Anthony Wayne's" '94 campaign,
but was not present at its crowning triumph — the Battle of the Fallen
Timbers. There the power and spirit of the Northwestern Confederacy
were forever broken, and the borders at length enjoyed peace.

But, as with Boone, so now with Kenton; vexatious troubles fell upon
him on account of land titles. They who had borne the " heat and
burthen of the day" were vexed and harassed by "eleventh-hour men"
coming in to enjoy the fruits secured to them by the toil, blood and
perils of those who had preceded them. Kenton now, when his skill and
services as a bold and watchful Indian fighter were no longer needed, was
cast aside like an old shoe. He had braved the stake, the gauntlet and
the tomahawk in vain. His very body, even, was taken for debt, and
he was actually imprisoned for twelve months upon the very spot upon
which he had built the first cabin, planted the first corn, and about which
he had fought the savages in a hundred fierce encounters. The first pio-
neer was stripped by crafty, greedy speculators of nearly all the broad,
fat acres he had so bloodily earned. Beggared by losses and law suits,
he moved over to the Ohio wilderness — some say in '97 and some say
in 1802. A few years after he was elected Brigadier General of the
Ohio militia, and, in 1 810, he united himself with the Methodist Epis-
copal Church, and ever after lived a consistent Christian life.

Kenton's Last Years. 317

In 1813 the staunch old patriot joined the Kentucky troops under
Governor Shelby, and was present at the Battle of the Thames. But
this was his last battle, except the hard "battle of life," which he sternly
fought to the very last. He returned to his obscure cabin in the woods,
and remained at and near Urbana till 1820, when he moved to Mad
River, in sight of the old Shawnee town of Wappatomica, where he had
once been tied to the Indian stake. Even here he was pursued by judg-
ments and executions from Kentucky, and, to prevent being driven from
his own cabin by whites, as he formerly was by reds, he was compelled
to have some land entered in the name of his wife and children.

Kenton still had some large tracts of mountain lands in Kentucky,
but they had become forfeit to the State for taxes. He first tried bor-
ing on some of them to make salt, but this failing, his only alternative
was to appeal to the Kentucky Legislature to release the forfeiture. So,
in 1824, when about seventy years old, he mounted his sorry old horse,
and, in his tattered garments, commenced his weary pilgrimage. The
second night he stopped at the house of Jasnes Galloway, of Xenia,
Ohio, an old friend and pioneer. Looking at his shabby appearance and
his wretched saddle and bridle, Galloway gave vent to his honest indig-
nation.

" Kenton," he said, " you have served your country faithfully, even
to old age. What expedition against the British and savages was ever
raised in the west, but what you were among the most prominent in it ?
Even down to the last war, you were with Harrison at the taking of
Proctor's army in Canada ; an old gray-headed warrior, you could not
stay at home while your country needed your services, and look how
they have neglected you ! How can you stand such treatment ?" But
the patriot Kenton could and would hear no word against his country.
K^ising from his seat, he cast a fiery look at his old friend, clinched his
fist and with an angry stamp of his foot, he exclaimed with warmth :
" Don't say that again, Galloway ! If you do, I will leave your house
forever and never again call you my friend."

Kenton at last reached Frankfort, now become a thrifty and flourish-
ing city. Here he was utterly unknown. All his old friends had
departed. His dilapidaied appearance and the sorry condition of his
horse and its wretched equipments only provoked mirth. The grizzled
old pioneer, was like Rip Van Winkle appearmg after his long sleep.
He wandered up and down the streets, " the observed of all observers."
The very boys followed him. At length the scarred old warrior was
recognized by General Fletcher, an old companion-in-arms. He grasped
him by the hand, led him to a tailor's shop, bought him a suit of cloiiies
and hat, and after he was dressed took him to the State Capitol.

818 Our Western Border.

Here he was placed in the Speaker's chair and introduced to a crowded
assembly of judges, citizens and legislators, as the second pioneer of
Kentucky. The simple-minded veteran used to say afterwards that *' it
was the very proudest day of his life," and ten years subsequently, his
friend Hinde asserted, he was wearing the self-same hat and clothes.
His lands were at once released and shortly after, by the warm exertion
of some of his friends, a pension from Congress of two hundred and
fifty dollars was obtained, securing his old age from absolute want.

Without any further marked notice, Kenton lived in his humble cabin
until 1836, when, at the venerable old age of eighty-one, he breathed
his last, surrounded by his family and neighbors and supported by the
consolations of the Gospel. He died in sight of the very spot where the
savages, nearly sixty years previous, proposed to torture him to death.

General Kenton was of fair complexion, six feet one inch in height.
He stood and walked very erect, and, in the prime of life, weighed
about a hundred and ninety pounds. He never was inclined to be cor-
pulent, although of suffioient fullness to form a graceful person. He
had a soft, tremulous voice, very pleasing to the hearer ; auburn hair
and laughing gray eyes, which appeared to fascinate the beholder. He
was a pleasant, good-humored and obliging companion. When excited
or provoked to anger, which was seldom the case, the fiery glance of his
eye would almost curdle the blood of those with whom he came in con-
tact. His wrath, when aroused, was a tornado. In his dealing he was
perfectly honest. His confidence in man and his credulity were such,
that the same man might cheat him twenty times — and, if he professed
friendship, might still continue to cheat him. Kentucky owes it to jus-
tice and gratitude, to gather up General Kenton's remains and place
them alongside of those of Boone, in the sacred soil he was amoag Urn
first and the boldest to defend.

Ah, can this be the spot where sleeps

The bravest of the brave T
Is this rude slab the only mark

Of Simon Kenton's grave t
JThese fallen palings, are they all

His ingrate country gave.
To one who periled life so oft

Met homes and hearths to savtl

The Wetzel Family, S18

THE WETZEL FAMILY—FATHER AND FIVE SONS.
Lewis, the Right Arm of the Wheeling Bordeu.

He needs no guide in the forest,

More than the hunter bees ;
His guides are the cool, green mosses

To the northward of the trees.
Nor fears he the foe whose footsteps

Go light as the Summer air.
His tomahawk hangs in his shirt belt.

And the scalp-knife glitters there.
The stealthy Wyandots tremble,

And speak his name with fear ;
For his aim is sharp and deadly.

And his rifle's ring is c\ea.T.—Flortis B Plympton.

In the year 1772, there came with the four Zane brothers, who set-
tled at the mouth of WheeUng Creek, in the West Virginian Pan-
handle, a rough but brave and honest old German by the name of John
Wetzel — not Whetzell or Whitzell, as the old Border books have it.
He was the father of five sons — Martin, George, John, Jacob and
Lewis, and two daughters — Susan and Christina.

At that time there were only three other adventurers in that whole
wilderness region — the two Tomlinsons, located on the Flats of Grave
Creek, and a mysterious man by the name of Tygert, at the mouth of
Middle Island Creek. Who this latter was, or what became of him, no
one has ever learned. Andrew Zane, shortly after his own arrival, went
a short distance down the Ohio on a hunting excursion, and was sur-
prised to find this lone hunter's cabin where he supposed the foot of
white man had never yet trodden.

The whole of this Wetzel family were hunters and Indian fighters,
but the most daring and reckless of all, and the one who has left the
greatest name on the western border, was Lewis Wetzel. Of him mors
anon. We now propose first to treat of the father and brothers. The
elder Wetzel spent much of his time in locating lands, hunting and
fisking. In the very hottest time of the Indian troubles, he was so rash
as to build his cabin at some distance from the fort. His neighbors
frequently admonished him against exposing himself thus to the enemy ;
but disregarding their advice, and laughing at their fears, he continued
to widen the range of his excursions, until at last he fell a victim to the
active vigilance of the tawny foe. He was killed near Captina, in
1787, on his return from Middle Island Creek, under the following cir-

320 Our Western Border.

cumstances : Himself and companion were in a canoe, paddling slowly
near the shore, when they were hailed by a party of Indians, and or-
dered to land. This they of course refused, when immediately they were
fired upon, and Wetzel was shot through the body. Feeling himself
mortally wounded, he directed his companion to lie down in the canoe,
while he, (Wetzel,) so long as strength remained, would paddle the frail
vessel beyond reach of the savages. In this way he saved the life of his
friend, while his own was ebbing fast. He died soon after reaching the
shore, at Baker's station, and his humble grave can still be seen near
the site of that primitive fortress. A rough stone marks the spot, bear-
ing, in rude but perfectly distinct characters, "J. W., 17B7."

Martin Wetzel made Captive — Kills Three Savages.

Martin, who was the oldest of the family, was once surprised and
taken prisoner by the Indians, and remained with them a long time.
By his cheerful disposition and apparent satisfaction with their mode of
life, he disarmed their suspicion, acquired their confidence, and was
adopted into one of their families.

He was free, hunted around the town, returned, danced and frolicked
with the young Indians, and appeared perfectly satisfied with his change
of life. But all the time his heart was brooding on an escape, which he
wished to render memorable by some tragic act of revenge upon his
confiding enemies. In the Fall of the year, Martin and three Indians set
off to make a Fall hunt. They pitched their camp near the head of
Sandusky river. When the hunt commenced, he was very careful to
return first in the evening to the camp, prepare wood for the night, and
do all other little offices of camp duty to render them comfortable. By
this means he lulled any lurking suspicion which they might entertain
towards him. While hunting one evening, some distance from the camp,
he came across one of his Indian camp-mates. Martin watched for a
favorable moment, and as the Indian's attention was called in a differ-
ent direction, he shot him down, scalped him, and threw his body into
a deep hole, which had been made by a large tree torn up by the roots,
and covered his body with logs and brush, over which he strewed leaves
to conceal the body. He then hurried to the camp to prepare, as usual,
wood for the night.

When night came, one of the Indians was missing, and Martin ex-
pressed great concern on account of the absence of their comrade. The
other Indians did not appear to be the least concerned at the absence of
their companion; they both alleged that ^he might have taken a large cir-
cle, looking for new hunting ground, or that he might have pursued

John Wetzel on a Horse-stealing Expedition. 321

some wounded game till it was too late to return to camp. In this
mood the subject was dismissed for the night; they ate their supper and
lay down to sleep. Martin's mind was so full of the thoughts of home,
and of taking signal vengeance on his enemies, that he could not sleep;
he had gone too far to retreat, and whatever was done must be done
quickly. Being now determined to effect his escape at all hazards, the
question he had to decide was whether he should make attack on the two
sleeping Indians, or watch for a favorable opportunity of dispatching
them one at a time. The latter plan appeared to him to be less subject
to risk or failure. The next morning he prepared to put his determina-
tion into execution. %
When the two Indians set out on their hunt, he determined to follow
one of them (like a true hunting dog on a slow trail) till a fair oppor-
tunity should present itself of dispatching him without alarming his fel-
low. He cautiously pursued him till near evening, when he openly
walked to him, and commenced a conversation about their day's hunt.
The Indian being completely off his guard, suspecting no danger, Mar-
tm watched for a favorable moment, when the Indian's attention was
drawn to a different direction, and with one sweep of his vengeful tom-
ahawk laid him lifeless on the ground, scalped him, tumbled his body
into a sink-hole and covered it with brush and logs. He then made his
way to the camp, with a firm determination of closing the bloody
tragedy by killing the third Indian. He went out and composedly waited
at the camp for the return of the Indian. About sunset he saw him
coming, with a load of game that he had killed swung on his back.
Martin went forward under the pretense of aiding to disencumber him
of his load. When the Indian stooped down to be detached of his load
Martin, with one fell swoop of his tomahawJc, laid him in death's eternal
sleep. Being now in no danger of pursuit, he leisurely packed up what
plunder he could conveniently carry with him, and made his way to
the white settlements, where he safely arrived with the three Indian
scalps, after an absence of nearly a year.

John Wetzel on a Horse-stealing Expedition.

In the year 1791 or '92, the Indians having made frequent incursions
into the settlements along the river Ohio, between Wheeling and the
Mingo Bottom, sometimes killing or capturing whole families ; at other
times stealing all the horses belonging to a station or fort, a company
consisting of seven men, rendezvoused at a place called the Beech Bot-
tom, on the Ohio river, a few miles below where Wellsburg, W. Va.,
has been erected. This company were John Wetzel, William M'Cul-
21

822 Our Western Border.

lough, John Hough, Thomas Biggs, Joseph Hedges, Kinzie Dickerson,
and a Mr. Linn. Their avowed object was to go to the Indian town to
steal horses. This was then considered a legal, honorable business, as
the border was then at open war with the Indians. It would only be
retaliating upon them in their own way. These seven men were all
trained to Indian warfare and a life in the woods from their youth.
Perhaps the western frontier, at no time, could furnish seven men whose
souls were better fitted, and whose nerves and sinews were better strung
to perform any enterprise which required resolution and firmness.

They crossed the Ohio, and proceeded with cautious steps and vigi-
•fant glances on their way through the cheerless, dark and almost im-
penetrable forest in the Indian country, till they came to an Indian
town, near where the head waters of the Sandusky and Muskingum
rivers interlock. Here they made a fine haul, and set off homeward
with about fifteen horses. They traveled rapidly, only making a short
halt, to let their horses graze and breathe a short time to recruit their
strength and activity. In the evening of the second day of their rapid
retreat, they arrived at Wells Creek, not far from where the town ol
Cambridge, Ohio, has been since erected. Here Mr. Linn was taken
violently sick, and they must stop their march, or leave him alone to
perish in the dark and lonely woods. Our frontiermen, notwithstand-
ing their rough and unpolished manners, had too much of my Uncle
Toby's "sympathy for suffering humanity," to forsake a comrade in
distress. They halted, and placed sentinels on their back trail, who re-
mained there till late in the night, without seeing any signs of being
pursued. The sentinels then returned to the camp, Mr. Linn still lying
in excruciating pain. All the simple remedies in their power were ad-
ministered to the sick man, without producing any effect.

Being late in the night, they all lay down to rest, except one who
was placed as guard. Their camp was on a small branch. Just be-
fore daybreak the guard took a small bucket, and dipped some water
out of the stream ; on carrying it to the fire he discovered the water to
be muddy. The muddy water waked his suspicion that the enemy might
be approaching them and be walking down in the stream, as their foot-
steps would be noiseless in the water. He waked his companions, and
communicated his suspicion. They arose, examined the branch a little
distance, and listened attentively for some time, but neither saw nor
heard anything, and then concluded it must have been raccoons, or
some other animals paddling in the stream. After this conclusion the
company all lay down to rest, except the sentinel, who was stationed
just outside of the light. Happily for them the fire had burned down»
and only a few coals afforded a dim light to point out where they lay.

John Wetzel Captures an Obstinate Savage. 323

The enemy had come silently down the creek, as the sentinel suspected,
to within ten or twelve feet of the place where they lay, and fired sev-
eral guns over the bank. Mr. Linn, the sick man, was lying with his
side towards the bank, and received nearly all the balls which were at
first fired.

The Indians then, with tremendous yells, mounted the bank with
loaded rifles, war clubs and tomahawks, rushed upon our men, who fled
barefooted, and without arms. Mr. Linn, Thomas Biggs and Joseph
Hedges were killed in and near the camp. William M'Cullough had
run but a short distance when he was fired at by the enemy. At the
instant the firing was given, he jumped into a quagmire and fell ; the
Indians supposing that they had killed him, ran past in pursuit of others.
He soon extricated himself out of the mire, and so made his escape.
He fell in with John Hough, and came into Wheeling. John Wetztl
and Kinzie Dickerson met in their retreat, and returned together. Those
who made their escape were without arms, without clothing or provisions.
Their sufferings were great ; but this they bore with stoical indifference,
as it was the fortune of war. Whether the Indians who defeated our
heroes followed in pursuit from their towns, or were a party of warriors,
who accidentally happened to fall in with them, has never been ascer-
tained. From the place they had stolen the horses, they had traveled
two nights and almost two entire days, without halting, except just a few
minutes at a time, to let the horses graze. From the circumstance of
their rapid retreat with the horses, it was supposed that no pursuit could
possibly have overtaken them, but that fate had decreed that this party
of Indians should meet and defeat them. As soon as the stragglers
arrived at Wheeling, Captain John M'Cullough collected a party of
men, and went to Wells Creek and buried the unfortunate men who
fell in and near the camp. The Indians had mangled the dead bodies
at a most barbarous rate. Thus was closed this horse-stealing tragedy.
Those who survive-d this tragedy continued to hunt and to fight as long
as the war lasted. John Wetzel and Dickerson died in the country near
Wheeling. John Hough died near Columbia, Ohio. The brave Cap-
tain William M'Cullough fell in 1812, in the campaign with General
HulL

John Wetzel Captures an Obstinate Savage.

•

John Wetzel and Veach Dickerson associated to go on an Indian
Bcout. They crossed the Ohio at the Mingo Bottom, three miles below
where the town of Steubenville has since been constructed. They set
off" with the avowed intention of bringing an Indian prisoner. They

324 Our Western Border.

painted and dressed in complete Indian style, and could talk some in
their language. What induced them to undertake this hazardous enter-
prise is now unknown ; perhaps the novelty and danger of the under-
taking prompted them to action. No reward was given for either pris-
oners or scalps ; nor were they employed or paid by government.
Every man fought on his own hook, furnished his own arms and am-
munition, and carried his own baggage. This was, to all intents, a
democratic war, as every one fought as often and as long as he pleased;
either by himself, or with such company as he could confide in. As the
white men on the frontier took but few prisoners, Wetzel and Dickerson
concluded to change the practice, and bring in an Indian to make a
pet.

Whatever whim may have induced them, they set off with the avowed
intention of bringing in a prisoner, or losing their own scalps in the at-
tempt. They pushed through the Indian country with silent tread and
a keen lookout, till they went near the head of the Sandusky river,
where they came near a small Indian village. They concealed tlieni'
Selves close to a path which appeared to be considerably traveled. In
the course of the first day of their ambush, they saw several small com-
panies of Indians pass them. As it was not their wish to raise an alarm
among the enemy, they permitted them to pass undisturbed. In the
evening of the next day they saw two Indians coming sauntering along
the road in quite a merry mood. They immediately stepped into the
road, and with a confident air, as if they were meeting friends, went
forward until they came within reach of the enemy. Wetzel now drew
his tomahawk, and with one sweep knocked an Indian down ; at the
same instant Dickerson grasped the other in his arms, and threw him on
the ground. By this time Wetzel had killed the other, and turned his
hand to aid in fastening the prisoner. This completed, they scalped
the dead Indian, and set off with the prisoner for home.

They traveled all night on the war path leading towards Wheeling.
In the morning they struck off from the path, and making diverse
courses, and keeping on the hardest ground, where their feet would
make the least impression, they pushed along till they had crossed the
Muskingum some distance, when their prisoner began to show a restive,
stubborn dispcsition ; he finally threw himself on the ground and re-
fused to rise. He held down his head, and told them they might toma-
hawk him as scjpn as they pleased, for he was determined to go no
farther. They used every argument they could think of to induce him
to proceed, but without any effect. He said he would prefer dying in
his native woods than to preserve his life a little longer, and at last be
tortured by fire, and his body mangled for sport, when they took liiin

Wetzel and Kenton Attack an Indian Camp. 325

to their towns. They assured him his life would be spared, and that he
would be well used and treated with plenty. But all their efforts would
not induce him to rise to his feet. The idea that he would be put to
death for sport, or in revenge, in presence of a large number of spec-
tators, who would enjoy with rapture the scenes of his torture and
death, had taken such a strong hold of his mind, that he determined to
disappoint the possibility of their being gratified at his expense. As it
was not their wish to kill him from coaxing they concluded to try ii a
hickory, well applied, would not bend his stubborn soul. This, to'V,
failed to have any effect. He appeared to be as callous and indifferent
to the lash as if he had been a cooper's horse. What invincible resolu-
tion and fortitude was evinced by this son of the forest ! Findimg all
their efforts to urge him forward ineffectual, they determined to put
him to death. They then tomahawked and scalped him, and left his
body a prey to the wild beasts of the forest and to the birds of the air.
The scalp-hunters then returned home with their two scalps ; but vexed
and disappointed that they could not bring with them the prisoner.

Jacob Wetzel and Simon Kenton Attack an Indian Camp.

Of Jacob Wetzel's history, writes McDonald, I can give but a meagre
account, although I have heard of many of his exploits in the old In-
dian war. But my recollection of them is so indistinct and confused,
that I will not attempt to relate but one of the numerous fights in which
he was engaged. In that battle he had a comrade who was his
equal in intrepidity, and his superior in that cautious prudence which
constitutes the efficient warrior. That headstrong fury with which
many of our old frontiermen rushed into danger, was the cause of
many distressing disasters. They frequently, by their headlong course,
performed such successful actions, that if any military exploits deserve
the character of sublime, they were eminently such.

The following relation I had from General Kenton. He and Wet-
zel made arrangements to make a Fall hunt together, and for that pur-
pose they went into the hilly country near the mouth of the Kentucky
river. When they arrived where they intended to make their hunt,
they discovered some signs of Indians having preoccupied the ground.
It would have been out of character in a Kenton and a Wetzel to re-
treat without first ascertaining the description and number of the
enemy. They determined to find the Indian camp, which they believed
was at no great distance from them, as they had heard reports of guns
late in the evening and early the next morning in the same direction.
This convinced them that the camp was at no great distance from the

326 Our Western Border.

firing. Our heroes moved cautiously about, making as little sign as pos»
sible, that they might not be discovered by the enemy. Towards even-
ing of the second day after they arrived on the ground, they discovered
the Indian camp.

They kept themselves concealed, determined, as soon as night ap-
proached, to reconnoitre the situation and number of the enemy ; and
then govern their future operations as prudence might dictate. They
found five Indians in the camp. Having confidence in themselves and
in their usual good fortune, they concluded to attack them boldly.
Contrary to military rules, they agreed to defer the attack till light. In
military affairs it is a general rule to avoid night fights, except where
small numbers intend to assault a larger force. The night is then chosen,
as in the darkness the numbers of the assailants being uncertain, may
produce panics and confusion, which may give the victory to far inferior
numbers. Our heroes chose daylight and an open field for the fight.
There was a large fallen tree lying near the camp ; this would serve as a
rampart for defence and would also serve to conceal them from observa-
tion till the battle commenced. They took their station behind the log,
and there lay till broad daylight, when they were able to draw a clear
bead.

Jacob Wetzel had a double-barreled rifle. Their guns were cocked
— they took aim, and gave the preconcerted signal — fired, and two In-
dians fell. As quick as thought, Wetzel fired his second load, and down
fell the third Indian. Their number was now equal, so they bounded
over the log, screaming and yelling at the highest pitch of their voices,
to strike terror into their remaining enemies, and were among them be-
fore they recovered from the sudden surprise. The two remaining In-
dians, without arms, took to their heels, and ran in different directions.
Kenton pursued one, whom he soon overhauled, tomaliawked and
scalped, and then returned with the bloody trophy to the camp.
Shortly after Wetzel returned with the scalp of the fifth Indian. This
iras a wholesale slaughter, that but few except such men as Kenton and
Wetzel would have attempted.

Lewis Wetzel, the Boone of West Virginia. 327

LEWIS WETZEL, THE BOONE OF WEST VIRGINIA.

Stout-hearted Lewis Wetzel

Rode down the river shore.
The wilderness behind him

And the wilderness before. — Plympton.

But of all the Wetzel family Lewis was the most famous. Without
him the history of Northwestern Virginia would be like the " play of
Hamlet with Hamlet left out." His presence was a tower of strength
to the settlers, and for many years he was esteemed the right arm of
their defence. With most of the famed hunters of the west, Indian
fighting was only an episode — frequently a compulsory one — of their
stormy lives, but with Wetzel it was a life business. He plunged reck-
lessly into the fearful strife, and was never contented unless roaming the
wilderness solitudes, trailing the savages to their very homes and rushing
to combat, regardless of time, place or numbers. Bold, wary and tire-
less, he stood without an equal in the perilous profession to which he had
sworn to devote himself.

No man on the western frontier was more dreaded by the enemy, and
none did more to beat him back into the heart of the forest, and reclaim the
expanseless domain which we now enjoy. By many he is regarded as
little better than a semi-savage — a man whose disposition was that of an
enraged tiger — whose only propensity was for blood, but this De Hass
(excellent authority) asserts was not true. He was never known to
inflict unwonted cruelty upon women and children, as has been charged
upon him j and he never was found to torture or mutilate his victim, as
many of the traditions would indicate. He was revengeful, because he
had suffered deep injury at the hands of that race, and woe to the Indian
warrior who crossed his path. He was literally a man without fear.
He was brave as a lion, cunning as a fox ; " daring where daring was
the wiser part — prudent when discretion was valor's better self" He
seemed to possess, in a remarkable degree, that intuitive knowledge
which can alone constitute a good and efficient hunter, added to which,
he was sagacious, prompt to act, and always aiming to render his actions
efficient. Such was Lewis Wetzel, the celebrated Indian hunter of
Western Virginia.

At the time of his father's death, Lewis was about twenty-three years
of age, and, in common with his brothers, or those who were old enough,
swore sleepless vengeance against the whole Indian race. Terribly did

328 Our Western Border.

he and they carry that resolution into effect. From that time forward,
they were devoted to the woods ; and an Indian, whether in peace or
war, at night or by day, was a doomed man in the presence of either.
The name of Wetzel sent a thrill of horror through the heart of the
stoutest savage, before whom a more terrible image could not be con-
jured up than one of these relentless " Long Knives."

The first event worthy of record, in the life of our hero, occurred
when he was about fourteen years of age. The Indians had not been
very troublesome in the immediate vicinity of his father's, and no great
apprehensions were felt, as it was during a season of comparative
quietude. On the occasion referred to, Lewis had just stepped from his
father's door, and was looking at his brother Jacob playing, when, sud-
denly turning toward the corn crib, he saw a gun pointing around the
corner. Quick as thought he jumped back, but not in time to escape
the ball ; it took effect upon the breast bone, carrying away a small
portion, and cutting a fearful wound athwart the chest. In an instant,
two athletic warriors sprang from behind the crib, and quietly making
prisoners of the lads, bore them off without being discovered. On the
second day they reached the Ohio, and crossing near the mouth of Mc-
Mahan's Creek, gained the Big Lick, about twenty miles from the
river.

Duriiig the whole of this painful march, Lewis suffered severely from
his wound, but bore up with true courage, knowing that if he com-
plained, the tomahawk would be his doom. That night, on lying down,
the Indians, contrary to their custom, failed to tie their prisoners.
Lewis now resolved to escape, and in the course of an hour or so, satis-
fying himself that the Indians were asleep, touched Jacob, and both
arose without disturbing their captors. Lewis, leading the way, pushed
into the woods. Finding, however, that he could not travel without
moccasins, he returned to the camp and soon came back with two pair,
which, having fitted on, Lewis said : •* Now I must go back for father's
gun." Securing this, the two boys started for home. Finding the path,
they traveled on briskly for some time ; but hearing a noise, listened
and ascertained the Indians were in pursuit. The lads stepped aside as
the pursuers came up, and then again moved on. Soon they heard the
Indians return, and by the same plan effectually eluded them. Before
daylight they were again followed by two on horseback, but, resorting
to a similar expedient, readily escaped detection. On the following
day, about eleven o'clock, the boys reached the Ohio, at a point oppo-
site Zane's Island. Lashing together two logs, they crossed over, and
were once more with their friends.

Lewis Wetzel Kills Three Savages.

Lewis Wetzel Kills Three Savages in a Running Fight.

Shortly after Crawford's defeat, a man named Thomas Mills, in escap-
mg from that unfortunate expedition, reached the Indian Spring, about
nine miles from Wheeling, on the present National Road, where he was
compelled to leave his horse and proceed to Wheeling on foot. Thence
he went to Van Metre's Fort, and, after a day or two of rest, induced
Lewis Wetzel to go with him to the spring for his horse. Lewis cautioned
him against the danger, but Mills was determined, and the two started.
Approaching the spring, they discovered the horse tied to a tree, and
Wetzel at once comprehended their danger. Mills walked up to unfasten
the animal, when instantly a discharge of rifles followed, and the unfor-
tunate man fell, mortally wounded.

Wetzel now turned, and, knowing his only escape was in flight,
plunged through the enemy, and bounded off at the very extent of his
speed. Four fleet Indians followed in rapid pursuit, whooping in proud
exultation of soon overhauling their intended victim. After a chase of
half a mile, one of the most active savages approached so close that
Wetzel was afraid he might throw his tomahawk, and instantly wheeling,
shot the fellow dead in his tracks.

In early youth Lewis had acquired the habit of loading his gun while
at a full run, and now he felt the great advantage of it. Keeping iu
advance of his pursuers during another half mile, a second Indian came
up, and, turning to fire, the savage caught the end of his gun, and, for
a time, the contest was doubtful. At one moment the Indian, by his
great strength and dexterity, brought Wetzel to his knee, and had nearly
wrenched the rifle from the hands of his antagonist, when Lewis, by a
renewed effort, drew the weapon from the grasp of the savage, and,
thrusting the muzzle against the side of his neck, pulled the trigger,
killing him instantly. The two other Indians, by this time, had nearly
overtaken him; but leaping forward, he kept ahead, until his unerring
rifle was a third time loaded.

Anxious to have done with that kind of sport, he slackened his pacj,
and even stopped once or twice to give his pursuers an opportunity to
face him. Every time, however, he looked round, the Indians treed,
unwilling any longer to encounter his destructive weapon. After run-
ning a mile or two farther in this manner, he reached an open piece of
ground, and, wheeling suddenly, the foremost Indian jumped behind a
tree, but which, not screening his body, Wetzel fired, and dangerously
wounded him The remaining Indian made an immediate retreat, yell-
ing as he went, "iVb catch dat man, him gun alway loaded.^*

330 Our Western Border.

In the Summer of 1786, the Indians having become troublesome in
the neighborhood of Wheeling, particularly in the Short Creek settle-
ment, and a party having killed a man near Mingo Bottom, it was dc
termined to send an expedition after the retreating enemy, of sufficient
force to chastise them most effectually. A subscription or pony purse
was made up, and one hundred dollars were offered to the man who
should bring in the first Indian scalp. Major McMahan, living at Beach
Bottom, headed the expedition, and Lewis Wetzel was one of his men
They crossed the river on the 5th of August, and proceeded, by a rapid
march, to the Muskingum. The expedition numbered about twenty
men j and an advance of five were detailed to reconnoitre. This party
reported to the commander that they had discovered the camp of the
enemy, but that it was far too numerous to think of making an attack.
A consultation was thereupon held, and an immediate retreat deter-
mined on.

During the conference Lew. Wetzel sat upon a log, with his gun care-
lessly resting across his knees. The moment it was resolved to retreat,
most of the party started in disordered haste ; but the commander, ob-
serving Wetzel still sitting on the log, turned to inquire if he was not
going along. "No," was his sullen reply; "I came out to hunt In-
dians, and now that they are found, I am not going home, like a fool,
with my fingers in my mouth. I am determined to take an Indian scalp
or lose my own." All arguments were unavailing, and there they were
compelled to leave him: a lone man, in a desolate wilderness, surrounded
by an- enemy — vigilant, cruel, bloodthirsty, and of horrid barbarity—.
with no friend but his rifle, and no guide but the sure index which an
All-Wise Providence has deep set in the heavens above. Once by him-
self, and looking around to feel satisfied that they were all gone, he
gathered his blanket about him, adjusted his tomahawk and scalping
knife, shouldered his rifle, and moved off in an opposite direction,
hoping that a small party of Indians might be met with. Keeping away
from the larger streams, he strolled on cautiously, peering into every
dell and suspicious cover, and keenly sensitive to the least sound of a
dubious character.

Nothing, however, crossed his path that day. The night being dark
and chilly, it was necessary to have a fire; but to show a light, in the
midst of his enemy, would be to invite to certain destruction. To avoid
this, he constructed a small coal pit out of bark, dried leaves, etc.,
and covering these with loose earth, leaving an occasional air hole, he
seated himself, encircling the pit with his legs, and then completed the
whole by covering his head with the blanket. In this manner he would
produce a temperature equal, as he expressed it, to that of a "stove

Lewis Wetzel Kills Three Savages. 331

room." This was certainly an original and ingenious mode of getting
up a fire, without, at the same time, endangering himself by a light.

During most of the following day he roamed through the forest with-
out noticing any *•' signs " of Indians. At length smoke was discovered,
and going in the direction of it, he found a camp, but tenantless. It
contained two blankets and a small kettle, which Wetzel at once knew
belonged to two Indians, who were, doubtless, out hunting. Conceal-
ing himself in the matted undergrowth, he patiently awaited the re-
turn of the occupants. About sunset, one of the Indians came in and
made up the fire, and went to cooking his supper. Shortly after, the
other came in. They ate their supper, and began to sing, and amuse
themselves by telling comic stories, at which they would burst into roars
of laughter. Singing and telling amusing stories, was the common
practice of the white and redmen, when lying in their hunting camps.

About nine or ten o'clock, one of the I-ndians wrapped his blanket
around him, shouldered his rifle, took a chunk of fire in his hand and
left the camp, doubtless with the intention of going to watch a deer-
lick. The fire and smoke would serve to keep off the gnats and mos-
quitoes. It is a remarkable fact, that deer are not alarmed at seeing
fire, from the circumstance of meeting it so frequently in the Fall and
Winter seasons, when the leaves and grass are dry, and the woods on
fire. The absence of the Indian was a cause of vexation and disap-
pointment to our hero, whose trap was so happily set that he consid-
ered his game secure. He still indulged the hope that the Indian
would return to camp before day, but in this he was disappointed.
There are birds in the woods which commence chirping just before
break of day, and, like the cock, give notice to the woodsman that light
will soon appear. Lewis heard the wooded songsters begin to chatter,
and determined to delay no longer the work of death for the return of
the other Indian.

He walked to the camp with a noiseless step, and found his victim
buried in profound sleep, lying upon one side. He drew his scalping
knife, and with the utmost force, impelled by revenge, sent the blade
through his heart. He said the Indian gave a short quiver, a convul-
sive motion, and then laid still in the sleep of death. Lewis scalped
him, and set out for home. He arrived at the Mingo Bottom only one
day after his unsuccessful companions. He claimed and received the re-
ward.

Our Western Border.

He Shoots a Red Gobbler and Attacks a Camp of Four.

A most fatal decoy, on the frontier, was the turkey call. On sev^
eral occasions, men from the fort at Wheeling had gone across the hill in
quest of a turkey, whose plaintive cries had elicited their attention, and,
on more than one occasion, the men never returned. Wetzel suspected
the cause, and determined to satisfy himself. On the east side of the
Creek Hill, and at a point elevated at least sixty feet above the water,
there is a capacious cavern, (we have seen this cavern within the year,)
the entrance to which, at that time, was almost obscured by a heavy
growth of vines and foliage. Into this the alluring savage would crawl,
and could there have an extensive view of the hill front on the opposite
side. From that cavern issued the decoy of death to more than one
incautious soldier and settler. Wetzel knew of the existence and ex-
act locality of the cave, and accordingly started out before day, and,
by a circuitous route, reached the spot from the rear. Posting himself
so as to command a view of the opening, he waited patiently for the
expected cry. Directly the twisted tuft of an Indian warrior slowly
rose in the mouth of the cave, and, looking cautiously about, sent forth
the long, shrill, peculiar "cry," sounding like chug-a-lug, chug-a-lug,
chug-a-lug, chug, and immediately sank back out of view. Lewis
screened himself in his position, cocked his gun, and anxiously waited for
a reappearance of the head. In a few minutes up rose the tuft; Lewis
drew a fine aim at the polished head, and the next instant the brains of
the savage were scattered about the cave. That turkey troubled the
inhabitants no longer, and tradition does not say whether the place was
ever after similarly occupied.

A singular custom with this daring borderer was to take a Fall hunt
into the Indian country. Equipping himself, he set out and penetrated
to the Muskingum, and fell upon a camp of four Indians. Hesitating
a moment, whether to attack a party so much his superior in numerical
strength, he determined to make the attempt. At the hour of mid-
night, when naught was heard but the long, dismal howl of the wolf,

" Cruel as death, and hungry as the grave.
Burning for blood, bony, gaunt and grim,"

he moved cautiously from his covert, and, gliding through the darkness,
stealthily approached the camp, supporting his rifle in one hand and a
tomahawk in the other. A dim flicker from the camp fire faintly re-
vealed the forms of the sleepers, wrapped in that profound slumber,
which, to part of them, was to know no waking. There they lay, with
their dark faces turned up to the night-sky, in the deep solitude of theii

He Shoots a Red Gobbler and Attacks a Camp of Four. 333

own wilderness, little dreaming that their most relentless enemy was
hovering over them.

Quietly resting his gun against a tree, he unsheathed his knife, and,
with an intrepidity that could never be surpassed, stepped boldly for-
ward like the minister of death, and, quick as thought, cleft the skull of
one of his sleeping victims. In an instant, a second one was similarly
served ; and, as a third attempted to rise, confused by the horrid yells
with which Wetzel accompanied his blows, he too shared the fate of his
companions, and sank dead at the feet of his ruthless slayer. The
fourth darted into the darkness of the woods and escaped, although
Wetzel pursued him some distance. Returning to camp, he scalped his
victims, and then left for home. When asked, on his return, what
luck? "Not much," he replied. "I treed four Indians, but one got
away." This unexampled achievement stamped him as one of the most
daring, and, at the same time, successful hunters of his day. The dis-
tance to and from the scene of this adventure could not have been less
than one hundred and seventy miles.

Duiing one of his scouts in the immediate neighborhood of Wlieeling,
our hero took shelter, on a stormy evening, in a deserted cabin on the
bottom, not far from what was then the residence of Mr. Hamilton
Woods. Gathering a few broken boards, he prepared a place, in the
loft, to sleep. Scarcely had he got himself adjusted for a nap when six
Indians entered, and, striking a fire, commenced preparing their homely
meal. Wetzel watched their movements closely, with drawn knife, de-
termined, the moment he was discovered, to leap into their midst, and,
in the confusion, endeavor to escape. Fortunately, they did not see
him ; and, soon after supper, the whole six fell asleep. Wetzel now
crawled noiselessly down, and hid himself behind a log, at a convenient
distance from the door of the cabin. At early dawn, a tall savage
stepped from the door, and stretching up both hands in a long, hearty
yawn, seemed to draw in new life from the pure, invigorating atmos-
phere. In an instant Wetzel had his finger upon the trigger, and the
next moment the Indian fell heavily to the ground, his life's blood
gushing upon the young grass, brilliant with the morning dew-drops.
The report of the rifle had not ceased echoing through the valley, ere
the daring borderer was far away, secure from all pursuit.

Some time after General Harraar had erected a fort at the mouth of
the Muskingum river, where Marietta now stands, about 1 789, he em-
ployed some white men to go, with a flag, among the nearest Indian
tribes, to prevail with them to come to the fort, and there to conclude
a treaty of peace. A large number of Indians came, on the general
invitation, and encamped on the Muskingum river, a few miles above

334 Our Western Border.

its mouth. General Harmar issued a proclamation, giving notice that
a cessation of arms was mutually agreed upon, between the white and
redmen, till an effort for a treaty of peace should be concluded.

As treaties of peace with Indians had been so frequently violated,
but little faith was placed in the stability of such engagements by the
frontiermen ; notwithstanding that they were as frequently the aggres-
sors as wei>e the Indians. Half the backwoodsmen of that day had
been born in a fort, and grew to manhood, as it were, in a siege. Trw
Indian war had continued so long, and was so bloody, that they be-
lieved war with them was to continue as long as both survived to fight.
With these impressions, as they considered the Indians faithless, it was
difficult to inspire confidence in the stability of treaties. While Gen-
eral Harmar was diligently engaged with the Indians, endeavoring to
make peace, Lewis Wetzel concluded to go to Fort Harmar, and, as
the Indians would be passing and repassing between their camp and
the fort, he would have a fair opportunity of killing one.

He associated with himself in this enterprise, a man named Veach
Dickerson, who was only a small grade below him in restless daring.
As soon as the enterprise was resolved on, they were impatient to put it
in execution. The more danger, the more excited and impatient they
were to execute their plan. They set off without delay, and arrived at
the desired point, and sat themselves down in ambush, near the path
leading from the fort to the Indian camp. Shortly after they had con-
cealed themselves by the wayside, they saw an Indian approaching on
horseback, running his horse at full speed. They called to him, but,
owing to the clatter of the horse's feet, he did not hear or heed their
call, but kept on at a sweeping gallop. When the Indian had nearly
passed, they concluded to give him a shot as he rode. They fired; but,
as the Indian did not fall, they thought they had missed him.

As the alarm would soon be spread that an Indian had been shot at,
and as large numbers of them were near at hand, they commenced an
immediate retreat to their home. As their neighbors knew the object
Df their expedition, as soon as they returned they were asked, what
luck ? Wetzel answered that they had bad luck — they had seen but one
Indian, and he on horseback — that they had fired at him as he rode,
but he did not fall, but went off scratching his back, as if he had been
stung by a yellowjacket. The truth was, they had shot him through
the hips and lower part of the belly. He rode to the fort, and that
night expired of his wounds. It proved to be a large, fine-looking
savage, of considerable celebrity, and known by the name of George
IVashington.

It was soon rumored to Genera^ Harmar that Lewis Wetzel was the

He Shoots a Red Gobbler and Attacks a Camp of Four. 335

murderer. General Harmar sent a Captain Kingsbury, with a company
of men, to the Mingo Bottom, with orders to take Wetzel, alive or dead
. — a useless and impotent order. A company of men could as easily
have drawn Beelzebub out of the bottomless pit, as take Lewis Wetzel,
by force, from the Mingo Bottom settlement. On the day that Captain
Kingsbury arrived, there was a shooting match in the neighborhood, and
Lewis was there. As soon as the object of Captain Kingsbury was
ascertained, it was resolved to ambush the Captain's barge, and kill him
and his company.

Happily Major McMahan was present to prevent this catastrophe,
who prevailed on Wetzel and his friends to suspend the attack till he
would pay Captain Kingsbury a visit; perhaps he would induce him tf>
return without making an attempt to take Wetzel. With a great deal
of reluctance, they agreed to suspend the attack till Major McMahan
should return. The resentment and fury of Wetzel and his friends
were boiling and blowing like the steam from a scape pipe of a steam-
boat. "A pretty affair this," said they, "to hang a man for killing an
Indian, when they are killing some of our men almost every day."
Major McMahan informed Captain Kingsbury of the force and fury of
the people, and assured him that, if he persisted in the attempt to seize
Wetzel, he would have all the settlers in the country upon him; that
nothing could save him and his fellows from massacre but a speedy
return. The Captain took his advice, and forthwith returned to Fort
Harmar. Wetzel consic^ered the affair now as finally adjusted.

As Lewis was never long stationary, but ranged, at will, along the
river from Fort Pitt to the Falls of the Ohio, and was a welcome guest
and perfectly at home wherever he went, shortly after the attempt to
seize him by Captain Kingsbury, he got into a canoe, with the intention
of proceeding down the Ohio to Kentucky. He had a friend, by the
name of Hamilton Carr, who had lately settled on the island near Fort
Harmar. Here he stopped, with the view of lodging for the night. By
some means, which never were explained. General Harmar was advised
of his being on the island. A guard was sent, who crossed to the island,
surrounded Mr. Carr's house, went in, and, as Wetzel lay asleep, he
was seized by numbers, his hands and feet securely bound, and he was
hurried off into a boat, and from thence placed in a guard-room, where
be was loaded with irons.

336 Our Western Border.

Handcuffed by General Harmar and Makes his Escape.

The ignominy of wearing iron handcuffs and hobbles, and being chained
down, to a man of his independent and resolute spirit, was more painful
than death. Shortly after he was confined, he sent for General Harmar,
and requested a visit. The General went. Wetzel admitted, without
hesitation, "that he had shot the Indian." As he did not wish to be
hung like a dog, he requested the General to give him up to the Indians,
there being a large number of them present. " He might place them
all in a circle, with their scalping knives a-nd tomahawks, and give him
a tomahawk and place him in the midst of the circle, and then let him
and the Indians fight it out the best way they could." The General
told him, "that he was an officer appointed by the law, by which he
must be governed. As the law did not authorize him to make such a
compromise, he could not grant his request." After a few days' longer
confinement, he again sent for the General to come and see hira ; and
he did so. Wetzel said " he had never been confined, and could not
live much longer if he was not permitted some room to walk about in."

The General ordered the officer on guard to knock off his iron fetters,
but to leave on his handcuffs, and permit him to walk about on the
point at the mouth of the Muskingum ; but to be sure and keep a close
watch upon him. As soon as they were outside the fort gate, Lewis
began to caper and dance about like a wild colt broke loose from the
stall. He would start and run a few yards, as if he was about making
an escape, then turn round and join the guards. The next start he
would run farther, and then stop. In this way he amused the guard for
some time, at every start running a little farther. At length he called
forth all his strength, resolution and activity, and determined on freedom
or an early grave. He gave a sudden spring forward, and bounded off
at the top of his speed for the shelter of his beloved woods. His move-
ment was so quick, and so unexpected, that the guards were taken by
surprise, and he got nearly a hundred yards before they recovered from
their astonishment. They fired, but all missed ; they followed in piir-
suit, but he soon left them out of sight.

As he was well acquainted with the country, he made for a dense
thicket, about two or three miles from the fort. In the midst of this
thicket, he found a tree which had fallen across a log, where the brush
was very close. Under this tree he squeezed his body. The brush was
so thick that he could not be discovered unless his pursuers examined
very closely. As soon as his escape was announced, General Harmai
started the soldiers and Indians in pursuit. After he had lain about two

Handcuffed by General Harmar and Makes his Escape. 337

hours in his place of concealment, two Indians came into the thicket,
and stood on the same log under which he lay concealed ; his heart beat
so violently he was afraid they would hear it thumping. He could hear
them hallooing in every direction as they hunted through the brush.
At length, as the evening wore away the day, he found himself alone
in the friendly thicket. But what should he do? His hands were
fastened with iron cuffs and bolts, and he knew of no friend, on the
same side of the Ohio, to whom he could apply for assistance.

He had a friend who had recently put up a cabin on the Virginia side
of the Ohio, who, he had no doubt, would lend him every assistance in
his power. But to cross the river was the difficulty. He could not
make a raft, with his hands bound, and though an excellent swimmer, it
would be risking too much to trust himself to the stream in that dis-
abled condition. With the most gloomy foreboding of the future, he
left the thicket as soon as the shades of night began to gather, and
directed his way to the Ohio, by a circuitous route, which brought him
to a lonely spot, three or four miles below the fort. He made to this
place, as he expected guards would be set at every point where he could
find a canoe. On the opposite shore he saw an acquaintance, Isaac
Wiseman by name, fishing in a canoe. Not daring to call to him, as he
could not know whether his enemies were not within sound of his voice,
he waved his hat for some time to attract the notice of his friend, hav-
ing previously induced him to direct his eye that course by a gentU;
splashing in the water.

This brought Wiseman to his assistance, who readily aided his escape.
Once on the Virginia shore he had nothing to fear, as he had well-
wishers all through the country, who would have shed blood, if neces-
sary, for his defence. It was not, however, until years had elapsed, and
General Harmar returned to Philadelphia, that it became safe for Wise-
man to avow the act, such was the weakness of civil authority and the
absolute supremacy of military rule on the frontier. A file and hammer
soon released him from the heavy handcuffs. After the night's rest had
recruited his energies, he set out for fresh adventures, his friend having
lupplied him with a rifle, ammunition and blanket. He took a canoe
and went down the river for Kentucky, where he should feel safe from
the grasp of Harmar and his myrmidons.

Subsequently to Wetzel's escape, General Harmar removed his head-
quarters to Fort Washington, Cincinnati. One of his first official act3
there, was to issue a proclamation, offering considerable rewards for the
apprehension and delivery of Lewis at the garrison there. No man,
however, was found base or daring enough to attempt this service.

On his way down Wetzel landed at Point Pleasant, and, following has
22

538 Our Western Border.

usual humor, when he had no work among Indians on the carpet, ranged
the town, for a few days, with as much unconcern as if he were on his
own farm. Lieutenant Kingsbury, attached to Harmar's own command,
happened to be at the mouth of the Kanawha at the time, and scouting
about, while ignorant of Wetzel's presence, met him — unexpectedly to
both parties. Lewis, being generally on the qui vive, saw Kingsbury
first, and halted with great firmness in the path, leaving to the Lieuten-
ant to decide his own course of procedure, feeling himself prepared and
ready, whatever that might be. Kingsbury, a brave man himself, had
too much good feeling toward such a gallant spirit as Wetzel to pttempt
his injury, if it were even safe to do so. He contented himself with
saying, "■ Get put of my sight, you Indian killer J" And Lewis, who
was implacable to the savage only, retired slowly and watchfully, as a
lion draws off measuring his steps in the presence of the hunters, being
as wilhng to avoid unnecessary danger as to seek it when duty called
him to act.

He regained his canoe and put off for Limestone, Ky., at which
place, and at Washington, the county town, he established his headquar-
ters for some time. Here he engaged on hunting parties, or went out
with the scouts after Indians. When not actually engaged in such ser-
vice, he filled up his leisure hours at shooting matches, foot racing or
wrestling with other hunters. Major Fowler, of Washington, who
knew him well during this period, described him as a general favorite,
no less from his personal qualities than for his services.

While engaged in these occupations at Maysville, Lieutenant Lawler,
•of the regular army, who was going down the Ohio to Fort Washing-
ton, in what was called a Kentucky boat, full of soldiers, landed at
Maysville, and found Wetzel sitting in one of the taverns. Returning
to the boat, he ordered out a file of soldiers, seized Wetzel and dragged
him on board the boat, and, without a moment's delay, pushed off, and
that same night delivered him to General Harmar, at Cincinnati, by
whom the prisoner was again put in irons, preparatory to his trial and
consequent condemnation, for what Lewis disdained to deny or con-
ceal, the killing of the Indian at Marietta. But Harmar, like St. Clair,
although acquainted with the routine of military service, was destitute
of that practical good sense, always indispensable in frontier settlements,
m which such severe measures were more likely to rouse the settlers to
flame than to intimidate them ; and soon found the country around him
in arms.

The story of Wetzel's captivity — captured and liable to punishment
for shooting an Indian merely — spread through the settlement like wild-
fire, kindling the passions of the frontiermen to a high pitch of fury.

His Hair Reached to his Calves. 3C9

Petitions for his release came in to General Harmar, from all quarters
and all classes of society. To these, at first, he paid little attention.
At length the settlements along the Ohio, and some even of the back
coimties, began to embody in military array to release the prisoner vi et
armis. Representations were made to Judge Symmes, which induced
him to issue a writ of habeas corpus in the case. John Clawson, and
other hunters of Columbia, who had gone down to attend his trial, went
security for Wetzel's good behavior ; and, being discharged, he was es-
corted with great triumph to Columbia, and treated at that place to his
supper, etc.

His Hair Reached to his Calves — Thrilling Adventure.

Judge Foster, who gave these last particulars, described him at this
period, (August 26th, 1789,) as about twenty-six years of age, about five
feet ten inches high. He was full breasted, very broad across the
shoulders ; his arms were large ; skin, darker than the other brothers ;
his face, heavily pitted with the small-pox ; his hair, of which he was
very careful, reached, when combed out, to the calves of the legs ; his
eyes remarkably black and " piercing as the dagger's point," and, when
excited, sparkling with such vindictive glances as to indicate plainly
it was hardly safe to provoke him to wrath. He was taciturn in mixed
company, although the fiddle of the party among his social friends and
acquaintances. His morals and habits, compared with those of his gen-
eral associates and the tone of society in the West of that day, were quite
exemplary. He certainly had a rare scalp — one for which the savag'es
would at any time have given a dozen of their best warriors.

Shortly after his return from Kentucky, a relative, from Dunkard
Creek, invited Lewis home with him. The invitation was accepted,
and the two leisurely wended their way along, hunting and sporting as
they traveled. On reaching the home of the young man, what should
they see but, instead of the hospitable rcof, a pile of smoking rums !
Wetzel immediately examined the trail, and found that the marauders
were three Indians and one white man, and that they had taken one
prisoner. That captive proved to be the betrothed of the young man,
whom nothing could restrain from pushing on in immediate pursuit.

Placing himself under the direction of Wetzel, the two strode on,
hoping to overhaul the enemy before they had crossed the Ohio. It
was found, after proceeding a short distance, that the savages had taken
great care to obhcerate their trail; but the keen discernment of Wetzel
once on the track, and there need not be much difficulty. He knew
tliey would make for the river by the most expeditious route, and there-

340 Our Western Border.

fore, disregarding their trail, he pushed on, so as to head them at tha
crossing place. After an hour's hard travel, they struck a path which
the deer had made, and which their sagacity had taught them to carry
over knolls, in order to avoid the great curves of ravines. Wetzel fol-
lowed the path because he knew it was almost in a direct line to the point
at which he was aiming. Night coming on, the tireless and determined
hunters partook of a hurried meal, then again pushed forward, guided
by the lamps hung in the heavens above them, until, toward midnight,
a heavy cloud shut out their light and obscured the path.

Early on the following morning they resumed the chase, and, de-
scending from the elevated ridge, along which they had been passing
for an hour or two, found themselves in a deep and quiet valley, which
looked as though human steps had never before pressed its virgin
soil. Traveling a short distance, they discovered fresh footsteps in
the soft sand, and, upon close examination, the eye of Wetzel's com-
panion detected the impress of a small shoe, with nail-heads around the
heel, which he at once recognized as belonging to his afhanced.
Hour after hoijr the pursuit was kept up; now tracing the trail across
the hills, over alluvium, and often detecting it where the wily captors
had taken to the beds of streams. Late in the afternoon they found
themselves approaching the Ohio, and, shortly after dark, discovered,
as they struck the river, the camp of the enemy on the opposite side,
and just below the mouth of Captina. Swimming the river, the two
reconnoitered the position of the camp, and discovered the locality of
tbe captive. Wetzel proposed waiting until daylight before making
the attack, but the almost frantic lover was for immediate action.
Wetzel, however, would listen to no suggestion, and thus they waited
the break of day.

At early dawn the savages were up and preparing to leave, when
Wetzel directed his companion to take good aim at the white renegade,
while he would make sure work of one of the Indians. They fired at
the same moment, and with fatal effect. Instantly the young man
Hashed forward to release the captive ; and Wetzel, reloading, pursued
the two Indians who had taken to the woods to ascertain the strength
of the attacking party. Wetzel pursued a short distance, and then fired
his rifle £.t random, to draw the Indians from their retreat. The trick
succeeded, and they made after him with uplifted tomahawks, yelling
at the height of their voices. The adroit hunter soon had his rifle
loaded, and wheeling suddenly, discharged its contents through the
body of his nearest pursuer. The other Indian now rushed impetuous-
ly forward, thinking to dispatch his enemy in a moment. Wetzel,
however, kept dodging from tree to tree, and, being more fleet than

A Thrilling Adventure. 341

the Indian, managed to keep ahead until his unerring gun was igain
loaded, when, turning, he fired, and the last of the party lay dead be-
fore him.

Soon after this, our hero determined to visit the extreme South, and
for that purpose engaged on a flat boat about leaving for New Orleans.
Many months elapsed before his friends heard anything of his where-
abouts, and then it was to learn that he was in close confinement at New
Orleans, under some weighty charge. What the exact nature of this
charge was, has never been fully ascertained; but it is very certain he
was imprisoned and treated like a felon for nearly two years. The
charge is supposed to have been of some trivial character, and has been
justly regarded as a great outrage. It was alleged, at the time of his
arrest, to have been for uttering counterfeit coin ; but this being dis-
proved, it was then charged that he liad been guilty of an amour with
the wife of a Spaniard.

Of the nature of these charges, however, but little is known. He
was finally released by the intervention of our government, and reached
home by way of Philadelphia, to which city he had been sent from New
Orleans. He remained but two days on Wheeling Creek after his re-
turn, and De Hass learned from several citizens who saw him then that
his personal appearance was much changed. From the settlement he
went to Wheeling, where he remained a few days, and then left again
for the South, vowing vengeance against the person whom he believed
to have been accessory to his imprisonment, and in degrading his per-
son with the vile rust of a felon's chain. During his visit to Wheeling,
he remained with George Cookis, a relative. Mrs. Cookis plagued him
about getting married, and jocularly asked whether he ever intended to
take a wife. "No," he replied, "there is no woman in this world for
me, but I expect there is one in heaven."

After an absence of many months, he again returned to the neigh-
borhood of Wheeling; but whether he avenged his real or imaginary
wrongs upon the person of the Spaniard alluded to, is not known.
His propensity to roam the woods was still as great as ever ; and an in-
cident occurred which showed that he had lost none of his cunning
while undergoing incarceration at New Orleans. Returning homeward,
from a hunt north of the Ohio, somewhat fatigued and a little careless
of his movements, he suddenly espied an Indian, in the very act of
raising his gun to fire. Both immediately sprang to trees, and there
they stood for an hour, each afraid of the other.

What was to be done? To remain there the whole day, for it was
then early in the morning, was out of the question. Now it was that
the sagacity of Wetzel displayed itself over the child-like simplicity of

342 Our Western Border.

the savage. Cautiously adjusting his bear-skin cap to the end of his
ramrod — witli the slightest, most dubious and hesitating motion, as
though afraid to venture a glance — the cap protruded. An instant, a
crack, and off was torn the fatal cap, by the sure ball of the vigilant
savage. Leaping from his retreat, our hero rapidly advanced upon the
astonished Indian, and ere the tomahawk could be brought to its work
of death, the tawny foe sprang convulsively into the air, and, straight-
ening as he descended, fell upon his face quite dead.

Wetzel was universally regarded as one of the most efficient scouts
and most practiced woodsmen of the day. He was frequently engaged
by parties who desired to hunt up and locate lands, but were afraid of
the Indians. Under the protection of Lewis Wetzel, however, they
felt safe, and thus he was often engaged for months at a time. Of those
who became largely interested in western lands was John Madison,
brother of James, afterward President Madison. He employed Lewis Wet-
zel to go with him through the Kanawha region. During their expedi-
tion they came upon a deserted hunter's camp, in which were concealed
some goods. Each of them helped himself to a blanket, and that day,
in crossing Little Kanawha, they were fired upon by a concealed party
of Indians, and Madison was killed.

General Clark, the companion of Lewis in the celebrated tour across
the Rocky Mountains, had heard much of Lewis Wetzel in Kentucky,
and determined to secure his services in the perilous enterprise. A mes-
senger was accordingly sent for him, but he was reluctant to go. How-
ever, he finally consented, and accompanied the party during the first
three months' travel, but then declined going any farther, and returned
home. Shortly after this he left again, on a flat boat, and never re-
turned. He visited a relative named Philip Sikes, living about twenty
miles in the interior from Natchez, and there made his home until the
Summer of 1808, when he died. The late venerable David Mclntyre,
of Belmont county, Ohio, one of the most reliable and respectable
men in the State, said that he met Lewis Wetzel at Natchez, in April
1808, and remained with him three davs. That Lewis told him he
would visit his friends during the then approaching Summer. But, alas,
that visit was never made! His journey was to "that undiscovered
country, from whose bourne no traveler returns."

The number of scalps taken by the Wetzels in the course of the long
Indian war, exceeds belief There is no doubt they were very little
short of one hundred. War was the business of their lives. They
would prowl through the Indian country singly, suffer all the fatigues
of hasty marches in bad weather, or starvation lying in close conceal-
ment, watching for a favorable opportunity to inflict death on the de-

A Thrilling Adventure. 343

voted victims who would be so unfortunate as to come witliin their
vindictive grasp.

As to Martin and John Wetzel, wrote McDonald, I have but a faint
recollection of their personal appearance. Jacob Wetzel was a large
man, of full habit, but not corpulent. He was about six feet high, and
weighed about two hundred pounds. He was a cheerful, pleasant com-
panion, and in every respect as much of a gentleman in his manners as
most of the frontiermen. They were all dark skinned and wore their
hair, which was very long and thick, curled, and no part of it was suf-
fered to be cut off. Lewis Wetzel had a full breast, and was very broad
across the shoulders ; his arms were large ; his limbs were not heavy ;
his skin was darker than his brothers ; his face considerably pitted by
the small-pox ; his hair, of which he was very careful, reached, when
combed out, to the calves of his legs ; his eyes were remarkably black,
and when excited, (which was easily done,) they would sparkle with
such a vindictive glance as almost to curdle the blood to look at him.
In his appearance and gait there was something different from other
men. Where he professed friendship, he was as true as the needle to
the pole ; his enmity was always dangerous. In mixed company he
was a man of few words; but with his particular friends he was a social,
and even a cheerful companion. Notwithstanding their numberless ex-
ploits in war, they were no braggadocios. When they had killed their
enemies, they thought no more about it than a butcher would after kill-
ing a bullock. It was their trade.

Happily all the old frontiermen were not such dare-devils as were
the Wetzels. If they had been, the country could never have been set-
tled. The men who went forward with families, and erected block-
houses and forts, and remained stationary to defend them, and to culti-
vate the earth, were the most efficient settlers. The Wetzels, and others
of the same grit, served as a kind of out-guards, who were continually
ranging from station to station in search of adventure ; so that it was
almost impossible for large bodies of the enemy to approach the set-
tlements without being discovered by those vigilant, restless rangers,
who would give the alarm to the forts. In this way all were useful ;
even the timid (for there were some such) would fight in defence oi
their fort.

Our Western Border.

CAPTAIN SAM. BRADY, THE DARING PARTISAN LEADER.

He knew each pathway through the wood.

Each dell unwarmed by sunshine's gleam ;
Where the brown pheasant led her brood.

Or wild deer casxu, to drink the stream.

Who in the West has not heard of Samuel Brady, the Captain of the
Spies, and of his wonderful exploits and hairbreadth escapes ? A soldier
from the first drum-tap of the Revolution, he commenced his service at
Boston. He was in all the principal engagements of the war until the
battle of Monmouth, when he was promoted to a captaincy and ordered
to Fort Pitt to join General Broadhead, with whom he became a great
favorite, and was almost constantly employed in partisan scouting. In
'78 his brother, and in '79 his father, were cruelly killed by Indians.
This made Captain Brady an Indian killer, and he never changed Jus
business. The redman never had a more implacable foe, or a more re-
lentless tracker. Being as well skilled in woodcraft as any Indian of
them all, he would trail them to their very lairs with all the fierceness
and tenacity of the sleuth hound. We could fill pages with the mere
mention of his lone vigils, his solitary wanderings, and his terrible
revenges. His hate was undying; it knew no interval — his revenge
no surfeit. Day and night, Summer and Winter were all the same, if it
gave him chance to feed fat his ancient grudge.

He commenced his scouting service about 1780, when he was only
twenty-four years old, having been born in Shippensburg in 1756. A
bolder or braver man never drew sword or pulled trigger. During the
whole of the fierce, protracted and sanguinary war which ravaged the
western border from 1785 to 1794, he was a dread terror to the savages
and a tower of strength to the white settlers. His ubiquitous presence,
backed by the band of devoted followers, who ever stepped in his foot-
prints, was felt as a security everywhere. His the step that faltered not ;
his the eye that quailed not, and his the heart that knew never the
meaning of fear. Many a mother has quieted the fears and lulled to
sleep her infant family by the assurance that the rapid Allegheny, or the
broad Ohio, the dividing lines between the whites and Indians, was sate
because he there kept watch and ward.

But to begia at the beginning. When the company of volur teer rifle-
men, of which Brady was a member, lay in the "Leaguer of Boston,"
frequent skirmishes took place. Oi. one occasion, Lowden was ordered

Captain Brady Makes a Scout to Upper Sandusky. 427

to select some able-bodied men, and wade to an island, when the tide
was out, and drive out some cattle belonging to the British. He con-
sidered Brady too young for this service, and left him out of his selec-
tion; but, to the Captain's astonishment, Brady was the second man on
the island, and behaved most gallantly. On another occasion, he was
sitting on a fence with his Captain, viewing the British works, when a
cannon ball struck the fence under them. Brady was first up, caught
the Captain in his arms and raised him, saying, with great composure,
"We are not hurt, Captain." Many like instances of his coolness and
courage happened while the army lay at Boston.

At the battle of Princeton he was under Colonel Hand, of Lancaster,
and had advanced too far; they were nearly surrounded — Brady cut a
horse out of a team, got his Colonel on, jumped on behind him, and both
made their escape. At the massacre at Paoli, Brady had been on guard,
and had laid down with his blanket buckled round him. The British
were nearly on them before the sentinel fired. Brady had to run; he
tried to get clear of his blanket coat, but could not. As he jumped a
post and rail fence, a British soldier struck at him with his bayonet and
pinned the blanket to the rail, but so near the edge that it tore out.
He dashed on — a horseman overtook him and ordered him to stop.
Brady wheeled, shot him down and ran on. He got into a small swamp
in a field. He knew of no person but one being in it beside himself;
but in the morning there were fifty-five, one of whom was a Lieutenant.
They compared commissions; Brady's was the oldest; he took the com-
mand and marched them to headquarters.

Captain Brady Makes a Scout to Upper Sandusky.

In 1780 the Indians became very troublesome to the settlements
about Pittsburgh, and Washington, knowing well that the most effect-
ual way to deal with them was to strike them in their very homes,
ordered Colonel Broadhead, of Fort Pitt, to dispatch a suitable person
to their towns to ascertain their strength and resources. Broadhead sent
for Biady, showed him Washington's letter, and a draft or map of the
country he must traverse ; very defective, as Brady afterwards discov-
ered. Selecting a few soldiers, and four Chickasaw Indians as guides,
Brady crossed the Allegheny and was at once in the enemy's country.
Brady was versed in all the wiles of Indian "strategie," and, dressed
in the full war dress of an Indian warrior, and well acquainted with
their language, he led his band in safety near to the Sandusky towns with-
out seeing a hostile Indian. But his Chickasaws now deserted. This
was alarming, for it was probable they had gone over to the enemy.

428 Our Western Border.

However, he determined to proceed. With a full knowledge of the
horrible death that awaited him if taken prisoner, he passed on, until
he stood beside the town on the bank of the river.

His first care was to provide a secure place of concealment for his
men. When this was effected, having selected one man as the com-
panion of his future adventures, he waded the river to an island par-
tially covered with driftwood, opposite the town, where he concealed
himself and comrade for the night. The next morning a dense fog
spread over the hill and dale, town and river ; all was hid from Brady's
eyes, save the logs and brush around him. About eleven o'clock it
cleared off, and afforded him a view of an immense number of Indians
engaged in the amusement of the race ground. They had just returned
from Virginia or Kentucky, with some very fine horses. One gray
horse in particular attracted his notice. He won every race until near
the evening, when, as if envious of his speed, two riders were placed on
him and thus he was beaten. The starting post was only a few rods
above where Brady lay, and he had a pretty fair chance of enjoying the
amusement, without the risk of losing anything by betting on the race.

He made such observations through the day as was in his power, waded
out from the island at night, collected his men, went to an Indian camp
he had seen as he came out ; the squaws were still there, took them
prisoners, and continued his march homeward. The map furnished by
General Broadhead was found defective, the distance represented being
much less than it really was. The provisions and ammunition of the
men were exhausted by the time they reached the Big Beaver, on their
return. Brady shot an otter, but could not eat it. The last load was
in his rifle. They arrived at an old encampment, and found plenty of
strawberries, with which they appeased their hunger.

Having discovered a deer track, Brady followed it, telling the men he
would perhaps get a shot at it. He had gone but a few rods when he
saw the deer standing broadside to him. He raised his rifle and
attempted to fire ; but it flashed in the pan, and he had not a priming
of powder. He sat down, picked the touch-hole, and then started on.
After going a short distance the path made a bend, and he saw before
him a large Indian on horseback, with a white child before and its
iHother behind him on the horse, and a number of warriors marching
in the rear. His first impulse was to shoot the Indian on horseback;
but, as he raised his rifle, he observed the child's head to roll with the
motion of the horse. It was fast asleep, and tied to the Indian. He
stepped behind the root of a tree, and waited until he could shoot
without danger to the child or its mother.

When he considered the chance certain, he fired, and the Indian,

A Conflict at Brady's Bend. 429

child and mother, all fell from the horse. Brady called to his men,
with a voice that made the forest ring, to surround the Indians, and
give them a general fire. He sprang to the fallen Indian's powder horn,
but could not pull it off. Being dressed like an Indian, the woman
thought he was one, and said, "Why did you shoot your brother !" He
caught up the child, saying, " Jenny Stoop, I am Captain Brady ; fol-
low me, and I will secure you and your child." He caught her hand
in his, carrying the child under the other arm, and dashed into the brush.
Many guns were fired at him but no ball touched, and the Indians,
dreading an ambuscade, were glad to make off. The next day he ar-
rived at Fort M'Intosh, with the woman and her child. His men had
got there before him. They had heard his war whoop, and knew they
were Indians he had encountered, but having no ammunition, had taken
to their heels and run off.

A Conflict at "Brady's Bend" — His Adventure with Phouts.

The incursions of the Indians had become so frequent, and their out-
rages so alarming, that it was thought advisable to retaliate upon them
the injuries of war, and to carry into the country occupied by them the
same system with which they had visited the settlements. For this pur-
pose an adequate force was provided, under the immediate command of
Broadhead, the command of the advance guard of which was confided to
Captain Brady.

The troops proceeded up the Allegheny river, and had arrived near
the mouth of Redbank Creek, now known by the name of Brady's
Bend, without encountering an enemy. Brady and his rangers were
some distance in front of the main body, as their duty required, when
tliey suddenly discovered a war party of Indians approaching them.
Relying on the strength of the main body, and its ability to force the
Indians to retreat, and anticipating, as Napoleon did in the battle with
the Mamelukes, that, when driven back, they would return by the same
route they had advanced on, Brady permitted them to proceed without
hindrance, and hastened to seize a narrow pass, higlier up the river,
where the rocks, nearly perpendicular, approached the river, and a few
determined men might successfully combat superior numbers.

In a short time the Indians encountered the main body under Broad-
head, and were driven back. In full and swift retreat they pressed on
to gain the pass between the rocks and the river, but it was occupied
by Brady and his rangers, who failed not to pour into their flying col-
umns a most destructive fire. Many were killed on the bank, and many
more in the stream. Cornplanter, afterwards the distinguished Chief oi

430 Our Western Border.

the Senecas, but then a young man, saved himself by swimming. The
celebrated war chief of this tribe, Bald Eagle, was of the number slain
on this occasion.

After the savages had crossed the river, Brady was standing on the
bank wiping his rifle, when an Indian, exasperated at the unexpected
defeat and disgraceful retreat of his party, and supposing himself now
safe from the well-known and abhorred enemy of his race, commenced
abusing him in broken English, calling Brady and his men cowards,
squaws, and the like, and putting himself in such attitudes as he proba-
bly thought would be most expressive of his utter contempt of them.
When Brady had cleaned his rifle and loaded it, he sat down by an ash
sapling, and, taking sight about three feet above the Indian, fired. As
the rifle cracked, the Indian was seen to shrink a little and then limp
off. When the main army arrived, a canoe was manned, and Brady
and a few men crossed to where the Indian had been seen. They found
blood on the ground, and had followed it but a short distance when the
Indian jumped up, struck his breast and said, "I am a man." It was
Brady's wish to take him prisoner, without doing him further harm.
The Indian continuing to repeat, " I am a man" — "Yes," said an
Irishman, who was along, " By St. Patrick, you're a purty boy," and,
before Brady could arrest the blow, sunk his tomahawk into the Indian's
brain.

The army moved onward, and after destroying all the Indians' corn,
and ravaging the Kenjua flats, returned to Pittsburgh.

Shortly after Brady's return from Sandusky, he proposed to Phouts —
a Dutchman of uncommon strength and activity and well acquainted
with the woods — to go scouting up the Allegheny. Phouts jumped at
this, and, raising himself on tip-toe, and bringing his heels hard down
on the ground, by way of emphasis, said: "By dunder und lightnin',
Gaptain, I would rader go mit you as to any of de finest weddins in dis
guntry !"

Next morning they stealthily left the fort, traveled all day, and dis-
covered smoke, denoting Indians. Brady desired Phouts to stay still
while he would reconnoitre, but the irrepressible Dutchman refused,
saying, "No, by dunder, I will see him, too." So they crept up and
discovered only an old Indian by the fire. Phouts was for shooting
him at once, but Brady prevented, as he judged that those absent from
the camp were quite numerous. Next morning he fell upon a large
trail of Indians, about a day or more old, so Brady determined to go
back and take the old savage prisoner, and carry him back to Pitts-
burgh. The Indian was lying on his back, his faithful dog by his side.
Brady now silently crept forward, tomahawk in hand, until within a

Saves Himself by a Shrewd Device. 431

few feet of the Indian, when, uttering a fierce yell, he made a spring
like a panther and clutched the Indian hard and fast by the throat.
The old fellow struggled violently at first, but seeing he was held with
firm and tenacious grip, he gracefully submitted to the inevitable. The
dog behaved very civilly, uttering merely a few low growls. Phouts
now came up and the prisoner was tied. When the Indian found he
was treated kindly and was to be carried to Pittsburgh, he showed them
a canoe, and all embarked and encamped all night at the mouth of the
little run.

Next morning Brady started to get some "jerk" they had hung up,
leaving Phouts in charge of the prisoner. The Indian complained to
the Dutchman that the cords hurt his wrists very much, and he, being %
tender and kind-hearted fellow, took off the cords entirely, at which
the redskin appeared very grateful. While, however, Phouts was busy
with something else, the wary savage sprang to the tree against which
Phouts' gun stood leaning, and leveled at the Dutchman's breast. The
trigger was pulled, but fortunately the bullet whistled harmlessly past,
taking off part of Phouts' bullet pouch. One stroke of Phouts' toma-
hawk settled the old Indian forever, nearly severing the head from the
body.

Brady, hearing the report of the rifle and the yell of Phouts, hastily
ran back, where he found the Dutchman astride of the Indian's body,
calmly examining the rent in his own pouch. **In the name of
Heaven," said Brady, "what have you done?" " Yust look. Gab-
tain," answered the fearless Phouts, "vat dis d — d red rascal vas apout; "
holding up to view the hole in his belt. The Indian's scalp was then
taken off, they got into their canoe and returned safely to Pittsburgh.

Saves Himself by a Shrewd Device — A Wholesale Kill.

Beaver Valley and the region about Fort Mcintosh was one of Brady's
famous scouting ground^. In one of his trapping and hunting excur-
sions thereabouts, he was surprised and taken prisoner by a party of In-
dians who had closely watched his movements. To have shot or toma-
hawked him would have been but a small gratification to that of satiat-
ing their revenge by burning him at a slow fire, in the presence of all
the Indians of their village. He was therefore taken alive to their en-
campment, on the west bank of the Beaver river, about a mile and a
half from its mouth. After the usual exultations and rejoicings at the
capture of a noted enemy, and causing him to run the gauntlet, a fire
was prepared, near which Brady was placed after being stripped, and
with his arms unbound. Previous to tying him to the stake, a large

432 Our Western Border.

circle was formed around of Indian men, women and children, dancing
and yelling, and uttering ^all manner of threats and abuses that their
small knowledge of the English language could afford.

The prisoner looked on these preparations for death and on his sav-
age foe with a firm countenance and a steady eye, meeting all their
threats with Indian fortitude. In the midst of their dancing and rejoic-
ing, a squaw of one of their chiefs came near him, with a child in her
arms. Quick as thought, and with intuitive prescience, he snatched it
from her and threw it toward the fire. Horror stricken at the sudden
outrage, the Indians simultaneously rushed to rescue the infant from the
flames. In the midst of this confusion, Brady darted from the circle,
overturning all that came in his way, and rushed into the adjacent
thicket, with the Indians yelling at his heels. He ascended the steep
side of a hill amidst a shower of bullets, and darting down the opposite
declivity, secreted himself in the deep ravines and laurel thickets that
abound for several miles to the west. His knowledge of the country,
and wonderful activity, enabled him to elude his enemies, and reach the
settlements in safety. Another version of this event furnished us,
makes it the squaw herself that the Captain pushed on the fire.

From one of Brady's spies, who, in 1851, had not answered to the
roll-call of death — one who served with him three years, during the
most trying and eventful period of his life — De Hass has gathered
the following incident : On one of their scouting expeditions into the
Indian country, the spies, consisting at that time of sixteen men, en-
camped for the night at a place called " Big Shell Camp." Toward
morning, one of the guard heard the report of a gun, and immediately
communicating the fact to his commander, a change of position was
ordered. Leading his men to an elevated point, the Indian camp was
discovered almost beneath them. Cautiously advancing in the direc-
tion of the camp, six Indians were discovered standing around the fire,
while several others lay upon the ground, apparently asleep. Brady or-
dered his men to wrap themselves in their blankets and lie down, while
he kept watch. Two hours thus passed without anything material oc-
curring.

As day began to appear, Brady roused his men and posted them side
by side, himself at the end of the line. When all were in readiness,
the commander was to touch, with his elbow, the man who stood next
to him, and the communication was to pass successively to the farthest
end. The orders then were, the moment the last man was touched, he
should shoot, which was to be the signal for a general discharge. With
the first faint ray of light rose six Indians, and stood around the fire.
With breathless expectation the whites waited for the remainder to rise.

Curing a "Sick Gun." - 433

but failing, and apprehending a discovery, the Captain moved his el-
bow, and the next instant the wild woods rang with the shrill report of
the rifles of the spies. Five of the six Indians fell dead, but the sixtn,
screened behind a tree, escaped. The camp being large, it was deemed
unsafe to attack it further, and a retreat was immediately ordered.

Soon after the above occurrence, in returning from a similar expedi-
tion, and when about two miles from the mouth of Yellow Creek, at a
place admirably adapted for an ambuscade, a solitary Indian stepped
forward and fired upon the advancing company. Instantly, on firing,
he retreated toward a deep ravine, into which the savage hoped to lead
his pursuers. But Brady detected the trick, and, in a voice of thunder,
ordered his men to tree. No sooner had this been done, than the con-
cealed foe rushed forth in great numbers, and opened upon the whites
a perfect storm of leaden hail. The brave spies returned the fire wita
spirit and effect ; but as they were likely to be overpowered by superior
numbers, a retreat was ordered to the top of the hill, and thence con-
tinued until out of danger. The whites lost one man in this engage-
ment, and two wounded. The Indian loss is supposed to have been
about twenty, in killed and wounded.

Curing a "Sick Gun" — A Brace at a Single Shot

Captain Brady possessed all the elements of a brave and successful
scout. Like Marion, "he consulted with his men respectfully, heard
them patiently, weighed their suggestions, and silently made his owIj
conclusions. They knew his determination only by his actions." Brady
had but few superiors as a woodsman: he would strike out into the heart
of the wilderness, and, with no guide but the sun by day and the stars
by night, or, in their absence, then by such natural marks as the bark
and tops of trees, he would move on steadily in a direct line toward his
point of destination. He always avoided beaten paths and the borders
of streams, and never was known to leave his track behind him. In
this manner he eluded pursuit and defied detection. He was often
vainly hunted by his own men, and was more likely to find them than
they him.

When Brady was once out on a forest excursion with some friendly
Indians killing game for the Fort Pitt garrison, his tomahawk slippea
and severely wounded his knee, obliging him to camp out for some time
with the Indians. One of these, who had taken the name of Wilson,
Brady saw one evening coming home in a great hurry and kicking his
squaw. Without saying a word he then began to unbreech his gun
The squaw went away, and returned soon after with some roots, whicJi,
23

4J4 Our Western Border.

after washing clean, she put into a kettle to boil. While boiling, Wilson
corked up the muzzle of his gun and stuck the breech into the kettle,
and continued it there until the plug flew out of the muzzle. He then
took it out and put it into the stock. Brady, knowing the Indians were
verv "superstitious," did not speak to him until he saw him wiping h.s
gun. He then called to him, and asked what was the matter. Wilson
came to the Captain and said that his gun had been very sick, that she'
could not shoot; he had been just giving her a vomit, and she was now
well. Whether the vomit helped the gun or only strengthened Wilson's
nerves, the Captain could not tell, but he averred that Wilson killed ten
deer the next day.

Near Beaver, Pa., (formerly Fort Mcintosh,) exist three localities,
respectively called Brady's Run, Brady's Bath and Brady's Hill. The
following incident, furnished us, ended on the last. The Captain started
from Pittsburgh with a few picked men on a scout towards the Sandusky
villages. On their return they were hotly pursued, and all killed but
the leader. He succeeded in getting back as far as the hill now called
after him, not wounded, but nearly dead with fatigue. He knew well
he was being relentlessly tracked, and that if he did not resort to some
shrewd Indian trick, he would be lost. After cudgeling his brains awhile
he hit upon the following:

Selecting a large tree lately blown down, and having a very thick,
leafy end, he walked back very carefully in his tracks for a few hundred
yards, then turned about and again trod in his old steps as far as the
tree. This was to insure the Indians following him thither. He then
walked along the trunk and snugly ensconced himself among the dense
frondage at its end. Here he sat with rifle, specially loaded, all ready
for duty. He counted upon his pursuers tracking him that far, and
then, seeing no further trace of him, and it being at the end of a long
day's tramp, that they would squat on the tree in a line for consultation.
Nor was he disappointed. After he had been thus secreted for some
time, and was gaining a fine rest, three Indians, with eyes bent earth-
wards like nosing hounds, came up in hot pursuit. Coming to the tree,'
they closely examined for the trail beyond, but not finding any, they
were nonplused, and sat down to confab together.

The waiting scout now raised his long, black, unerring tube, drew a
careful bead for his line shot, when flash ! crack ! and down tumbled
one of his quarry dead and the other two wounded. With a silent
chuckle at the success of his wile, Brady leaped to the encounter with
clubbed rifle, and, after a brief struggle, succeeded in killing both sav-
ages. Quietly securing the whole three scalps, he made his way back
to the fort. They had to hunt in gangs who would take Brady.

The Lone Hunter's Revenge. 435

The Lone Hunter's Revenge — A Dread Holocaust.

At another time, about the close of the Revolution, Brady started
with two tried companions — Thomas Bevington and Benjamin Biggs —
from Fort Mcintosh to Fort Pitt. They debated for some time which
Bide of the Ohio they would take, but finally selected the northern,
or Logstown shore, along which ran the beaten Indian trail. Moving
rapidly forward they came to where Sewickley now stands, but where at
that time was only the solitary cabin of a hunter named Albert Gray —
one of that roving, dare-devil, wild-turkey breed, that must be always
a little in advance of outposts.

Upon approaching this cabin, Brady suddenly came upon "Indian
sign," and bidding his men crouch down, went ahead to reconnoitre.
In a short time he heard a noise to one side, and beheld Gray himself
coming along on horseback, with a deer laid across behind. Brady
being dressed and painted, as usual, like an Indian, had to wait till the
hunter was abreast, when he suddenly sprang forth and jerked Gray
from his horse, saying hurriedly, as the other offered fierce resistance,
"Don't strike; I am Captain Brady! for God's sake keep quiet!"
The twain now stealthily advanced, and to their horror saw the ruins of
Gray's little cabin smoking in the distance. It was as Brady feared.
The savages had been at their hellish work. Gray's feelings may be
imagined. Unrecking of the danger, he madly rushed forward, rifle in
hand, more cautiously followed by the ranger. The ruins were care-
fully examined, but finding no bodies, it was concluded that the whole
. family were made captive. Not an instant to be lost ! The retreating
trail was broad and fresh, denoting a large party of Indians. The two
lurking scouts were now rejoined, and an eager, anxious conference
followed. One advised to go to Fort Pitt and the other to Fort Mcin-
tosh, about equidistant, for aid, but Brady said, " Come I Follow
me!"

The pursuit was commenced at two P. M. Brady was a thorough
woodsman, and knew the "lay" of that country, with its ravines, points
and short cuts, better than the redskins themselves. Sure, by the tread
of the trail, that the marauders were making for Big Beaver ford, he so
shaped his course as to intercept, or, failing in that, to overtake them
at this pomt. Right as a trivet; for on approaching the river he found
their plain trail, making, as Brady supposed, for a wild, secluded glen
through which a stream, now known as Brady's Run, brawled its devi-
ous way.

A close inspection and study of the traces indicated a party of at

436 Our Western Border.

least a dozen. The odds were very large, but the anguish and impa-
tience of the bereaved husband and father were so great that a sudden
night attack was resolved upon. Secreting themselves, therefore, they
patiently bided their time until dusk, when, crossing the Beaver, they
entered the savage and sequestered ravine on the other side, and soon
descried — right beside a famous spring — the camp fire of the cruel kid-
nappers. The unrecking Indians were at their evening meal, the cap-
tives— among whom was a strange woman and two children beside
Gray's — sitting apart by themselves. The sight of his wife and chil-
dren made Gray's heart thump, and he was like a bloodhound held in
leash. But Brady sternly rebuked his impatience, and firmly restrained
him. Their only chance for success was to wait until the reds were
asleep. If evil had been intended to the captives, it would have been
inflicted before that. They must trust only to knife and tomahawk,
and must all crawl to the side of the sleeping savages, each man select-
ing his victim.

And now the fire has nearly died out, and the Indian camp is at rest.
No watch dog there to betray the four scouts, who, making no more
noise than their own shadows, draw themselves, like so many serpents,
slowly but surely forward, A branch suddenly snaps beneath the knee
of Biggs ! Not much of a noise, but loud and distinct enough
to cause one of the swarthy sons of the forest to spring to a sitting po-
sition, and — with head bent in direction of the alarm, and with ear in-
tensely attent to the slightest sound — to listen, listen, listen. The four
avengers lay prone on the grass, their hands on their knife handles and
their hearts beating like muffled drums. The strain was truly dread-
ful, but perfect silence is maintained — no sound but the faint chirp of
a wood cricket — so delicate that scarce could anything live between it
and silence.

The dusky statue, his suspicions at length lulled, gives the dying
embers a stir, and, with a sleepy yawn, sinks again to slumber. He has
thus lighted his own and his companions' way to death, for when all was
again quiet, a low cluck from Brady gives the signal of advance.
Noiselessly as rattlers, each of the four drags himself alongside of a
sleepfng savage, a tomahawk in each right hand and a knife between the
teeth. The four gleaming instruments of vengeance are now suspended
above the unconscious sleepers, and at another low cluck from Brady,
a hail of murderous blows descends.

What a contrast how ! the whole camp is a scene of the direst confu-
sion and alarm. The remaining savages leap to their feet in a vain en-
deavor to escape the pursuing blades. Every one is sooner or later dis-
patched. The captives at first fled in alarm, but finding preservers at

Tracked by a Dog. 437

hand, soon returned and were restored to their friends. The spring by
tlie side of which the Indians camped was afterwards, in memory of
tliis swift retribution and dreadful tragedy, called the "Bloody Spring."

Tracked by a Dog — An Indian Camp Attacked.

Once on returning from a scout, Brady was keeping a sharp lookout
in expectation of being trailed, and taking every precaution to avoid
pursuit, such as keeping on the driest ridges and walking on logs when-
ever they suited his course, he found he was followed by Indians. PlJs
practiced eye would occasionally discover in the distance, an Indian
hopping to or from a tree, or other screen, and advancing on his trail
After being satisfied of the fact, he stated it to his men and told them
no Indian could thus pursue him, after the precautions he had taken,
without having a dog on his track. "I will stop," said Brady, "and
shoot the dog and then we can get along better." He selected the root
of a tall chestnut tree which had fallen westward, for his place of am-
bush. He walked from the west end of the tree or log to the east, and
sat down in the pit made by the raising of the roots. He had not been
long there when a small slut mounted the log at the west end and with
her nose to the trunk approached him. Close behind her followed a
plumed warrior. Brady had his choice. He preferred shooting the
slut, which he did; she rolled off the log stone dead, and the warrior,
with a loud whoop, sprang into the woods and disappeared. He was
followed no further.

On another occasion the Indians had made a destructive raid upon
the Sewickley settlement and the Fort Pitt soldiers were out to chastise
them. Brady took five men and his pet Indian and also went out, but
in an entirely different direction. He crossed the Allegheny and pro-
ceeded straight up that stream, rightly conjecturing that the invaders
must have descended it in canoes. He, therefore, carefully examined
the mouths of all the little streams on his way, and when opposite to the
Mahoning, his sagacity was rewarded, for there lay the canoes drawn up
to the bank. He instantly retreated down the river, and at night made
a raft and crossed to the other side. He then proceeded up to the
creek, and found that the Indians had in the meantime crossed it, as the
canoes were now on the other side.

The country at the mouth of the Mahoning being rough and the
stream high, the current was very rapid, and it was not until after sev-
eral ineffectual attempts, that the Brady party crossed, two or three
miles from the mouth. Then they made a fire, dried their clothes, in-
spected their arms, and moved towards the Indian camp, which was on

433 Our Western Border.

the second bank of the river. Brady placed his men at some distance
on the lower bank. The Indians had captured a stallion, which they
had fettered and turned to pasture on the lower bank. One of them,
probably the owner, came down to him frequently, and troubled our
party greatly. The horse, too, seemed desirous to keep with them, and
it required considerable circumspection to avoid all intercourse with
either. Brady became so provoked that he strongly desired to kill the
Indian, but his calmer judgment prevented this, as likely to hazard a
more important achievement.

Brady being desirous to ascertain the numbers of the Indians and the
position of the guns, crept up so close that the pet Indian would accom-
])any him no further. While he was thus watching, an Indian rose and
came so close to him that he could have touched him with his foot.
However, he discovered nothing, and returned to his blanket and was
soon asleep.

Brady returned to his men and posted them, and in silence they
awaited the light. When it appeared, the Indians arose and stood
around their fires. When the signal was given, seven rifles cracked and
five Indians fell dead. Brady gave his well-known war cry, and the
party charged and secured all the guns. The remaining Indians in-
stantly fled. One was pursued by the trace of his blood, but soon he
seemed to have succeeded in staunching this. The pet Indian then gave
the cry of a young wolf, which was answered by the wounded man, and
the pursuit was renewed. A second time the wolf cry was given and
answered, and the pursuit continued into a " wind-fall."

Here the savage must have seen his pursuers, for he answered no
more; but Brady, three weeks afterwards, found his body. Taking the
horse and the plunder, the party returned to Pittsburgh, most of them
descending in the Indian canoes. Three days after their return, the
first detachment of seekers came in. They reported that they had fol-
lowed the Indians closely, but that the latter had escaped in their
<:anoes.

Brady told a Mr. Sumerall that he once started out alone from Wheel-
ing for the purpose of bringing in prisoners, not scalps. He was gone
over two weeks and returned with five prisoners — an Indian and squaw,
one boy and girl and a pappoose. He proceeded to two villages and se-
creted himself in a swamp. He saw this family enter into a cabin lying
on the outskirts of the village, and that night he broke open the door,
told them who he was and that if they made one murmur he would slay
them all. The warrior had heard of Brady and knew he would do as
he said.

Brady told them if they would go peaceably with him, he would take

Brady's Leap Over the Cuyahoga River. 43H

them safely. He made the squ:vw carry the pappoose and drove the
whole before him, traveling only by night. He was, as he expected to
be, pursued, but he had selected his resting places so that he could reach
them by wading up or down a stream to them, and as " water leaves no
trail," he thus threw his pursuers off the track. Sumerall described to
a Mr. Wadsworth the position of the two villages so accurately, that
several years after the latter was traveling through that part of Ohio, and
identified them as Greentown and Jerometown, between Mansfield and
VVooster.

«* Brady's Leap" Over the Cuyahoga River.

Brady's famed leap of twenty-five odd feet has been by many consid-
ered a myth of romance, and by others has been located on Slippery
Rock Creek, or in Beaver county, Pa., but we have received so much
detailed information about this asserted leap, that we not only feel cer-
tain it did take place, but that it was made by Brady over the Cuyahoga
river.

General L. V. Bierce, the aged and honored antiquarian of Akron,
Ohio, writes us that there can be no doubt whatever not only as to the
fact, but also as to the exact locality where it occurred. The place, he
writes, has ever since borne the name of "Brady's Leap." The little
lake in which he afterwards concealed himself, also bears to this day the
name of Brady's Lake. The tradition of his fight with the savages on
the south shore of that same lake, has been confirmed by skulls and a
sword having been found there; and, moreover, he heard the story narra-
ted by John Jacobs, Henry Stough and John Haymaker, all friends of
Brady, and who asserted they had it from his own mouth. Haymaker
and Wadsworth both measured the stream where the leap was made, and
found it twenty-five feet across and some thirty feet above the water.
Brady jumped from the west to the east side and caught the bushes on
the steep, rocky cliff, slipping down some three or four feet before he
recovered himself.

But let us briefly and in substance narrate the story as told by Brady
himself to Sumerall and by him to F. Wadsworth. There is a small
lake in Portage county, Ohio, which still retains the name of Brady's
I^ake, and on the south side of which Brady had a severe battle. He
had collected a company of twenty for a scout in the Sandusky country,
but was waylaid by a much superior force at this lake, and his whole
company cut off but himself and one more. Many years after, Wads-
worth and Haymaker hunted up the precise locality, and by scraping
away the earth and leaves, found many skulls and human bones and a
basket-hilted sword.

440 Our Western Border.

At another time — the same occasion, according to some, when he threw
either the chief's squaw or her child upon tlie fire built for himself—
Brady was hotly pursued from Sandusky for about a hundred miles.
When he arrived near the Cuyahoga, (which stream he intended crossing
at the "Standing Stone,") he found he was headed on all sides. He
reached the stream at the rocky gorge where the contracted current
rushes through, as it were, a narrow fissure in the rocks. Finding him-
self thus hemmed in, Brady summoned all his energies for the mighty
leap, and, as stated, caught by the bushes on the other side. When the
pursuing savages saw the flying jump, they stood astonished, and then
set up a terrific yell, three or four of them firing at him and wounding
him in the leg.

Very soon he found the Indians had crossed the river at the "Standing
Stone," and were again in hot pursuit. When he arrived at the lake,
finding the savages rapidly gaining on him, and his wound greatly
troubling him, he concluded that unless he could secrete himself some-
where, he was gone. Plunging into the water, he made his way to a
place that was covered with lily pads or pond lilies. Fortunately he
found that he could keep his face under water by breathing through the
hollow stem of a weed. The Indians were not long after him. Fol-
lowing his bloody trail, they tracked him into the water and made mi-
nute search for him, but concluding that — severely wounded as he was —
he had preferred drowning himself to losing his life and scalp at their
hands, they finally gave up the search. Brady heard the Indians hunt-
ing around all that day and part of the night, and then made good his
escape.

But Judge Moses Hampton, of Pittsburgh, gives us still other inform-
ation, gathered not only from a personal visit to the locality of the leap,
but from details derived from his father over fifty years ago. He writes
us that the place where Brady leaped is at the Franklin Mills, Portage
county, Ohio, within two miles of the Pittsburgh and Cleveland Rail-
road. While there he was informed that the distance leaped was twen-
ly-seven feet six inches. After the search for Brady had been aban-
doned by the Indians, they returned to make a more careful survey of
the spot of this extraordinary leap.

"After carefully contemplating the whole scene," continues the
Judge, "and being unwilling to admit (and this is a well-known trait
of Indian character) that any white man can excel an Indian in feats
of activity, they gradually came to the conclusion that he was not a
man, but a turkey, and flew across, saying, 'he no man, he turkey; he
flew,' and in order to commemorate that fact, they carved on a rock
close by a rude representation of a turkey's foot. This remained an

Brady's Trial. 441

object of curiosity to hundreds till the Summer of '56, when, being at
the place, and finding the rock was about to be quarried, I obtained
permission to have that part of the rock containing the carving of this
turkey's foot cut out, which I brought home, and until recently held in
my possession."

Brady's Trial — Marriage to Drustlla Sweartngen — His Death.

At one time Brady had to stand a trial at Pittsburgh for the killing,
in time of peace, of a gang of redskins. It was proved by him that
these savages had been on a plundering and scalping raid among the
Chartiers settlements, and that he, selecting som^ of his tried followers,
had m.ade a rapid pursuit, and waylaid them at the Ohio river crossing
near Beaver, thus justifying the attack as nothing but a swift punishment
for flagrant acts of hostilities on the part of the savages. The trial
created great excitement at the time, and was ably argued. Public senti-
ment— which had been lately greatly excited by savage marauds — was
overwhelmingly in favor of Brady, and he was triumphantly acquitted.

One of the minor incidents of the trial may be noticed, as exhibiting
an Indian's idea of the paramount claims of friendship. Guyasutha,
the famed Mingo Chief, was one of the witnesses for Brady, and swore
\rery extravagantly in his favor — in fact, far more than Brady wanted.
After the session was over, the bystanders gathered about the chief and
twitted him considerably for his reckless swearing. Drawing himself
up with great dignity, and striking his brawny breast, the old chief
gave this significant reply, " Why me no swear vely hard? Guyasutha
vely big friend to Captain Blady."

Of Brady's private and social life it is very difficult to gather reliable
particulars. About all these old Indian fighters there was so much of
mystery and romance, and the feats attributed to them come to us with
such changes of locality and incident, that it is hard to sift the true
from the false. We have tried, in every instance, to get as near
facts as possible, rejecting all that is doubtful or improbable.
Lyman C. Draper, who is excellent authority, writes us that Brady
married, about the year 1 786, Miss Drusilla Swearingen, daughter of
C!aptain Van Swearingen — " Indian Van," he was called on the border
—a gallant officer in General Morgan's Rifle Corps. Drusilla was a
v^ery gentle and beautiful lady, and was sent East for her education.
After the Revolution Captain Swearingen forted and settled where
Wellsburg, West Va., now stands.

It is a tradition that the gentle Drusilla was first wooed by Dr. Brad-
ford, of Whiskey Insurrection notoriety, but Brady returned from a

442 Our Western Border.

long trip to Kentucky just in time to secure the coveted prize. Her
father objected at first to his daughter's marrying Brady, on account of
his roving and dangerous scout's hfe, but afterwards gave his consent.
There was some foundation for this objection, for we have learned that
the fond and lovely wife suffered untold miseries when her reckless hus-
band was absent on distant scouts longer than the time agreed on for
return. Dr. Darby once witnessed the meeting between husband and
wife on such an occasion and states it as having been very affecting.

The exact time of Captain Brady's death we have not yet been able
to fix definitely. It was probably somewhere near the year 1800.
Joseph Quigley, who lived in the Chartiers settlement, which Brady
made his headquarters during a large portion of his bachelor life, says
that he frequently saw Brady at his father's house, and that he looked
much older than he really was. He walked quite lame from the wound
received in his leg at the time he leaped the Cuyahoga river. He was
also then pretty deaf, which he attributed to lying so long in the lake
where he was chased after he made his famous leap. Quigley says that
it was John Dillow and a man by the name of Stoup or Sprott, who
were with Brady on the Indian excursion terminated by the leap, and
that when he approached the lake he swam out to a log, surrounded by
pond lilies and secreted himself beneath, but kept his face just above
water.

Brady spent the last years of his life at West Liberty, West Va.,
where he di^i. " After Hfe's fitful fever he sleeps well." He left two
sons, both now dead. His wife subsequently married again, moved to
Tyler county, Va., and lived to a good old age.

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