p480-016 The Mingo Chief.

[figure description] Page 015.[end figure description]

We talk of the ferocity, the vindictiveness, the treachery,
and the cruelty of the native savage; and, painting him
in the darkest colors, tell how, when his hunting grounds
covered the sites of our now proudest cities, he was wont
to steal down upon a few harmless whites, our forefathers,
and butcher them in cold blood, sparing neither sex nor
age, except for a painful captivity, to end perhaps in
the most demoniac tortures; and we dwell upon the
theme, till our little innocent children shudder and creep
close to our sides, and look fearfully around them, and
perhaps wonder how the good God, of whom they have
also heard us speak, could ever have permitted such human
monsters to encumber His fair and beautiful earth. But
do we reverse the medal and show the picture which
impartial Truth has stamped upon the other side—and
which, in a great measure, stands as a cause to the opposite
effect—stands as a cause for savage ferocity, vindictiveness,
treachery and cruelty? Do we tell our young
and eager listeners that the poor Indian, living up to the

[figure description] Page 016.[end figure description]

light he had, and not unfrequently beyond it, knew no
better than to turn, like the worm when trampled upon,
and bite the foot that crushed him? That we had taken
the land of his father's graves and driven him from his
birthright hunting grounds? That we had stolen his cattle,
robbed him of his food, destroyed his growing fields,
burned his wigwams, and murdered his brothers, fathers,
wives and little ones, besides instigating tribe to war
against tribe—and that, knowing nothing of the Christian
code, to return good for evil, he fulfilled the law of his
nature and education in taking his “great revenge” upon
any of the pale-faced race he should chance to meet? No!
we seldom show this side of the medal—for the natural
inquiry of the innocent listener might contain an unpleasant
rebuke:

“Father, were we all savages together then?”

But I have a story to tell. Listen!

More than eighty years ago, when the great West was a
howling wilderness, and mighty, unbroken forests stretched
away for hundreds of miles, and covered the broad, fertile
lands of Western Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Kentucky,
and so onward to the vast prairies beyond the
Father of Rivers, the unrivalled Mississippi—forests that
threw twilight over the gliding, purling, or rushing
streams, and gave wild freedom to the bear, the buffalo,
the panther, catamount, and deer—more than eighty years

[figure description] Page 017.[end figure description]

ago, I say, on a fine, pleasant spring day, a party of
border hunters were encamped upon the left bank of the
Ohio, above the present site of Wheeling, which then
boasted only a single trading fort, and was considered the
extreme frontier.

This party numbered more than a dozen strong, hardy,
bronze-visaged men, dressed in true border fashion, with
green hunting frocks, caps, buckskin trowsers, leggings
and moccasins, and they were armed with rifles, tomahawks,
and knives. They had built themselves a temporary
cabin, and had fished and hunted in the vicinity for
several days; and furs, and game, and articles of traffic were
strewn carelessly about their cabin, which had been erected
rather for the purpose of protecting their goods and
weapons from the weather than for sheltering themselves,
for your true borderer likes to sleep in the open air.
The party was about to break up camp and return to the
eastward; and some were packing their furs and skins, and
some were cleaning their rifles, and some were mending
their torn garments, and some were lounging idly about,
smoking and drinking, and stretching their huge limbs, and
wishing for some keen excitement to rouse their sluggish
natures.

The leader of this party—a man of fair proportions, but
with low brow, bushy hair, a snaky eye, and a red, rough,
ferocious-looking countenance—was standing apart from

[figure description] Page 018.[end figure description]

the others, leaning upon his rifle, thinking wicked thoughts
and planning wicked deeds. Suddenly he wheeled about,
and drawing near his men, said, in a hard, harsh voice:

“Boy's, this here's a — bad business, going back without
nary scalp. What'll the people think of us? I tell
you, boys, we must raise some red-nigger top-knots, or our
reputation 'll spile, by —!”

“Thar's Injuns 'tother side the river,” replied a big,
double-fisted, coarse-featured fellow, who was smoking his
pipe, with his back braced against a huge sycamore;
“'spose you jest go over, Cap, and take what you want!”

“It moughten't be so easy gitting back,” replied the
first speaker; “and I hain't no incline to take a scalp
at the risk of mine. If we could only get a few of the—
heathen over here!”

“Why, so you can, Cap, if you'll only keep quiet, for
there comes a few now,” answered the other, taking his
corn-cob pipe from his mouth, and pointing with the stem
across the river to a canoe filled with Indians.

“By —! Sam!” cried the first speaker, using an oath
that we will not repeat, “I hope they'll come across. If
they do, we'll have fun. I'll go down and beckon 'em
over.”

And hastening down to the water's edge, the leader of
the whites made friendly signs to the Indians in the canoe,
inviting them to cross the river to his camp.

[figure description] Page 019.[end figure description]

And the Indians came across, without apparent fear or
hesitation—five men, and one woman with an infant in her
arms. Two of the men, one quite advanced in years, were
fine, athletic, noble looking specimens of humanity; and
the woman, the daughter of one and the sister of the
other, was more than usually comely, and had a soft, dark
eye, a mild, pleasant-looking countenance, and a sweet,
musical voice. All landed and shook hands with the
leader of the whites, who seemed greatly pleased to meet
with them, and invited them up to his cabin to take a
drink. Three of the Indians readily accepted the invitation;
but the three we have mentioned declined—
the venerable head of the party observing, with a smile:

“Rum no good for Injun—make drunk come. Me buy
tobac—tobac good for smoke.”

And while three of the party entered the cabin and
drank the liquor proffered them, the other three, including
the woman with the infant, remained outside, and opened
a trade-with the leader of the whites, for tobacco and
powder, paying for the same in the current coin of the
frontier, pelts and furs, of which they had on hand a
goodly stock.

An hour passed away in friendly barter, and then the
old man signified his intention of recrossing the river.
He stepped into the cabin, and found three of his party

[figure description] Page 020.[end figure description]

lying on the ground, and so much intoxicated as not to be
conscious of any thing going on around them.

“Ah! me said rum bad for poor Injun!” observed the
old warrior; “him take Injun sense, and make him worse
as beast.”

He called his son to him, said something in his native
tongue, and the two were about to begin to remove their
helpless comrades, when the leader of the whites, who had
been holding a short consultation with his men, came in
and said:

“Afore you go, my boys, I want to see you shoot at a
mark. I hear you're some at a shot.”

“Me hit dollar,” returned the old man, with gratified
vanity.

“Come on—we've put up the mark—and if you hit it,
I'll give you a pound of tobacco; and if you don't, you're
to give me a deer skin.”

The old warrior and his son went out and looked at the
mark, and the former said:

“Me bet.”

“And will you try, too?” said the leader of the whites
to the son of the Indian sage.

“Me bet,” was the quiet answer.

“Fire away, then—you shoot first.”

The son said something to his father, the old warrior

[figure description] Page 021.[end figure description]

nodded, and the young man, drawing himself up and
taking deliberate aim, fired.

“Hit, by —!” said the white leader, as the white
mark, the size of a dollar, showed a hole near its centre.
“A — good shot! Come, old man, let's see what you
can do!”

“Me beat him,” said the father, with a smile.

He raised his rifle slowly, brought it to a level, fired, and
drove the pin through the centre.

“Now, boys,” said the white ruffian, “all right, give 'em
h—ll!”

And at the word he raised his own rifle and shot the
old man through the brain, who fell back dead; and the
next instant his son fell upon him, a ghastly corpse,
pierced by four bullets from as many rifles in the hands
of the whites. The poor woman with the infant in her
arms, who was standing apart from the crowd, looking
quietly on, uttered a shriek of horror on seeing her father
and brother thus inhumanly butchered, and, clasping her
offspring to her bosom, ran swiftly toward the river. But
crack went some half a dozen rifles, and she fell to the
earth, mortally wounded, but not dead. The first who
reached her was the leader of the whites, who, grasping
her infant roughly, raised his tomahawk to give the poor
innocent mother the finishing blow.

[figure description] Page 022.[end figure description]

“Spare child!” shrieked the dying mother, with a look
of affectionate, pleading anguish, that would have melted
the heart of a stone. “Child got white fader—child one
of you—spare poor child!”

She said no more, for the hatchet of the white fiend at
that instant crashed through her brain and set her spirit
free, to roam the hunting-grounds of her faith with the
spirits of her father and brother.

“Give me the child, Dan,” said the brother of the white
leader, who reached his side just as he was about to dash
out its brains. “I reckon I know its father, and we'll
make it pay.”

The bloody ruffian gave him the infant, accompanied
with a savage oath; and whipping out his knife, he bent
over the dead mother and tore off her scalp. The whole
work of butchery was now complete; for while these
events were taking place outside the cabin, another fiend
within had chopped to pieces the drunken Indians, and
now came swaggering forth, shaking three gory scalps in
triumph.

“Now, boys,” said the white leader, “we've got a good
show, and let's make clean tracks afore some other —
red-niggers get arter our hair.”

And hastily they stripped the dead of every thing of
value, broke up their camp, and departed for the interior
settlements, taking the poor motherless infant with them.

[figure description] Page 023.[end figure description]

Meantime, the Indians on the other side of the river,
being witnesses of the horrible massacre, hurried into their
only remaining canoe, and rowed swiftly down the Ohio.
On passing the fort at Wheeling they were espied, and
chase was given by a party of whites. Far below they
were overtaken, a short fight ensued, and another of their
party was killed—the others making their escape through
the deep dark forests.

While the bloody events we have recorded were taking
place on the Ohio, a Grand Council of chiefs and warriors
was convened at the Indian town in the interior of what is
now the State of Ohio. They were deliberating upon the
propriety of digging up the hatchet and going to war
against the whites, who were fast encroaching upon their
homes and hunting-grounds, and, judging from precedents,
would soon require them to leave again for the still Far
West. Most of the chiefs were for war; but there was
one brave and eloquent man among them, who spoke for
peace, and spoke with such reason, power and pathos, that
he carried his point over strong opposition, and the pipe
of peace was smoked in the Council House of the assembled
nations.

This brave and eloquent chief had ever raised his voice
for peace between the white man and the red, because, as

[figure description] Page 024.[end figure description]

he said, the same Great Spirit had made them all, and
designed them to be brothers; and the earth was large
enough, and rich enough, in forest, streams, and game, to
give them all shelter, food, and happy homes.

His earnest eloquence conquered the fiery war spirit of
his fierce comrades, and he was rejoicing in his peaceful
triumph, when lo! a poor Indian, half dead with hunger
and fatigue, appeared before him, and told him how his
father, brother and sister had been brutally butchered by
his pale-faced friends. Instantly the dark eye of this
Chief of Peace gathered a storm of fire and shot forth
lightning glances of anger, and his mighty voice, before
the reassembled chiefs and warriors of many nations, was
soon heard thundering:

“War! war! war!—war upon the pale-faces!—war
upon the Long Knives—death to all of either sex and
every age!”

And the cry of “War! war! war!—death to the pale-faces!—
death to the Long Knives!” was echoed and reechoed,
with wild, savage shouts, by many hundreds of
fiercely painted, half-naked, savage men.

And down upon the unprotected frontiers poured a
fierce, dusky horde of human beings, whose rallying warcry
was,

“Revenge! Revenge!”

And old men and infants, and young men and maidens,

[figure description] Page 025.[end figure description]

and men in the prime of life, and wives and mothers, were
roused at the midnight hour by those yells of vengeance,
and were butchered in their cabins, scalped on their
hearthstones, and burned with their burning homes.

“I will have ten scalps for every kin of mine slain!” said
that Chief of Blood, so lately a Chief of Peace.

And ere the war, so terribly and suddenly begun, was
closed by a treaty of peace, thirty human scalps, thirty
pale-fale scalps, hung dangling at his gory belt.

This war is known in history as Lord Dunmore's War.

That man of peace, roused to such bloody deeds by the
aggressions of his white brothers, was the world-renowned
Logan, the Mingo Chief!

The leader of the party who butchered his relatives,
was Daniel Greathouse.

The leader of the party who sallied from the fort at
Wheeling, and followed and slew one of the flying fugitives,
was Captain Cresap.

Logan always supposed it was Cresap who murdered
his relatives; and in his celebrated speech, sent to Lord
Dunmore at the treaty of peace—for he proudly refused to
appear in person—he mentions him as the cause of the
war. We quote this speech, delivered at old Chillicothe
town, and sent to Governor Dunmore at Camp Charlotte,
as one of the finest specimens of eloquence extant.

“I appeal to any white man to say if ever he entered

[figure description] Page 026.[end figure description]

Logan's cabin hungry and I gave him not meat—if ever
he came cold or naked and I gave him not clothing!

“During the course of the last long and bloody war,
Logan remained in his tent, an advocate for peace. Nay,
such was my love for the whites, that those of my own
country pointed at me as they passed, and said, `Logan is
the friend of white men.' I had even thought to live with
you, but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap, the
last spring, in cool blood, and unprovoked, cut off all the
relatives of Logan, not sparing even my women and
children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins
of any human creature. This called on me for revenge.
I have sought it. I have killed many. I have fully
glutted my vengeance. For my country, I rejoice at the
beams of peace. Yet do not harbor the thought that
mine is the joy of fear! Logan never felt fear. He will
not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to
mourn for Logan? Not one.”

Reader, you who are now sitting in judgment upon the
deeds of the past, I challenge you to say that the white
man was always the Christian and the red man always the
fiend!

p480-028 A Kentucky Hero.

[figure description] Page 027.[end figure description]

It was a wild, fearful scene—a scene of carnage and
destruction. Loud shrieks of pain, and yells of rage,
defiance, and triumph, commingled with reports of musketry,
and here and there the clashing of steel, resounded
on every hand.

A small, but gallant, band of Kentuckians, were completely
surrounded by an overpowering horde of dusky
savages, and were fighting desperately while falling victims
to superior numbers—fighting for the hope of retreat,
but with none of victory.

The scene was partly in an open glade, and partly in a
surrounding forest, not far from the banks of the Ohio, in
what is now the State of Indiana, but which was then an
unapportioned and unsettled wilderness.

Over this open glade were hurrying hundreds of human
beings—some mounted and some on foot—some white, and
dressed in the rough costume of the borders—but more
of the dusky hue, half naked and hideously painted—and

[figure description] Page 028.[end figure description]

all with passions excited to the fierce, ungovernable fury
of fighting wild beasts.

Many a riderless horse went snorting and bounding
away; while the ground was strewed with the dead and
dying—the latter soon ceasing from the agonies of life,
as the knife or tomahawk of either foe made his work sure.
There were old men and youths, and men in the prime of
manhood, all doing their duty bravely, and bearing down
the foe in close encounter, or being themselves borne down
to a bloody end.

Foremost among the Kentuckians, in the very hottest of
the fight, more desperate even than the oldest veterans,
rode a tall, fine-looking youth, who charged upon the foe
without regard to numbers or peril—and fast they fell
beneath the almost superhuman strength of his single arm.
Several times his horse was seized by the bit, and borne
back almost upon its haunches, while the uplifted tomahawk
was aimed at the head of the rider; but with the quickness
of thought, and the strength of a Hercules, the blows were
parried right and left, and returned with a precision that
laid his opposers bleeding beneath the feet of the fiery
animal, which literally trampled them into the dust, as the
undaunted youth still urged him on to new scenes of peril
and victory.

“On, comrades!” he shouted—and his loud, shrill voice
was heard above the din of battle. “On, for the honor of

[figure description] Page 029.[end figure description]

old Kentucky! Though surrounded by four times our
number, we are not yet defeated; and will not be while
there is an arm left to strike!”

Almost as he spoke, a shower of balls was poured in
upon him, some cutting his clothes, some wounding him
seriously, while his gallant steed sunk under him. Springing
from the back of the falling beast, into the very midst
of his dusky foes, this noble youth, wounded and bleeding
though he was, still laid about him with desperation, the
balls whistling around him fearfully and a dozen arms
raised for his destruction.

Recklessly and desperately, however, alone and unaided,
he continued to fight his way through his savage foes,
back to the main body of his friends, where he arrived just
as the order came for retreat.

As several, who were mounted, wheeled their horses to
obey this welcome command, our hero dashed suddenly
in among them, and, seizing the bits of two animals, one
in either hand, he fairly brought them round, and so
quickly as almost to throw their riders, at the same time
shouting:

“For shame! for shame! who dares retreat—by any
order—by any command—and leave our wounded comrades
to the vengeance of our foes! Bear back, men—
if you be men—and let us bring off our companions with
honor, or perish with them!”

[figure description] Page 030.[end figure description]

But his valiant call was unheeded by those who thought
only of saving their own lives; and the moment the youth
released his hold of their bridles, they dashed swiftly
away.

“My curses go with you, for pusillanimous cowards!”
he shouted after them; and then discovering another party
on foot, as eagerly retreating also, he threw himself in
before them, and exclaimed:

“Hold! I command you, by every feeling of honor, to
turn back and save the lives of our wounded friends!”

“Out of my way, boy!” said a tall, strapping fellow, as
he pushed eagerly forward to pass the youth: “you're not
our captain! Haven't you heard the order for retreat?
and don't you know, if you stand here a minute, you'll be
butchered and scalped by the bloody varmints around,
who've hemmed us in?”

“Yes! yes!” cried most of the rest; “Joe Hinkins says
right!”

“We'll all be killed if we stop here!” said one.

“Turn back, Bill, and don't make a fool of yourself!”
cried another.

“If we'd attempt to save the wounded, we'd purty soon
want somebody to save us!” put in a third.

“There, boys—the red devils are a-coming like mad!”
shouted a fourth.

With this they all set up cries of alarm, and plunged

[figure description] Page 031.[end figure description]

into the nearest thicket, where they met the very doom
they were seeking to avoid—for there a considerable body
of Indians fell upon them, and, gaining an advantage
through their surprise and terror, tomahawked and scalped
them to a man.

With a cheek red with shame, our young hero now
darted forward and intercepted still another party, who
had likewise begun their flight—and this time his appeal
was listened to. Turning back, they stopped a small
mounted party; and getting them to dismount, they began
to pick up the wounded wherever they could find
them, and place them upon the horses—which, as fast as
loaded, they dispatched with a small escort toward the
Ohio, nearly half a mile distant—the youth still exerting
himself to cheer all parties.

While thus engaged in their work of mercy, a body of
Indians, about twice their number, came rushing down
upon them; and another terrible encounter took place;
during which the youth was struck by some four or five
more balls—one shattering his left arm, three inflicting
flesh-wounds upon different parts of his body, but none of
them, fortunately, touching a vital part.

Finding the victory not so easy as they expected, several
of their number having either been killed or wounded in
this new encounter, the assailing Indians suddenly drew
back from our dauntless little band, and set off in pursuit

[figure description] Page 032.[end figure description]

of those who, judging from the eagerness of their flight,
would not be likely to make so desperate a stand.

“Three cheers for us, comrades!” cried the youth.

Three cheers were accordingly given, with hearty good
will; and then they recommenced gathering up their
wounded friends, there being now several of their own
immediate party to be assisted likewise.

In his different encounters thus far, our young hero had
broken every weapon—his rifle, knife, and tomahawk—
and he now proceeded to re-arm himself. Having found
and thrust two weapons into his belt, he picked up a rifle,
and, holding it between his knees, his left arm hanging
useless by his side, he coolly proceeded to load it with
his right, all the while speaking encouragingly to those
around him. By the time this was completed, his companions
were ready to set out for the river; but just as
they were about to depart, a voice from another quarter of
the field cried out:

“Save me! save me! For the love of God, save me!”

“I know that voice,” said the youth; “it is a brave
fellow who calls on us; and we must save him, at all
hazards!”

“I fear it's more than we can do to save ourselves,”
returned one; “the cursed Indians are at work all around
us; and if we escape as it is, it'll be a miracle.”

“Save me!” called out the voice again; “in humanity's

[figure description] Page 033.[end figure description]

name, don't let the savages butcher and scalp me! If I've
got to die, I want to die in Old Kentucky, among my
friends.”

This was an appeal hard to be resisted by brave men
with feeling hearts; but it might have been resisted,
nevertheless, and the poor fellow been left to his fate, had
it not been for the gallant youth, who declared he would
die on the field sooner than leave a companion in such a
strait.

On reaching the spot where the poor fellow lay, they
found him with one leg and one arm broken, and a serious
wound in his breast. Lifting him up carefully, they
hastily bore him to the only horse which was not yet
laden; and carefully placing him upon the back of the
beast, they were just in the act of setting forward, when
the youth, who had been quickly darting over the field and
examining the fallen, called out to them that there were
two more yet with life, who must on no account be deserted.
As two of the party ran back to pick them up,
another small body of Indians—who for the last few
minutes had been busy in a different quarter, and had now
returned to the main field of slaughter—poured in upon
them a close volley, and literally cut them down over the
wounded they were assisting, at the same time rushing in
upon them with brandished tomahawks and furious yells.

Finding there was no hope of saving any more, our

[figure description] Page 034.[end figure description]

young hero now ran back to the main party, shouting,
“Let us give them a farewell volley!” which was immediately
done—several of the savages in turn falling beneath
the fatal aim of the Kentuckians.

“Now, then, for a retreat!” pursued the youth, who,
though himself a mere private in the ranks, was listened to
and obeyed with the deference due to an officer in full
command. “Load up, men, and guard the wounded with
your lives! In Heaven's name, do not desert them, whatever
may be your fate! I will run forward and give notice
of your approach, that those who set out ahead of us may
not push off the last boat before you reach them.”

“We'll all come in together, William, or you'll never
see us again!” replied one of his comrades; and as they
began to urge their horses forward, the youth darted into
a thicket and disappeared in advance of them.

As he ran through the wood toward the river, his rifle
thrown across his shoulder, his eye constantly on the alert
for the foe, he passed over the gory corpse of many a companion,
who had been overtaken, slain, scalped, and even
stripped of his clothing—and which, in fact, at different
intervals, marked the course of the retreat from that disastrous
field of battle.

At last, faint and almost exhausted, our brave youth
reached the bank of the river, just as the only boat at that
point, heavily laden with the escaping fugitives, was in the

[figure description] Page 035.[end figure description]

act of being pushed from the shore. Here at the moment
were, fortunately, none of the enemy—but above and
below were sounds of conflict—and an attack was every
instant expected.

“Hold, comrades!” he shouted, presenting his weak
and bloody figure to their view. “I am just in advance
of a few more of our friends, who are hurrying up with
the wounded!”

“Get aboard yourself, if you want to,” replied one;
“but don't ask us to wait for any more—for another party
would sink us—to say nothing of the savages, who may
attack us here at any moment.”

“Yes, jump aboard,” said another; “and quick, too—
or we'll have to leave you as well as them.”

“Never!” returned the youth, with a mingled flush of
pride and shame; “never will I desert my friends in such
a cowardly manner! Until the others arrive, I will not
put my foot aboard your boat, whatever may be the consequences.”

“Then we'll have to leave you among the rest,” called
out a third; “for it's better a few should perish than all;
and all will, if we stay here a minute longer.”

He seized an oar as he spoke, and was about to push
off the boat, regardless of all lives save his own, when the
youth, throwing his rifle across the root of a fallen tree,
pointed the muzzle at his breast, and exclaimed:

[figure description] Page 036.[end figure description]

“Beware! the first man that sends that boat one inch
from the shore until our comrades are aboard, I will shoot,
so help me God!”

The man, knowing the youth, and knowing him to be
one who would keep his word, at once threw down the
oar, muttering some bitter curses upon his folly; but a
few of the others, moved to feelings of shame and admiration
by his heroic self-sacrifice, took part with our hero,
and declared that all should escape, or all perish together.
This at once raised an altercation; and hot and angry
words had begun to pass between the different parties,
when, fortunately for all, the last escort arrived, and were
immediately hurried on board—the boat, by this additional
weight, being sunk to her very gunwale, so that it was
feared another pound might swamp her.

The youth, who had meantime stood back, giving
directions, and refusing to enter till the very last, on
seeing the condition of things, told his comrades to push
off at once, and he would find a way to save himself; and
without waiting for a reply, he hurried up the stream a
few yards, to where some horses stood panting, which had
escaped from the field of battle; and selecting one of these,
he, by great exertion, considering his weak and wounded
condition, got upon his back, and forced him into the
stream, and toward the opposite shore.

The moment the men in the boat perceived that the

[figure description] Page 037.[end figure description]

youth had fairly made his escape, they pushed off from the
bank; but not a moment too soon; for they had scarcely
got a dozen yards out, when a large body of Indians, who
had been attacking the boats below, came hurrying up
along the bank, and at once poured in upon them a heavy
volley. Only one or two of them were wounded, however—
most of the enemy's balls going wide of the mark—and
with loud yells of defiance, the Kentuckians returned the
fire, and then pulled eagerly for the opposite shore.

The wounded youth urged his horse toward the boat;
but just before he reached it, another ball of the enemy
struck him, and shattered his right arm; when, bending
over, he seized the mane of the horse with his teeth, and
so clung to him, till, overcome by pain and the loss of
blood, he fainted and rolled from his back into the water,
from whence he was rescued by his companions at great
peril to themselves.

This heroic youth, who so self-sacrificingly saved his
friends, and was himself most providentially preserved
through many a perilous encounter besides these enumerated,
subsequently rose to enviable distinction, and
became one of the prominent men of the West. In 1810
he removed to Cincinnati, where he passed the remainder
of his days. During the war of 1812 he was appointed
Major General of the Ohio Militia; and, in 1829, Surveyor
General of the public lands of Ohio, Indiana, and

[figure description] Page 038.[end figure description]

Michigan. He proved to be as noble in heart as he was
brave in deed, and was ever noted for his public spirit and
benevolence. He died in 1831; and the public were then
called to mourn the loss, and do honor to the memory, of
a distinguished fellow-citizen—the subject of our present
notice—General William Lytle.

p480-040 The Maid of Fort Henry.

[figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]

Reader! come with me, and together let us enter a
wilderness-fort, at a period when our now great Republic
was in its infancy—at a period when the heroes of the
American Revolution were in the very heat of strife, doing
those brave and noble deeds which have brought their
names down to us covered with immortal renown.

There! we now stand within the walls of a Western
fortress; and on all sides we are enclosed by strong palisades,
about eight feet in height, which mark out the
ground, some three-quarters of an acre, in the form of a
parallelogram. At each of the four corners is a block-house
made of logs, which rises above and projects beyond
the stout pickets or palisades; and in each of these block-houses
are loop-holes, which enable us to look out upon
the surrounding country, and also along the outside of the
pickets, without being ourselves exposed to the view of
whatever enemy may be lurking about.

And what do we see? On one side the Ohio river; on
another a straggling wood, stretching back into a mighty

[figure description] Page 040.[end figure description]

forest; on the third a large cornfield, enclosed by a Virginia
fence; on the fourth a small village of log-houses;
and on all sides hideously painted and half-naked savages.

Yes! we are surrounded by Indians—a large body of
vindictive red men—who are thirsting for the blood of
those who are in the fort with us, for we are not the only
occupants of this stronghold. It is now past one o'clock
of a warm, clear, bright, autumnal day; and since the
golden rising of the sun, there have been some terrible
scenes enacted, and many human beings have passed from
time to eternity by the most violent and bloody of deaths.

Last night—soon after the tenants of yonder log-houses,
which we have pointed out to you, had retired to rest—the
whole village was roused by the alarming intelligence,
brought by an Indian hunter, that a great body of savages
were prowling about the vicinity; and men, women and
children, catching up their most valuable articles, rushed
into the fort, and spent the night here in peace and safety.
This morning the garrison numbered forty-two fighting
males, including several youths, some quite young, but all
brave, and all sharp-shooters.

About daylight this morning, there being no signs of the
enemy, the commandant of the fortress dispatched a white
man and a negro back into the country on an errand—but
the white man never will return. As he was passing
through yonder cornfield, a hideous-looking savage

[figure description] Page 041.[end figure description]

suddenly rose up before him, knocked him down with his musket,
and then killed and scalped him. The negro saw the
bloody deed performed, and, with a yell of horror, fled back
to the fort, where he communicated to anxious listeners the
startling fact.

“We must dislodge the enemy, which doubtless is small,”
said Colonel Shepherd, the commandant of the fort. “Captain
Mason, take fourteen picked men, and let the red
devils have a taste of your bravery and skill.”

And Captain Mason marched out with his fourteen brave
followers, through that large gate which you see in the
centre of the eastern line of pickets, and hurried down to
the cornfield, which he thoroughly searched for his savage
foe, but without finding him; and he was on the point of
retracing his steps, when suddenly there came the crack of
a hundred muskets; a hundred balls came whizzing among
his little force, killing several and wounding nearly all;
and then up-rose, on every side—front, flank and rear—
many hundreds of vindictive red men, who, with shrill
whoops and yells, rushed upon the gallant few still living
and began to hew them down. They made a brave resistance—
but what could such a handfull do against such a
host? One by one they fell, and were tomahawked and
scalped. Captain Mason fought desperately; and cutting
his way through the ranks of the enemy, succeeded in
reaching some fallen timber, where, though badly wounded,

[figure description] Page 042.[end figure description]

he is now concealed, though all his friends in the fort think
him dead.

Twelve more men, under Captain Ogle, rushed from the
fort to cover the retreat of their gallant comrades; but
they too were drawn into an ambuscade, and were all cut
off from rejoining their friends in the fortress—only some
two or three of the party being now alive, secreted in the
underbrush of yonder wood. And still three more of the
little garrison sallied forth to the support of Captain Ogle;
but they were forced to make a hasty retreat, and were
pursued to the very gate of the fort, and fired upon as they
entered, and had one of their number mortally wounded.

And now the siege commenced in earnest. With whoops
and yells of triumph, some five hundred savages surrounded
the fortress, and began to fire upon it. And now the little
garrison—numbering only twelve, all told—began to return
their fire; and so sure was their aim, that some one of the
besiegers bit the dust at every shot. Several times did
the enemy make a rush, in large bodies, to effect a lodgment
under the walls—but the unerring rifles of the heroic
borderers, fired through the loop-holes of the different
block-houses, drove them back in dismay, burdened with
the weight of their fallen comrades.

Once only was there a pause in the conflict. A white
flag was thrust out of a window of one of yonder cabins,
and the head of a white man appeared, demanding, in

[figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]

English, the surrender of the fort, in the name of His Britannic
Majesty. He read the proclamation of a British
Governor, and promised protection to all in the fort, if
they would surrender at once, and swear allegiance to the
British crown. He was answered with derision.

“If you want the fort, why don't you and your red,
howling devils come and take it?” replied the intrepid
Colonel Shepherd.

“And if we do take it, by—! we'll put to death all
that are in it!” replied the white leader of the savages.

“You would do that even if we surrendered, you redheaded,
white-livered renegade!” was the taunting rejoinder

“No! You shall be protected; I swear it, by all I hold
sacred!”

“And what do you hold sacred, you treacherous scoundrel!”
cried the gallant Colonel. “Bah! Simon Girty, we
know you; and this place shall never be surrendered to
you, while there is an American soldier left to defend it.”

Girty, the renegade—for the white chief was none other—
was about to renew his treacherous proposition, when
one of the men in the fort, becoming exasperated, lodged
a bullet in the logs, just above his head, as a warning of
what he might expect himself, unless he withdrew, which
he did immediately.

Again were hostilities renewed, and continued up to the

[figure description] Page 044.[end figure description]

moment when we have seen proper to enter the fort with
the reader.

And now, for the second time since daylight this morning,
have the Indians ceased their assault. It is one
o'clock, and for eight long hours has there been almost
incessant firing. Let us look through the loop-holes.

Away there against the wood, at the base of the hill,
beyond rifle range, you see a body of savages collected,
holding a council of war. Yonder, along the edge of the
cornfield, partly hidden by the fence and partly concealed
among the fallen timber, you may see many dusky forms,
and may readily believe you see only a few of the number
which there lie in wait, as a sort of corps de reserve.
And up among the cabins, yonder, you see a few more
savages—some sauntering about, some peering through the
palings, and some gazing out of the windows. And look
where you may, in every direction you behold Indians.

How is it within the fort? In the centre of the area
which the palisades enclose, in front of yonder row of
cabins—where many a brave father, husband, and son slept
last night, whose mangled bodies now repose in yonder
cornfield—in the centre of the area, I say, a group of men,
women and children are collected. There stand grayhaired
sires, and strippling youths—staid matrons, and
maidens in bloom—and all look sad and anxious. Some
of the men, with doleful faces, are leaning upon their

[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]

rifles, and wiping the perspiration, blackened with powder,
from their bronzed features; and some of the women are
clasping little innocent infants to their hearts, and looking
down upon them with fond eyes dimmed with tears.

“God help us!” says the gallant Colonel Shepherd—a
fine, noble specimen of humanity, who is standing in the
centre of the group—and as he speaks, he casts down his
eyes and sighs. “If we could only die like soldiers, fighting
to the last, selling our lives at a heavy price to our
accursed foes, it would not seem so hard; but to be compelled
to stand idle and helpless, and see the hideous monsters
enter our stronghold, and butcher our mothers, wives,
sisters, and children, while we ourselves are secured for
future tortures—oh! it is terrible! terrible! And yet it
must come to this soon, if the Indians renew their attack,
unless kind Providence saves us by a miracle. Men,” he
added, with a kindling eye, “you have done nobly—you
have fought like heroes: boys, you are worthy of your
sires—I see no cowards here; and oh! would to God we
all had the means to continue our gallant defence! But
what are rifles without powder? and it is a startling fact
that we have but three rounds left!”

“What an oversight,” says another, “that we did not
fetch all our powder with us! There is a whole keg in my
house; and if we had it now, it would be our salvation.”

“It must be procured,” returns a third.

[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]

“But how?” inquires the Colonel. “The Indians are
all around us, and more than a hundred eyes are constantly
on the fort, so that no movement can be made outside the
walls that will not be discovered. And yet, my friends,
that powder must be procured, or we are lost. It is a
perilous undertaking—and, in all probability, whoever
makes the attempt will lose his life, and so I will detail
no one to the duty—but if there is any one here brave
enough to volunteer, I will accept his services; and if he
falls, and we escape, we will remember his name and do it
honor; and if he saves us, and is saved with us, our
blessings shall be upon him through life. Is there any
one present who will volunteer to go into the very jaws
of death?”

Four young men instantly spring forward, and, almost in
the same breath, each exclaims:

“I will go.”

“But we can spare but one of you, my noble lads!”
says the Colonel, while his features flush, and his dark eye
sparkles with pride, at the self-sacrificing bravery of his
young comrades. “Which shall it be?”

“Me!” cries one; “I spoke first.”

“No, no, John—I was ahead of you.”

“No you wasn't, Abe—no such thing.”

“I will leave it to the Colonel, if he didn't hear my
voice first of any!” cries a third.

[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]

“I was before you, Joe; I call all here to witness!”
exclaims the fourth.

“Ho! listen to Robert—I was first I tell you!”

“No, I was first!” cries John. “You know I was,
Colonel!”

“But I tell you I am going—for I can run the fastest,
and therefore will stand the best chance of getting back
alive!” cries Abe.

“I can run as fast as the best, and I'm much stronger
than either Abe, Joe, or Robert,” says John, laying his
hand on the Colonel's arm. “Let me go—do! And
besides, I've got no mother or sister here to mourn for me,
if I fall.”

“There!” cries one of the others—“he talks as if he
might fall! and I'm sure I could get back safely.”

Look at their flushed faces, and eager, sparkling eyes,
as thus they wrangle for the privilege of being permitted
to go forth to almost certain death! for the chances are
five hundred to one, that he who leaves the fort for the
village will never return alive. And listen to the murmurs
of approbation which come from the surrounding
circle of females! A mother looks fondly on her son—a
sister looks proudly on her brother—and a maiden's heart
swells with emotions unspeakable, as she hears him who is
the light and life of her world, boldly contend for the right

[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]

of being allowed to go forth into a peril from which most
men would shrink aghast.

“Come! come!” chides the Colonel, at length, speaking
almost sternly to the now angry disputants; “you will
ruin all, unless some of you yield—for the Indians may
renew hostilities at any moment, and then we are lost
indeed. You are all brave, noble fellows; and if I could
spare four, you should all go; but as it is, three of you
must give way to the fourth; and I pray you do so
speedily, for time is precious.”

“I will never yield!” cries one.

“Nor I!” exclaims a second.

“I will go, if I have to scale the walls to get out!”
says a third.

“Colonel, I am the strongest and fleetest, and was the
first to accept your offer; and I demand, therefore, that
you settle the dispute by sending me!”

Look! In the circle of men, women and children that
are now promiscuously gathered around these hot, eager,
passionate youths, do you observe one human face that
wears a very singular expression? that seems to be
animated by some strange and powerful emotion? It is
the face of a young and beautiful female, about whom
there is a certain air of refinement—seen in the grace of
attitude, dress, and general demeanor—which contrasts
rather forcibly with many of her coarse-featured, rustie

[figure description] Page 049.[end figure description]

companions. But I wish you to observe that face particularly—
not alone for its beauty—but to mark the expression
of noble, lofty, heroic resolve which is settling upon
it! Do you see the head gradually straightening back, as
if with pride?—do you see those dark, bright eyes kindle
with the almost fanatical enthusiasm of daring self-sacrifice?—
do you see the warm blood spring upward to the
temples, and broad, white forehead, and finally settle in a
bright, red spot upon either soft, downy cheek, as if the
passion-fires of a mighty soul were already burning within?—
do you see the thin nostrils of a slightly aquiline nose
gradually dilate? and the thin, determined lips gradually
close over those white, even teeth?

There! she moves; and mark, I pray you, the proud
step, as she advances into the center of the circle, and
catches all eyes, and sweeps the whole group of curious
and anxious spectators with a lightning glance! And now
her thin lips part, and she speaks in clear, silver tones.
There is no quivering, no tremulousness, in her voice—
and every other voice is hushed. Listen!

“Hold!” she exclaims: “cease this wrangling! cease
this contention for the privilege of being allowed to throw
away a life that cannot be spared! You are all brave—
almost too brave—since you so eagerly court death for the
honor it will confer on the name of him who may die in
the noble attempt to save the rest. But not another

[figure description] Page 050.[end figure description]

heroic defender of this fortress must be lost! Already
thirty of the forty-two men we numbered this morning are
gone; and shall we take another from the gallant twelve
that remain? No, no—this must not be! The powder
must be procured from my brother's dwelling—but let the
first attempt to obtain it be made by one who cannot use a
rifle. I will go!”

There is an almost simultaneous burst of “No! no!
no!” from the astonished listeners to this heroic offer.

“I am resolved!” replies the noble heroine; “seek not
to alter my determination!”

“But you will be killed!” cries one.

“Then I shall die with the consolation of knowing that,
so far, this brave little garrison is not weakened.”

“No, no—leave this adventure to us!” cries one of the
late disputants: “we can run faster than you, and are
therefore more likely to be successful. We cannot yield
this peril to a lady, the fairest of her sex, and see her
throw her life away—we should not be acting like men,
and shame would ever rest upon us.”

“The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to
the strong,” proudly replies the noble girl. “What is
my life compared to yours, who can skilfully use the rifle
against our savage foe, and are required here for the protection
of these helpless beings who stand around you?
Look at these little, innocent children, each of whose lives

[figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]

is as valuable as mine; and remember their whole dependence
is on you!”

“Lizzie! Lizzie!” now interposes one of her two
brothers who are present—“this must not be! You
must not go! We cannot suffer it and retain the name
of men. You cannot comprehend what you ask—you
do not consider the peril. Remember, you are just from
Philadelphia, where you have lived in safety, in ease, in
comparative refinement and luxury; and you cannot surely
be aware of the risk, the danger, of trusting yourself alone
with a savage, merciless foe, who spares neither sex nor
age! Consider! there are numbers of Indians strolling
about yonder village, to whom your scalp would be a prize
of victory: consider every thing, and give over this mad
folly!”

“Brother,” replies the fair girl, “you have seen little of
me of late, and you know little of my invincible will, or
you would not attempt to thwart me in what I have
resolved to perform. Come! come! we lose time. Open
yon gate, before it is too late, and let me go! for go I
must: something whispers me that the good God will
sustain me!”

In vain they try, with reason, with remonstrance, with
representations of the danger put in every conceivable
form, with affectionate appeals, with downright pleading,
to induce the brave girl to abandon her purpose; and at

[figure description] Page 052.[end figure description]

last, with the utmost reluctance, they yield assent to her
heroic proposition. Instantly this assent is gained, she
strips herself of every unnecessary article of clothing, and
demands that the gate be opened to her.

All crowd to the gate, speaking words of affection,
encouragement and hope. Now it slowly opens, and
attracts the attention of the savages in the village, who
wonder if a sally or surrender is to follow. The fair girl
now fixes her eyes steadily upon her brother's house; the
distance is sixty yards; she measures it in her mind; she
calculates the time that will be required to reach it; she
draws a long breath; and now, like a ball from a cannon,
she bounds from the fortress; and sincere, earnest prayers,
from the hearts of every being she goes forth to save,
ascend to Heaven for her protection and safe return.

See how she flies over the intervening space, with the
basilisk-eyes of many swarthy savages fixed upon her! who
stand amazed at the daring of a woman, and are lost in
wonder at what can be the meaning of such a desperate
act! and how the hearts of her white friends beat with
hope and fear as they behold yard after yard of distance
put between them and her! Will she succeed? Will
those brutal savages stand idle and not molest her! who
is thus, with a noble heroism almost unparalleled in the
annals of history, thrusting herself into their very hands—
putting herself into the power of beings that are

[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]

unprepared to show mercy? God help her! God sustain
her! How long the distance seems for a space that
is so short!

There! she nears the house; sh reaches it; she enters
it; the eyes of the savages have followed her; and now
they move toward the building; they do intend to capture
her after all; God help her, poor girl! See! they
draw nearer—nearer; they are almost at the door. Why
stays she so long? Why does she not come back while
there is an opportunity? One minute more and it will
be too late!

There! there!—she comes! she comes! She holds
some dark object tightly in her grasp; she has the
powder; the fort will be saved! But no! no!—she is
lost! she is lost! The Indians see her; they now comprehend
her purpose; they bound after her, with terrific
screams and yells; they raise their muskets; they fire;
they throw their tomahawks. Still she comes on—on;
nearer—nearer; the balls pass her; they lodge in the
walls; she is still unharmed. One moment more! They
gain upon her—God help her! One moment more!
Nearer—nearer! And now—see! she bounds through
the gate, and is caught in her brother's arms, almost
fainting. But she has the keg of powder clasped to her
breast; she is safe; the gate shuts behind her. And

[figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]

now the welkin rings—cheer on cheer—cheer on cheer—
for now the fort and all it contains will be saved!

No longer any fear in that lonely fortress!—all is now
hope, and animation, and joy. Soon again the Indians
renew hostilities; but the brave little garrison is prepared
for them; and as fast as they venture forth against its
stout walls, so fast they fall back in the arms of death.
The women cut patches and run bullets; and the men
load and fire, with the utmost rapidity, all the day long;
and as their rifles get heated, they change them for muskets;
and still keep on firing—fearing nothing now—for
they have plenty of ammunition, and as brave a girl to
protect as ever the world saw.

The sun goes down and sees nearly one hundred of their
enemies slain; but not a single life lost within the fort,
and only one man slightly wounded.

And all night long the Indians prowl about, and keep
up an irregular fire upon the fort, but do no harm.

And at break of day, after a siege of twenty-four hours—
during which twelve brave, noble fellows have withstood
five hundred savages—reinforcements arrive; the Indians
become disheartened; they burn the village and kill the
cattle; and at last, with loud yells of disappointment and
rage, they raise the siege and depart.

Such was the siege of Fort Henry, on the present site

[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]

of Wheeling, Virginia, in the month of September, and the
year 1777—and such the heroism of its gallant defenders.

Immortal be the name of Elizabeth Zane, the
noble Heroine of Fort Henry.

p480-057 Wrecked on the Lake.

[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]

In the fall of 1850, as I was passing down Lake Erie,
from Sandusky City to Buffalo, I formed some acquaintance
with an elderly gentleman, who was also a passenger.
Mr. Warren, for so he gave me his name, had been one of
the early adventurers in the western country, and especially
along the lake shore; and finding me interested in matters
pertaining to early times, he took not a little pains in
pointing out to me, from the deck of the steamer, the
different localities where important events had occurred
connected with the early settlement of the country. With
each locality he had a story to tell—either longer or
shorter, as the case might be; but the most remarkable
one of all, and which I am going to relate, occurred to
himself and a small party of his dearest friends.

“Do you see that dark line, yonder?” he said, pointing
to the distant shore.

“I see something,” I replied, “that resembles a small
cloud stretched along the horizon.”

“Well, that, sir, is not literally a cloud, though it
proved a cloud of sorrow to me.”

[figure description] Page 057.[end figure description]

As he said this, in a voice somewhat tremulous with
emotion, I looked up, and observed a tear stealing down
his aged cheek.

“Ah! my friend,” he pursued, shaking his gray head
solemnly, and passing his hand across his eyes, “the sight
of that dark spot yonder brings up a dark memory, and
makes me weep as a child rather than as a man. It was a
great many years ago,” he continued, “and I have since
lived to experience a great many changes and reverses—
have lived to see one friend after another taken down to
his narrow home—but the events of that awful day are as
vividly in my recollection now, looming above all others,
as if they had occurred but yesterday. Excuse me a few
minutes, and I will tell you the story,” he added; and
turning away, he seated himself, buried his face in his
hands, and did not again alter his position till the dark
line he referred to had faded from my view.

At length he looked up, as one starting from a dream;
and having swept the horizon with his still keen, bright
eye, he turned to me and requested me to take a seat
beside him.

“That dark line I pointed out to you,” he resumed—
“and which, thank Heaven! is now gone from my sight—
is an almost perpendicular bluff of rocks, of from sixty to
eighty feet in height, upon the base of which the stormraised
waves dash with wild fury, throwing a fine white

[figure description] Page 058.[end figure description]

spray nigh into the air, and filling the listening ear with
an almost deafening roar, not unlike the thunders of
Niagara. I heard it once, as a dreadful requiem over the
loved and lost, and Heaven grant that I may never hear it
again!”

Here he paused, as if overpowed with the recollection,
brushed another tear from his eye, and once more resumed:

“It was many years ago—I need not tell you how
many, for time counts as nothing in those great events
that rend the heart: it was many years ago, I say, that
a small party of us—consisting of my mother, sister, a
younger brother, and a young and lovely maiden to whom
I was engaged—embarked in a Canadian bateau at a
point far down the lake, with the intention of finishing the
remainder of our long journey from the eastward by water,
and joining a few friends who had gone before us and
settled just below the rapids of the Maumee.”

“For several days we had good sailing—the weather
fair and the wind in our favor—in consequence of which
our hearts became light and buoyant, for we felt that we
were near our journey's end, and should soon be mingled
with those we sought. But who knows aught of the
future?—who has a right to say that joy and happiness
are his?—for in a single moment all his brightest hopes
may be dashed forever, and he be either overtaken by

[figure description] Page 059.[end figure description]

death, or by a calamity that shall make him a life-long
mourner!

“One day, with the most gloomy apprehensions—with
a presentiment that made me wretched—I saw a storm
begin to gather, and I watched it with feelings of the
most painful anxiety. It was not long in gathering, but
loomed up quickly and fearfully, and, almost ere any one
save me was aware of the danger, it burst upon us with
fury.

“I had taken in sail, and prepared for it as well as I
could, but the first dash nearly capsized us. The waves
suddenly rose, and threw their spray completely over us,
and we began to drift toward the dark bluff which I
pointed out to you. All was now excitement and confusion
on board, for all believed that we should soon go to
the bottom. I pretended to have a stout heart, and to
laugh at their fears, and so quieted them in some degree.
But to tell you the truth, I was fearfully alarmed myself,
for the boat at once became unmanageable, and set rapidly
toward the rocky shore, upon which the surge was now
beating frightfully, and I felt that nothing short of an
interposition of Providence could save us from being
dashed to pieces.

“I spoke not of my fears, however, till I saw it was
vain to hope—till I beheld the rocks looming up, black
and fearful, immediately before us, the waves lashing them

[figure description] Page 060.[end figure description]

terrifically, throwing up their white spray, and rolling
back with a crash which could be heard amid the howlings
of the storm—and then I told my friends, shouting the
words above the roaring of the tempest, that it was time
to commend our souls to God, for we were about to pass
the dread portals of eternity and enter His awful presence.

“The scene that followed I may only describe as wild,
fearful, terrible—each clinging to the other in the most
agonized distress, and all appealing to God for mercy.
The painful and horrible suspense of waiting for death,
while staring it in the face, was of short duration; we
seemed but as a bubble on the crest of the angry waters,
which now bore us swifter and swifter to our doom; and
suddenly, while we all stood locked as it were in each
other's embrace, we struck. There was a fearful crash—
loud shrieks that seemed blended into one despairing cry—
and the hissing waves rolled over us.

“We all went down clinging to each other, knotted as
it were together, and were whirled about in the seething
waters, till at length, as we rose to the surface, we seemed
to be caught by an unusually large wave, and were thrown
violently upon a narrow shelf of the rock, where, the huge
wave instantly retreating, we were left comparatively dry.
From the time of going under till we were thrown upon
the rock, I had not for a single moment lost my presence
of mind; and though now half stunned and bruised by the

[figure description] Page 061.[end figure description]

concussion, I instantly comprehended all that had happened;
and that, if I would save myself and friends, it
must be done ere the return of such another wave as had
placed us in our present position.

“Instantly I worked myself loose from my almost death-griping
companions, dragged them back as far as I could,
shouted in their ears the joyful news of their escape, and
then got between them and the water, so that, in their
bewildered state, they might not roll back to their destruction.
I had scarcely succeeded in making them understand
what had happened, and they were just beginning to gather
themselves upon their feet—my brother with as little presence
of mind as any—when I saw another huge wave
returning; and, quick as thought, I threw them down, and
fell prostrate across their bodies. The wave came, amid
our shrieks of terror, and completely submerged us, but
not to a sufficient depth to float us from the rock.

“This occurred at intervals of about a minute; and it
took me several of these to make my friends comprehend
that we were comparatively safe, though in a perilous position—
to give them, in fact, a true understanding of the
whole matter; and then the task of keeping them where
they were became less laborious to me, because of their
assistance.

“I now for the first had a little time to look about me,
which I eagerly employed in ascertaining what might be

[figure description] Page 062.[end figure description]

our chances for escape. But, alas! I saw nothing to give
me any hope. It was an awful scene—a scene to excite
feelings of the blackest despair! The shelf upon which
we had been thrown was narrow, some ten or fifteen feet
in length, and about five feet above the level of the boiling
and seething surge; while behind us and over us, was a
high, black, overhanging rock, the top of which our position
did not permit us to see. There was no chance of
escape except by the water; and there the wreck of our
boat, in a hundred pieces, was whirling about on the foamcrested
waves and frothing eddies—the storm the while
still raging in wild fury—and the shrieking winds, the
descending torrents, and the lashing waves, making a horrid
concert for our affrighted senses.

“`My son,' shrieked my mother, in a voice of despair,
`there seems to be no hope for us. It would have been
better had we perished at once, and so ended our misery.'

“`While there is life there is hope,' I replied, in the
same shrill, shrieking tone—the only human sound that
could be heard amid the howlings of the tempest.

“Let me not dwell upon that scene—the recollection
of which, even now, after a long lapse of years, makes the
blood run cold in my veins. But little was said by any—
for, as I have remarked, the human voice could only be
heard when pitched on its highest key—and each was too
terribly impressed with the sense of our desolation, to give

[figure description] Page 063.[end figure description]

vent to the feelings of agony which stirred the depths of
our inmost souls.

“We clung there together for hours—in almost silent
waiting, watching, and trembling—and then, with unspeakable
misery, we saw the night close in upon us—shutting
out the horrid view, it is true—but leaving us as it were
only the sense of feeling that each other was there. Oh,
that long and terrible night! an age to me of horror—the
storm still unabated—the shrieking winds driving coldly
through our drenched garments, and ever and anon a large
wave engulfing us! There was no chance for sleep—but
only for thought—thought the wildest, most terrible, most
agonizing! If we looked around, our gaze encountered
nothing but the deepest blackness, or here and there the
phosphorescent light of the foaming waters, which seemed
to our now distracted fancies only a sepulchral light to
guide us to destruction.

“Somewhere about midnight, as near as I may judge—
feeling weak, faint, cold and benumbed—through the painful
position in which I had thus far clung to my friends,
and my continual submersion beneath the rushing and
retiring waves—I released my hold for a few moments, in
order to chafe my limbs. But scarcely had I done so,
when I was suddenly startled by a wild shriek; and, on
feeling for my companions, I found to my horror that

[figure description] Page 064.[end figure description]

my mother and brother were gone! leaving only my dear
sister, my beloved Mary, and myself upon the rock.

“I need not dwell upon that night. If your imagination
cannot fill the picture of wo which I have so imperfectly
sketched, you will never form an idea of my feelings,
for language has no power to describe them.

“Morning broke at last—after that long, long night of
horror—the storm still raging as furiously as ever—but
only three of us alive to know the miseries of living. By
the returning light we once more surveyed the awful scene
around us; and there, upon the rocks below, but at some
distance from where we were, we beheld the bodies of my
mother and brother, locked in each other's arms, the lashing
waves just sufficiently swaying them about to give an
appearance of life. But they were dead—cold in death—
and the sight so affected my poor sister, that she arose
with a shriek, and, whether intentionally or accidentally,
plunged over into the boiling surge.

“Almost beside myself with the accumulated horrors, I
threw my arms around my only companion, my beloved
Mary, and held her down by my side.

“And thus I sat for hours, in a state of comparative
stupefaction, gazing off upon the storm-maddened lake, but
with a kind of stony gaze that scarcely had speculation
in it.

“When I again turned to Mary, I found she had fainted;

[figure description] Page 065.[end figure description]

though how long she had been in that condition I did not
know. This in some measure recalled me to myself; and
I began to chafe her limbs, calling upon her dear name in
the wildest tones of despair. She did not revive immediately,
and I had just begun to think that she had perished in
my arms, when I saw signs of returning life, and redoubled
my exertions. At last I had the joy of seeing her open her
eyes, and of knowing that her senses had returned. She
now looked wildly around her, and, scarcely comprehending
what had occurred, asked for her absent friends.

“ `They are gone, dear Mary,' said I, with a bursting
heart; `they will return to us no more; you are all that
is left to me now; and may God in his mercy either
preserve you, or take us both together to the land of
spirits!”

“ `Yes,' she replied, faintly—so faintly that I had to put
my ear close to catch the words—`and we must perish, too—
but we will perish together. We must die—we cannot
live—we cannot escape—and so let us die at once, and
join those who have gone before us!'

“ `In God's own good time!' I rejoined. `We have no
right to take our lives in our own hands. He gave and
must take. It is our duty to be ready at His call.'

“ `But I cannot survive this!' she said; `death is an
hundred times preferable to this agonizing suspense!'

“I encouraged her as well as one in my situation could;

[figure description] Page 066.[end figure description]

I repeated, that while there was life there was hope; I
used every argument and every term of endearment I could
think of, to persuade her to cling to life; and at last she
seemed to be more resigned to her fate—the fate of waiting
and watching with me for the coming death.

“Why should I dwell upon that horrible scene? Why
live over again in relating the agony I suffered in reality?
No! rather let me hurry on to the awful close—for awful
it was, and made these then black hairs turn white in the
very prime of manhood.

“Mary gradually drooped—grew faint for the want of
food—grew benumbed and torpid through repeated drenchings
of the chilling waters; and at length, when another
night began to close around us, with the storm still unabated,
I feebly but painfully foresaw that, should I still
live on, I must soon live alone—be the last survivor of that
once happy group.

“My forebodings were awfully fulfilled! Another night
set in—and proved, oh God! the last to the last being I
then had in the wide world to love! I had gradually
grown weak myself—so weak that I could scarcely keep
my hold upon the rocks—to which I still clung with the
instincts of life, and for the preservation of my poor Mary,
who had long since given up the attempt of preserving
herself.

“But the end came. A larger wave than ever burst

[figure description] Page 067.[end figure description]

over us, loosed my feeble hold, dashed me against the rocks
behind, and left me half-stunned and bleeding on the very
verge of the abyss. I crawled up again, and felt for
Mary. Great Heaven! she was not there! she was gone!
With a shriek of despair, I threw myself flat upon my face,
determined to make no further effort for life.

“But God, in his inscrutable Providence, saw fit to
preserve me. The strom had now reached its height, and
from that moment it began to abate. The morning found
me alive, but alone; and the angry waves, which had
snatched from me all I prized on earth, were gradually
subsiding to quietude, as if satisfied with their work of
destruction.

“More dead than alive, I kept my position upon the
rocks through that day and another night; and then,
being discovered by some Canadian fishermen, I was taken
off, and conveyed to their home, on the other side of the
lake. There, after a long and delirious illness, I finally
recovered, and learned that the bodies of my friends had
been found, taken from the water, and decently interred
upon the American shore.

“I have many times since,” concluded the aged narrator,
in a tremulous voice, “visited the humble grave where they
quietly repose together, and never but with a regret that
I did not sleep beside them. It was there, over that lonely

[figure description] Page 068.[end figure description]

grave, I took a solemn oath to be true to my first love;
and you now behold me a wifeless and childless old man,
whose only abiding hope is, that I shall soon join them in
a better world!”

p480-070 A Desperate Encounter.

[figure description] Page 069.[end figure description]

Adam Wiston, though even now unknown to fame, was
one of the boldest and bravest of that hardy band of
daring spirits who led the van of civilization into the great
wilderness of the West. Born on the soil of Pennsylvania,
nurtured among her wild and romantic hills, he early
imbibed a love for bold and daring exploits, and even as a
boy became the hero of some remarkable adventures.

In those days of peril, the frontier afforded no facilities
for the training of youth in the knowledge of books; and
staunch, robust, intellectual men entered upon the active
duties of life without other education than that which
fitted them for a victorious march into the very depths of
the savage wilds, which still stretched before them for
hundreds and thousands of miles. The learning gained
from letters is a species of mental luxury, seldom indulged
in by those who find it necessary to be constantly on the
alert to provide the daily wants of physical life and guard
themselves from a thousand surrounding perils.

Adam Wiston was, therefore, no scholar; but no man

[figure description] Page 070.[end figure description]

of his day had a more practical and thorough knowledge
of the forest, in which he wished to live and hoped to die,
than he had at the time he bade his friends adieu, shouldered
his rifle, and, afoot and alone, set off on a bold
exploration toward the wilds of Kentucky. What he
saw, what he enjoyed, what he encountered, and what he
suffered, from that eventful period till the day of his
death, will probably never be known to the world; but
there are some traces of his daring and checkered career,
which show that his was not a life to be envied by the man
who considers personal ease and personal safety the paramount
objects of his existence. Tradition, the mother of
written history, the preserver of unrecorded deeds and
facts, has handed down a few of the adventures and
exploits of this hero of the wilderness, and which it is the
purpose of this article to relate.

Adam was a large, powerfully built man, six feet in
height, and well proportioned, with iron nerves and whipcord
muscles, and, at five-and-twenty, regarded himself as
the equal in physical strength and endurance of any
human being on the frontier, whether foreign or native,
white or Indian, and always stood ready to put the matter
to the test in any manner which any adverse believer
might think proper. He was, moreover, supple, active,
long-winded, and quick of foot; and had more than once,
even when a mere boy, borne off the prize from older and

[figure description] Page 071.[end figure description]

renowned competitors, in such physical contests as wrestling,
running, leaping, throwing weights, and the like;
and when it is added that he was true of eye, steady of
hand, and a dead shot, it will be perceived that he was a
man whom no single antagonist might encounter with
safety. Like nearly all of his class, Adam Wiston had
come to regard his natural foe, the native savage, with an
implacable hatred, and he never missed an opportunity of
testifying to the fact in the most vindictive manner. It
was an invariable rule with him, to kill an Indian whenever
and wherever he could; and so noted had become his
feats of daring in this respect, that the savages had named
him Papapanawe, (Lightning,) and spoke of him with
dread, and the few whites that knew him hailed him as
the hero of heroes, the bravest of the brave.

Early one morning in the spring of the year, when the
great forest had donned its new mantle, and looked
delightfully green and gay, Adam crept stealthily and
noiselessly over a steep ridge, which formed the left
bank of a well-known stream, and, gliding silently
down into a narrow ravine, ensconced himself in a dense
thicket, within thirty yards of a famous deer-lick. Here,
carefully stretching himself out at full length upon the
earth, with his long rifle properly adjusted, and the
clustering leaves before him just sufficiently parted to give
him a sight of the spot which some timid deer might be

[figure description] Page 072.[end figure description]

expected to visit at any moment, he waited with the
patience of an old, experienced hunter for the happy
moment when he should be able to bring down his game,
and thus provide himself with many a coveted meal.

Adam was not destined, on this occasion, to have his
patience tried by any unusual delay; for he had scarcely
watched the “lick” a quarter of an hour, when, in the
direct line of his vision, appeared a sleek, fat buck. The
rifle was already pointed, Adam was quick of sight, and
the next instant there was a flash, a crack, and the unerring
ball had sped on its fatal mission. The buck suddenly
bounded into the air, and fell over on its side, where for a
few moments it lay quivering in the last throes of death.

But, strange to relate, there was another report of
another rifle, so exactly timed with Adam Wiston's, that
the two sounds were blended into one, and two balls at
the same moment struck the same animal at opposite sides.
The quick ears of the old hunter barely caught the foreign
sound, and he by no means felt certain it was not an auricular
deception; but trained from his youth to prudence
and caution, he was not the man to slight the faintest
warning of danger when nothing was to be gained by bold
and reckless daring. If it was indeed the report of another
gun he had heard, it was, he thought, more likely to be
that of an enemy than a friend; and situated as he was in
the great wilderness, his very life depending in no slight

[figure description] Page 073.[end figure description]

degree upon his own vigilance and care, it stood him in
hand to ascertain if he had aught to fear, before rashly
venturing from his covert.

Gathering himself upon his knees, therefore, and slowly
and cautiously pushing his head up through the interlacing
bushes, he directed his glance to the opposite side of the
stream, where there chanced to be a ravine similar to the
one he occupied; and there, in direct confirmation of his
suspicion, he beheld a thin wreath of smoke slowly ascending
and dispersing itself in the clear morning air; while
just below it, barely perceptible among the bushes, and so
blending with them that no eye but a practiced woodman's
might have detected it, he perceived the shaven crown and
painted face of a hideous savage, with its black, basilisk
eyes fairly gleaming, as it seemed, with fierce desire, and
fixed steadily and searchingly upon himself.

Had there been in the mind of Adam Wiston the faintest
shadow of a doubt of the Indian's simultaneous discovery
of himself, he would have silently and cautiously withdrawn
himself from exposure, reloaded his rifle, and awaited his
opportunity of a fatal shot; and even as it was, he hurriedly
debated with himself the propriety of boldly unmasking;
but yielding the next moment to an almost
uncontrolable impulse, he uttered a loud yell of defiance,
and called out to his adversary in the most taunting
manner:

[figure description] Page 074.[end figure description]

“Hello! you greasy curmudgeon of a sneaking tribe!
ef you want my hair, you'll have to come arter it, and it'll
take a man to crop it; but ef I had a squaw here, I'd send
her for yourn, and consider her time wasted when she'd
got it. Come, you old painted brute! I dar' you to a fair
stand-up fight, and no rifles atween us, and the best man
gets a scalp and a buck! But, bah! what's the use o' talking?
for it arn't in you to understand any thing like human
language; and it 'ud be worse nor a seven-year agur for
sich as me to break my jaws over gibberish that no sensible
human ever did know any thing about.”

While Adam was thus giving vent to his rage and contempt,
he was not idle; but, with his person all concealed
except his head, his hands were actively engaged in putting
a new charge into his rifle. He had succeeded in
getting in the powder, and was in the act of ramming
home the ball, when the Indian, who had up to this time
apparently remained immovable—and who, perhaps, from
some slight but perceptible motion of his enemy's head,
had conjectured what he was doing—suddenly uttered a
short, shrill whoop, and disappeared.

“Only one minute more, Greasy, and thar'd been
another dead careass for the buzzards!” muttered Adam,
as, aware of his own dangerous exposure, he suddenly
ducked his head and crawled stealthily among the stems
of the bushes, away from the spot he had occupied, for

[figure description] Page 075.[end figure description]

fear a venture-shot of the savage might chance to strike
him. And then, as he re-primed his piece, keeping as
wary a watch the while as his situation would permit, he
added: “Now for it; it's eyther me or that red-skin afore
night.”

Thinking it the most prudent course to maintain his
concealment for the present, in case the savage, whom he
fancied would not leave the vicinity, should attempt to
steal upon his retreat, Adam again stretched himself upon
the ground, and for something like an hour listened keenly
to every sound, and sharply watched the motion of every
leaf around and above him, to be certain it was stirred by
the breeze and not by his foe. Then finding his time was
likely to be wasted, and fearing the savage might escape
him after all, he resolved upon a venture of exploration
into the retreat of his enemy, though not with that careless
haste which might give the other the andantage he bad
himself hoped to gain.

With the greatest caution, therefore, and by a sinuous,
snake-like motion, so that no movement of the bushes
above him would indicate his course, he worked his body
up the ravine and over the top of the ridge; and then
gliding into the thick wood on the other side, he set off
more boldly on a circuitous route, intending to cross the
stream some distance above, and come up carefully behind
the point where he had espied the savage.

[figure description] Page 076.[end figure description]

Now it so chanced that there was a very singular and
remarkable train of coincidences, formed by the same
thoughts and desires actuating these two human beings
at the same time; for both had stolen to their different
concealments together, had together espied the deer, had
fired together, had examined each other in a like manner,
had both disappeared together, and waited and watched
for each other, and each had actually set off to circumvent
the other at the same moment, both going up the stream;
while, as if to put a climax to the whole, both came out
face to face on opposite sides of the narrow river, with a
distance of less than thirty yards dividing them; when,
quick as lightning, both pieces were simultaneously raised
and fired, there being as before a blended report. Adam
felt a sharp, burning twinge in his right arm, and saw the
savage suddenly press his hand to his right breast; and the
next moment these brave, undaunted men, with loud yells
of rage and defiance, were springing toward each other for
a mortal hand-to-hand combat.

Casting their pieces aside, they met in the middle of the
stream, which was here shallow, and rushed foaming and
gurgling over a stony bed; and had there been a spectator,
conscious of all that had occurred, he would have considered
their individual chances of life about equal—for
the Indian was a large, athletic fellow, supple and active,

[figure description] Page 077.[end figure description]

strong and determined, and both were actuated with a
mutual hate and a fierce desire for victory.

With their knives gleaming, they met as recorded, and
for a few moments there was a flashing and crashing
of steel, as both struck and parried with something of the
skill of two masters of fence. But a fight like this, at such
close quarters, and with such short weapons, could not long
continue without some serious wounds on one side or both;
and with a quick and sudden blow, Adam succeeded in
giving his adversary a fearful gash across the breast, followed
by another which nearly severed the tendons of the
left arm. With a howl of rage and pain, the savage
started back a pace, the blood flowing profusely; and then,
measuring his already panting antagonist with a quick
glance of his eagle eye, he suddenly bounded forward, and
made a fearful lunge for his heart. The old hunter, though
in a measure prepared for this, could not altogether avoid
the thrust; but he so quickly turned as to receive the wound
in his right side; at the same time plunging his own knife
half way to the hilt in the back of his foe, barely missing
the vertebra, which would have terminated the contest in
his favor.

Too highly wrought up by a fierce and vengeful excitement,
and too eager for the finishing stroke to give a proper
heed to defence, both combatants, badly wounded, covered
with blood, panting for breath, and with failing strength,

[figure description] Page 078.[end figure description]

but with glaring eyes and gnashing teeth, now struck fast
and furiously, each blow telling with fearful effect upon the
other. At length their knives met in such a manner that
both dropped from their hands together; and then they
clinched, swayed to and fro like intoxicated men, and fell,
and rolled over and over in the water upon the protruding
stones, locked in each other's embrace, knotted
together, and each struggling to be uppermost and strangle
or drown his antagonist.

It was still a fearful and desperate fight, and was continued
in the manner described for some five minutes,
during which no one could have told who would eventually
be the victor.

At last Adam, in rolling under the Indian for the sixth
or eighth time, perceived that chance or Providence had
brought him back to the very spot where he had lost his
knife; and bethinking him of this, he, by a desperate exertion,
released one of his hands, and placed it partially
beneath him, in the hope of getting hold of the weapon.
To his unbounded delight, the attempt proved successful;
and the next moment, with all his remaining strength, he
was actively plunging it, with rapid thrusts, into the back
and sides of his enemy.

This, and it may be this alone, gave him the victory;
for the Indian, though still holding out with a wonderful
tenacity of life, and exerting himself even against hope,

“You war the toughest old red nigger as ever Adam Wiston fou't.” [figure description] 480EAF. Image of a Native American and a man fighting over a stream.[end figure description]

[figure description] Blank Page.[end figure description]

[figure description] Page 079.[end figure description]

gradually gave way in strength, till the hunter, with far
less exertion than formerly, was able to turn him again,
when, plunging the knife into his throat, he ended the
contest.

Adam, finding the savage was at last really dead, slowly
gathered himself up, seated himself upon the body, wiped
the blood and perspiration from his face, and, in a somewhat
doleful, half ludicrous tone, complimented his late
adversary by saying:

“You war the toughest old red nigger as ever Adam
Wiston fou't.”

He then, in a slow and deliberate manner, proceeded to
scalp the dead Indian; which done, he took from his
person all that he considered of any value, secured both
rifles, and then sat down on the bank and dressed his own
wounds in the best manner he could. Though seriously,
he was not dangerously, wounded; and having rested
himself for an hour, he set to work on the dead buck, cut
off his breakfast, kindled a fire, cooked and ate it. Then
cutting off another large piece of meat, to serve his necessities
for the journey, he set off at a slow, feeble pace for
the nearest station, where he arrived during the night, and
narrated his desperate encounter to a crowd of eager and
wondering listeners.

p480-083 A Leap for Life.

[figure description] Page 080.[end figure description]

During the early settlements in the western part of Pennsylvania
and the northwestern portion of Virginia, the
hardy adventurers into those then wilderness solitudes at
times suffered severely from the incursions of the Indians.
As early as 1780, quite a large body of warriors, from the
vicinity of the cuyahoga Falls, came suddenly down upon
the unprotected frontier, and, before any check could be
put to their ravages, succeeded in murdering and plunder-ing
quite a number of the whites, and effecting their retreat
in safety.

At this time there was a well-known Indian hunter in
that vicinity, one Captain Samuel Brady, whose many
daring exploits and hair-breadth escapes had rendered
him as famous throughout that region as his cotemporary,
the celebrated Daniel Boone, was in Kentucky; and having
under his leadership a goodly number of as brave and
daring spirits as himself, he at once called them together,
selected a certain number for the expedition, and set out
on the trail of the savages, hoping to overtake them and

[figure description] Page 081.[end figure description]

inflict a severe chastisement before they should reach their
villages.

In this respect, however, the captain and his friends were
disappointed; for the Indians had gained a start which
enabled them to reach their towns in advance of their
pursuers; but as they belonged to different tribes, it was
discovered that they had separated on the bank of the
Cuyahoga—one part crossing it and going to the northward,
and the other turning off to the westward, as it
was supposed to the Falls, where it was known there was a
village.

This division of the Indians rendered it necessary for the
whites, if they would follow each trail, to divide their
force also, which would weaken it materially, and render
their further pursuit still more hazardous; and in view of
this new danger, Captain Brady stated the whole matter
fairly to his companions, and inquired of them what they
were disposed to do under the circumstances.

Should they follow either one of the trails, he said, the
other half of the Indians would escape; should they follow
neither one, all would escape; and should they divide,
each division would be comparatively small, and they might
all be cut off in detail; therefore it was for them to choose
whether they would go forward in one party or two, or
return as they were without striking a blow.

The men were not long in deciding; they were

[figure description] Page 082.[end figure description]

unanimous in their desire to push forward and take vengeance
upon the enemy; they also preferred a division of the
party; and accordingly about one-half of them immediately
crossed the river and set off to the northward, while the
remainder, under Captain Brady, followed the westward
trail to the Cuyahoga Falls.

It was the design and expectation of the gallant captain
to take the Indians by surprise; but the latter, expecting
to be pursued by the whites, were prepared to receive
them; and it was only by a mere accident that the borderers
were saved from falling into an ambuscade which
would have proved fatal to all.

Seeing that the Indians were fully prepared for them—
that there was no chance of taking them by surprise—that
their numbers were at least four times as many as their
own—our friends judiciously determined upon a retreat;
but they had not gone far, when the Indians, uttering their
wildest war-whoops, set after them in a body.

Knowing that if his men continued together, there would
be no hope for any of them, Captain Brady, in order to
save as many lives as possible, called out to them to disperse
in every direction, and each man to look out for himself.
By this means he expected to divide the Indians into
small parties in their pursuit of single individuals; and
this might have been the result, had they not, unfortunately
for his own safety, discovered in him their most

[figure description] Page 083.[end figure description]

vindictive and troublesome foe, and at once resolved upon
his capture.

Captain Brady was well known to the Indians; in
former times he had hunted with them over these very
grounds; but he had subsequently become their most implacable
enemy, and had done them so much injury as to
create in them a fiendish desire to take him alive and put
him to the tortures—they well knowing that the accomplishment
of this purpose would not only rid them of the
man they both hated and feared, but would deprive the
whites of their bravest and most during leader, and would
thus strike a more effective blow against the latter than
would the destruction of a dozen or twenty men of lesser
note. For this reason, therefore, the moment it was
ascertained that he was one of the party, his capture was
determined on by all; and turning from the pursuit of the
others, the whole yelling crew set after him.

Captain Brady had something of the start, and was one
of the fleetest runners on the border; that he could
distance and escape from a few, he was sanguine enough
to believe; but when he found himself recognized, and,
looking behind him, saw the whole body in chase of
himself, his very heart seemed to die within him. What
chance had he of escape indeed—single-handed and alone—
afar from the refuge of even a wilderness fort—and with
fifty infuriated Indians in hot pursuit, urged on by a spirit

[figure description] Page 084.[end figure description]

of revenge, and resolved, above every other earthly consideration,
upon taking him alive or dead?

But the captain was a brave man, and a brave man dies
but once; he was a sanguine man, too, and would not
consider his case hopeless while the freedom of his limbs
remained; and though, as he afterward expressed it, “it
was hardly one chance in fifty, yet he was determined to
do his best, and have no fault to find with himself from a
lack of effort.”

Near the point where the race first started, the Cuyahoga
makes a bend to the south, so as to nearly enclose an
area of several square miles in the form of a peninsula;
the direction taken by Brady soon brought him within this
enclosure; and the Indians, by extending their line to the
two banks of the stream, at the point where they most
nearly approach each other, considered him as in a net,
and announced their satisfaction by yells of triumph.
There was now, in fact, no chance for him to escape
except through their lines or across the Cuyahoga river;
and considering that the foremost pursuers were not fifty
yards behind him, either of these chances was regarded
by the savages as an impossibility.

Still the hardy and gallant captain did not despair; he
had many a time hunted over this very ground, and knew
every inch of it, and all the windings, turnings, and
peculiarities of the river as well as the Indians

[figure description] Page 085.[end figure description]

themselves; he knew, too, there was one point where the river,
compressed within a few feet, rushed roaring and foaming
through a rocky gorge; and it at once occurred to him to
shape his course for this point, and make a bold, desperate
leap for the other shore. He might fall short, and be
dashed to pieces upon the rocks beneath, it was true; but
this would only be a quick and sudden death; the awful
tortures of the stake awaited him if taken alive; and to
take him alive was unquestionably the design of his pursuers,
since they had neglected to fire upon him from a
distance which would have made their aim fatal.

Casting away his rifle, as only an incumbrance which
could not serve him in this strait, he bounded forward with
renewed energy; and with a bare hope of life before him,
he fled with a speed that few could equal—slightly gaining
upon the fleetest of his foes—but not sufficiently, during
the whole race, to take him beyond the easy reach of a rifle
ball.

Nearer and nearer he came to the rushing and foaming
stream; and as he heard the roar of the waters, and saw
but a few seconds could intervene between the present and
the awful leap which might save or destroy him, his heart
beat wildly, and his whole frame seemed to tremble with
the intense concentration of his mind upon the fearful
venture.

Nearer and nearer he came; louder grew the roar of

[figure description] Page 086.[end figure description]

the waters; the awful chasm gradually yawning before
him, and the white spray of the fearful torrent rising to his
view; the Indians yelling behind, and his only hope here;
and then, contracting his muscles, as his feet lightly
pressed the precipitous rock, and throwing into them all
the power of his concentrated will, he leaped into the air,
like a bounding ball, and landed safely upon the other
rocky verge of the abyss, striking a little below the height
from which he sprung, but passing a clear distance of
twenty-two feet between the mural shores.

Instantly grasping some bushes which fringed the verge
of the awful chasm, to prevent himself from falling backward
into the seething stream, the gallant captain stood
for a few moments, panting from his exertions, and striving
to recover his breath for still another flight.

In those few moments the Indians appeared upon the
opposite bluff, expecting to find that he had been dashed
to pieces upon the rocks below; but on discovering him
safely on the opposite side, their astonishment was so great
as involuntarily and simultaneously to draw from them
some two or three short, approving whoops—forgetting in
their first surprise that he was clearly beyond their reach,
and not seeming to recollect it till he had begun to vigorously
climb the ridge above him in his further efforts at
escape. Then drawing up their rifles, with a quick aim,
they poured in upon him something like a regular volley—

[figure description] Page 087.[end figure description]

most of the balls whistling close around him, and one of
them lodging in his hip and inflicting a severe and painful
wound.

Notwithstanding this, the gallant fellow continued his
ascent, and, on reaching the top of the ridge, gave a yell of
defiance, and disappeared on the other side.

Captain Brady was now aware that the Indians would
have to make a considerable circuit in order to reach him;
and had he not been so severely wounded, he would have
considered his escape as almost certain; but knowing he
would still be followed, and finding his wound very painful,
and the cords of his leg fast stiffening, he cast about him
for some place to secrete himself from their search.

After running a short distance, he discovered a pond,
and, near the shore, a large oak which had fallen into it;
there might be nothing better than this; and hurrying
forward with all his might, he boldly plunged in, swam
under water to the tree, and came up beneath the trunk
and among the branches, in such a manner as to be barely
able to breathe without exposing any portion of his person
to his enemies.

Here, in a state of mind which may be imagined but
cannot be described, the gallant borderer remained for a
long time, watching his enemies as they collected one by
one along the shore at the point where his bloody trail had
disappeared in the water.

[figure description] Page 088.[end figure description]

Still resolved upon finding him, either living or dead,
the savages were by no means disposed to give up the
search; and after running along the shore for a considerable
distance, on either side of his trail, to ascertain if
possible where he had emerged from the water, several of
the party plunged in, swam out to the oak, and actually
seated themselves upon it, while they conversed in their
own language, which he understood, concerning his wonderful
escape.

At last, with such feelings of joy as no one not similarly
circumstanced might comprehend, he heard them
state their belief that he was drowned, and his body lost
to them by being sunk in deep water; and soon after this,
to his still greater joy, they quietly returned to the shore,
and one by one all gradually disappeared.

Remaining in his uncomfortable position till he considered
it safe to leave it, the wounded captain himself
then swam back to the land; and weary, lame, and hungry
as he was—alone, and without a weapon for his defence—
he set off on his long, tedious journey through the wilderness
for his own home; which he eventually reached more
dead than alive; and where, to his great gratification, he
found the companions of his perilous expedition already
returned in safety.

This has truly been considered one of the most wonderful
adventures of a region teeming with adventure; and to

[figure description] Page 089.[end figure description]

this day the pond in which the captain secreted himself
bears his name; while the rocky chasm of the Cuyahoga,
across which he made his desperate spring, is known far
and near by the name of “Brady's Leap.”

p480-093 Love Triumphant.

[figure description] Page 090.[end figure description]

If there is any one who needs the philosophy of this
world's changes to make him wiser and better, by bringing
hope to his despair, or humility to his pride, let him take
a given number of individuals, and a given number of years—
say twenty of each—and observe the condition of the
different parties at the beginning and end of the time that
is named. The result in all cases will be astonishing—in
many it will be wonderful.

If old enough, reader, think back twenty years, and see
where and how you stood in the world then, with nineteen
others, selected at random from all you then knew. Take
the names that first present themselves to your memory,
and write them down, with the condition and prospeets of
each individual annexed; and then, underneath, write the
condition and prospects of each at the present moment;
and if you find not the result almost startling, and full of
moral philosophy, then has time dealt gently with you
and your friends, and you require not the lesson which
would otherwise be taught.

[figure description] Page 091.[end figure description]

Twenty names and twenty years! Ah! here they come—
substance and shadow—the living and dead; but oh!
how great, how startling, the change between that time
and this—the past and the present!

Foremost of the group, I behold a bright, gay, fascinating
and beautiful little being, who seemed born to love
and be beloved. Her promise was a golden future of joy—
her reality an early rest in the dark, cold grave. Nineteen
years has her mortal form reposed in the quiet churchyard,
and few now living remember the name she bore.

Next I recall an aspiring youth—proud, wealthy, and
ambitious—bending his whole energies to academic honors
and collegiate distinction. His promise was a brilliant
career, with living applause and posthumous fame—his
reality a loss of sight, mental disease, and a suicide's
death.

The third comes up before me a poor, pale, blue-eyed
cripple, whom one loved, a few pitied, and the rest
despised. His promise was a short and miserable existence—
his reality an honorable position, great wealth, and
plenty of what the world calls friends.

And so I might go on, disposing of the number one by
one; but there are two whose names rise together and
blend in my memory, and who may more properly fill the
limits of my space—for theirs is a history “to point a
moral and adorn a tale.”

[figure description] Page 092.[end figure description]

Twenty years ago, then, a slender, pale young man,
thinly but decently clad, was one cold, antumnal evening
hurrying his steps over the ground that divided his own
humble home from the large and somewhat aristocratic
dwelling of a neighbor. As he drew near the mansion,
which loomed up white, and seemingly cold and proud, in
the frosty, star-lit air, the pale features of the young man
flushed, and the hand that timidly knocked at the door
trembled not a little. The door, however, was almost
immediately opened, by a blooming, beautiful girl of
eighteen, who said, in a rather quick and apparently
excited tone:

“Ah! Walter—so it is you! Walk in!”

“I hope I see you well this evening, Mary!” returned
the young man, in a slightly tremulous tone, that seemed
to result from strong but partially suppressed emotions.

“Yes, I am well,” replied the girl, hurriedly, as she
closed the door and led the way to the sitting-room, where
she motioned her guest to be seated, though without showing
any inclination to sit herself. “You received my note,
I suppose?” she interrogatively asserted, in a quick and
flurried manner, hastily turning her flushing features from
the keen scrutiny of him she addressed.

“Yes, Mary Ellsworth,” replied the other, more slowly
and distinctly, “I received a line or two from you, saying

[figure description] Page 093.[end figure description]

all the family would be absent to-night except yourself,
and you desired to see me alone for a few minutes.”

The young man paused, keeping his fine, hazel eyes
steadily fixed upon the other, who now, with averted head,
seemed much embarrassed and disconcerted. Stepping
forward a few paces, she dropped into a chair, and, still
without reply, appeared to busy herself in looking at the
jeweled rings on her fair, soft, lady-like-fingers.

“Mary,” spoke young Walter Harwood, after an impressive
silence of more than a minute, “what is the meaning
of this?”

She played nervously with her fingers, but still remained
silent.

“Mary,” continued Walter, placing a chair and seating
himself in such a position that he could catch a partial
view of her features, “let me remind you exactly how we
stand in regard to each other; and then speak frankly,
and say why you sent for me!”

He paused a moment, passing his hand rather quickly
and nervously along his high, white forehead, and up
through his dark, clustering hair, and then proceeded:

“I am four years your senior, Mary, and have loved you
from infancy. It was my delight as a child, when you
were a mere infant, to hold you in these arms; and even
then, young as I was, and strange as it may seem, I often
prayed that I might grow up a strong man, and be ever

[figure description] Page 094.[end figure description]

able to support you and protect you through the journey
of life.

“We were playmates when little—we grew up companions—
and there was never a period of your life that I
did not love you, and daily pray to be loved in return.
But your father was rich, and mine was poor; and as I
grew older, I learned to feel the distinction which existed,
and still exists, between the families of Ellsworth and Harwood;
though I will do you the justice to say, that I do
not believe you ever intentionally made me perceive the
difference I allude to; but I did see, know and feel it;
and though loving you almost to madness, I dared not
venture to tell you so, lest my motive might either be
thought mercenary, or myself too presumptuous, and thus
all my brightest hopes and fondest dreams be in an evil
moment blasted.

“But why dwell upon this which I have many times
told you already? Rather let me come to the point at
once.

“About one year ago then, Mary,” the young man went
on, with deep feeling, while his listener grew deadly pale
and trembled violently, “such an opportunity presented
itself for declaring my passion, that to delay it longer
seemed flying in the very face of fortune; and carried
away by an almost uncontrollable impulse, I poured out
my very soul to your listening ear, and received in return

[figure description] Page 095.[end figure description]

such assurance of your affectionate regard, to call it by no
stronger term, that I went home the happiest being in the
wide, wide world. Ah! Mary—Mary—you may not love
me now—you may never have loved me—but you will
never be so loved by another as you are by the poor,
miserable being who now addresses you.

“Well, I went home happy, as I have said—but how
long did my happiness last? The very next time I met
you, you seemed troubled and displeased; the second time
you were dignified; the third reserved; the fourth cool;
the fifth cold; the sixth you scarcely noticed me; and
then we ceased speaking altogether, and I have been an
unhappy being ever since. Now, after a long, painful
lapse, your note has brought me to you, and I have come
trembling with hope and fear. Oh! Mary—dear Mary,
shall I venture to call you?—am I here to learn from your
lips that the past is forgotten? and that henceforth I am
to be again enraptured with your esteem, your regard,
your—”

“Hold!” interrupted Marry, suddenly starting to her
feet, and speaking in a tone that betrayed great agitation:
“I have let you proceed too far, Mr. Harwood. In
short,” she hurriedly went on, “I find, on examining
myself, I have not, do not, never can, esteem you as I
could wish; and I sent for you to-night, for the purpose
of telling you so, calmly, and asking your forgiveness for

[figure description] Page 096.[end figure description]

my unintentional deception; and to beg you will go and
forget me—that you will go in a friendly spirit, and have
no harsh and bitter feelings rankling in your heart. I
would like your good opinion as a friend, and as a friend I
shall always be pleased to meet you; but a warmer feeling
it is not in my power to bestow.”

“Can this be true? and am I thus suddenly made
wretched forever!” groaned young Walter Harwood, as he
buried his face in his hands, and rocked to and fro in an
indescribable agony of mind.

For a few minutes there was not another word spoken—
the young man swaying to and fro and breathing heavily—
and the fair maiden watching him with features pale,
anxious and troubled.

“Mary,” said Walter at length, raising a face so altered
and ghastly that his fair companion fairly started with
surprise and alarm, “answer me two questions, truly, as
God is your judge! First, has either of your parents ever
brought to your view the difference between yourself as
an heiress, and myself as a poor and humble young
man?”

“I cannot deny, Walter,” returned Mary, in great
agitation, “that something has been said to me on the
subject.”

“Secondly, then,” pursued the other, “is there any one
you esteem, or love, more than you do me?'

[figure description] Page 097.[end figure description]