THE FLIGHT OF THREE SOLDIERS (1782)
ON THE TRAIL WITH THE CRAWFORD MEN
Following the last attack, in 1778, upon Boonesborough, Colonel John
Bowman of Harrod's Station had led a revenge expedition into the Ohio
country. At Little Chillicothe, where Daniel Boone had been son to
Chief Black Fish, he had fought the Shawnees and their allies the
Wyandots and others; and although he had been driven back his men had
killed old Black Fish. That was a blow to the enemy.
More important than this, beginning in 1778 the great Long Knife chief,
General George Rogers Clark, had "captured" the Illinois country clear
to the Mississippi River at Kaskaskia below St. Louis; had marched
northward one hundred and fifty miles, laid siege to the British
garrison of St. Vincents (Vincennes, Indiana), and taken prisoner no
less a personage than the noted Lieutenant-Governor Henry Hamilton of
Detroit; and in 1780 had destroyed the Shawnee towns of Pickaway and
Little Chillicothe also.
These events and others stirred the Northern Confederacy to action
afresh. They saw the Ohio Valley being cut in two. They had given up
Boonesborough; but there were many other forts and stations and
settlements and they sent their parties against the Americans of
western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and the outskirts of Kentucky
along the Ohio.
The principal Wyandot town of Upper Sandusky (where Simon Kenton had
been rescued by Pierre Drouillard the British Indian agent), in central
north Ohio, seemed to be the rallying place for the bloody forays.
General Washington could spare no regular troops yet, to campaign on
the Indian trail; so in order to "shake up" the red rascals volunteer
militiamen and Rangers for miles back in southwestern Pennsylvania and
northwestern West Virginia and adjacent Kentucky were summoned to
gather, secretly, May 20, 1782, at Mingo Bottom (present Mingo
Junction, Ohio) on the west side of the Ohio River about forty miles up
from Fort Pitt.
Three hundred had been called for; four hundred and eighty
arrived--mainly Pennsylvanians, and the bulk of them crack-shot
bordermen in moccasins, leggins, fringed buckskin hunting shirts, armed
with the long patch-and-ball rifle, tomahawk and scalping-knife, and
mounted upon the best of their horses. It was to be an earnest
expedition--a stroke at the heart of the Indian country. Before
leaving home, many of the men had made their wills.
The popular William Crawford was elected commander. He had been an
ensign with Washington in the General Braddock campaign of the fatal
1755; had been colonel under General Washington in the Buff-and-Blue
Continental Army, and was General Washington's intimate friend: but
Lord Cornwallis, the British general, had surrendered at Yorktown last
fall, the War of the Revolution appeared to be almost over, and he had
returned home as a veteran.
The guides were Jonathan Zane of Wheeling (one of the fighting Zanes)
and John Slover, another Virginian.
Much dependence was placed upon John Slover. When eight years old, or
about in 1760, he had been captured by the Miami Indians and taken to
Upper Sandusky town. He had lived there among the Miamis and Wyandots,
had mingled with the Shawnees, Delawares and Mingo Iroquois, for twelve
years, and they had treated him well. He rather liked being an Indian.
Then during a peace council at Fort Pitt in 1773 he had met his real
kindred again. They had persuaded him to be a white man; therefore he
had bade his Indian brothers goodby, and had walked away with his
new-found relatives.
He, also, had served in the Revolution, as a sharpshooter. Now he felt
badly at having been asked to guide the Long Knife column against his
old-time Indian friends, and the town that had sheltered him; it seemed
to him not an honorable thing to do. Still, he was an American soldier
and citizen; there was war between the white and the red, and dreadful
deeds had been done by hatchet and knife, upon his very neighbors. His
duty was plain. He could not stay behind or refuse to aid. Therefore
he consented to guide and fight, in the cause of his fellow settlers
and the protection of the women and children.
The surgeon of the column was Dr. John Knight--a small but gritty
little man. Among the Rangers was James Paull, of West Virginia, a
young Buckskin of twenty-two who had left his widowed mother in order
to march to Sandusky.
The column met with such a defeat as had been known but once since the
day of Braddock's Field. For the Indians were ready. Their spies had
reported upon the secret gathering at the old Mingo town of Mingo
Bottom. To all the villages of the north and even to Detroit the word
traveled that the Long Knives were coming.
Captain Pipe, the old war-chief of the Delawares, and his aide, Chief
Wingenund, arrayed two hundred warriors and marched from the eastward
to join the four hundred Wyandots of Chief Half King and Chief
Shaus-sho-to, and defend the Sandusky. In the south the Shawnees of
Black Hoof and Black Beard and all, prepared. The Miamis rallied from
the west. The white captains, Alexander McKee and the Girty brothers,
urged the warriors on. A messenger to the British father at Detroit
brought back promise of reinforcements from there. The British father
was sending his Butler's Mounted Rangers and three cannon, and the
great white captain Matthew Elliott to command the whole army.
All the long, long way up from the Ohio River the Colonel William
Crawford column had seen only two Indians. On June 4 they sighted
their goal, the old Wyandot town of Upper Sandusky. It showed not a
sign of life. They marched upon it. The buildings had been leveled
and grass was growing in the crooked streets. Some months before,
Chief Half King had moved his people eight miles northward, down the
Sandusky.
Guide John Slover had led in vain. He, also, was mystified. The
volunteers were disappointed; they wished to turn back. The council of
officers decided upon one more day's march; then if nothing happened,
back they would go and glad to get out of the land alive.
it was a wide, grassy, forest-dotted country strange to the Long
Knives. Few of them, not even the Zanes and the Wetzels and their
like, had ever been here except as prisoners. They did not know, John
Slover did not know, that only eleven miles to the east was the eager
village of Chief Pipe and his Delawares; that only eighteen miles north
was the principal village of Chief Half King and his painted Hurons:
and that six hundred warriors of the two nations had come together,
with guns loaded and hatchets sharpened, to await the Shawnees, the
Miamis and the British Rangers guided by Matthew Elliott, and wipe the
Americans from the trail.
The Long Knives moved fearfully on. To them, the air was full of
threat. The Delawares and Hurons met them, and held them in check.
June 5 the Shawnees, Miamis and the Rangers tore in. Matthew Elliott,
in his brilliant uniform, had taken command; his comrade renegade,
Simon Girty, as his lieutenant raged hither-thither on a white horse.
Beset amidst the timber islands and the cranberry swamps the Long
Knives broke in retreat. Their horses mired. The best efforts of
Jonathan Zane, Lewis Wetzel, brave Colonel Crawford the Continental,
other men and officers, availed little.
Four hundred and eighty, the flower of the border, were over-matched by
one thousand, the full strength of the Northern Confederacy.
The battle ended on the night of June 6. Three hundred of the Long
Knives remained together, and reached the Ohio. By ones and twos and
threes others straggled in. But many did not come. Among them were
Colonel Crawford, his son John Crawford, Major John McClelland of a
famous border family, Dr. Knight, John Slover, young James Paull--and
he, and he, and he, a score of them whose fate might be guessed at only
with a shudder.
Of these, few ever did return. The noble Colonel Crawford had been
captured. He was the "Big Captain"--he must die, and Chief Pipe,
another "Big Captain," ordered him to terrible torture. Boyish John
Crawford and Major McClelland also were killed in the Indian way. But
little Doctor Knight the surgeon, Guide John Slover and young James
Paull finally turned up, at home, with remarkable stories now to be
told.
Doctor Knight had been taken, along with his colonel and several
comrades. They were eleven in number, prisoners to the Delawares.
Captain Pipe had marched them to his own town. Their hopes had been
flickering, they thought that Simon Girty might help them, but on the
way Chief Pipe and Chief Wingenund had painted them black. Then nine
of them were killed by a mob. And at Pipe's Town Doctor Knight had
sickened in watching his colonel burned before his eyes. That was an
afternoon and night of horror.
"You," said Chief Pipe to him, "will be taken to the Shawnee towns to
see your friends."
To see his friends! Doctor Knight did not know whether this meant his
"friends" the Shawnees, or his other friends who had been tortured like
Colonel Crawford. It all amounted to the same thing. He resolved to
escape or die while trying. Already he had been given a broken jaw.
In the morning he was painted black again, and sent away afoot in
charge of a large Shawnee, who drove him with a hickory whip. They
were bound for the Shawnee towns, forty miles southwest--probably to
Wakatomica. The doctor, who was not much over five feet tall and
weighed scarcely more than one hundred and twenty, trotted valiantly,
glad that he had not been tied by a rope. But because he was so small,
and was not a warrior, the Shawnee seemed to think him harmless.
A warrior armed with gun and hatchet and knife should have no fear of a
midget white man who had been well beaten.
"There lie the bones of your Big Captain," the Shawnee jeered, when
they passed the charred Crawford stake.
The doctor only smiled as well as he could, with such a jaw. He showed
no fear. He pretended to feel safe, for he was going "to see his
friends." He began to make up to his guard, whose name was Tutelu.
[Illustration: The Fight of the Privates.]
For all his surly looks Tutelu proved to be good-natured. He and the
doctor proceeded to fool each other.
"When we reach the Shawnee towns, you and I will live together in the
same cabin, as brothers," the doctor proposed.
Tutelu grinned. He grinned to think that this white man was so simple,
and he grinned to think that this white man wished to live with him.
"Yes," he said. "You make good cabin? Know how?"
"I will build us such a great cabin that the council-house will look
small," assured the doctor.
"Heap cabin maker, huh!" answered Tutelu, much impressed. "See,
to-morrow." And they journeyed on like friends, except for the whip.
But the wool was not yet pulled over Tutelu's eyes. In camp to-night
he tied his prisoner; and whenever the doctor stirred, to loosen the
knots, Tutelu's gaze glowed upon him, through the darkness. There was
no chance to do a thing.
"Reach Shawnee town to-morrow when sun is high," Tutelu had announced,
before lying down. And all night the doctor thought and thought, and
worked vainly at his knots.
When at daybreak his keeper untied him, he determined that he would
attempt escape, somehow, at once. The Shawnees should not torture him
as all the rest had been tortured.
They did not start immediately. Tutelu squatted, to renew the fire, in
order to get breakfast. The mosquitoes and gnats were very bad; they
hovered in clouds, lit upon his naked back and bit him severely. With
one hand he poked the fire, with the other he slapped and scratched,
while grunting angrily about the pests.
"Brother, I will make a smoke behind you," spoke the doctor, who had a
desperate idea. "Then we can sit between two smokes and be at peace."
"All right," Tutelu grunted.
There was a little stick near at hand. It was a dogwood stick, only
eighteen inches long and not thicker than two fingers--not much of a
weapon. But the doctor was desperate. He picked it up, rolled a coal
upon it, held the coal in place with a smaller stick, and walked around
behind Tutelu, as if to start another fire. He laid down the coal, and
drew long breath. It was now or perhaps never. Suddenly he turned,
and half rising struck with all his strength. The dog-wood fork fairly
bounced upon the Indian's head.
"Wagh!" gasped Tutelu. He had been knocked forward, so that he fell
with his two hands and almost with his face into his fire. Instantly
he was up, before the doctor might strike again. He ran howling, with
his head bloody. He had no stomach for another blow. His prisoner had
changed to a demon.
The doctor sprang for the rifle. He must kill, or else the alarm would
be spread. But he was so excited that in cocking the rifle he broke
the lock. Tutelu feared a bullet. As he still ran, howling, he dodged
and doubled like a rabbit, until he had disappeared in the timber and
his howls soon died away.
Now the doctor worked fast. He grabbed up Tutelu's powder-horn and
bullet-pouch, blanket and moccasins, and ran, too.
In about an hour he came to the open prairie. He did not dare to cross
it in the daytime, so he hid in the edge of it. That night he traveled
by the north star, gained the other side by morning, and kept on until
late in the afternoon.
He was no woodsman. He could not fix the gun, and finally threw it
away. He could not chew, but he knew the herbs and weeds that were
good to eat, and he sucked on these. He found plenty of green
gooseberries; they upset his stomach, and he relieved himself with wild
ginger. He ate three fledgling black-birds, from a nest; and he ate
the soft parts of a land tortoise, torn apart with his fingers and
sticks, because he had no knife.
After wandering twenty-one days he reached Fort McIntosh on the Ohio
below Pittsburgh.
What of the cowardly Tutelu? Tutelu, still in great terror, arrived at
Wakatomica. He panted in with a big story. He showed his head. It
was laid open, four inches long, to the bone! He showed his feet.
They were filled with thorns. He said that his prisoner had been a
giant, with the strength of a buffalo. While they had been talking
together, the giant had pulled up a young tree and battered him first
on one side of the head and then on the other. They had tussled. He
had stabbed the giant twice, in the belly and in the back, and had left
him for dead. At least, the fellow would die soon, for he had not been
able to pursue.
But a white man was here in Wakatomica. He was John Slover; he spoke
three Indian languages--Miami, Shawnee and Huron; and when he heard
Tutelu's wonderful tale, he laughed. He told the other Indians the
truth: that the prisoner was a little doctor and not a warrior--only
five feet and a half tall and weighing no more than a boy! The Indians
laughed long and loud. They bombarded Tutelu with broad jokes, and the
best he could do was to go off to get his head dressed.
John Slover had been captured. He and James Paull and four others were
threading homeward from the battle trail when several Indians had
ambushed them; with one volley killed two, then had summoned the rest
to surrender.
He and young James were the only men with guns. John Slover leveled
his from behind a tree, to fight; but the leader of the Indians had
called: "No shoot, no hurt. Treat good." Therefore he and two others
had yielded. James Paull dived aside into the brush and ran. It
seemed as though he got away.
One of the Indians was an old Miami who had helped to make prisoner of
John Slover when a boy twenty-two years before. He knew him at
once--called him by his Indian name Man-nuch-cothe, and scolded him for
"bearing arms against his brothers." That was hard luck. Scout Slover
saw himself trapped, and could not reply. He figured that unless he
could explain matters he was in for a bad time.
The Indians took the three of them to Wakatomica; painted the oldest
man black and made them all run the gauntlet; killed the man who had
been painted for death, but let John and the other man reach the posts
of the council-house. Then the other man was led away, to another
town; he never appeared again, and John Slover was left alone in
Wakatomica.
He was rather blue when Tutelu had come in. He had found some friends,
but he had more enemies. The worst was James Girty, a brother to Simon
Girty.
James Girty told the Indians that he had asked Man-nuch-cothe how he
would like to live with old friends again; and Man-nuch-cothe had
laughed and said: "I will live here long enough to take a scalp. Then
I will steal a horse and go back to the whites."
This enraged the town. A grand council was held, to decide about John
Slover. It lasted fifteen days. John spoke in his own defence, in the
Shawnee tongue. He knew many of the chiefs by name. They knew him.
He spoke well.
"I am here. I am not ashamed. I lived with you twelve years. You
treated me kindly. On my part I never tried to escape. You gave me
many chances, but I was red. Your cabins were my home. You were my
fathers and brothers. When I left, I did not run away. I had found my
own blood. It called to me. I said good-by, and shook your hands.
You were willing. It was done in the open, there at Fort Pitt. That
was a peace council. You had no thought of war again. I had no
thought of war again between the red people and the white people. We
all were to be brothers. When I lived with you, I would have helped
you fight your enemies. That was my duty. A warrior's duty is to
serve his country. Your country was then my country. When I went to
live with the whites, I became a warrior there. Their country was my
country. If you think I deserve death for acting like a warrior, you
may kill me. I am in your power. I am alone. As for the words of
James Girty, they are lies. I have not spoken with him. You know me.
Do you take me for a child? I am not a child; I am a man. If I had
thought such a thing that he says, would I have been foolish enough to
say it to him? No. He is an enemy to all whites. Everybody knows
that. Then why should I have told my thoughts to him, as he says? He
lies, in order to kill me. I am done."
The council listened keenly. Some of the chiefs believed, and
softened. The speech rang true; it came from the heart. The sentence
was postponed and John Slover was released and kindly treated. He took
up quarters with an old squaw, who called him her son. He went to the
dances. He was an Indian again. All this might mean little, but he
took hope.
The town was eager for news of the war between their British father
across the water, and the Long Knives.
"The war is over," John explained. "A great British general and all
his army have surrendered to the Long Knives of Washington. His name
is Cornwallis. He surrendered many moons ago. There is peace talk.
Are your ears stopped up, that you have not heard!"
"We have not heard," they answered, astonished. "No one has told us.
We will ask if it is true."
They asked James Girty and Alexander McKee. James Girty was frequently
drunk, and altogether worthless; but Captain McKee, the British trader,
lived in a large house of hewn white-oak logs, wore a fine uniform,
kept by himself, and was highly thought of.
He and James Girty laughed at the story of John Slover.
"That is a lie," they said. "He tries to frighten you. The British
soldiers have been eating up the Americans. They soon will capture
that man Washington. We say so, and we know."
Another white Indian reported that Slover had agreed with him to
escape. This angered the town, again. A general council was called.
The council-house was filled with Shawnees, Mingos, Chippewas,
Delawares and Hurons. Two Indians came to the old squaw's cabin to get
her "son." She covered him with a large bear-skin, in a corner, and
drove the two Indians out with a club and her tongue.
John waited. He knew what would happen. Presently, in strode George
Girty, another of the brothers, in Delaware paint. He brought forty
warriors with him. They threw the old squaw to one side, and dragged
John Slover through the door; tore off all his clothes, painted him
black, tied his hands, and triumphantly marched him away, by a rope
around his neck.
Evidently the council had decided. The old squaw wailed vainly. She
had only hastened his doom.
"We have waited long enough," gibed George Girty, swearing horridly.
"Now you'll get what you deserve. You'll eat fire."
They took him to a smaller town of Wakatomica, five miles distant.
There they and the other people beat him for an hour. It was the
beginning. They hustled him on to a third town, named Mequa-chake--Red
Earth. John Slover lost all hope. He was Indian enough to know.
Mequa-chake was to be his finish. He had no friends here.
The stake was ready, for hoots and howls and shaken fists greeted him.
The people--warriors, squaws, boys and girls--old and young they could
scarcely wait. He was towed and shoved and jostled to the
council-house. It was only half roofed. The stake, a stout post
sixteen feet high, had been planted in the center of the unroofed part.
Four feet from its base there were three piles of wood--dry hickory,
that makes the hottest kind of a fire. But he was to be scorched, not
consumed at once.
In a moment more he had been bound to the post: one thong around his
neck, one around his waist, one around his shins. They strapped him as
tightly as a mummy. It was fast work. He saw no sign of mercy; he saw
no chance of rescue, like Simon Kenton had.
The evening was beautiful, save for a hard wind. The wind would fan
the flames. A warrior thrust a torch into the piles of hickory. A
chief commenced to speak, bidding all watch the prisoner die but not to
let him die too quickly. The wood was crackling, the heat of the
flames wafted across John Slover's black-painted skin; he stiffened and
held himself taut. He would bear himself like a man, and utter never a
groan.
The heat increased; the orator was still haranguing; whew! Hah! What
was that? The wind had ceased, the sky had darkened, there was a roll
of thunder and the rain pattered! The drops pelted thicker, the cloud
burst and a regular deluge descended, hissing into the fire, smudging
it, drenching John Slover, driving the crowd away, under the roof--and
putting out the fire completely.
A gasp of astonishment, almost awe, arose. The Great Spirit had
interfered! The storm passed in twenty minutes, and left the sky clear
for the setting sun. The Indians gained courage. Some were for
rekindling the fire; but the wood was wet. There was no sport in
burning a man with wet wood. So they untied him and seated him upon
the ground. Then they danced the scalp dance around him for three
hours, the while they kicked him, and beat him with sticks. At last
they grew tired. He had again lost hope.
"You will burn in the morning," they jeered.
"Are you not sleepy, brother?" asked a tall young chief, Half Moon.
"Yes, I am," John answered, although that was a queer question to ask
of a man battered like he was.
"Very well; we will all sleep, so that you may be fresh to eat fire
to-morrow."
"A pleasant night for me," thought John.
Now it was eleven o'clock, by the stars. He was taken to a log cabin,
under three guards. They tied his wrists and elbows together behind
his back, with buffalo-hide thongs that bit into his flesh. They put a
noose close around his neck and fastened the end of the rope to a beam
above, giving him just enough slack so that he might lie down.
The three guards smoked their pipes and made themselves disagreeable by
telling him about to-morrow. It seemed as though they never would go
to bed and let him alone. After a time two of them did stretch out;
they began to snore. The other sat up; smoked and smoked and talked
and talked; described to him all the ceremonies of "eating fire,"
wondered with him how long he would hold out, encouraged him to stand
the torture bravely and not forget that he once had been an Indian.
This was decidedly an aggravating old man, but John Slover answered not
a word. Nevertheless, he was suffering tortures already. He traced
the first paling of the air--token of dawn; and still the old man did
not sleep. There was no chance of escape. Did the fellow intend to
talk all night?
Ah! He had dropped his pipe; his voice drawled off; he turned upon his
side, and snored!
The air was gray; in an hour it would be daylight. John wrestled
fiercely with his tied wrists until the sweat beaded his forehead. He
writhed, as he lay; he dared make no noise, but how he did strain!
Hurrah! He had slipped one arm--his left--past the other. The blood
tingled in the numbed, swollen veins; his heart beat furiously. Then
he sank back, his heart pounding worse than ever. The old man had sat
up. Confound him! Was he going to talk again--and daylight so near?
No. He only stirred the fire, cast a sharp glance at the prisoner, and
stretched out, to snore once more.
John instantly busied himself. He clawed at the noose around his neck;
he tugged at the rope, he took a little slack, and half sitting up,
gnawed at it. But it was green buffalo-hide, as thick as his thumb,
and he might as well have gnawed wire cable. His teeth did not even
break the surface. He tugged until his fingers bled.
He sank back again, exhausted. Must he die at the stake? How light
the air was getting! "One more try," he said, to himself. He inserted
his raw fingers between the stubborn noose and his throbbing neck, and
hauled.
A miracle! It was a slip noose, with a knot in it to hold it. The
slip knot passed the other knot--his very blood and sweat had helped;
the noose widened, he ducked out of it, and was free. Now he might die
fighting, at least.
He wasted no time. The village would be astir early, eager for the
sport. Old squaws likely were about already; dogs prowling. Day was
at hand. He carefully stepped over the three figures, he glided
through the doorway, and was into the fresh open air. How good it felt!
Silence reigned in the village, but in the sky the stars had almost
vanished. He had not a half hour of leeway. He ran for the nearest
corn-field--well-nigh stumbled upon a squaw sleeping out of doors in
the midst of five children, but managed to leap them. It was a narrow
escape.
He gained the corn-field, and had glimpsed some loose horses. In the
corn-field he paused and untied his right arm, which had swollen black.
He must have a horse, or he never would get away with such a short
start. So he ran back for a horse. Fortune favored him, for he was
brave. He grabbed a piece of old blanket from a fence and caught a
horse by the mane; rapidly twisted the rope from his arm into a halter,
flung the blanketing across the horse's back, vaulted aboard, hammered
with his heels, and rode, a naked man on a scarcely less naked steed.
He charged recklessly on, through the forest. The branches lashed him
fiercely; he did not even feel them. His thoughts all were ahead,
ahead, leading to the Scioto River, fifty miles eastward toward the
Pennsylvania border.
What a good horse that was! He had chosen the first at hand, but he
had chosen the best in the herd. Mile after mile they forged, never
slackening. He fancied that he heard pursuit; before this the guards
had discovered his absence, the village was aroused and hot in chase.
The sun was up, and shining strongly. At this time he might have been
"eating fire"; that would not happen now--he would die by bullet, first.
He rode. He pitied the horse, but kept it at the gallop. The sun rose
high and higher, and they still were galloping free, up hill and down,
through forest, swamp and prairie. If he only might cross the Scioto!
He saw it, before. The time was verging upon noon. He reached the
Scioto at eleven o'clock. They had come fifty miles through the
trailless wilderness in seven hours! He dared not slacken. Together
they plunged into the stream and swam across. He mounted again; they
were away. The swim had freshened the good horse, it galloped again.
The sun was past the noon mark. Now the horse breathed heavily; it
stumbled, its eyes bulged redly, it had nearly run its course. He
forced it on, and it obeyed until it dropped dead under him. It had
borne him twenty-five more miles--seventy-five miles in eleven hours,
for the time was three o'clock.
A gallant horse, but he could not stop to mourn. He seized the
sweat-soaked blanket from its back and ran. The horse had done well,
and he had to trust to his own legs. He was not yet safe.
John Slover, naked and carrying the blanket, ran from three in the
afternoon until ten o'clock at night. Once he had halted, to sink,
breathless, for a rest. He thought that he heard a halloo, behind him.
That was a spur. He leaped up and ran on until star-light. Then he
rested for two hours; he had not eaten since day before yesterday, and
had not slept. At midnight the moon had risen. He stiffly stood, and
ran and walked from midnight to morning.
Now he played the Indian. He tried to leave no trail. He changed his
course for the southeast, and with a stick bent the grass upright
behind him, where he had stepped. This made his progress slower, but
more sure. He was getting tired. If the Indians caught him, he would
be an easy victim. However, he had no mind to be caught.
Once he was obliged to sit down, sick. He vomited, and this eased him,
so he could go on again. His legs and feet were full of nettles and
thorns; the gnats and mosquitoes pestered him horribly, for his piece
of blanketing did not cover him. He fought them with a leafy branch,
and threshing about him, he toiled ahead, cleverly using his crooked
stick to conceal his trail.
On the third day, after a sleepless night, he ate a few wild
raspberries. He was growing very weak, and every inch of him throbbed
and smarted and stung. But he struck another river. It was the
Muskingum, in eastern Ohio. He found a place only two hundred yards
wide, and swam across. The next day he captured two small crawfish and
ate them. The next night he sighted Wheeling, on the other side of the
Ohio.
In the morning he yelled and waved from the bank. A man, opposite, saw
him, and ventured part way over in a canoe. The man was afraid.
"Who are you? Who do you aim to be?"
"I am John Slover. Take me to Fort Henry."
"You're an Injun. You're no John Slover. He's dead. I've a notion to
shoot you, myself."
"I'm Slover. I am Slover. I've escaped from the Shawnees. I'll name
you some of the officers who were with Crawford."
So he did. The man took him into the canoe. He was saved. In five
days he had eaten only a handful of raspberries and two raw crawfish;
in five nights he had not slept a wink; in four days and nights he had
traveled across country, by horse and foot, naked except for the piece
of blanketing, for a distance of about two hundred miles. He was the
true never-say-die kind, and lived for many a year yet, to tell of his
adventures and to put them upon paper.
James Paull had reached home before him, and before Doctor Knight also.
James was only twenty-two, but he was an old hand at Indian fighting
and at scouting. And he was a lad of great spirit, as will now be
shown.
When the Indians had fired into the party and then had called upon them
to surrender, he had been the one to dodge and run. His foot was very
lame from a burn. During the battle his mess had baked bread by
spreading the dough upon the back of a spade, scout fashion. Somebody
had tossed the hot spade aside, and he had stepped upon it with his
bare foot. The burn was a bad one; during the retreat his foot got
worse and he could scarcely walk on it.
But now with two Indians chasing him, he paid no attention to his foot.
He out-ran them, leaped down the steep bank of a creek, and in landing
tore all the skin from his blistered sole. He paid attention to it
then. Had to! A man with a flayed foot cannot do much, in the brush.
Luckily for him, the two Indians gave him up. He halted long enough to
bind his raw foot with a piece of his trousers. He could not travel
fast, but he used his wits. He knew all the tricks of the trail. He
hobbled along fallen logs, so as to leave no marks. He back-tracked,
in a circle, to cross his own trail and see if he was being followed.
He painfully shinned up trees, wormed out to the end of a branch, and
dropped as far beyond his trail as he might, so as to break it. This
would throw off the dogs, if dogs were used; yes, and it would fool the
Indians, too.
That night he slept in a hollow log. By morning his foot had swollen
to the size of a bucket. He suffered torment. He had no food with him
and was afraid to fire his gun. So this day he ate only a few berries.
To-night he slept like a bear, on a bed of leaves in a crack in a rock.
In the morning he sighted a deer. What with his pain and his hunger he
was desperate. He shot the deer, cut it open with his gun-flint, and
chewed at the bloody flesh.
This evening he came to an old Indian camp. Several empty whiskey-kegs
were lying around. That gave him an idea. He could have a fire, to
cook with. By building the fire underneath a keg, after dark, there
would be no light, and the smoke could not be seen. He tried that, and
it worked. After he had cooked and eaten, he slept in the smoke, which
kept the mosquitoes off. Assuredly, young James Paull knew how to take
care of himself.
In two days more he reached the Ohio River above Wheeling. On account
of his foot and his gun he could not swim it. No matter. He made a
raft of logs tied together with vines and strips of bark, and paddled
over.
There he saw some horses grazing in a bottom. He must have a horse.
He fashioned a halter from twisted bark, and hobbled about, trying to
catch a mount. He limped and coaxed and sweated for two hours. The
horses were frisky and suspicious. Every time he stalked one and was
about to lay his hand upon its mane, it tossed its head and with a
snort galloped away.
Finally he managed to grab the worst of the lot--an old mare. On her
he rode on, down to Short Creek, where he found all the settlers
gathered in the little fort there, under Major Sam McColloch, expecting
an attack by the Indians who had defeated Colonel Crawford's column.
Other refugees from the battle-field had brought the alarming news. He
was asked many questions--about Colonel Crawford, and Doctor Knight,
and John Slover, and the score who were missing with them. He could
tell little. All he knew, was, that he had escaped, and that he wished
to get word to his mother, down in Virginia.
He did not stay. He borrowed a better horse and hastened on--got as
far as the cabin of his cousins, and here he had to stay and treat his
foot. At first he feared that it ought to be cut off. It was a
frightful looking foot, swollen and red and poisoned. However, in
about ten days it grew better. He traveled down to his mother. She
was in their cabin doorway, peering up the road.
"Jim!"
"Mother!"
She welcomed him as one back from the land of the dead. News was slow,
in those days. Nevertheless--
"I knew you'd come--I knew you'd come," she sobbed, gladly, as he held
her in his arms. For she was a widow and he was her only boy.
It was different with Mrs. Crawford and many another wife and mother.
Mrs. Crawford waited day after day, for word from her husband, the
gallant colonel. At last it arrived, with Doctor Knight, and all the
border heard.
The brave and courtly Colonel William Crawford had been tortured and
burned. So had his gallant young son, John--and others.
Mrs. Crawford never got over that loss. She loved her husband
devotedly. Long years afterward, when she was old and wrinkled, she
placed a little grandson behind her on her horse and took him far into
the forest. She set him down beside a moss-covered log.
"Here is where I parted with your grandfather, when he rode against the
Indians," she said. And she cried and cried.