On the summit of Cumberland Gap Erskine Dale faced Firefly to the east
and looked his last on the forests that swept unbroken back to the river
James. It was all over for him back there and he turned to the wilder
depths, those endless leagues of shadowy woodlands, that he would never
leave again. Before him was one vast forest. The trees ran from
mountain-crest to river-bed, they filled valley and rolling plain, and
swept on in sombre and melancholy wastes to the Mississippi. Around him
were birches, pines, hemlocks, and balsam firs. He dropped down into
solemn, mysterious depths filled with oaks, chestnuts, hickories,
maples, beeches, walnuts, and gigantic poplars. The sun could not
penetrate the leafy-roofed archway of that desolate world. The tops of
the mighty trees merged overhead in a mass of tent-like foliage and the
spaces between the trunks were choked with underbrush. And he rode on
and on through the gray aisles of the forest in a dim light that was
like twilight at high noon.
At Boonesborough he learned from the old ferryman that, while the war
might be coming to an end in Virginia, it was raging worse than ever in
Kentucky. There had been bloody Indian forays, bloody white reprisals,
fierce private wars, and even then the whole border was in a flame.
Forts had been pushed westward even beyond Lexington, and 1782 had been
Kentucky's year of blood. Erskine pushed on, and ever grew his
hopelessness. The British had drawn all the savages of the Northwest
into the war. As soon as the snow was off the ground the forays had
begun. Horses were stolen, cabins burned, and women and children were
carried off captive. The pioneers had been confined to their stockaded
forts, and only small bands of riflemen sallied out to patrol the
country. Old Jerome Sanders's fort was deserted. Old Jerome had been
killed. Twenty-three widows were at Harrodsburg filing the claims of
dead husbands, and among them were Polly Conrad and Honor Sanders. The
people were expecting an attack in great force from the Indians led by
the British. At the Blue Licks there had been a successful ambush by the
Indians and the whites had lost half their number, among them many brave
men and natural leaders of the settlements. Captain Clark was at the
mouth of Licking River and about to set out on an expedition and needed
men.
Erskine, sure of a welcome, joined him and again rode forth with Clark
through the northern wilderness, and this time a thousand mounted
riflemen followed them. Clark had been stirred at last from his lethargy
by the tragedy of the Blue Licks and this expedition was one of reprisal
and revenge; and it was to be the last. The time was autumn and the corn
was ripe. The triumphant savages rested in their villages unsuspecting
and unafraid, and Clark fell upon them like a whirl-wind. Taken by
surprise, and startled and dismayed by such evidence of the quick
rebirth of power in the beaten whites, the Indians of every village fled
at their approach, and Clark put the torch not only to cabin and wigwam
but to the fields of standing corn. As winter was coming on, this would
be a sad blow, as Clark intended, to the savages.
Erskine had told the big chief of his mother, and every man knew the
story and was on guard that she should come to no harm. A captured
Shawnee told them that the Shawnees had got word that the whites were
coming, and their women and old men had fled or were fleeing, all,
except in a village he had just left--he paused and pointed toward the
east where a few wisps of smoke were rising. Erskine turned: "Do you
know Kahtoo?"
"He is in that village."