IN A FOREST FIRE
This period has well been called the “dark and bloody” years of life
in Kentucky. Raids by the Indians occurred frequently, not only at
Boonesborough, but also at the other settlements, until more than one
pioneer became so disheartened that he gave up the contest and returned
to the East.
The war with England was at its height and the red men knew that it
was impossible for the colonists to send any troops to the West to
subdue them. More than this, the English were only too glad to give the
Indians a hand against the settlers at every opportunity.
Daniel Boone felt that a stand must be taken, and the Indians must be
taught a lesson they would not readily forget. He was very silent on
the march, but his head was busy with his plans.
“I reckon he means business this trip,” observed Joe to one of the
others.
“That he does, lad,” answered the pioneer. “And can you blame him?”
“Blame him? No, indeed, Mr. Pembly. We have good cause to bring the
redskins to terms.”
“To my mind we have a hard fight afore us,” went on Andrew Pembly. “The
Injuns must know we are after ’em.”
“Perhaps not.”
The way was rough, and more than once the party had to make a détour,
to avoid some great fallen monarch of the forest, or get out of the way
of some sharp rocks next to impossible to climb over.
The pioneers did not keep very close together, and presently Joe found
himself in the company of three others on the side of a little cliff
fronting a small gully thick with brushwood and weeds.
Joe had dropped a little behind, and was on the point of starting to
catch up when he heard a faint sound in the gully.
“What was that?” was the question he asked himself.
Instantly he thought of but two things, a wild animal or an Indian. The
sound must have come from one or the other.
“I’ll have to investigate,” he reasoned.
He would have called to his companions, but they had gone ahead, and
were out of sight around the end of the little cliff.
“If I call out loud it may serve as a warning to some enemy,” he
thought.
Gun in hand, he stepped nearer to the gully, and peered searchingly
among the brushwood and weeds.
At first he could see nothing, but at last he made out a dark object
lying in the midst of a clump of bushes.
“A man, or I am greatly mistaken,” he told himself. “But if he is a
white man, what is he doing there?”
Not to be taken by surprise, Joe dropped into the bushes himself,
expecting to crawl away and tell his friends of his discovery.
But just as he was on the point of leaving the spot he heard the man
below give a prolonged groan.
“Help! help!” he murmured feebly. “For the sake of Heaven, help me!”
“What is the matter with you?” called out the youth.
“An English voice! Heaven be praised. Help me, please!”
“I say, what is the matter with you?” repeated the young pioneer.
“I am badly wounded in the leg. I have been in this dismal hole three
days, and I am half starved. Help me!”
“I certainly will,” answered Joe, and went forward boldly, although
with his gun ready for use, in case of possible treachery.
As he got closer to the sufferer he recognized the man as a hunter
named Brinker, one who had spent considerable time at Boonesborough
the year before. The hunter was indeed in a sad plight, and with him
walking was entirely out of the question. All that had passed his lips
for three days was a biscuit he had happened to have in his game bag,
and some water he had found in a nearby hollow.
“Well, you certainly are in a bad fix,” said Joe kindly. “Wait until I
tell some of the others, and then we’ll try and do what we can for you.”
“Please don’t go away too far,” pleaded Brinker.
“I shall not.”
Joe ran forward with all speed, and soon caught up to those who had
gone ahead. He reported what he had discovered, and four men went back
with him to Brinker’s assistance.
When they reached the sufferer they found he had fainted from
exhaustion, and it took tender nursing to bring him around. His wound
was washed and bound up, and he was given some liquor.
“I’m downright glad you came,” he said, when he could speak again. “I
don’t reckon as how I could have held out another day.”
“How came you there, Brinker?” asked Daniel Boone, who had come up to
interview the man.
“It’s a long story, Colonel. I was out hunting deer when I ran into a
party of eighteen or twenty redskins. They were encamped in a hollow,
and I came on ’em before I knew what was up.”
“And they started to capture you?”
“Three of ’em did capture me, but I knocked one of ’em over and broke
away. They fired on me, and one shot passed through my hair.” The
hunter pointed to where several locks had been cut away. “It was a
close hair-cut, Colonel.”
“But how did you get hit in the leg?”
“That came later. I got away, as I said, and hid in a hollow log. But
the redskins followed my trail, and I had to leave the log and take to
the woods. When I came out on the cliff one of ’em took a long shot
at me with a rifle, and hit me as you see. I fell off the cliff, and
nearly broke my other leg doing it. Then I crawled into the bushes and
laid low. They tramped all around the spot, but good luck was with me,
and they passed me by. They might have remained around here only, I
reckon, they knew you were on the trail,” concluded Brinker.
“We’ll have to send you back to the fort,” said Colonel Boone. “You are
not fit to go forward with us.”
“Can you send me back?”
“I think so. There are two others going back. They can take you.”
Brinker was then questioned concerning the Indians he had encountered.
He said they were part of Long Knife’s warriors, but that the chief had
not been with them.
“They had two captives with them,” he continued.
“Two captives!” exclaimed Joe. “Who were they?”
“I didn’t git a good look at ’em, lad. They were a man and a woman.”
“Perhaps the woman was my mother.”
“Is your mother missing?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I didn’t see the woman very closely. Fact is, I had all I could
do to get away. They wanted to either kill or capture me the worst
way,” added Brinker.
“Then you can’t describe the prisoners at all?”
“The man was tall, and looked rather old. The woman was sitting down,
and had her back to me, so I can’t tell how tall she was, or how she
looked.”
This was all Brinker could tell, and he was so weak that to make him
talk more would have been cruel. He was placed in charge of a pioneer
who had once served as a nurse in an army hospital, and later on
returned to Boonesborough with the others Colonel Boone had mentioned.
“He can be thankful he escaped with his life,” said Joe to Andrew
Pembly.
“He can thank you for finding him,” answered the pioneer. “Had you
passed him by he would most likely have died in the hollow.”
“I wish he had seen that woman who was a captive.”
“I don’t think it was your mother, Joe. She is probably miles and miles
away from here.”
“That is true. But she might have heard something of my mother--through
the Indians.”
“’Taint likely--the redskins won’t tell much about their prisoners.
They are too afraid of having their captives followed up by friends.”
The march was once more forward, over a stretch of ground thick with
thorny underbrush where more than one hunting garb became badly torn.
Here Joe took two tumbles, and scratched both his hands and his face.
But he did not complain, knowing that many of his companions were in a
similar plight.
At the end of the day the hunters found themselves on the bank of a
stream that flowed into the main river a dozen miles away. It was an
ideal spot for resting, and a long and careful search revealed no
Indians in the immediate vicinity.
Nothing came to disturb the camp that night, although a strict watch
was kept, and by daybreak the hunters were again on the march. Soon
they struck the trail of the Indians, and Daniel Boone calculated that
the enemy were not less than two hundred in number. Only a few were on
horseback.
As the hunters advanced scouts were sent out ahead, and presently two
of these came running back with the information that the Indians were
making for a long valley straight ahead.
“That is Bear Valley,” said Daniel Boone. “I know it well. Beyond is a
heavy forest. If they reach that they will surely get away. We must try
to come up to them before the end of the valley is reached.”
It was a hot, dry day, but a lively breeze was blowing, which made the
air seem somewhat cooler than it really was. The breeze had been on the
hunters’ backs, but now it began to swerve around until it came almost
from their front.
More than half the valley had been traveled when the hunters came to
a somewhat narrow pass, hemmed in with hemlocks and cedars, and large
quantities of small brush. As they entered this pass Boone suddenly
called a halt.
“Stop, men!” came in a loud voice, and then he continued, “What do you
smell?”
“Smoke!” came promptly from a dozen of the party.
“It’s coming from the left, colonel.”
“It’s coming from dead ahead.”
“I believe they have set the forest on fire,” went on Daniel Boone.
“That is just what they have,” cried one old frontiersman. “And set it
on fire in half a dozen places, too!”
The hunters could now see the smoke plainly. It came from ahead and
from both sides of the valley. The brisk breeze was fanning the flames,
which spread with marvelous rapidity.
“They want to hem us in,” said Colonel Boone. “Well, we’ll see if they
are able to do it.”
The Indians were shouting defiance to their enemies. They had withdrawn
to the sides of the valley, and now they sent in a dozen or more shots
from the few rifles they possessed.
With fire ahead and on both sides, there was nothing to do but retreat,
and, much as he hated to give the order, Boone told his men to fall
back.
“We can circle the hill on our left,” he said. “I know a deer trail
running to the river ahead.”
The whole party turned and began to retrace their steps. The smoke
was thick about them, and the breeze began to send the burning embers
flying in all directions.
“I wonder if we’ll be able to get out of this alive,” said Joe.
“We’ll be all right unless the redskins have set fire to the brush
behind us,” answered one of the hunters.
None of the party lost time in turning back. The breeze was increasing,
and soon the thick smoke swept downward, filling the narrow valley from
end to end.
“Oh, but this is awful!” gasped Joe, and then began to cough.
“Don’t stop, men!” shouted Daniel Boone. “Don’t stop, or it may be the
death of you!”
With so many men crowding the narrow trail, progress was not near as
rapid as it might otherwise have been, and long before the back end of
the valley was gained more than one settler was ready to drop from the
effects of the smoke.
Joe went on half blindly, the tears running from his eyes. He knew that
the fire was sweeping down from the other end of the valley, and that
the breeze would soon carry it in their very midst unless they made a
rapid escape.
He was almost ready to drop, when the wind shifted, and for a minute
gave him and the others a draught of fresh air. This revived all of the
hunters, and they pushed onward with renewed energy.
“If we ever git out o’ this air trap, them redskins shall pay dearly
fer the trick,” announced one old frontiersman, and many of the party
agreed with him.
The wind was shifting to the other end of the valley, and now came
a cry from ahead that caused every heart in the party to jump with
renewed fear.
“They have set fire to this end of the valley, too! We are hemmed in by
the flames!”
The report was true. Some of the Indians had secreted themselves in
the bushes, and they had not been discovered by the guards sent out
by Boone. As soon as the whites had passed, they had set fire to some
bushes in the vicinity, and then ran around to the front by means of
a narrow trail which was well known to them leading over one of the
hills.
“We’ll have to make a dash right through the fire, I am afraid,” said
Daniel Boone.
“Unless we can find some spot where the bushes haven’t caught yet,”
said another old hunter.
“Here is a small brook!” cried a third. “I’m going to souse myself in
that.”
This last suggestion was considered good, and in a twinkling all of the
party had leaped into the brook and wet themselves from head to feet.
It was well that they did this, for the burning embers were now blowing
about more thickly than ever. Joe caught some of the fire on his neck
and some on his left hand, and his eyebrows were singed.
It was now a mad rush, each man for himself. The crowd had scattered to
the right and the left of two patches of brushwood that were blazing
fiercely.
At last Joe found himself face to face with the belt of fire. It
stretched far to the left and the right.
“No loophole there,” he thought grimly, but a moment later saw a spot
where the brushwood had already burnt to the ground. The spot was a
hundred feet wide and still hot and smoking, yet he did not hesitate,
but leaped over it with the best rate of speed that he could command.
With his eyes half filled with smoke, the young pioneer could see but
little, and consequently he did not notice a sink-hole in the very
center of the burnt-over tract. Down he went into this morass up to his
waist, and there he stuck as firmly as if in so much glue.
It was a moment of peril, and it must be admitted that Joe’s heart sank
within him. The smoke was rolling all around him, and he expected to be
smothered in short order. In vain he tugged to get of the sink-hole.
The more he tried the deeper he appeared to sink.
“Help! help!” he cried, with all the vigor that he could command.
“Help! I am fast in a sink-hole!”
Again and again he cried out, but nobody appeared to hear him, and
through the drifting and swirling smoke he could see next to nothing.
In the meantime the hunters were rushing in half a dozen directions.
The majority were following the watercourse, and by bending low in
this they managed to pass the belt of fire. The Indians had piled some
brushwood over the stream and set it on fire, but this was kicked away
by the running settlers.
Joe felt his senses leaving him, when he fancied he saw a man running
close to where he was held a prisoner.
“Help!” he called feebly. “Please help me!”
“Who calls?” came back, in a thick voice, as though the speaker himself
could scarcely use his voice.
“It is I, Joe Winship. I am fast in a sink-hole. Help me!”
“Where are you, Joe?” and now the lad recognized the voice of Daniel
Boone.
“Here! Oh, Colonel Boone, save me!”
The form came closer, and presently Joe saw Boone. The young pioneer
stretched out his arms eagerly.
“Hullo, this is a bad fix,” murmured Boone, as he took in the situation
at a glance.
Coming to the edge of the sink-hole he placed his feet on the firmest
spot to be found, and then caught Joe under the arms. A long, hard
pull, that made the lad think he was going to be disjointed, followed,
and then up he came.
“Can you stand?” asked Daniel Boone, and then as he saw the boy falter,
he caught up the body, slung it over his shoulder, and made off amid
the smoke and the flying embers.
In another five minutes both Boone and Joe were out of danger. They
had reached a spot a fair distance from the burning forest, and each
squatted in the brook up to their armpits and washed their flushed and
scorched faces and hands in the cool liquid. About half of the party
that had gone out after the Indians were doing the same. What had
become of the other hunters nobody knew.
It was not until nightfall that Daniel Boone was able to get his men
together again. It was found that one had been burnt up by the fire,
and half a dozen seriously injured. Three Indians had been shot, but
the others had departed for parts unknown.
The body of the dead man had to be taken back to the settlement, and
the wounded cared for, so that immediate pursuit of the Indians was
out of the question--and, indeed, nobody of the party just then felt
like moving. The smoke in the valley was as thick as ever, and this now
covered both hills.
“We will go into camp here,” said Colonel Boone, and this was done,
and the pioneers rested for the best part of a week. During those days
the injured returned home, and ten other settlers came from another
settlement to take their places.
On the eighth day the men under Boone prepared to move forward once
again. A heavy rain had drowned out the forest fire, and the trail
over one of the hills was found to be perfectly safe to travel.
The order to march had just been given when one of the sharpshooters
who was in advance came running back with news of importance.
“A body of white men are approaching!” he cried. “And unless I am
greatly mistaken they are the men who left the fort last fall to see if
they couldn’t rescue the captives the Indians took at that time.”