As Treveling followed the stranger from the cabin he marveled,
somewhat, at the odd place chosen by the man, who had called himself
Benton, for an interview. But urged onward by the anxious father’s
heart that beat within his breast, he followed his guide without fear.
Benton led the way through the station, passed the stockade and reached
the forest beyond. He followed the trail leading up the Kanawha.
On, through the shadows cast by the tree-tops, the two went.
A good half-mile from the stockade, in a little spot of clear ground,
where the flickering light of the moonbeams danced in fantastic rays,
Benton halted.
“There,” he said, as he wheeled abruptly round and faced the old
soldier, “this will do; just the spot for an interview.”
The General wondered at the words of the stranger; wondered still more
at the peculiar expression that was on his face.
“Do you remember this spot, General?” asked Benton.
“No,” replied Treveling, after a glance around him.
“And yet you have been here before.”
“That is very likely, but there is nothing in particular that I can
remember to fix the spot in my mind,” Treveling said.
“Are you sure of that?” asked the other.
“Quite sure.” The old General could not understand the meaning of these
odd questions in relation to a simple opening in the forest.
“And yet something happened in this very spot that should have fixed it
forever in your memory.”
“I can not remember,” said Treveling, puzzled.
“You were an officer under Lewis when he fought the battle of Point
Pleasant and whipped Corn-planter in Dunmore’s time?”
“Yes, but you spoke of this before; you said that you served under me
in that fight.”
“No, not in the fight, but before it,” said the stranger. “When I call
back the memory of that campaign, do you not remember some event that
happened in this very glade?”
“No,” Treveling answered, after a moment’s pause.
“You do not?” Benton said, with astonishment.
“No,” Treveling again replied.
“Let me call back to your mind a scene or two that happened long years
ago.”
There was an icy tone in the voice of the stranger that struck a sudden
chill to the heart of the old man. For the first time he felt a feeling
of apprehension regarding the man who was acting so strangely.
“Dunmore is Governor of Virginia,” commenced the stranger, “and General
Lewis is marching with all the force that can be raised along the
border, against Corn-planter at the head of the Shawnees, the Mingoes
and the Wyandots. He has halted here, information having reached the
ears of the General that the Indians, in great numbers, are at the
junction of the Kanawha and the Ohio, ready to give him battle.”
As the stranger spoke, Treveling, with a bewildered air, was gazing
around him. Slowly, little by little, the memory of the past came back
to him.
The little glade now seemed familiar to his eyes. It had been the
camping-ground of his own regiment.
“I do remember now!” he exclaimed. “Here I encamped the day before the
fight. The glade has changed somewhat, though, since that time. Then,
instead of this broad trail, there was naught but an Indian foot-path
here.”
“Yes, it is some years since Lewis’ army eat their hog and hominy under
the forest boughs that shadow in this little glade.”
“Why do you recall Lewis’ campaign?” asked Treveling.
“Wait a little and you shall learn,” said Benton, and an ominous light
shone in his eyes as he spoke. “Here Lewis’ army halted to prepare for
the deadly fight that they expected would come on the morrow. In this
little opening your division was encamped. Your men had hardly laid
aside their arms and begun to prepare their supper, when a blow was
given and received. You, the colonel in command, were struck in the
face and felled to the earth by a private soldier to whom you had given
the lie.”
“Yes, I remember the circumstance now that you call it to my memory,
although I had forgotten it long since,” said Treveling, calmly.
“The man who struck you was a volunteer; a man known far and wide as
one of the best scouts in all the Ohio valley. He did not think for a
moment that you wore the golden marks of a colonel on your shoulders
while his were covered only by the buck-skin hunting-shirt of the
borderer. You insulted him, and he struck you to his feet as any man
would have done.”
“But, on the following morning, he paid dearly for that blow,” said
Treveling, quickly.
“You never spoke a truer word,” returned Benton, bitterly. “When the
morning came, the same waving boughs that witnessed you give the lie to
the scout, and then saw you kiss the dust, stricken there by his arm,
looked down upon the drum-head court-martial. And then beheld the lash
cut long welts of blood on the naked shoulders of the borderer, who had
dared to forget that he was a soldier and remember that he was a man.
And then, degraded, a whipped slave, he was driven forth a dishonored
wretch.”
“All this happened years ago; why do you recall it?” asked Treveling,
impatiently.
“I recall the past that I may speak of the present,” replied Benton, a
sullen frown upon his face and anger flaming in his eyes. “Did you ever
learn the fate of the man whose life you ruined?”
“No,” replied Treveling.
“Do you remember what he said to you, after the lash had done its work
and they raised the almost helpless man, crimsoned with his own blood?”
“No, except that it was a threat of some sort.”
“He said ‘your quarters shall swim in blood for this,’ and he kept his
word. The man whose back was torn by your lash, joined the red-men,
became a white Indian, a renegade to his country and his kin. He
swore bitter and eternal vengeance against you, and he kept his oath.
When your cabin by the Ohio was attacked, he headed the Shawnees. You
escaped only by a miracle. Then, when you had taken refuge in the
station of Point Pleasant, he thought of another plan to be revenged
upon you. You had two daughters once.” The stranger paused. There was a
fearful meaning in his simple words.
“Can it be possible that this human fiend can have had aught to do with
the unaccountable disappearance of my eldest child, Augusta?” cried
Treveling, in breathless anxiety.
“She wandered forth one summer’s day within the woods and never came
back?”
“Yes, yes!” exclaimed the anxious father; “can you tell me aught of her
fate?”
“I can,” replied Benton, with a look of fearful meaning. “In the
wood, like a hawk on the watch, was the man who had sworn such deadly
vengeance upon your head. His heart leaped for joy when he beheld the
prattling child enter the shadows of the forest. He seized the little
girl, your eldest joy, and carried her from the station. In the gloomy
recesses of the forest he left her to die.”
“Oh! the heartless fiend!” cried the father, in agony.
“And think you that even this glorious vengeance satisfied him? No! He
panted for more. Thirsted for it as the hungry wolf thirsts for blood
to satisfy the cravings of its savage nature. You still had another
daughter left. For years this human bloodhound hung about the station
eager to rob you of the sole remaining joy that made your life happy.
Time passed on; your daughter grew to womanhood, as fair a flower as
ever bloomed on the banks of the Ohio. Patiently your foe waited.
Chance at last gave the golden opportunity, and your daughter fell into
his hands.”
“What?” cried the old man, horror-stricken and hardly able to believe
the evidence of his senses.
“Your daughter is now a prisoner in his hands. A captive, helpless, in
the Shawnee nation.”
“But is there no way to release her?” cried Treveling, in anguish. “I
will pay any sum possible for me to procure.”
“If you could turn every drop of your blood into a golden guinea and
spill them one by one from your veins your foe would laugh at you and
bid you remember the hour when in this very glade you scarred his back
with a lash,” replied Benton, fiercely.
“This man is a demon to seek such a vengeance!” cried Treveling, in
despair.
“You are right, he is a demon,” replied Benton, bitterly. “Can you
wonder at it? Is he not an outcast from all that makes life dear, a
savage amid savages?”
“Is there no way to touch this man’s heart?”
“He has no heart; in its place is a lump of red clay; is he not a white
Indian? What has such as he to do with hearts?”
“Why did not this man strike at my life, if he bears me the hatred that
you say he does?”
“Death is not the most cruel vengeance,” returned Benton, scornfully.
“Can bodily pain cause you greater anguish than that you now suffer?”
“No, no,” replied Treveling, slowly.
“He would have you live. Would have you know of the terrible vengeance
that he has pulled down upon your head. Can you guess what the fate of
your daughter will be?”
A shudder shook the frame of the old man as the question fell upon his
ears.
“Oh, the thought is terrible!” he moaned.
“A young and pretty white girl in the Shawnee village will not lack for
admirers. Your foe will give her to some brawny red chief to be his
slave. A helpless prisoner, the victim of the savages, she will pine
away and die. Her death will be a terrible one, for she will die by
inches. You now know the fate of both your children. One has already
suffered for your acts long years ago, and the other is now paying the
penalty.”
The stranger turned upon his heel as if to depart.
“Stay!” cried Treveling; “who are you that know all these horrible
things?”
“Have you not already guessed?” asked Benton, with a smile of terrible
meaning. “If my shoulders were bare, you could tell who I am, for the
marks of the lash are still there. If you would know my name, a week
hence ask the blazing dwellings along the Ohio that mark the track of
the Shawnees; the glowing embers and hissing flames will answer, Simon
Girty, the renegade.”
Then, with a bound, Girty disappeared in the forest.
Sick at heart, Treveling returned to the station.