Big Joe Logston was a noted character in the early history of the west. He
was born and reared among the Alleghany mountains, near the source of the
north branch of the Potomac, some twenty or thirty miles from any
settlement. He was tall, muscular, excelled in all the athletic sports of
the border, and was a first-rate shot. Soon after Joe arrived at years of
discretion, his parents died, and he went out to the wilds of Kentucky.
There, Indian incursions compelled him to take refuge in a fort. This pent
up life was not at all to Joe's taste. He soon became very restless, and
every day insisted on going out with others to hunt up cattle. At length
no one would accompany him, and he resolved to go out alone. He rode the
greater part of the day without finding any cattle, and then concluded to
return to the fort. As he was riding along, eating some grapes, with which
he had filled his hat, he heard the reports of the two rifles; one ball
passed through the paps of his breast, which were very prominent, and the
other struck the horse behind the saddle, causing the beast to sink in its
tracks.
[Illustration: INDIANS AMBUSHED FOR JOE LOGSTON.]
Joe was on his feet in an instant and might have taken to his heels with
the chances of escape greatly in his favor. But to him flight was never
agreeable. The moment the guns were fired, an Indian sprang forward with
an uplifted tomahawk; but as Joe raised his rifle, the savage jumped
behind two saplings, and kept springing from one to the other to cover his
body. The other Indian was soon discovered behind a tree loading his gun.
When in the act of pushing down his bullet, he exposed his hips and Joe
fired a load into him. The first Indian then sprang forward and threw his
tomahawk at the head of the white warrior, who dodged it. Joe then clubbed
his gun and made at the savage, thinking to knock him down. In striking,
he missed, and the gun now reduced to the naked barrel, flew out of his
hands. The two men then sprang at each other with no other weapons than
those of nature. A desperate scuffle ensued. Joe could throw the Indian
down, but could not hold him there. At length, however, by repeated heavy
blows, he succeeded in keeping him down, and tried to choke him with the
left hand while he kept the right free for contingencies. Directly, Joe
saw the savage trying to draw a knife from its sheath, and waiting till it
was about half way out, he grasped it quickly and sank it up to the handle
in the breast of his foe, who groaned and expired.
Springing to his feet, Joe saw the Indian he had crippled, propped against
a log, trying to raise his gun to fire, but falling forward, every time he
made the attempt. The borderer, having enough of fighting for one day, and
not caring to be killed by a crippled Indian, made for the fort, where he
arrived about nightfall. He was blood and dirt from crown to toe, and
without horse, hat, or gun.
The next morning a party went to Joe's battle-ground. On looking round,
they found a trail, as if something had been dragged away, and at a little
distance they came upon the big Indian, covered up with leaves. About a
hundred yards farther, they found the Indian Joe had crippled, lying on
his back, with his own knife sticking up to the hilt in his body, just
below the breast bone, evidently to show that he had killed himself. Some
years after this fight, Big Joe Logston lost his life in a contest with a
gang of outlaws. He was one of those characters who were necessary to the
settlement of the west, but who would not have been highly esteemed in
civilized society.
[Illustration: INDIAN IN AMBUSH]