Transcriber's Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

TALES,
Traditions and Romance
OF
BORDER
AND
REVOLUTIONARY TIMES.

BY EDWARD S. ELLIS.

NEW YORK:

BEADLE AND COMPANY, PUBLISHERS,

118 WILLIAM STREET.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the Year 1864,

by Beadle and Company, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United

States for the Southern District of New York.

PREFACE.

In this volume we offer the reader a combination of two of the most fascinating qualities which a book can possess. It is almost strictly historical, and yet as marvelous as the most romantic fiction. The sketches and incidents here gathered are all authenticated; yet many of them, in their wonderful interest and pathos, exceed the bounds of fancy. They belong to two classes: those which are connected with the Revolution, and those which chronicle the peculiar events of our Frontier History. While they will absorb the attention of the most intelligent reader, they are charmingly adapted to attract young people, who will be both instructed and delighted. Boys will find examples worthy of emulation, and will learn to appreciate those traits of character which made the glory and the progress of our young republic; while girls may gain dignity of mind by contemplating the devotion, courage and endurance of the women of those days.

An insight will be afforded into the customs of the Indians, and into the manner of life of the early settlers, whose dangers and difficulties, privations and calamities, are almost incredible. Many of the most thrilling events in our national history are herein related, along with the fearless adventures of our brave pioneers, and the perils and catastrophes which befell the families of those whose protectors were absent on the field of battle, or whose cabins failed to find sufficient defense in the rifles of their owners.

The reader will linger over these pages, thrilled by the consciousness that the scenes so vividly brought before him are real—a living, abiding part of our existence as a people. The "storied Rhine" and "classic Italy" are laid and overlaid thickly with traditions which give a vague interest to soil, ruin, mountain and sky. We, also, have our traditions—different in kind, but of wild and marvelous interest—and the day shall come when the banks of the fair Ohio, the blue Muskingum, the picturesque Allegany, the noble Mississippi, shall be trodden by reverent feet, while the thoughts of the traveler speed back to the days of the lurking red-man and the bold ranger. It is no mean duty of the chronicler to treasure up the threads of a thousand little facts, and weave them into a web which shall perpetuate them for the future.

The publishers believe that this volume will not only be a favorite in the hands of men, young and old, but will have its appropriate place by the fireside.

CONTENTS.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

Simon Kenton's Torture-Ride—Page [9].

TALES,

Traditions and Romance

OF

BORDER AND REVOLUTIONARY TIMES.

SIMON KENTON.

MURPHY SAVING THE FORT.

BRANT AND THE BOY.

MRS. AUSTIN AND THE BEAR.

BEADLE AND COMPANY,

NEW YORK: 118 WILLIAM STREET.

LONDON: 44 PATERNOSTER ROW.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by

BEADLE AND COMPANY,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for

the Southern District of New York.

SIMON KENTON,
AND HIS
INDIAN TORTURE-RIDE.

Foremost among the wild and terrific scenes which arise before our startled eyes when we turn the pages of border warfare, is the ride of Simon Kenton—not that the cruelty of its devisers was so atrocious, nor the final results so dreadful, as in many other instances; but the novelty, the unique savageness of the affair, strikes upon the imagination, as if it were one of those thrilling stories related of ages and people which never were, instead of an event that actually occurred to one of our own countrymen in one of our own territories.

In the early light of morning breaking through the trees which surround them, a group of Indians are preparing to resume their march, after a night of repose. They have with them a solitary prisoner. Corraled about them are numbers of horses, the recovery of which has been the object of the expedition. Before these are released and the day's march resumed, the prisoner must be disposed of. While his captors are deciding this important matter, we will discover who he is and what has brought him into his present state.

About the first of September, 1778, Simon Kenton—the friend and younger coadjutor of Boone, who had been with the latter for some time at Boonesborough Station, employed in protecting the surrounding country, and engaging in occasional skirmishes with the Indians—becoming tired of a temporary inactivity which his habits of life rendered insupportable, determined to have another adventure with the Indians. For this purpose he associated with Alex. Montgomery and George Clark, to go on an expedition for stealing horses from the Shawnees.

The three brave scouts reached old Chilicothe without meeting with any thing exciting. There they fell in with a drove of Indian horses, feeding on the rich prairie, and securing seven of the drove, started on their return. Reaching the Ohio, they found the river lashed into fury by a hurricane, and the horses refused to cross. Here was an unlooked-for dilemma. It was evening; they felt sure of being pursued; no time was to be lost. As the only resource, they rode back to the hills, hobbled the animals, and then retraced their steps to see if they were followed. Finding as yet no signs of pursuit, they took what rest their anxiety would allow them. The next morning, the wind having subsided, they sought their horses and again attempted to cross the river, but with the same result; the horses, from fright, refused to take to the water, and they were driven to the alternative of parting with them. Selecting each one of the best, they turned the others loose, and started for the Falls of the Ohio, (now just below Louisville); but disliking thus to abandon the fruits of their expedition, they unwisely returned again, to attempt to retake and lead the others. This was by no means an easy task, and while engaged in the endeavor, they were surprised by a party of mounted savages, who had followed their trail with vengeful pertinacity. The whites were separated; and Kenton, hearing a whoop in the direction of his comrades, dismounted, creeping cautiously in the direction of the sound, to discover, if possible, the force of the enemy. Dragging himself forward on his hands and knees, he came suddenly upon several Indians, who did not discover him at the moment. Being surrounded, and thinking the boldest game the best, he took aim at the foremost and pulled trigger, but his gun missed fire. This, of course, discovered his position, and he was instantly pursued. Taking advantage of some fallen timber, he endeavored to elude his pursuers, by dodging them, and hiding in the underbrush, where their horses could not follow; but they were too cunning, or rather too many for him. Dividing their forces and riding along either side the timber, they "beat it up," until, as he was emerging at the further end, he was confronted by one of the savages, who, the moment he discovered his white foe, threw himself from his horse and rushed upon Kenton with his tomahawk. Kenton drew back his arm to defend himself with the butt end of his gun; but as he was about to strike, another stalwart savage, whom he had not observed, seized him in his powerful grasp, preventing the descending blow. He was now a prisoner, compelled to yield, with such grace as he could, to superior numbers. While they were binding him, his companion, Montgomery, made his appearance, firing at one of the savages, but missing his mark. He was immediately pursued; in a few moments one of the pursuers returned, shaking the bloody scalp of his friend in Kenton's face. Clark succeeded in making his escape, and crossing the river, arrived in safety at Logan's Station.

That night the Indians encamped on the banks of the river; in the morning they prepared to return with their unfortunate prisoner, who had passed an uneasy night, bound to the ground, and not knowing precisely what vengeance his enemies might be pleased to visit upon him. Some of them knew him well, and he realized that there were long scores to be wiped off against him. However, the red-man had a keen appreciation of bravery, and he did not anticipate any severer fate upon that account. Some little time elapsed before they succeeded in catching all their horses. The day had well advanced before they were ready to march, and the annoyance consequent upon this delay so exasperated them, that they determined to make their captive pay the full penalty of the trouble he had caused them. They therefore selected the wildest and most restive horse among their number, and proceeded to bind Kenton upon his back. Their mode of proceeding was as follows: a rope was first passed round the under jaw of the horse, either end of which was held by an Indian; yet even with this advantage, it required the assistance of others to control the vicious beast, which was determined not to receive its burden. Kenton was first seated upon the horse with his face toward the tail, and his feet tied together under the animal. Another rope confined his arms, drawing the prisoner down upon his back. A third, secured about his neck, was fastened to the horse's neck, thence extending longitudinally down his person to the animal's tail, where it was secured, and answered well for a crupper. In this way he was fastened to the wild and frantic steed, beyond the possibility of escape. To make the matter sure against contingencies, the now delighted savages passed another rope about his thighs, securing it to the one which served as a girth. They then fastened a pair of moccasins upon his hands to prevent his defending his face. During the time they were thus preparing him for his Mazeppa-like ride, they taunted him by asking if he wanted to steal any more horses. They danced around him, yelped and screamed, and, in every possible manner, expressed their infernal delight at the anticipated sufferings of their victim. The heart of Simon Kenton seldom quailed before any danger; but it must have been supernaturally strengthened not to have sickened during those moments of preparation and anticipation. To be bound to unspoken torture, which could end, at the last, only in death—death long deferred, perhaps into hours and days, whose every minute and second would be sharp with anguish—to be so helpless to resist the evils which were sure to come, with the close rope strangling the breath in his throat whenever he attempted to raise his head to see the cruelties which he felt—to add all the mental miseries of suspense to the horrible realities before him—this was enough surely to shake even the sturdy spirit of the defiant pioneer. For a moment he was inclined to beg of his tormentors to tomahawk him then and there; but he knew that such an appeal would gratify their malice while it would produce no other effect; and he closed his lips tightly, resolved that they should enjoy no sign of fear or dismay to enhance their inhuman delight. One glance at the blue sky smiling down between the lightly-waving branches of the trees—one scornful look into the demon-faces about him, and, for an instant, his eyes closed; he felt like one falling from a precipice into terrific depths yawning to receive him.

With stripes and demoniac yells they at length turned loose the almost savage horse, which was goaded to desperation by the tumult and the blows. The infuriated beast at once bounded away on its aimless, erratic course, anxious only to rid itself of its strange burden.

"'Twas scarcely yet the break of day,

And on he foamed—away!—away!—

The last of human sounds which rose,

As he was darted from his foes,

Was the wild shout of savage laughter

Which on the wind came roaring after."

Frantic with fright, the noble animal went careering through the woods, rearing and plunging in his madness, inflicting upon his tortured rider countless wounds and blows as he endeavored to dash him against the trees, or rushed through the tangled brush, lacerating the flesh of both with innumerable thorns and briers. In one of the mad dashes which the horse gave through the unpitying forest, Kenton's arm came with such force against a tree that it was broken—he knew it by its becoming so limp and helpless, as well as from the knife-like pain which darted from it. The wretched man could only hope that the horse would some time tire; that, wearied out with its useless efforts to free itself from its burden, it would subside into some quiet, which might give a moment's ease to his aching and mangled limbs; but he hoped in vain!

"Each motion which he made to free

His swollen limbs from their agony,

Increased its fury and affright;

He tried his voice—'twas faint and low,

But yet it swerved, as from a blow;

And, starting at each accent, sprang

As from a sudden trumpet's clang.

Meanwhile the cords were wet with gore,

Which, oozing from his wounds, ran o'er;

And on his tongue the thirst became

A something fiercer far than flame."

Oh, that horrible thirst which takes possession of the person suffering exquisite pain, until the torture seems to exceed that of the anguish which causes it. None but those who have experienced this extremity of mortal suffering can picture it; none but those who have suffered the horrible pangs of thirst can sympathize with the unutterable pain which Simon Kenton endured for the next few hours. Yes, for hours! The harassed steed, at length, with wasted strength and trembling limbs, returned to the point from which he had started, with his now almost inanimate rider, who must have sunk into insensibility long before, had not the fever of his pain kept him from that blessed relief. The hunter hoped that now he would either be killed outright, or relieved of his present position; but such was not the intention of the red devils who had him in their power.

Worn out with fatigue, and satisfied of his inability to rid himself of his unwelcome burden, the exhausted horse took his place in the cavalcade, which had already started for its home. The only mercy they vouchsafed the prisoner was to give him, twice or thrice, some water. His sufferings had only commenced—death, in its worst form, would have been preferred to the ordeal through which he had yet to pass. To feel certain of death—to count the lingering hours as they pass—to know that each is but a step toward a certain doom—to feel that doom impending day by day, and yet to see it postponed through miserable stretches of suffering—to endure continually all the anguish of which the human frame is capable, and all this time to know that hope has fled beyond recall—that all this protracted agony must end in inevitable death, is too terrible to contemplate.

All this Simon Kenton bore for three days and nights. It seems incredible that life should have held out so long; but his previous training in the schools of endurance seemed only to have fitted him now to hold out through what no other man could have borne. Through three nights he lay in his cradle of anguish; through three days he was racked by the motion of the animal which bore him; and when the Indians reached their village, he was still alive.

It had been the intention of the savages to procure his death by means of the wanton torture they had instituted; but when he reached his destination alive, owing to some custom or superstition of their own, they delivered him over to the care of their squaws. These took him from the rack, bathed his disfigured body, set his broken arm, bandaged his wounds, made soothing and healing washes from the herbs of the forest, nourished him with drinks and food, and gradually restored him to health. Not only was his life saved, but his iron constitution remained unbroken by the fearful trial through which it had passed. As soon as his renewed strength warranted the attempt, he set about planning the mode of his escape, which he successfully accomplished, returning to the friends who had long since given him up for lost, to relate to their almost incredulous hearts the story of his sufferings.

This remarkable episode is but one of countless adventures in which Simon Kenton was engaged. Our readers may hear from him again in scenes equally thrilling. He was, without doubt, one of the bravest and most interesting of the western pioneers; he was excelled by none, and scarcely equaled by his precursor, Daniel Boone. His biography, as far as it has been preserved, will be read with interest by all; his name will never be forgotten in the valley of the great West. He was the coadjutor of Boone throughout the protracted struggle for the occupancy of the rich forests and prairies on either side of the Ohio. The almost incessant exposure and life of self-denial which these resolute adventurers endured can scarcely be appreciated by us of this generation who enjoy in peace the fruits of their sufferings.

While the United States were British Colonies, and Kentucky and Ohio still were primeval in their solitudes, filled with Indians, and wholly destitute of white inhabitants, these two heroic men, Boone and Kenton, as if moved by the finger of Providence, left the shades of civilization, entire strangers to each other, and ventured into the midst of a boundless wilderness, neither having any knowledge of the purpose or movement of the other. Boone led the way from North Carolina, crossed the mountains, and entered the valley of Kentucky in 1769; Kenton followed from Virginia, in 1773. The former emigrated from choice, to gratify his natural taste, after full deliberation, and after having calculated the consequences. Not so with Kenton; he fled to the wilderness to escape the penalty of a supposed crime. He had, unfortunately, become involved in a quarrel with a young man of his neighborhood, with whom he had lived in habits of great intimacy and friendship, and, as he supposed, had killed him in a personal conflict. To avoid the consequences of that imaginary homicide, and to escape, if possible, from the distress of his own feelings, he left home and friends, without waiting to ascertain the result. Unaccompanied by any human being, he crossed the mountains and descended into the valley of the Big Kanawha, under the assumed name of Simon Butler. He retained that name several years, until he received information that the friend whom he supposed had fallen under his hand, had recovered from the blow, and was alive and in health. He then resumed his proper name, and disclosed the reason which had led him to assume that of Butler; but a love for the wild life to which he had exiled himself had now taken such strong hold of him that he made no effort to return to the ties from which he had so hastily fled.

It is a matter of regret that so small a portion of the achievements of this interesting man have been perpetuated. This may be accounted for by the fact that so large a portion of his life was spent in the wilderness, either in solitude, or associated with others of the same adventurous cast with himself; and it explains the reason why we are not only without a connected record of his life, but have so few of its isolated transactions preserved. It is known, however, that, after he joined the adventurers in the district of Kentucky, about two years before the Declaration of American Independence, he engaged in most of the battles and skirmishes between the white inhabitants and the savages which followed, during 1774 to 1783. He became an enterprising leader in most of the expeditions against the Indian towns north-west of the Ohio. These conflicts, indeed, continued during the long period of twenty years, intervening between their commencement and the decisive victory of "Mad Anthony" Wayne at the rapids of the Maumee, in August, 1794, which was followed by the celebrated treaty of Greenville, and peace to the afflicted border. Kenton was always considered one of the boldest and most active defenders of the western country, from the commencement of its settlement until the close of Indian hostilities. In all their battles and expeditions he took a conspicuous part. He was taken prisoner several times and conveyed to the Shawnee towns, but in every instance he made his escape and returned to his friends.

On one occasion he was captured when on an expedition against the Wabash (Miami) villages, and taken to one of the remote Indian towns, where a council was held to decide on his fate. Again he was fated to endure one of their cruel and peculiar modes of inflicting punishment. He was painted black, tied to a stake, and suffered to remain in this painful position for twenty-four hours, anticipating the horrors of a slow and cruel death, by starvation or fire. He was next condemned to run the gauntlet. The Indians, several hundred in number, of both sexes, and every age and rank, armed with switches, sticks, bludgeons and other implements of assault, were formed in two lines, between which the unhappy prisoner was made to pass; being promised that, if he reached the door of the council-house, at the further end of the lines, no further punishment would be inflicted. He accordingly ran, with all the speed of which his debilitated condition rendered him capable, dreadfully beaten by the savages as he passed, and had nearly reached the goal, when he was knocked down by a warrior with a club; and the demoniac set, gathering around the prostrate body, continued to beat him until life appeared to be nearly extinguished.

In this wretched condition, naked, lacerated and exhausted, he was marched from town to town, exhibited, tortured, often threatened to be burned at the stake, and compelled frequently to run the gauntlet. On one of these occasions he attempted to make his escape, broke through the ranks of his torturers, and had outstripped those who pursued him, when he was met by some warriors on horseback, who compelled him to surrender. After running the gauntlet in thirteen towns, he was taken to the Wyandot town of Lower Sandusky, in Ohio, to be burned. Here resided the white miscreant, Simon Girty, who, having just returned from an unsuccessful expedition against the frontiers of Pennsylvania, was in a particularly bad humor. Hearing that there was a white prisoner in town, the renegade rushed upon him, struck him, beat him to the ground, and was proceeding to further atrocities, when Kenton had the presence of mind to call him by name and claim his protection. They had known each other in their youth; Kenton had once saved the life of Girty; and deaf as was the latter, habitually, to every dictate of benevolence, he admitted the claim of his former acquaintance. Actuated by one of those unaccountable caprices common among savages, he interceded for him, rescued him from the stake, and took him to his own house, where, in a few days, the prisoner recovered his strength. Some of the chiefs, however, became dissatisfied; another council was held, the former decree was reversed, and Kenton was again doomed to the stake.

From this extremity he was rescued by the intercession of Drewyer, a British agent, who, having succeeded in obtaining his release, carried him to Detroit, where he was received by the British commander as a prisoner of war. From that place he made his escape, in company with two other Americans; and, after a march of thirty days through the wilderness, continually exposed to recapture, had the good fortune to escape all perils, and to reach the settlements of Kentucky in safety.

Hall, from whose sketches of the West we have gathered this account of his running the gauntlet, states that all those horrors were endured upon the occasion of his captivity following his Mazeppa-like ride, although Burnet, in his "Notes," speaks of it as upon another and a future occasion.

After the fall of Kaskaskia, which took place in 1778, and in the expedition against which Kenton took an active part, he was sent with a small party to Kentucky with dispatches. On their way the rangers fell in with a camp of Indians, in whose possession were a number of horses, which the daring fellows took and sent back to the army, then in great need of the animals.

Pursuing their way by Vincennes, they entered that French-Indian town at night, traversed several of the streets, and departed without being discovered, taking from the inhabitants two horses to each man. When they came to White river, a raft was made on which to cross, while the horses were driven in to swim the river. On the opposite shore a party of Indians was encamped, who caught the horses as they ascended the bank. Such are the vicissitudes of border incident! The same horses which had been audaciously taken only the night before from the interior of a regularly garrisoned town, were lost by being accidentally driven by their captors into a camp of the enemy! Kenton and his party, finding themselves in the utmost danger, returned to the shore from which they had pushed their raft, and concealed themselves until night, when they crossed the river at a different place, reaching Kentucky in safety.

The expedition against Kaskaskia was one of the earliest made by the Americans beyond the Ohio. This place, as well as the posts upon the Lakes, was then in possession of the British, with whom we were at war. Being one of the points from which the Indians were supplied with ammunition, and thus enabled to harass the settlements in Kentucky, its capture was considered so important that the legislature of Virginia were induced to raise a regiment for the purpose. The command was given to Colonel George Rogers Clarke, the young military hero, to whom, more than to any other one person, Kentucky owes her successful foundation as a State. He was, as a military leader, what Kenton was as a scout and skirmisher—one of those men who seemed raised up, providentially, to master great difficulties.

The story of the campaign by which he took Kaskaskia is one of the most interesting of our border experiences. With two or three hundred men, mostly raised in Virginia, he crossed the mountains to the Monongahela, and descended by water to the Falls of the Ohio, where he was joined by some volunteers from Kentucky, among whom was Simon Kenton. After a halt of a few days to refresh his men, he proceeded down the Ohio to the neighborhood of Fort Massac, a point about sixty miles above the mouth of that river, where he landed and hid his boats, to prevent their discovery by the Indians. He was now distant from Kaskaskia about one hundred and thirty miles. The intervening country must have been, at that time, almost impassable. His route led through a flat region, overflowed by the backwater of the streams, and entirely covered with a most luxuriant vegetation, which must have greatly impeded the march of his troops. Through this dreary region, the intrepid young leader marched on foot, at the head of his gallant band, with his rifle on his shoulder and his provisions on his back. After wading through swamps, crossing creeks by such methods as could be hastily adopted, and sustaining two days' march after the provisions were exhausted, he arrived in the night before the village of Kaskaskia. Having halted and formed his men, he made them a speech, which contained only the brief sentence: "The town must be taken at all events." Accordingly it was taken, and that without striking a blow; for, although fortified, the surprise was so complete that no resistance was attempted. This exploit was followed up by a series of the same character; in all of which Kenton played his part, being chosen, as we have seen, after this expedition, to be the bearer of important dispatches through a hostile country. In all emergencies like this, his aid was invaluable.

Simon Kenton was a striking example of cool, deliberate bravery, united with a tender, sympathizing heart. In times of danger and conflict, all his energies were enlisted in the struggle. He fought for victory, regardless of consequences; but the moment the contest was over, and his feelings resumed their usual state, he could sit down and weep over the misery he had assisted in producing. Doubtless this extreme sensibility was the cause of his being driven into the wilds of the West—the wretchedness he suffered on account of the blow he had dealt in a moment of passion being such as permitted his mind no repose for a long period after the deed was committed. Such tenderness of heart is not incompatible with the sternest bravery—indeed, the most heroic are, usually, also the most gentle and generous in times of repose. During a large portion of his life, solitude, danger and want were his attendants; necessity had so familiarized him to privation, that he could endure abstinence from food, and subsist on as small a quantity of it, without detriment to health or strength, as the savages themselves.

During his residence in the wilderness, the land-warrants issued by the commonwealth of Virginia were easily obtained. After the holders were permitted to locate them west of the mountains, he found no difficulty in possessing himself of as many of them as he desired; and having traversed the wilderness in every direction, his topographical knowledge enabled him to select for location the best and most valuable lands in the country. Well, too, had he earned these estates, for his hand had opened them not only to himself but for thousands of others to possess and enjoy. Had he possessed the information necessary to enable him to make his entries sufficiently special to stand the test of legal scrutiny, his locations would have been the foundation of a princely fortune for himself and his descendants. Unfortunately, however, he was uneducated; and, although his locations were judicious, and his entries were made in the expressive language suggested by a vigorous mind, yet they were not sufficiently technical; in consequence of which the greater part of them were lost, by subsequent entries more specifically and technically made. He succeeded in retaining a few of them however, and these were sufficient to make him entirely independent.

The first authentic information we have of him, after he left the place of his nativity, is that he was engaged in the great battle fought at the mouth of the Big Kanawha, between the Indians and the troops of Lord Dinsmore, while he was Governor of the Province of Virginia; in which he, Kenton, was distinguished for his bravery.

The next intelligence is, that in 1775, he was in the district of Kentucky commanding a station, near the spot where the town of Washington now stands. Not long after that work was done, the station was discovered, attacked and destroyed by the Indians, and it does not appear that he made any effort to reoccupy it until the year 1784, after the treaty of peace with Great Britain. In that year he rebuilt his block-house and cabins, and proceeded to raise a crop; and though frequently disturbed by the Indians, he continued to occupy and improve it, until he removed his family to Ohio, some eight or ten years after the treaty of Greenville.

At the commencement of the war of 1812, Kenton was a citizen of Ohio, residing in the vicinity of Urbana. He then bore on his person the scars of many a bloody conflict; yet he repaired to the American camp and volunteered in the army of Harrison. His personal bravery was proverbial; his skill and tact in Indian warfare were well known; and as the frontier at that time abounded with Indians, most of whom had joined the British standard, the services of such an experienced Indian-fighter as Simon Kenton were highly appreciated by General Harrison and Governor Meigs, each of whom had known him personally for many years. His offer was promptly accepted, and the command of a regiment conferred upon him. While a portion of the army was stationed at Urbana, a mutinous plan was formed by some of the militia to attack an encampment of friendly Indians, who, threatened by the hostile tribes, had been invited to remove their families within our frontier settlements for protection. Kenton remonstrated against the movement, as being not only mutinous, but treacherous and cowardly. He appealed to their humanity, and their honor as soldiers. He told them that he had endured suffering and torture at the hands of these people again and again, but that was in time of war; and now, when they had come to us under promise of safety, he should permit no treachery toward them. Finding the mutineers still bent on their purpose, he took a rifle and called on them to proceed, declaring that he should accompany them to the encampment, and shoot down the first man who attempted to molest it. Knowing that the veteran would keep his promise, no one ventured to take the lead. Thus generous was Kenton in times of peace; thus brave in times of war.

We have said that he secured enough land—despite of the entries made after and upon his—to render him independent for life; but there were not wanting those, in his latter days, base enough to defraud the confiding and noble old hero out of the remainder of his affluence. In 1828 Congress granted him a pension, dating back many years, which afforded him an ample support the remainder of his life.

The records of such lives as his should be carefully preserved, that the luxurious and effeminate young men of to-day, and those of the future, may know by what courage and hardships their ease has been secured to them.

MURPHY SAVING THE FORT.

Suddenly, through the clear stillness of an autumn morning rung out the three rapid reports of an alarm-gun, which had been agreed upon by the three frontier forts defending the valley of the Schoharie, as a signal of danger. The faint flush in the eastern sky was as yet not strong enough to tinge the white frost glittering over leaf and grass; the deep repose of earliest dawn rested over all things in that beautiful vale; but as the thunder of that alarm-gun rolled sullenly along the air, every eye unclosed, every heart awoke from the even pulse of sleep to the hurried beat of fear and excitement.

Not even the inhabitants of Gettysburg, nor the plundered, misused people of East Tennessee, can imagine the appalling terrors which beset our ancestors during those "days which tried men's souls," when they fought for the liberties which now we are bound to defend in all their sanctity against foes at home or abroad. When we recall the price paid for our present position in the van of progress and free government, well may our hearts burn with inextinguishable resolve never to give up what was so nobly purchased.

Pardon the reflection, which has nothing to do with the story we have to tell of Timothy Murphy, the celebrated rifleman of Morgan's Corps. Only this we must say: our English neighbors, who are so much shocked at the way we have managed our civil war, ought to turn back to that disgraceful page of their history whereon is written the hideous record of Indian barbarities which they employed against us—against our women and children, our firesides, our innocent babes!

The signal was fired by the upper fort; but when those of the middle fort sprung to the ramparts to ascertain the cause of alarm, they found their own walls completely invested. A combined force of British troops, Hessian hirelings and tories, with a body of Indians of the Six Nations, under their war-chief, Joseph Brant—the whole under the command of Sir John Johnson—passing the first fort unobserved, had entered the valley. After the usual manner of their warfare, the work of destruction upon peaceable inhabitants immediately commenced. Farm-houses were in flames; women and children, who ran from them, found refuge only in the tortures of the savages waiting without; barns, filled with the plenty of autumn, blazed up a few moments with the wild brightness of ruin, and then sunk back, a smoldering heap, to tell of poverty and famine. While this cruel work was progressing, a column of the enemy, with two small mortars and a field-piece called a "grasshopper,"—from being mounted upon legs instead of wheels—was sent to occupy a height which commanded the middle fort. This, with its little garrison of about two hundred men, was surrounded, and lay completely under the enemy's fire.

Under these circumstances the men turned to their commander for instructions. Unfortunately, Major Woolsey was a fallen star amid that glorious galaxy to which we look back with such pride—he was that pitiable object at which women blush—a coward in epaulettes! Where was he in the emergency which ought to have called forth all his powers? "Among the women and children in a house of the fort!" says the historian, but the narrator does not inform us whether or not the Major absolutely begged the shelter of their skirts! And, "when driven out by the ridicule of his associates, he crawled around the intrenchments upon his hands and knees." There was one way in which this incident was of service to the troops who awaited the orders of their commander. The Major's cowardice was so utterly ridiculous that the jeers and laughter it called forth restored courage to the men, who had been so suddenly surprised as to be at first disheartened.

Among those who shook with mingled wrath and laughter at sight of the impotence of their leader was Murphy. At the first note of danger he had sprung to the ramparts, his unerring rifle in hand, his bright eye flashing fire. He should have been in the Major's place. It is men like him who electrify their comrades with the thrilling enthusiasm and reliance of their own courage—men who know not fear, who think nothing of themselves and all of their cause—cool, prompt, ready for any emergency. He should have been the leader: but he was only a militiaman, whose term of service had expired at that, and who was "fighting on his own account." But he could not brook the disgrace of such leadership; when the commander of the fort went creeping about on his hands, the militiaman felt that it was time to take the reins in his own grasp, and he did it. Implicit obedience from the soldier to the officer is a necessity; but there are exceptions to all rules, and this was one of them; to be mutinous then was to be true to duty and to honor. Deeming the fort their own, the enemy sent out an officer with a flag of truce. As soon as he came in sight, the relieved Major got off his knees, commanding his men to cease all firing. Now it was that this justifiable mutiny ensued. Murphy, from his position on the ramparts, answered to the flag, warning it away, threatening in event of its closer approach to fire upon it. This remarkable assumption of authority confounded all within the fort. He was ordered by the officers of the regular troops to forbear, but the militiamen, whose hero he was, cheered him, and swore he should have his way. Thus supported, as soon as the flag of truce came within range, he fired purposely missing the messenger who bore it, when the flag quickly retired. This "outrage" at once closed all avenues to a peaceful surrender. The enemy's artillery opened upon the fort. A continual fusillade was kept up by the mortars, the grasshopper, and the rifles of the Indians, fortunately with little effect. Many an Indian, who considered himself at a prudent distance, bit the dust, as the smoke cleared away from the busy rifle of Timothy Murphy. Hour after hour the attack continued. A number of shells were thrown, but only two of them fell inside the walls; one of these pierced the house within the palisades, and descending to the first story, smothered itself in a feather-bed, without doing any fatal injury. The gallant Major commanding should have been ensconced for safety in those feathers! The other shell set fire to the roof, which was saved from destruction by a pail of water carried by the intrepid Philip Graft, the sentinel who had first discovered the approach of the British troops.

Many exciting events occurred during that long forenoon. A large barn, filled with grain, and surrounded by several stacks of wheat, stood a few hundred feet from the fort. It was several times set on fire. As it was important to save its contents, Lieutenant Spencer, with his band of forty men, sallied out on each occasion, and extinguished the flames. This heroic party also made sorties, whenever the enemy approached too near the fort, which could not be properly protected, owing to a short supply of ammunition.

Now it was, also, that the courage of women—which the annals of the Revolution set forth in such noble luster—shone resplendent above the craven fear of the commander. Some of the women armed themselves, avowing their determination to aid in the defense, should the attack reach the walls. The supply of water threatening to give out, a soldier was ordered to bring some from a well outside the works. He turned pale and stood trembling in his shoes, between the double danger of disobedience and exposure to the enemy's fire.

"Give the bucket to me!" cried a girl, not over nineteen years of age, her red lip curling slightly with scorn, as she took the bucket from his yielding hand, and went forth after the much-needed necessary of life.

A shout of enthusiasm broke from the spectators. With a smile on her face and a clear luster in her eyes, inspiriting to see, she went out on her dangerous journey. Without the least appearance of trepidation, she filled her bucket and returned, passing within range of the enemy's fire. This errand she performed several times in safety.

All this time the rifle of Murphy was doing its appointed work. In the course of the forenoon he saw a second flag approaching to demand the surrender of the fort. Seeing him preparing to salute it as he had the former, Major Woolsey ordered the independent rifleman from the ramparts.

"I shan't come down," said the sturdy patriot. "I'm going to fire on that white rag."

"Then I shall be obliged to kill you on the spot," said the Major, drawing his sword, and making a flourish.

Murphy only took one eye from the advancing flag; his weapon was sighted; he was not sufficiently alarmed by this threat to lose its position.

"Kill away, Major, if you think best. It won't better your situation much. I know you, and what you will do. You will surrender this fort. Yes, sir; in the hopes of saving your miserable skin, you'll surrender! But you won't even save your own carcass. You can believe what I tell you. I know them troops out thar, and their way of fightin'. You won't make nothing by surrendering to them, and Tim Murphy, for one, ain't going to surrender. No, sir!"

Again the gallant militiamen applauded his sentiments, which were no sooner uttered than the rifleman discharged his piece at the approaching officer, missing him, as before, purposely. Of course, at this, hostilities were renewed; but, as the rifleman said, he knew which of two dangers was most to be dreaded; and, if he must perish, he preferred to die in defense of what had been intrusted to them rather than to be smote down after the humiliation of a surrender by murderers who respected none of the laws of war. It is true, that, to fire upon a flag of truce, was a breach of military usage, and, in almost any circumstances, inexcusable; but not so now, when the garrison would only meet with the most fatal treachery as the result of any interview. The officers of the regulars, however, did not so regard the affair. Brought up under the stern discipline of military rule, they took sides with the Major, and expostulated with Murphy upon his unwarrantable violation of the laws of war.

"Don't talk," he cried, impatiently. "Jest come up here and take a look at the smoke arising from the homes of defenseless citizens. Take a look at the red-skins dancing around 'em, like devils around the fires of hell. Hear the screams of them women and children they are murderin' in cold blood. By the God above, if I could get at them fiends, I'd stop that music!" His teeth were firmly set; his face hardened; his eyes shone like two coals of fire; and, disdaining to argue his point at a moment like that, he settled his weapon for the next victim who should venture within range.

The garrison could indeed hear, in the intervals of the cannon's silence, the shrieks of helpless families smote down by the tomahawk.

"Do you hear it?" he cried again, as the shrill cry of a female voice pierced the air. "That's the kind of enemy you've got to deal with, and there you stand, balancing yourselves on a p'int of law! If you open your gates and lay down your arms, you, nor your wives and children, won't meet any better fate. If you want to be tortured by red-skins, and your families given up to their devilment, let 'em in, let 'em in! I shan't have a hand in it."

The signs of a final charge about to be given allowed no time for farther argument. Sir John, drawing up his regular troops in the rear of a frame building standing near the fort, prepared for an assault, while the garrison within made what readiness they could to repel it. The women, knowing how little they had to expect if the place fell, grasped the weapons they had solicited and took their stations near the men, resolved to deal such blows as they could in self-defense. With pale cheeks, but hearts that had outgrown their natural timidity, they awaited the expected blow.

At this moment of peril and suspense, for the third time a flag of truce was seen approaching Fort Hunter. Again the undaunted Murphy prepared to fire upon it; but this time, made desperate by his very cowardice, Major Woolsey commanded his soldiers to arrest the disobedient rifleman. The militia, however, gathered around their hero, threatening any and all who should molest him; they had confidence that the judgment of one so brave was superior to that of the officer who had shown himself so unfit for his position. In the mean time, precious time was being lost. In a moment more Murphy would enrage the foe by again insulting their flag. The commander ordered a white flag to be shown. A handkerchief was placed on a staff and a soldier ordered to display it.

"The man who dares attempt it will be shot down by my own rifle," thundered the inexorable militiaman, who thus braved the regular authority. The men knew that he meant what he said, and not one was found to attempt to execute the order of Woolsey.

"Who commands here, you or I?" shouted the enraged Major.

"I reckon I do, as far as not givin' up goes," was the cool answer.

At this crisis, Captain Reghtmeyer, of the militia, feeling that their commander was about to betray them all, took up his station by the rifleman and ordered him to fire.

Exasperated by such contumacy, Woolsey drew his sword upon the Captain, threatening to cut him down unless his orders were obeyed. It was a strange time for persons associated in such imminent peril to fall out among themselves; but the brave and unflinching were not disposed to yield their fate into the hands of the weak and vacillating. Captain Reghtmeyer, in answer to this threat, clubbed his gun, and awaited the attack of the Major, resolved to dash out his brains if he assaulted him; whereupon that officer, thinking in this, as in other cases, that discretion was the better part of valor, subsided into silence.

The flag-officer of the enemy, as soon as he came within range, seeing Murphy bring his rifle to his shoulder, immediately turned and ran back; he had no mind to encounter the sharp warning which had been given his predecessors.

Then followed a moment of suspense. The little garrison expected nothing better than an angry and overwhelming assault; the men breathed heavily, grasping their muskets sternly, while the women's faces grew like those of their fathers and husbands, settling into the firm lines of resolve. Moment after moment crept away; a half-hour sped, and yet the roar of artillery and the nearer shouts of the expected assailants were not heard.

"You needn't give yourself no further oneasiness, Major," at length spoke the gallant Murphy, contempt mingling with relief and joy in his voice. He had kept his gaze fixed upon the movements of the enemy, and now perceived that they were retiring. "The red-coats and red-skins are takin' themselves off. It's jest as I told you—the spunk we've shown makes 'em think us stronger than we are, and they've made up their minds to back out."

And so, indeed, it proved! "The spunk we've shown" Murphy modestly said; which was really the spunk he had shown. His courage and persistence saved Fort Hunter. The British officers naturally supposed their flag of truce would not be three times fired upon unless that fort was to be defended to the death. They therefore decided to withdraw, and to abandon the attempt for its capture.

Murphy Saving the Fort—Page [22].

Thus was the fort, with all its precious lives, preserved by the tact as well as the determination of a single man. However chagrined the "gallant" Major may have been at the flagrant disobedience of an inferior, the results were such as to nullify the consequences of his anger. The fact that the fort was saved was the mutineer's justification.

This affair occurred in 1780. It was not the first gallant exploit of our hero—nor the last. He had already made himself famous by deeds both of daring, dashing boldness, and deliberate courage.

Three years before the attack on Fort Hunter, at the battle of Stillwater in 1777, he had killed the British General, Frazer, by a ball from his unerring rifle. This is the first record we have of him; but after that many instances were noted of his extraordinary prowess, and many more, doubtless, of equal interest, never have received a chronicle. He had a peculiar hatred of the Indians, called forth by the many proofs of their treachery and cruelty. He was a valuable acquisition to any party of scouts who might be out after the red-skins; and many were the marvelous escapes he had.

As an instance of that obstinacy of his character exhibited in his conduct at the attack upon Fort Hunter, we must give the reader an account of another and quite different circumstance, in which he displayed the same determination to have his own way—and in which he had it! This little episode in the life of the celebrated rifleman is not only interesting in itself, but also as showing under what difficulties the little GOD OF LOVE will struggle and triumph.

"Love rules the court, the camp, the grove:"

and not the fiery sword of Mars himself can frighten him from his universal throne.

After the attack upon Fort Hunter, Murphy, although his period of enlistment had expired, still remained with the garrison. It was not long after this that something besides duty to his country began to bind him to the valley of the Schoharie. The heart which had never quailed before an Indian or red-coat, was brought low by a shaft from the bright eyes of a maiden of sixteen!

Not far from the fort dwelt a family by the name of Feeck, whose home had escaped destruction from the advent of the enemy. Their daughter Margaret was a spirited and handsome girl, in whose dark blue eyes laughed mischief and tenderness combined; her auburn hair shaded cheeks rosy with health; her form was just rounding into the fullness of maidenhood, with a grace all its own, acquired from the fresh air and bountiful exercise to which she was accustomed. The historian does not tell us how the first meeting occurred, but certain it is that the indomitable heart of the rifleman was conquered at last. Murphy was then twenty-eight years of age and Margaret but sixteen. There is something in the nature of a woman which does homage to bravery in a man. The man who has the reputation of cowardice may be handsome and elegant, but she will despise him; he alone who is famous for courage commands woman's full respect and love. When the invincible rifleman, whose iron nerves shrunk from no exposure, and whose energy was daunted by no difficulties, betrayed to the young girl, by his faltering manner in her presence, that she could do what armies could not—confuse and master him—her breast thrilled with pride and delight. The disparity of their ages was nothing to her; she felt honored at being the choice of a brave man; her timid glance, usually so mischievous, encouraged him to speak, and when he did he was not rejected.

Whether it was that Margaret's parents thought her too young, or that there was too great a discrepancy in their ages, or that they had some prejudice against Murphy, we are not advised; but they strenuously opposed the intimacy, forbidding the lover to enter their house. Then it was that he again questioned the authority of the ruling powers. It was not in his nature to submit to this arbitrary decree. As once before he had "had his own way" in defiance of superiors, he was resolved to have it now. He loved the maiden and she him; there was none who should keep them apart. When he made a resolution it might be considered as carried out. Margaret, drooping about the house, doing her work listlessly, instead of with joyous singing, received a communication which brought back the roses to her cheeks in fuller bloom than ever. A faithful friend of Murphy, living not far from the Feeck family, on the Schoharie creek, was the person who wrought this change in the young girl. During a visit to the parents, he contrived to arrange a meeting at his own house with her lover. Thither she went one day on a pretended errand, and found her lover awaiting her. During the interview a plan was arranged for eluding the vigilance of her parents and consummating their happiness by marriage.

There was some difficulty about this, for her father and mother had instituted a close surveillance over all the "coming and going." Margaret herself, though willing, was timid, shrinking from the danger of detection and the anger of her parents.

"Pshaw!" said Murphy, squeezing the hand he held in his own broad palm, "it's likely I can't take care of you, Maggie! I've trailed too many Injuns, and dodged too many bullets, to think much of carrying off my girl when I want her. Jest you be on the spot, and leave the rest to me."

She promised, and they separated to wait impatiently for the appointed evening. When it came, Margaret, under pretense of going to milk, some distance from the house, stole away from home to meet her intended husband. She dared not make the least change in her apparel, lest suspicion should be excited; and when she made her appearance at the appointed spot, she presented but little of the usual semblance of an expectant bride. She was barefoot and bareheaded, and wore the short gown and petticoat, so much the vogue among females of that day as a morning or working-dress; but beneath the humble garb beat a true and ingenuous heart, worth more than outward trappings to any man. The form, arrayed in homespun, was of a blooming and substantial beauty, which needed not the "foreign aid of ornament."

She was first at the place of rendezvous, where she waited with fear and impatience for her lover, but no lover came. Twilight was fast fading into darkness, and yet he came not. From her little nook of concealment, behind a clump of alders which grew on a bend of the stream, out of sight of her home, she strained her eyes to look for the approaching form, which still came not. The pink tinge which flushed the silver water died off into the gray of evening; every moment she expected to hear the stern voice of her father calling her. What should she do? It would not answer to return home, for she already had been gone too long. The cow had not been milked, and if she went back now, her unusual absence must excite suspicions, which would prevent a future meeting with her lover. This was her greatest dread. She had dwelt on their union too fondly to endure the return now to a hopeless separation.

Margaret was not long in making up her mind what course to pursue. Since Murphy had not come to her she would go to him! She knew him brave and honorable, and that some important matter must have kept him from the tryst. In order to reach the fort she was obliged to ford the stream. About this she had no squeamishness, as she had performed the feat one hundred times before; the stream was shallow and not very wide. Evidently she was fortunate in not being troubled with shoes and stockings in the present emergency; it did not trouble her much to hold up her short skirts from the water into which she waded; and, as her little feet felt their cautious way across the creek, no doubt she looked as pretty to her lover, in her attitudes of unconscious grace, as other brides have done under more fortunate circumstances; for Murphy saw the whole proceeding with a pleased eye, taking her advance as a proof both of her love for, and faith in, himself. He had been detained at the fort by some provoking duties, and had ridden up to the brook just as Margaret began to cross.

Although in her heart she felt inwardly relieved to find him there, the maiden began to pout at his tardiness, and to regret that she had taken a step beyond the trysting-place to meet a lover who would not take the trouble to be punctual to an appointment like this.

"I shall go home again, Tim," she cried, concealing her blushes under a frown, which, though pretty, was not at all frightful.

"Not to-night, Maggie," he said, as, lifting her up behind him, he sped away to the fort.

Murphy was a general favorite among the garrison; not an individual there who would not willingly have aided and assisted him in his nuptial enterprise. His plans were well known; and, as the happy couple rode in at the gate, lighted by the last lingering gleam of sunset in the west, they were received with three hearty cheers. The circumstances were such as to call forth the warmest interest of the female part of the population. The young maiden was taken in charge by them. As there was no minister to perform the ceremony of marriage, the couple would be obliged to take a trip to Schenectady, twenty-five miles distant. The evening was spent in preparation. Various choice articles of apparel and ornament, some of which, doubtless, had served a similar purpose on former occasions, were brought forth; all went to work with a will to fit out this impromptu bridal trousseau. By morning every thing was in readiness except the proper dress. This, Murphy decided to procure in Schenectady.

As time was precious they started at dawn, and made the whole distance in four hours. A handsome silk dress was here purchased and placed in the hands of a dressmaker and some friends, who performed wonders which would astonish a modiste of to-day: they completed the dress in the course of the afternoon! The couple stopped at the house of friends, who did all they could to assist in the pleasant project. Before dark the bride was arrayed in a manner becoming the important occasion. A gay company, composed of some of their acquaintances, accompanied the happy pair to the residence of the Rev. Mr. Johnson, where the solemn ceremony which united their lives in one was performed; after which they returned to the house of their friends to spend the wedding-night.

We are afraid if some of the dainty belles of the present day had to accomplish as much in one day as had been done by this bride, before they could find themselves safely wedded to the object of their choice, they would shrink away dismayed, and settle down into old maids. To run away from home barefoot; to wade a creek; to ride into a fort behind her lover; to ride twenty-five miles; to buy and make a wedding-dress, and attire herself for the ceremony; to go to the minister and get married, all in twenty-four hours, showed an energy worthy of the times. Such kind of women were fit wives for the men who bore the perils of the Revolution, and whose strength of mind and heart, whose unconquerable love of liberty, secured to us our inheritance.

On their return to Schoharie, the parents of the bride were exceedingly wroth at the disobedience of their daughter, and at the presumption of the daring rifleman. For a time they refused to be reconciled; but, reflecting that no opposition could alter or recall the act, they at length concluded to overlook all and receive the couple to their love.

The brave rifleman made a true husband. Margaret, who lived with him happily for nearly thirty years, had no reason to regret the hour when she forded Schoharie creek in search of her tardy lover.

Despite of the eventful perils into which he was always flinging himself, Murphy lived to see years of peace, dying of cancer in the throat, in 1818, at the age of sixty-eight. He was an uneducated man; but, possessed of a strong will and an amiable disposition, he exerted an unbounded influence over the minds of a certain class of men, who, like himself, were schooled in trial. His power was that of originality, independence and courage—qualities which will make any man a leader of the people among whom he moves. Men of his stamp were a necessity of the times in which they lived; they seemed to spring up in the hour of need, having patience, perseverance, endurance and boldness to cope with the stealthy and murderous foes who hung upon the path of our civilization. They deserve to be embalmed in the annals of the country in whose guard they fought.

BRANT AND THE BOY.

One bright summer morning, a lad by the name of M'Kown was engaged in raking hay in a field some distance from any house, and—as was the custom with all who labored abroad in those days of danger and sudden surprise—was armed with a musket, which, however, he had stood against a tree; but in the progress of his work had advanced beyond its immediate proximity. While busily occupied, and intent upon his work, he heard a slight jingling behind him, and turning suddenly around, he beheld an Indian within three feet of him, who bore in his mien and costume the appearance of a chief; and although his position indicated peaceful intentions, the tomahawk in his right hand betokened his readiness for hostilities if occasion required it. Startled at this sudden and unexpected apparition, the youth, with a natural impulse, raised his rake to defend himself, thoughtless of the insufficiency of his weapon. His fears were dissipated by the Indian, who remarked:

Brant and young M'Kown—Page [35].

"Do not be afraid, young man; I shall not hurt you."

He then inquired of the lad if he could direct him to the residence of a noted loyalist by the name of Foster. Young M'Kown gave him the necessary directions to enable him to find that personage, and then, emboldened by the apparent peaceable intentions of the other, asked him if he knew Mr. Foster.

"I am partially acquainted with him," was the reply, "having once met him at the half-way creek."

The Indian then entered into a familiar conversation with his interrogator, in the course of which he asked him his name, and upon being informed, he added:

"You are a son, then, of Captain M'Kown, who lives in the north-east part of the town, I suppose. I know your father very well; he lives neighbor to Captain M'Kean. I know M'Kean very well, and a very fine fellow he is, too."

Thus the parties conversed together in a social manner for some time, until the boy—emboldened by the familiarity which had been established between them—ventured to ask the Indian his name in turn. This he did not seem disposed to give him, hesitating for a moment, but at length replied:

"My name is Brant."

"What! Captain Brant?" eagerly demanded the youth.

"No; I am a cousin of his," replied the Indian, at the same time accompanying his assertion with a smile and expression of countenance which intimated his attempt to deceive his interlocutor. It was indeed the terrible Thayendanega himself, who was associated, in the mind of the youth, with every possible trait of a fiendlike character; and it is not to be wondered at, that he trembled as he felt himself to be in the presence of one whose delight, it had been represented to him, was to revel in slaughter and bloodshed. He was somewhat reassured, however, by the thought, that, if his intentions had been hostile toward him, he could easily have executed them before; but he did not feel fully assured of his safety until the Indian had taken his departure, and he had reached his home with his life and scalp intact.

This little incident is but one of many, told to prove that Brant was not the bloodthirsty monster which, for many years after the Revolution, he had the reputation of being. He was a Freemason: and on several occasions, during the war, his fraternal feelings were called into play, in behalf of prisoners who belonged to that order. Among others we are told:

Jonathan Maynard, Esq.—afterward a member of the Massachusetts Senate—who was actively engaged in the Revolutionary war, was taken prisoner at one time by a party of Indians under the command of Brant. The younger warriors of the party seemed disposed to put him to death, in accordance with their determination to exterminate the whites, as agreed upon by the tories and Indians in that section of the country. Preparations had been made to carry out their intentions, when, having been partially stripped of his clothing, Brant observed the emblems of Masonry indelibly marked upon the prisoner's arms, and feeling bound to him by a tie which none but a brother can appreciate, he interposed his authority, saved his life, and sent him to Canada, to keep him out of harm's way; and he remained in durance for several months, until exchanged and allowed to return home.

There is another incident, where Brant met one of his old schoolmates; but where the circumstances of their early intimacy would not have interfered between the white officer and death, had he not saved himself by means of justifiable duplicity.

In the month of April, in 1780, it was the intention of Captain Brant, the Indian chieftain, to make a descent upon the upper fort of Schoharie, but which was prevented by an unlooked-for circumstance. Colonel Vrooman had sent out a party of scouts to pass over to the head-waters of the Charlotte river, where resided certain suspected persons, whose movements it was their duty to watch. It being the proper season for the manufacture of maple sugar, the men were directed to make a quantity of that article, of which the garrison were greatly in want. On the 2d of April this party, under the command of Captain Harper, commenced their labors, which they did cheerfully, and entirely unapprehensive of danger, as a fall of snow, some three feet deep, would prevent, they supposed, the moving of any considerable body of the enemy, while in fact they were not aware of any body of the armed foe short of Niagara. But on the 7th of April they were suddenly surrounded by a party of about forty Indians and tories, the first knowledge of whose presence was the death of three of their party. The leader was instantly discovered in the person of the Mohawk chief, who rushed up to Captain Harper, tomahawk in hand, and observed: "Harper, I am sorry to find you here!"

"Why are you sorry, Captain Brant?" replied the other.

"Because," replied the chief, "I must kill you, although we were schoolmates in our youth"—at the same time raising his hatchet, and suiting the action to the word. Suddenly his arm fell, and with a piercing scrutiny, looking Harper full in the face, he inquired: "Are there any regular troops in the fort in Schoharie?" Harper caught the idea in an instant. To answer truly, and admit there were none, as was the fact, would but hasten Brant and his warriors forward to fall upon the settlements at once, and their destruction would have been swift and sure. He therefore informed him that a reinforcement of three hundred Continental troops had arrived to garrison the forts only two or three days before. This information appeared very much to disconcert the chieftain. He prevented the further shedding of blood, and held a consultation with his subordinate chiefs. Night coming on, the prisoners were shut up in a pen of logs, and guarded by the tories, while among the Indians, controversy ran high whether the prisoners should be put to death or carried to Niagara. The captives were bound hand and foot, and were so near the council that Harper, who understood something of the Indian tongue, could hear the dispute. The Indians were for putting them to death, but Brant exercised his authority to effectually prevent the massacre.

On the following morning Harper was brought before the Indians for examination. The chief commenced by saying that he was suspicious he had not told him the truth. Harper, however, although Brant was eyeing him like a basilisk, repeated his former statements, without the improper movement of a muscle, or any betrayal that he was deceiving. Brant, satisfied of the truth of the story, resolved to retrace his steps to Niagara. But his warriors were disappointed in their hopes of spoils and victory, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that they were prevented from putting the captives to death.

Their march was forthwith commenced, and was full of pain, peril and adventure. They met on the succeeding day with two loyalists, who both disproved Harper's story of troops being at Schoharie, and the Captain was again subjected to a piercing scrutiny; but he succeeded so well in maintaining the appearance of truth and sincerity as to arrest the upraised and glittering tomahawk. On the same day an aged man, named Brown, was accidentally fallen in with and taken prisoner, with two youthful grandsons; the day following, being unable to travel with sufficient speed, and sinking under the weight of the burden imposed upon him, the old man was put out of the way with the hatchet. The victim was dragging behind, and when he saw preparations making for his doom, took an affectionate farewell of his little grandsons, and the Indians moved on, leaving one of their number with his face painted black—the mark of the executioner—behind with him. In a few moments afterward, the Indian came up, with the old man's scalp dangling from between the ramrod and the muzzle of his gun.

They constructed floats, and sailed down the Susquehanna to the confluence of the Chemung, at which place their land-traveling commenced. Soon after this, a severe trial and narrow escape befell the prisoners. During his march from Niagara on this expedition, Brant had detached eleven of his warriors, to fall once more upon the Minisink settlement for prisoners. This detachment, as it subsequently appeared, had succeeded in taking captive five athletic men, whom they secured and brought with them as far as Tioga Point. The Indians slept very soundly, and the five prisoners had resolved, on the first opportunity, to make their escape. While encamped at this place during the night, one of the Minisink men succeeded in extricating his hands from the binding cords, and with the utmost caution, unloosed his four companions. The Indians were locked in the arms of deep sleep around them. Silently, without causing a leaf to rustle, they each snatched a tomahawk from the girdles of their unconscious enemies, and in a moment nine of them were quivering in the agonies of death. The two others were awakened, and springing upon their feet, attempted to escape. One of them was struck with a hatchet between the shoulders, but the other fled. The prisoners immediately made good their own retreat, and the only Indian who escaped unhurt returned to take care of his wounded companion. As Brant and his warriors approached this point of their journey, some of his Indians having raised a whoop, it was returned by a single voice, with the death yell! Startled at this unexpected signal, Brant's warriors rushed forward to ascertain the cause. But they were not long in doubt. The lone warrior met them, and soon related to his brethren the melancholy fate of his companions. The effect upon the warriors, who gathered in a group to hear the recital, was inexpressibly fearful. Rage, and a desire of revenge, seemed to kindle every bosom, and light every eye as with burning coals. They gathered around the prisoners in a circle, and began to make unequivocal preparations for hacking them to pieces. Harper and his men of course gave themselves up for lost. While their knives were unsheathing, and their hatchets glittering, as they were flourished in the sunbeams, the only survivor of the murdered party rushed into the circle and interposed in their favor. With a wave of the hand, as of a warrior entitled to be heard—for he was himself a chief—silence was restored, and the prisoners were surprised by the utterance of an earnest appeal in their behalf. He eloquently and impressively declaimed in their favor, upon the ground that it was not they who murdered their brothers; and to take the lives of the innocent would not be right in the eyes of the Great Spirit. His appeal was effective. The passions of the incensed warriors were hushed, their eyes no longer shot forth the burning glances of revenge, and their gesticulations ceased to menace immediate and bloody vengeance.

True, it so happened, that this chief knew all the prisoners—he having resided in the Schoharie canton of the Mohawks during the war. He doubtless felt a deeper interest in their behalf on that account. Still, it was a noble action, worthy of the proudest era of chivalry, and in the palmy days of Greece and Rome, would have crowned him almost with "an apotheosis and rights divine." The interposition of Pocahontas, in favor of Captain Smith, before the rude court of Powhatan, was, perhaps, more romantic; but when the motive which prompted the generous action of the princess is considered, the transaction now under review exhibits the most of genuine benevolence. Pocahontas was moved by the tender passion—the Mohawk Sachem by the feelings of magnanimity, and the eternal principles of justice. It is a matter of regret that the name of this high-souled warrior is lost, as, alas! have been too many that might serve to relieve the dark and vengeful portraiture of Indian character, which it has so well pleased the white man to draw! The prisoners themselves were so impressed with the manner of their signal deliverance, that they justly attributed it to a direct interposition of Providence.

After the most acute sufferings from hunger and exhaustion, the party at last arrived at Niagara. The last night of their journey, they encamped a short distance from the fort. In the morning the prisoners were informed that they were to run the gauntlet, and were brought out where two parallel lines of Indians were drawn up, between which the prisoners were to pass, exposed to the whips and blows of the savages. The course to be run was toward the fort. Harper was the first one selected, and at the signal, sprung from the mark with extraordinary swiftness. An Indian near the end of the line, fearing he might escape without injury, sprung before him, but a blow from Harper's fist felled him; the Indians, enraged, broke their ranks and rushed after him, as he fled with the utmost speed toward the fort. The garrison, when they saw Harper approaching, opened the gates, and he rushed in, only affording sufficient time for the garrison to close the gates, ere the Indians rushed upon it, clamoring for the possession of their victim. The other prisoners, taking advantage of the breaking up of the Indian ranks, took different routes, and all succeeded in reaching the fort without passing through the terrible ordeal which was intended for them.

This was in the April preceding the final attack upon the fort in the Schoharie valley, which took place in the fall, as described in the second article of this number; and at which Murphy, the rifleman, so distinguished himself.

As further illustrating this magnanimity which—certainly at times—distinguished Brant, it is said that at the horrible massacre of Cherry Valley, Butler—the tory Captain, son of the Butler who fulfilled his hideous part in the destruction of Wyoming—on entering a house, ordered a woman and child to be killed who were found in bed. "What!" exclaimed Brant; "kill a woman and child? No! that child is not an enemy to the king, nor a friend to Congress. Long before he will be big enough to do any mischief, the dispute will be settled."

The life of Brant was, to say the least, peculiar. An Indian, but an educated and traveled one, with much of the tact of civilization, and all the cunning and wild freedom of the savage, he made a character for himself which always will occupy a niche in history. Whether the conflicting statements in regard to him ever will be so reconciled as to decide whether he was a generous and humane enemy, or a most subtle and ferocious one, we know not; but this is certain, he was our enemy, and a most efficient ally of the British in their attempts to put out the rising fires of Liberty which were kindling in our valleys, over our plains, and upon our hills. It was a most unfortunate thing for the struggling colonists when Brant took up the hatchet in behalf of the king, for his arm was more to be dreaded than that of King George.

Joseph Brant was an Onondaga of the Mohawk tribe, whose Indian name was Thayendanega—signifying, literally, a brant, or wild-goose. The story that he was but a half-Indian, the son of a German, has been widely spread, but is denied by his son, and is now believed to be false. There are those, however, whose opinion is of weight, who assert that he was the son of Sir William Johnson; and such, all circumstances considered, is most likely to have been the fact. He was of a lighter complexion than his countrymen in general, and there are other evidences of his having been a half-breed. He received a very good English education at Moore's charity-school, in Lebanon, Connecticut, where he was placed by Sir William Johnson, in July, 1761. This General Sir William Johnson was British agent of Indian affairs, and had greatly ingratiated himself into the esteem of the Six Nations. He lived at the place since named for him, upon the north bank of the Mohawk, about forty miles from Albany. Here he had an elegant country-seat, at which he often would entertain several hundred of his red friends, sharing all things in common with them. They so much respected him, that, although they had the fullest liberty, they would take nothing which was not given to them. The faster to rivet their esteem, he would, at certain seasons, accommodate himself to their mode of dress. He also, being a widower, took as a companion Molly Brant, (a sister of Brant,) who considered herself his wife, according to Indian custom, and whom he finally married, to legitimize her children. He had received honors and emoluments from the British Government; and the Indians, through him, obtained every thing conducive to their happiness. Hence, it is not strange that they should hold in reverence the name of their "great father," the king; and think the few rebels who opposed his authority, when the Revolution began, to be inexcusable and unworthy of mercy.

Brant, by this time a man in the first flush of his strength, and with as good an education as the majority of his white friends, went to England in 1775, in the beginning of the great Revolutionary rupture, where he was received with attention. Doubtless his mind was there prepared for the part he acted in the memorable struggle which ensued. He had a Colonel's commission conferred upon him in the English army upon the frontiers; which army consisted of such tories and Indians as took part against the country.

Upon his return from England—Sir William Johnson having died the previous year—Brant attached himself to Johnson's son-in-law, Guy Johnson, performing the part of secretary to him when transacting business with the Indians. The Butlers, John and Walter—whose names, with those of Brant, are associated with the horrid barbarities of Wyoming and Cherry Valley—lived not far from the village of Johnstown, and upon the same side of the Mohawk.

After the battle of Bunker Hill, General Schuyler compelled Guy Johnson, and his brother-in-law, Sir John Johnson, to give their word of honor not to take up arms against America; but this did not prevent Guy from withdrawing into Canada and taking with him Brant, with a large body of his Mohawks. Sir John also fled to Canada, where he became a powerful adversary. The Butlers were also in the train.

Here, having had some disagreement with Johnson, Brant returned to the frontiers with his band of warriors. Some of the peaceable Mohawks had been confined to prevent their doing injury, as were some of the Massachusetts Indians in King Philip's war. Brant was displeased at this. He came with his band to Unadilla, where he was met by the American General, Herkimer; and the two had an interview, in which Brant said that "the king's belts were yet lodged with them, and they could not falsify their pledge; that the Indians were in concert with the king," etc. It has never been explained why Herkimer did not then and there destroy the power of Brant, which he could have done, for his men numbered eight hundred and eighty, while Brant had but one hundred and thirty warriors. It is supposed the American General did not believe that the Mohawks actually would take up arms against the country. It was a fatal mistake, which deluged hundreds of homes in blood, or wrapped them in fire.

Thereafter followed a succession of bloody and terrible affairs, in which Brant and the two Butlers were leaders. It has been said, and with truth, that of those three, the white men were the most ferocious; that they out-Heroded Herod; that Brant often spared where they refused. Out of these isolated facts it is sought to build up a reputation for generosity and magnanimity, to which Brant is not entitled. Some moments of mercy he had; while those arch fiends, the Butlers, never relaxed into the weakness of mercy; but the name of Brant, nevertheless, is written too redly in the blood of our ancestors for us ever to regard him with other feelings than those of horror and dread. His knowledge of the detestation in which the whites regarded the Indian modes of warfare, acted upon his pride; he did not wish to be classed with the untutored of his own race; so that his regard for appearances caused him frequently to forbear the cruelties which his associates practiced.

The first affair of importance in which we hear of him is the battle of Oriskany. It was on the 6th of August, 1777. Brant was under the direction of General St. Leger, who detached him, with a considerable body of warriors, for the investment of Fort Stanwix. Colonel Butler was commander-in-chief of the expedition, with a band of tories under his immediate charge. The inhabitants in the valley of the Mohawk determined to march to the assistance of the fort, which they did in two regiments, with General Herkimer at their head. As is usual with militia, they marched in great disorder, and through the inadvertence of General Herkimer—who, influenced by sneers at his cowardice in taking such a precaution, failed to throw forward scouts as he should have done—were surprised by the Indians as they were crossing an almost impassable ravine, upon a single track of logs. The ambush selected by Brant could not have been better fitted for his purpose. The ravine was semicircular, and Brant and his forces occupied the surrounding heights.

The first intimation of the presence of the enemy was the terrifying yells of the Indians, and the still more lasting impressions of their rifles. Running down from every direction, they prevented the two regiments from forming a junction—one of them not having entered the causeway. A part of the assailants fell upon those without, a part upon those within. The former fared worse than the latter; for, in such a case a flight almost always proves a dismal defeat, as was now the case. The other regiment, hemmed in as it was, saw that

"To fight, or not to fight, was death."

They therefore, back to back, forming a front in every direction, fought like men in despair. With such bravery did they resist, in this forlorn condition, that the Indians began to give way, and but for a reinforcement of tories, they would have been entirely dispersed. The sight of this reinforcement increased the rage of the Americans. The tory regiment was composed of the very men who had left that part of the country at the beginning of the war, and were held in abhorrence for their loyalty to the king. Dr. Gordon says that the tories and Indians got into a most wretched confusion, and fought one another; and that the latter, at last, thought it was a plot of the whites to get them into that situation, that they might be cut off. General Herkimer got forward an express to the fort, when he was reinforced as soon as possible, and the remnant of his brave band saved. He beat the enemy from the ground, and carried considerable plunder to the fort; but two hundred Americans were lost, and among them the General himself, who died, soon after, from the effects of a wound received at the time.

In the early part of the contest, General Herkimer had been struck by a ball, which shattered his leg and killed his horse. Undaunted by this accident, and indifferent to the severity of the pain, the brave old General continued on his saddle, which was placed on a little hillock, near a tree, against which he leaned for support, while giving his orders with the utmost coolness, though his men fell in scores about him, and his exposed position made him a mark for the enemy. Amid the clashing of weapons, the roar of artillery, and the yells of the combatants, all mingled in wild confusion, General Herkimer deliberately took his pipe from his pocket, lit it, and smoked with seeming composure. On being advised to remove to a place of greater security, he said, "No; I will face the enemy." It is said that Blucher, at the battle of Leipsic, sat on a hillock, smoking, and issuing his orders; but Blucher was not wounded.

General Herkimer's leg was amputated after the battle, but it was done so unskillfully that the flow of blood could not be stopped. During the operation he smoked and chatted in excellent spirits; and when his departure drew nigh, he called for a Bible, and read aloud, until his failing strength compelled him to desist. Such is the stuff of which heroes are made.

The night which followed the battle was one of horror for the prisoners taken by the enemy. As usual, the Indians slaked their thirst for blood and torture, which the battle had awakened, in pitiless cruelties upon their defenseless captives. It does not seem that Brant here exercised, or caused to be exercised, any clemency. Some of the doomed creatures begged of Butler, the British officer, to use his influence with the Indians; and to their appeals were joined the entreaties of the guard—the tories, in whose breasts some humanity remained; but this fiend, more savage than the savages, only cursed them for their folly in pleading for "infernal rebels." All manner of tortures, including roasting, was practiced upon the captives, as was testified to by one of their number, Dr. Younglove, who, after enduring every thing but death, finally escaped from his tormentors.

In June of the next year, 1778, Brant came upon Springfield, which he burned, and carried off a number of prisoners. The women and children were not maltreated, but were left in one house unmolested. About this time great efforts were made to secure the wary chief, but none of them were successful.

The next event of importance in which Brant was engaged was the destruction of Wyoming, that most heart-rending affair in all the annals of the Revolutionary war. The events of that awful massacre, the treachery of Butler, the ferocity of the savages, and the still more hellish malignity of their white allies, are known to all. The wail which then arose from innocent women and helpless babes, consumed in one funeral pyre, together, will never die—its echoes yet ring upon the shuddering senses of each successive generation. Of late years an effort has been made to prove that Brant was not even present at that massacre; but of this there is no proof. Campbell, the author of "Gertrude of Wyoming," was so worked upon by the representations of a son of Brant, who visited England in 1822, that he recalled all he said of

"The foe—the monster Brant,"

and wished him, thereafter, to be regarded as a "purely fictitious character."

One thing is certain. Brant was at the massacre of Cherry Valley, which settlement, in the November following the destruction of Wyoming, met a fate nearly similar. At this terrible affair was repeated the atrocities of the former. A tory boasted that he killed a Mr. Wells while at prayer. His daughter, a beautiful and estimable young lady, fled from the house to a pile of wood for shelter, but an Indian pursued her; and composedly wiping his bloody knife on his leggin, seized her, and while she was begging for her life in the few words of Indian which she knew, he ruthlessly killed her. But why speak of one, where hundreds met a similar fate? It is said that Brant, on this occasion, did exercise clemency; and that he was the only one who did. It was shortly after this that Sullivan's army was organized to march upon the Indian country and put a stop to such outrages. Brant met it and was repulsed and fled. It has been made a matter of complaint that our forces destroyed the Indian villages and crops. But with such wrongs burning in their breasts, who could ask of them the practice of extraordinary generosity toward monsters who would not respect nor return it? The same complaint is made to-day against the exasperated Minnesotians, who claim the fullest vengeance of the law against the stealthy panthers, and worse than wild beasts, who have recently ravaged their State. They ask it, and should have it.

In the spring of 1780, Brant renewed his warfare against our settlements. He seems, in almost all cases, to have been successful, uniting, as he did, the means of civilized warfare with all the art and duplicity of the savage.

In later years Colonel Brant exerted himself to preserve peace between the whites and Indians; and during the important treaties which were made in 1793 he was in favor of settling matters amicably. He had won from the British Government all the honors it was willing to bestow upon a savage ally, and what were they? A Colonel's commission, with liberty to do work for the king which British soldiers did not care to do—the slaughter of women and children, and the sacking of villages. It is quite probable that, after Wayne's decisive castigation of the Indians, and British insolence had thereby also received a blow, Brant retired from a service which he knew must be worse than fruitless.

Colonel Brant was married, in the winter of 1779, to the daughter of Colonel Croghan by an Indian woman. He had lived with her some time, according to the Indian manner; but being present at the wedding of Miss Moore, (one of the Cherry Valley captives,) he took a fancy to have the "civilized" ceremony performed between himself and his partner. King George III. conferred valuable lands upon him, and he became quite wealthy. He owned, at one time, thirty or forty negroes, to whom he was a most brutal master. Brant professed to be a great admirer of Greek, and intended to study that language so as to be able to make an original translation of the New Testament into Mohawk.

He died in November, 1807, and was said to have been sixty-five years old at the time of his death. He left several children, some of whose descendants are wealthy and respectable people. His wife, at his death, returned to her wild Indian life.

MRS. AUSTIN AND THE BEAR.

One of the great and almost insurmountable difficulties attendant upon the settlement of a new country, is that of rearing farm stock, and preserving it from the attacks of wild beasts. The experience of the pioneers of civilization in the valley of the Ohio, on this point, taught them that, until the country became more fully settled, and the increase of inhabitants so great as to drive back the denizens of the forest to more distant lairs, they must depend upon their rifles alone for a supply of animal food for the table. On the principle of recompense, perhaps, it was not so hard as it might otherwise seem, for when pork and beef were scarce, "b'ar meat" was plenty—and vice versa. But then, it was hard when one took a notion to raise a pig or two to furnish his table in time of need, to find it missing some bright morning, and know that all that pork had gone to fill the greedy stomach of a bear or "painter." Many and frequent were the encounters at the sty between the settler and his dusky neighbor, the bear, in which the contest for the possession of the pork was maintained with vigor and determination on the one side, and on the other with a hungry energy, which was deserving of commendation, if not of success.

Except when he could accomplish his object by stealth, however, bruin seldom came off the victor. The first note of alarm was sufficient to call from his pallet the watchful hunter, and the deadly rifle generally sent the intruder off a cripple, or stretched his carcass on the greensward, a trophy to the skill of his opponent. The women, too, were not backward in defense of their porcine friends when necessity called for exertion on their part to save them from destruction, as is evidenced by several anecdotes of their intrepidity on such occasions.

Mrs. Austin and the Bear—Page [51].

A Mrs. John Austin, of Geneva Township, one day while her husband was absent from home, was alarmed by the sound of an unusual commotion among her pigs, and looking in the direction of the sty, which stood just back of the cabin, she beheld a bear just in the act of climbing over the inclosure among a group of three or four promising shotes, which she fondly hoped would one day fill the pork barrel and serve to supply her table with animal food during the long dreary months of the next winter. For a period of many weeks had she nursed, watched and fed them, in anticipation of their future usefulness, and she could not bear the thought of parting with them. But how to save them?—that was the question. There was no one near to aid in their salvation, and she must depend upon herself, or lose her pork. The danger was imminent, and decisive action necessary. Her mind was soon made up; she'd save her pigs or perish in the attempt. Calling her children, she sent them up into the loft and took away the ladder, that they might be safe in case she was unsuccessful or should be overcome by the bear. Taking down her husband's rifle, which hung on its pegs behind the door of the cabin, she carefully examined it to see if it was loaded, but in her haste overlooked the priming. The increasing confusion in the sty warned her that delays were dangerous, and she sallied forth to encounter bruin, who was already on his way to the forest with one of the pigs in his arms. The latter was giving vent to his fears in the most piercing and pitiful tones, while his captor, intent only on securing his prize, was marching off at a rapid pace on his hind feet, holding the pig as a mother holds her babe, and indifferent alike to his struggles and his pathetic appeals for mercy and relief. A momentary tremor seized upon the frame of the heroine, and the blood ran chill through her heart, as her gaze revealed the figure of a bear of the largest size—an antagonist whom many a stalwart hunter would have hesitated before attacking. No time was given her, however, to deliberate, for the bear had discovered her approach almost as soon as she turned the corner of the cabin. Dropping his burden, he turned to face his enemy, and presented a front which might have appalled a much stouter heart than that of our heroine; while the pig—language fails me in the attempt to describe the emotions which filled the breast of that now overjoyed pig, as he took his way with hasty strides to his former quarters, and snuggled down by the side of his companions, with many a grunt of satisfaction at his escape from the jaws of impending death. I leave it to the imagination of my reader, with the aid of the illustration, to supply a deficiency which my pen is utterly incapable of doing.

Standing thus at bay, in an attitude which threatened an attack on his part, the bear awaited the coming of his adversary. Fortunately, between her and him there was a Virginia worm fence, which formed a sort of breastwork, and offered a very eligible rest for her rifle. Resting her weapon upon the upper rail of the fence, she kneeled upon one knee, and took deliberate aim at the heart of her savage enemy. For the space of a minute the two remained in this position, until, assured of her aim, Mrs. Austin pulled the trigger. To her horror and dismay, the steel emitted sparks, but no report followed. The trusty rifle had missed fire. How shall I describe the feelings which heaved her bosom, as her eye glanced along the barrel until it rested upon the dark form of the bear, fearing lest he should spring upon her and tear her limb from limb. Her own life, and the lives of her children rested upon the success of her shot, and should he change his position so as to present a less vulnerable part to her aim, she felt that her hope was void and her fate certain. The animal still remained in the same position, however, and with as little movement as possible, she drew back the hammer, and again aimed full at his breast. Again the piece missed fire, and her heart sunk within her as she saw the bear move, as though he disliked his ambiguous position, and desired to change it. Not daring to lower her piece to examine it, and hoping that the third attempt might be more effectual, she again essayed to discharge it; but when, for the third time it failed to explode, she felt a sensation of horror creep over her which seemed to curdle the life-blood in her veins, and her limbs seemed palsied with terror as the bear—who had by this time become disgusted with the idea of being made a target of—and that, too, by a woman—dropped upon all fours, and as she thought, prepared to spring upon her. Satisfied, however, with his own exhibition of prowess—or, perhaps, fearful of attacking one who had shown herself so brave, he turned on his heels, and started off on a sidelong trot for the woods, the deep recesses of which soon hid him from sight.

Perhaps it was fortunate for Mrs. Austin that her rifle failed to explode. Had she wounded the animal instead of killing him, or failed to hit a vital part, no power on earth could have saved her from his savage vengeance. A wounded bear is one of the most terrific beasts to encounter, and the hunter will seldom attack one of these dusky denizens of the forest unless he has other arms to depend upon, should his rifle fail to strike the seat of life. She did not stop to consider the subject, however, but hastening back to her cabin, she threw herself upon the floor, and gave vent to her overwrought feelings in a flood of tears. The excitement which had gradually wrought her up to a fearful pitch of feeling was gone, and the revulsion was so great as to completely unnerve her. She soon rallied again, and her first act, on becoming more calm, was to offer thanks to that Providence which had watched over and protected her in her hour of need.

One of the most terrible bear-fights on record, which throws the exploits of Davy Crockett, and even of "old Grizzly Adams" into the shade, was that which took place some thirty years ago, between a man by the name of John Minter, and one of the largest and most ferocious of the species of black bears. Captain Minter was one of the settlers of Ohio, and, in his youth, had been a great hunter, spending most of his time in the woods in pursuit of game; and such was his proficiency with the rifle, that he seldom failed to bring down the fleetest-winged denizen of the air, or the swiftest-footed deer. His last hunt, however, was the crowning glory of his exploits, brilliant enough to satisfy his ambition, and induce him to "retire upon his dignity;" in fact, his passion for hunting was suddenly changed to disgust, and he gave up the rifle for the plow.

He had been out one day, as usual, with his rifle, in pursuit of a flock of turkeys, but had been unsuccessful, and was returning home in a surly mood, when he came, rather unexpectedly, upon a large black bear, who seemed disposed to dispute his passage. Quick as thought his piece was at his shoulder, and the bullet whizzed through the air, striking the bear full in the breast, and he fell to the ground—as Minter supposed—dead. Carefully reloading his rifle, not to throw away a chance, he approached the bear, and poked his nose with the muzzle, to see if any spark of life remained. Bruin was only "playing 'possum" as it seems, for with far more agility than could be anticipated of a beast who had a rifle-ball through his body, he reared upon his hind-feet and made at the hunter. Minter fired again, but in his haste and trepidation, arising from the sudden and unexpected attack, he failed to hit a vital part, and a second wound only served to make the brute more savage and desperate. Drawing his tomahawk, he threw that; and as the bear dodged it and sprung upon him, he clubbed his rifle and struck him a violent blow across the head with the butt, which resulted in shivering the stock, and, if possible, increasing his rage. Springing back to avoid the sweep of his terrible claws, Minter drew his long, keen hunting-knife, and prepared for the fatal encounter which he knew must ensue. For a moment the combatants stood gazing at each other, like two experienced duelists, measuring each the other's strength. Minter was a man of powerful frame, and possessed of extraordinary muscular development, which, with his quick eye and ready hand, made him a very athletic and dangerous enemy. He stood six feet high, and was beautifully proportioned. The bear was a male of the largest size, and, rendered desperate by his wounds, which were bleeding profusely, was a fearful adversary to encounter under any circumstances; more particularly so to Minter, who now had simply his knife to depend upon, to decide the contest between them. As Bruin advanced to seize him, he made a powerful blow at his heart, which, had it taken effect, would have settled the matter at once; but the other was too quick for him, and with a sweep of his tremendous paw, parried the blow, and sent the weapon whirling through the air to a distance of twenty feet; the next instant the stalwart hunter was enfolded in the embrace of those fearful paws, and both were rolling on the ground in a death-like grapple.

The woods were open, and free from underbrush to a considerable extent, and in their struggles they rolled about in every direction. The object of the bear was, of course, to hug his adversary to death, which the other endeavored to avoid by presenting his body in such a position as would best resist the vice-like squeeze, until he could loosen his grasp; to accomplish which, he seized the bear by the throat with both hands, and exerted all his energy and muscular power to throttle him. This had the twofold effect of preventing him from using his teeth, and compelling him to release the hug, to knock off the other's hands with his paws; thus affording Minter an opportunity to catch his breath, and change his position. Several times he thought he should be crushed under the immense pressure to which he was subjected; but was buoyed up with the hope of reaching his knife, which lay within sight, and toward which he endeavored to fall every time they came to the ground. With the hot breath of the ferocious brute steaming in his face, and the blood from his own wounds mingling with that of the bear, and running to his heels, his flesh terribly cut up and lacerated by his claws, he still continued to maintain the struggle against the fearful odds, until he was enabled to reach the weapon, which he grasped with joy, and clung to with the tenacity of a death-grip. With his little remaining strength, and at every opportunity between the tremendous hugs, he plied the knife until the bear showed evident signs of weakness, and finally bled to death from the numerous wounds from whence flowed, in copious streams, his warm life's blood, staining the leaves and greensward of a crimson hue.

Releasing himself from the embrace of the now inanimate brute, Minter crawled to a decaying stump, against which he leaned, and surveyed the scene. His heart sickened as he contemplated his own person. He had gone into the battle with a stout, heavy hunting-shirt, and underclothing; with buckskin leggins and moccasins; and had come out of it with scarcely a rag upon him, except the belt around his waist, which still held a few strips of tattered cloth, and a moccasin on one foot. His body, from his neck to his heels, was covered with great gaping wounds, many of which penetrated to the bone, and the blood was flowing in torrents to the ground, covering him with gore from head to foot. For a space of more than half an acre, the ground was torn up, and had the appearance of a butcher's shambles.

As soon as he had recovered his breath, he commenced to crawl toward his home, where he arrived after nightfall, looking more like a slaughtered beef than a human being. His wounds were dressed by his family and friends, and after being confined to his bed for many weeks, thanks to his healthy, rugged constitution, he entirely recovered; but he bore to the grave the marks of his terrible contest, in numerous cicatrices and welts which covered his back, arms and legs, where the bear's claws had left ineffaceable marks of his strength and ferocity.

Speaking of Davy Crockett, reminds us that there was one of his adventures which deserves to be classed with the "highly exciting" experiences of which Captain Minter's was so good in its way. It was during the Colonel's travels through Texas; he had left his party, to give chase to a drove of mustangs over a prairie; he had pursued them to the banks of the Navasola river, where they had plunged into the stream, and where his own tough little animal had fallen to the ground, apparently in a state of exhaustion. But we must give Colonel Crockett's story in his own words, unless we wish to rob it of its peculiar grace. He says:

"After toiling for more than an hour to get my mustang upon his feet again, I gave it up as a bad job, as little Van did when he attempted to raise himself to the moon by the waistband of his breeches. Night was fast closing in, and as I began to think that I had just about sport enough for one day, I might as well look around for a place of shelter for the night, and take a fresh start in the morning, by which time I was in hopes my horse would be recruited. Near the margin of the river a large tree had been blown down, and I thought of making my lair in its top, and approached it for that purpose. While beating among the branches I heard a low growl, as much as to say, 'Stranger, the apartments are already taken.' Looking about to see what sort of a bedfellow I was likely to have, I discovered, not more than five or six paces from me, an enormous Mexican cougar, eyeing me as an epicure surveys the table before he selects his dish, for I have no doubt the cougar looked upon me as the subject of a future supper. Rays of light darted from his large eyes, he showed his teeth like a negro in hysterics, and he was crouching on his haunches ready for a spring; all of which convinced me that unless I was pretty quick upon the trigger, posterity would know little of the termination of my eventful career, and it would be far less glorious and useful than I intend to make it.

"One glance satisfied me that there was no time to be lost, as Pat thought when falling from a church steeple, and exclaimed, 'This would be mighty pleasant now, if it would only last,' but there was no retreat either for me or the cougar, so I leveled my Betsy and blazed away. The report was followed by a furious growl, (which is sometimes the case in Congress,) and the next moment, when I expected to find the tarnal critter struggling with death, I beheld him shaking his head as if nothing more than a bee had stung him. The ball had struck him on the forehead and glanced off, doing no other injury than stunning him for an instant, and tearing off the skin, which tended to infuriate him the more. The cougar wasn't long in making up his mind what to do, nor was I neither; but he would have it all his own way, and vetoed my motion to back out. I had not retreated three steps before he sprung at me like a steamboat; I stepped aside, and as he lit upon the ground, I struck him violently with the barrel of my rifle, but he didn't mind that, but wheeled around and made at me again. The gun was now of no use, so I threw it away, and drew my hunting knife, for I knew we should come to close quarters before the fight would be over. This time he succeeded in fastening on my left arm, and was just beginning to amuse himself by tearing the flesh off with his fangs, when I ripped my knife into his side, and he let go his hold, much to my satisfaction.

"He wheeled about and came at me with increased fury, occasioned by the smarting of his wounds. I now tried to blind him, knowing that if I succeeded he would become an easy prey; so as he approached me I watched my opportunity, and aimed a blow at his eyes with my knife, but unfortunately it struck him on the nose, and he paid no other attention to it than by a shake of the head and a low growl. He pressed me close, and as I was stepping backward my foot tripped in a vine, and I fell to the ground. He was down upon me like a nighthawk upon a June bug. He seized hold of the outer part of my right thigh, which afforded him considerable amusement; the hinder part of his body was toward my face; I grasped his tail with my left hand, and tickled his ribs with my hunting-knife, which I held in my right. Still the critter wouldn't let go his hold; and as I found that he would lacerate my leg dreadfully, unless he was speedily shaken off, I tried to hurl him down the bank into the river, for our scuffle had already brought us to the edge of the bank. I stuck my knife into his side, and summoned all my strength to throw him over. He resisted, was desperate heavy; but at last I got him so far down the declivity that he lost his balance, and he rolled over and over till he landed on the margin of the river; but in his fall he dragged me along with him. Fortunately, I fell uppermost, and his neck presented a fair mark for my hunting knife. Without allowing myself time even to draw breath, I aimed one desperate blow at his neck, and the knife entered his gullet up to the handle, and reached his heart. I have had many fights with bears, but that was mere child's play; this was the first fight ever I had with a cougar, and I hope it may be the last.

"I now returned to the tree-top to see if any one else would dispute my lodging; but now I could take peaceable and quiet possession. I parted some of the branches, and cut away others to make a bed in the opening; I then gathered a quantity of moss, which hung in festoons from the trees, which I spread on the litter, and over this I spread my horse-blanket; and I had as comfortable a bed as a weary man need ask for. I now took another look at my mustang, and from all appearances, he would not live until morning. I ate some of the cakes that little Kate of Nacogdoches had made for me, and then carried my saddle into my tree-top, and threw myself down upon my bed with no very pleasant reflections at the prospect before me.

"I was weary, and soon fell asleep, and did not awake until daybreak the next day. I felt somewhat stiff and sore from the wounds I had received in the conflict with the cougar; but I considered myself as having made a lucky escape. I looked over the bank, and as I saw the carcass of the cougar lying there, I thought that it was an even chance that we had not exchanged conditions; and I felt grateful that the fight had ended as it did. I now went to look after my mustang, fully expecting to find him as dead as the cougar; but what was my astonishment to find that he had disappeared without leaving trace of hair or hide of him! I first supposed that some beasts of prey had consumed the poor critter; but then they wouldn't have eaten his bones, and he had vanished as effectually as the deposits, without leaving any mark of the course they had taken. This bothered me amazing; I couldn't figure it out by any rule that I had ever heard of, so I concluded to think no more about it.

"I felt a craving for something to eat, and looking around for some game, I saw a flock of geese on the shore of the river. I shot a fine, fat gander, and soon stripped him of his feathers; and gathering some light wood, I kindled a fire, run a long stick through my goose for a spit, and put it down to roast, supported by two sticks with prongs. I had a desire for some coffee; and having a tin cup with me, I poured the paper of ground coffee that I had received from the bee-hunter into it, and made a strong cup, which was very refreshing. Off of my goose and biscuit I made a hearty meal, and was preparing to depart without clearing up the breakfast things, or knowing which direction to pursue, when I was somewhat taken aback by another of the wild scenes of the West. I heard a sound like the trampling of many horses, and I thought to be sure the mustangs or buffaloes were coming upon me again; but on raising my head, I beheld in the distance about fifty mounted Comanches, with their spears glittering in the morning sun, dashing toward the spot where I stood at full speed. As the column advanced, it divided, according to their usual practice, into two semicircles, and in an instant I was surrounded. Quicker than thought I sprung to my rifle, but as my hand grasped it, I felt that resistance against so many would be of as little use as pumping for thunder in dry weather.

"The chief was for making love to my beautiful Betsy, but I clung fast to her, and assuming an air of composure, I demanded whether their nation was at war with the Americans. 'No,' was the reply. 'Do you like the Americans?' 'Yes; they are our friends.' 'Where do you get your spear-heads, your rifles, your blankets, and your knives from?' 'Get them from our friends, the Americans.' 'Well, do you think, if you were passing through their nation, as I am passing through yours, they would attempt to rob you of your property?' 'No, they would feed me, and protect me; and the Comanche will do the same by his white brother.'

"I now asked him what it was had directed him to the spot where I was, and he told me that they had seen the smoke from a great distance, and had come to see the cause of it. He inquired what had brought me there alone; and I told him that I had come to hunt, and that my mustang had become exhausted and though I thought he was about to die, that he had escaped from me; at which the chief gave a low, chuckling laugh, and said it was all a trick of the mustang, which is the most wily and cunning of all animals. But he said, that as I was a brave hunter, he would furnish me with another; he gave orders, and a fine young horse was immediately brought forward.

"When the party approached there were three old squaws at their head, who made a noise with their mouths, and served as trumpeters.

"I now told the chief that, as I now had a horse, I would go for my saddle, which was in the place where I had slept. As I approached the spot, I discovered one of the squaws devouring the remains of my roasted goose, but my saddle and bridle were nowhere to be found. Almost in despair of seeing them again, I observed, in a thicket at a little distance, one of the trumpeters kicking and belaboring her horse to make him move off, while the sagacious beast would not move a step from the troop. I followed her, and thanks to her restive mustang, secured my property, which the chief made her restore to me. Some of the warriors had by this time discovered the body of the cougar, and had already commenced skinning it; and seeing how many stabs were about it, I related to the chief the desperate struggle I had had; he said, 'Brave hunter, brave man,' and wished me to be adopted into his tribe, but I respectfully declined the honor. He then offered to see me on my way; and I asked him to accompany me to the Colorado river, if he was going in that direction, which he agreed to do. I put my saddle on my fresh horse, mounted, and we darted off, at a rate not much slower than I had rode the day previous with the wild herd, the old squaws at the head of the troop braying like young jackasses the whole way."

The more we study the history of frontier life, the more we are surprised at the characters of such men as Simon Kenton in one way and David Crockett in another. It would seem as if they were made to command the circumstances in which they were placed—indigenous to the soil in which they grew—with traits which sprung up to meet every emergency of their times and places. They were of a new race, the like of which no other sun nor age had looked upon—Americans, indeed, in the broadest sense—men sent to prepare the soil of civilization for the rich fruit and flowers which already cover the furrows turned by their brave and vigorous arms.

David Crockett's grandparents were murdered by Indians; and he was born and reared in the midst of those privations which helped to make him what he was. It is quite delightful, in reading his "life" to see with what ease and nonchalance he dispatches a few bears in the course of a day, or does any other work which is thrown in his way. As in the specimen we have quoted, he conquers his cougar, and ingratiates himself with a roving band of Comanches, and "does up" enough adventures in a chapter to satisfy any ordinary man, if stretched through a long lifetime. Let us treasure up the records of "Davy Crockett," for we shall never have another like him.

To show the perfect isolation in which some of the pioneers lived, and the manner of their lives, we will give an anecdote of a Mr. Muldrow, one of the settlers of Kentucky, whose name is still attached to a range of savage precipices in the central part of the State, called Muldrow's hill. The individual referred to settled here at a time when there was not a single white man but himself in this vicinity, and here he had resided for a year with his wife, without having seen the face of any other human being. Perhaps, as it was his choice to reside in a wilderness, isolated from his own species, he might have thought it prudent to conceal his place of abode from the Indians, by erecting his cabin in an inhospitable waste, difficult of access, where there were no pastures to invite the deer or buffalo, and no game to allure the savage hunter, and where his family remained secure, while he roved with his gun over some hunting-ground at a convenient distance.

After passing a year in this mode of life, he was one day wandering through the woods in search of game, when he heard the barking of a dog, and supposing that an Indian was near, concealed himself. Presently a small dog came running along his track, with his nose to the ground, as if pursuing his footsteps, and had nearly reached his hiding-place, when it stopped, snuffed the air, and uttered a low whine, as if to admonish its master that the object of pursuit was near at hand. In a few minutes the owner of the dog came stepping cautiously along, glancing his eyes jealously around, and uttering low signals to the dog. But the dog stood at fault, and the owner halted within a few yards of our hunter and exposed to view.

The new-comer was a tall, athletic man, completely armed with rifle, tomahawk and knife; but whether he was a white man or an Indian, could not be determined either by his complexion or dress. He wore a hunting-shirt and leggins, of dressed deer-skin, and a hat from which the rim was entirely worn away, and the crown elongated into the shape of a sugar-loaf. The face, feet and hands, which were exposed, were of the tawny hue of the savage; but whether the color was natural, or the effect of exposure, could not be ascertained even by the keen eye of the hunter; and the features were so disguised with dirt and gunpowder, that their expression afforded no clue by which the question could be decided whether the person was a friend or foe. There was but a moment for scrutiny; the pioneer, inclining to the opinion that the stranger was an Indian, cautiously drew up his rifle, and took deliberate aim; but the bare possibility that he might be pointing his weapon at the bosom of a countryman induced him to pause.

Again he raised his gun, and again hesitated; while his opponent, with his rifle half-raised toward his face, and his finger on the trigger, looked eagerly around. Both stood motionless and silent—one searching for the object of his pursuit, the other in readiness to fire. At length the hunter, having resolved to delay no longer, cocked his rifle—the click reached the acute ear of the other, who instantly sprung behind a tree; the hunter imitated his example, and they were now fairly opposed, each covered by a tree, from behind which he endeavored to get a shot at his adversary without exposing his own person.

And now a series of stratagems ensued, each seeking to draw the fire of the other, until the stranger, becoming weary of suspense, called out:

"Why don't you shoot, you etarnal cowardly varmint?"

"Shoot, yourself, you bloody red-skin!" retorted the other.

"No more a red-skin than yourself!"

"Are you a white man?"

"To be sure I am. Are you?"

"Yes; no mistake in me!"

Whereupon, each being undeceived, they threw down their guns, rushed together with open arms, and took a hearty hug. The hunter now learned that the stranger had been settled, with his family, about ten miles from him, for several months past, and that each had frequently roamed over the same hunting-ground, supposing himself the sole inhabitant of that region. On the following day the hunter saddled his horse, and taking up his good wife behind him, carried her down to make a call upon her new neighbor, who doubtless received the visit with far more sincere joy than usually attends such ceremonies.

There is a well-accredited bear-story which belongs to the early history of Ohio, and which is of a little different type from most of the adventures with these ugly animals. An old pilot of the Ohio was once obliged to give a bruin a free ride—but he could hardly blame the bear, after stopping so kindly to take him in. But we must let him tell his own story. "Twenty odd year ago," said the pilot, "there warn't a great many people along the Ohio, except Injins and b'ars, and we didn't like to cultivate a clust acquaintance with either of 'em; fer the Injins were cheatin', scalpin' critters, and the bears had an onpleasant way with them. Ohio warn't any great shakes then, but it had a mighty big pile of the tallest kind of land layin' about, waitin' to be opened to the sunlight. 'Arly one mornin' when my companions was asleep, I got up and paddled across the river after a deer, for we wanted venison for breakfast. I got a buck and was returnin', when what should I see but a b'ar swimmin' the Ohio, and I put out in chase right off. I soon overhauled the critter and picked up my rifle to give him a settler, but the primin' had got wet and the gun wouldn't go off. I didn't understand b'ar as well then as I do now, and I thought I'd run him down and drown him or knock him in the head. So I put the canoe right eend on toward him, thinkin' to run him under, but when the bow teched him, what did he do but reach his great paws up over the side of the canoe and begin to climb in. I hadn't bargained for that. I felt mighty onpleasant, you may believe, at the prospect of sech a passenger. I hadn't time to get at him with the butt of my rifle, till he came tumbling into the dugout, and, as he seated himself on his starn, showed as pretty a set of ivory as you'd wish to see. Thar we sot, he in one end of the dugout, I in t'other, eyein' one another in a mighty suspicious sort of way. He didn't seem inclined to come near my eend of the canoe, and I was principled agin goin' toward his. I made ready to take to the water, but at the same time made up my mind I'd paddle him to shore, free gratis for nothin' if he'd behave hisself. Wal, I paddled away, the b'ar every now and then grinnin' at me, skinnin' his face till every tooth in his head stood right out, and grumblin' to hisself in a way that seemed to say, 'I wonder if that chap's good to eat.' I didn't offer any opinion on the subject; I didn't say a word to him, treatin' him all the time like a gentleman, but kept pullin' for the shore. When the canoe touched ground, he clambered over the side, climbed up the bank, and givin' me an extra grin, made off for the woods. I pushed the dugout back suddenly, and give him, as I felt safe agin, a double war whoop, that astonished him. I learned one thing that morning—never to try to drown a b'ar—'specially by running him down with a dugout—it wont pay!"

Big Joe Logston's Encounter with an Indian—Page [7].

TALES,

Traditions and Romance

OF

BORDER AND REVOLUTIONARY TIMES.

BIG JOE LOGSTON.

DEBORAH, THE MAIDEN WARRIOR.

GEN. MORGAN'S PRAYER.

BRAVERY OF THE JOHNSON BOYS.

NEW YORK:

BEADLE AND COMPANY, PUBLISHERS,

118 WILLIAM STREET.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by

BEADLE AND COMPANY,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for

the Southern District of New York.

BIG JOE LOGSTON'S
STRUGGLE WITH AN INDIAN.

We have plentiful stories of encounters between the white man and the red, in which the fierce rivalry is contested with rifles, knives, or the swift foot-race for life; but it is seldom we hear of a genuine fist-fight between the hardy men of the forest and their implacable foe. Only two or three such novel incidents occur in the history of the Western border.

Joe Logston was one of the race of famous frontier men, the "Hunters of Kentucky," whose exploits have been told in story and sung in song. He could, to use his own words, "outrun, outhop, outjump, throw down, drag out and whip any man in the country"—which was saying a good deal for those days, when men like Brady, Wetzel, M'Clelland, Adam Poe and Kenton sprung up to face the dangers of the hour.

Joe was a powerful fellow of six foot three in his stockings, and proportionately stout and muscular, with a handsome, good-natured face, and a fist like a sledge-hammer. Fear was a word of which he knew not the meaning, while to fight was his pastime, particularly if his own scalp was the prize he fought for.

On one occasion he was mounted on his favorite pony, bound on an expedition outside the fort. The pony was leisurely picking his way along the trail, with his head down and half asleep, while his rider was enjoying a feast on some wild grapes which he had gathered as he passed along. Neither dreamed of danger, until the crack of two rifles on either side the path killed the horse and wounded the rider. A ball struck Joe, grazing the skin above the breast-bone, but without doing any material damage. The other ball passed through his horse, just behind the saddle. In an instant Joe found himself on his feet, grasping his trusty rifle, which he had instinctively seized as he slipped to the ground, ready for the foe. He might easily have escaped by running, as the guns of the Indians were empty, and they could not begin to compete with him in speed. But Joe was not one of that sort. He boasted that he had never left a battle-field without making his "mark," and he was not disposed to begin now. One of the savages sprung into the path and made at him, but finding his antagonist prepared, he "treed" again. Joe, knowing there were two of the varmints, looked earnestly about him for the other, and soon discovered him between two saplings, engaged in reloading his piece. The trees were scarcely large enough to shield his person, and in pushing down the ball, he exposed his hips, when Joe, quick as thought, drew a bead, and firing, struck him in the exposed part. Now that his rifle was empty, the big Indian who had first made his appearance, rushed forward, feeling sure of his prey, and rejoicing in the anticipated possession of the white man's scalp. Joe was not going to resign this necessary and becoming covering to his head without a struggle, and stood, calmly awaiting the savage, with his rifle clubbed and his feet braced for a powerful blow. Perceiving this, his foe halted within ten paces, and with all the vengeful force of a vigorous arm, threw his tomahawk full at Joe's face. With the rapidity of lightning it whirled through the air; but Joe, equally quick in his movements, dodged it, suffering only a slight cut on the left shoulder as it passed, when he "went in."

The Indian darted into the bushes, successfully dodging the blows made at his head by the now enraged hunter, who, becoming excited to madness at the failure of his previous efforts, gathered all his strength for a final blow, which the cunning savage dodged as before, while the rifle, which by this time had become reduced to the simple barrel, struck a tree and flew out of Joe's hands at least ten feet into the bushes.

The Indian sprung to his feet and confronted him. Both empty-handed, they stood for a moment, measuring each the other's strength; it was but a moment, for the blood was flowing freely from the wound in Joe's breast, and the other thinking him more seriously wounded than he really was, and expecting to take advantage of his weakness, closed with him, intending to throw him. In this, however, he reckoned without his host. In less time than it takes to recount it, he found himself at full length on his back, with Joe on top. Slipping from under him with the agility of an eel they were both on their feet again—and again closed. This time the savage was more wary, but the same result followed—he was again beneath his opponent. But having the advantage of Joe, in being naked to his breech-cloth, and oiled from head to foot, he could easily slip from the grasp of the hunter and resume his perpendicular. Six different times was he thrown with the same effect; but victory—fickle jade—seemed disposed to perch on the banner of neither of the combatants. There were no admiring thousands looking on at this exciting "mill"—no seconds to insist upon fairness and preserve the rules of the ring—only one poor wounded spectator, and two foes fighting not for fame but life.

By this time they had, in their struggles and contortions, returned to the open path, and Joe resolved upon a change of tactics. He was becoming sensibly weaker from loss of blood, while, on the other hand, the savage seemed to lose none of his strength by the many falls he had experienced. Closing again in a close hug, they fell as before; this time, instead of endeavoring to keep his antagonist down, Joe sprung at once to his feet, and, as his antagonist came up, dealt him a blow with his fist between the eyes, which felled him like an ox, at the same time falling with all his might upon his body.

This was repeated every time he rose, and began to tell with fearful effect upon the savage's body as well as his face, for Joe was no light weight, and at every succeeding fall the Indian came up weaker, seeming finally disposed to retreat; this his opponent decidedly objected to; his "spunk was up;" he dealt his blows more rapidly, until the savage lay apparently insensible at his feet. Falling upon him, he grasped the Indian's throat with a grip like a vice, intending to strangle him. He soon found that the savage was "playing possum," and that some movement was going forward, the purport of which he could not immediately guess. Following with his eye the direction of the movement, Joe found that he was trying to disengage his knife which was in his belt, but the handle of which was so short that it had slipped down beyond reach, and he was working it up by pressing on the point. Joe watched the effort with deep interest, and when it was worked up sufficient for his purpose, seized it, and with one powerful blow drove it to the owner's heart, leaving him quivering in the agonies of death.

Springing to his feet the victor now bethought him of the other red-skin, and looked around to discover him. He still lay, with his back broken by Joe's ball, where he had fallen, and, having his piece loaded, was trying to raise himself upright to fire it; but every time he brought it to his shoulder he would tumble forward and have again to renew the effort. Concluding that he had had enough fighting for exercise, and knowing that the wounded Indian could not escape, Joe took his way to the fort.

Although he presented a frightful sight when he reached there—his clothes being torn nearly from his person, which was covered with blood and dirt from his head to his feet—yet his account was hardly believed by some of his comrades, who thought it one of Joe's "big stories," which had the reputation of being as big as himself, though not half so well authenticated. "Go and satisfy yourselves," said he; and a party started for the battle-ground, where their suppositions were confirmed, as there were no Indians about, and no evidence of them, except Joe's dead horse in the path. On looking carefully about, however, they discovered a trail which led a little way into the bushes, where they discovered the body of the big Indian buried under the dead leaves by the side of a stump. Following on, they found the corpse of the second, with his own knife thrust into his heart and his grasp still upon it, to show that he died by his own hand. Nowhere could they discover the knife with which Joe had killed the big Indian. They found it at last, thrust into the ground, where it had been forced by the heel of his wounded companion, who must have suffered the most intense agony while endeavoring to hide all traces of the white man's victory.

Joe got the credit for his story, while his comrades universally lamented that they had not been spectators of this pugilistic encounter between "big Indian" and "big Joe."

Another one of the forest scenes which stand out so vividly in pictures of American life, occurs to us. It is unique in its character, and will excite a smile, as well as a feeling of admiration for the tact and courage which enacted it.

In the early part of the Revolutionary war, a sargeant and twelve armed men undertook a journey through the wilderness, in the State of New Hampshire. Their route was remote from any settlements, and they were under the necessity of encamping over night in the woods. Nothing material happened the first day of their excursion; but early in the afternoon of the second, they, from an eminence, discovered a body of armed Indians advancing toward them, whose number rather exceeded their own. As soon as the whites were perceived by their red brethren, the latter made signals, and the two parties approached each other in an amicable manner. The Indians appeared to be much gratified with meeting the sargeant and his men, whom they observed they considered as their protectors; said they belonged to a tribe which had raised the hatchet with zeal in the cause of liberty, and were determined to do all in their power to repel the common enemy. They shook hands in friendship, and it was, "How d'ye do, pro, how d'ye do, pro," that being their pronunciation of the word brother. When they had conversed with each other for some time, and exchanged mutual good wishes, they at length separated, and each party traveled in a different direction. After proceeding to the distance of a mile or more, the sargeant, who was acquainted with all the different tribes, and knew on which side of the contest they were respectively ranked, halted his men and addressed them in the following words:

"My brave companions, we must use the utmost caution, or this night may be our last. Should we not make some extraordinary exertions to defend ourselves, to-morrow's sun may find us sleeping never to wake. You are surprised, comrades, at my words, and your anxiety will not be lessened, when I inform you, that we have just passed our most inveterate foe, who, under the mask of pretended friendship you have witnessed, would lull us to security, and by such means, in the unguarded moments of our midnight slumber, without resistance, seal our fate."

The men with astonishment listened to this short harangue; and their surprise was greater, as not one of them had entertained the suspicion but they had just encountered friends. They all immediately resolved to enter into some scheme for their mutual preservation and destruction of their enemies. By the proposal of their leader, the following plan was adopted and executed:

The spot selected for their night's encampment was near a stream of water, which served to cover their rear. They felled a large tree, before which on the approach of night, a brilliant fire was lighted. Each individual cut a log of wood about the size of his body, rolled it nicely in his blanket, placed his hat upon the extremity, and laid it before the fire, that the enemy might be deceived, and mistake it for a man. After logs equal in number to the sargeant's party were thus fitted out, and so artfully arranged that they might be easily mistaken for so many soldiers, the men with loaded muskets placed themselves behind the fallen tree, by which time the shades of evening began to close around. The fire was supplied in fuel, and kept burning brilliantly until late in the evening, when it was suffered to decline. The critical time was now approaching, when an attack might be expected from the Indians; but the sargeant's men rested in their place of concealment with great anxiety till near midnight, without perceiving any movement of the enemy.

At length a tall Indian was discovered through the glimmering of the fire, cautiously moving toward them, making no noise, and apparently using every means in his power to conceal himself from any one about the camp. For a time his actions showed him to be suspicious that a guard might be stationed to watch any unusual appearance, who would give the alarm in case of danger; but all appearing quiet, he ventured forward more boldly, rested upon his toes, and was distinctly seen to move his finger as he numbered each log of wood, or what he supposed to be a human being quietly enjoying repose. To satisfy himself more fully as to the number, he counted them over a second time, and cautiously retired. He was succeeded by another Indian, who went through the same movements, and retired in the same manner. Soon after the whole party, sixteen in number, were discovered approaching, and greedily eyeing their supposed victims. The feelings of the sargeant's men can better be imagined than described, when they saw the base and cruel purpose of their enemies, who were now so near that they could scarcely be restrained from firing upon them. The plan, however, of the sargeant, was to have his men remain silent in their places of concealment till the muskets of the savages were discharged, that their own fire might be more effectual, and opposition less formidable.

Their suspense was not of long duration. The Indians, in a body, cautiously approached, till within a short distance; they then halted, took deliberate aim, discharged their pieces upon inanimate logs, gave the dreadful war-whoop, and instantly rushed forward with tomahawk and scalping-knife in hand, to dispatch the living, and obtain the scalps of the dead. As soon as they had collected in close order, more effectually to execute their horrid intentions, the party of the sargeant, with unerring aim, discharged their pieces, not on logs of wood, but perfidious savages, not one of whom escaped destruction by the snare into which they led themselves.

There must have been a touch of grim humor about that sargeant as well as of cool courage.

Many instances are on record of those days of danger—where either in battle or in the settlement of new countries, the cruel and crafty red-man had to be encountered—where the minds of men have been thrown from their balance by the sight of barbarities, or the suffering of afflictions, which overthrow their shuddering reasons. Some men have been called monomaniacs, from the fact of their restless and rankling hatred of the race who had inflicted some great misery upon them or theirs. But it is hardly strange that when they saw those savages behave worse than tigers, they decided to treat them like wild beasts, and that they were justified in the attempt to exterminate them. There must be men in Minnesota, at this day, who are monomaniacs on the subject of the red-skins. One of the most noted of these Indian haters was John Moredock, of Kentucky; and these are the circumstances which made him so, as given in a fine paper on the early settlers, in Harper's Magazine for 1861:

Toward the end of the last century there lived at Vincennes a woman whose whole life had been spent on the frontier. She had been widowed four or five times by the Indians; her last husband, whose name was Moredock, had been killed a few years before the time of which we speak. But she had managed to bring up a large family in a respectable manner. Now, when her sons were growing up, she resolved to better their condition by moving "West." The whole of Illinois was a blooming waste of prairie land, except in a few places where stood the trading-posts built a hundred years before by the French.

The lower peninsula of Illinois was not of a nature to attract emigrants when so much finer lands were to be found on the banks of the Great River and its tributaries; nor was a land journey over that marshy region, infested as it was by roving bands of savages, to be lightly undertaken, when the two rivers furnished a so much more easy though circuitous way to the delightful region beyond. Hence it was usual for a company of those intending to make the journey to purchase a sufficient number of pirogues, or keel-boats, in them descend the Ohio, and then ascend the Mississippi to the mouth of the Kaskaskia, or any other destined point. By adopting this mode of traveling all serious danger of Indian attacks was avoided, except at one or two points on the latter stream, where it was necessary to land and draw the boats around certain obstructions in the channel.

To one of these companies the Moredock family joined itself—several of the sons being sufficiently well-grown to take a part not only in the ordinary labors of the voyage but in any conflict that might occur. All went well with the expedition until they reached the rock known as the "Grand Tower" on the Mississippi, almost within sight of their destination. Here, supposing themselves to be out of danger, the men carelessly leaped on shore to drag the boats up against the current, which here rushed violently around the base of the cliff. The women and children, fifteen or twenty in number, tired of being cooped in the narrow cabins for three or four weeks, thoughtlessly followed. While the whole party were thus making their way slowly along the narrow space between the perpendicular precipice on one hand, the well-known yell of savage onset rung in their ears, and a volley of rifles from above stretched half a dozen of the number dead in their midst, while almost at the same moment a band of the painted demons appeared at each end of the fatal pass. The experienced border men, who saw at a glance that their condition was hopeless, stood for one moment overwhelmed with consternation; but in the next the spirit of the true Indian fighter awoke within their hearts, and they faced their assailants with hopeless but desperate valor.

The conflict that ensued was only a repetition of the scene which the rivers and woods of the West had witnessed a thousand times before, in which all the boasted strength and intelligence of the whites had been baffled by the superior cunning of the red-men. "Battle Rock," "Murder Creek," "Bloody Run," and hundreds of similar names scattered throughout our land, are but so many characters in that stern epitaph which the aborigines, during their slow retreat across the continent toward the Rocky Mountains, and annihilation, have written for themselves in the blood of the destroying race. The history of Indian warfare contains no passage more fearful than is to be found in the narrative of the massacre at the Grand Tower of the Mississippi. Half armed, surprised, encumbered with their women and children, and taken in so disadvantageous a situation, being all huddled together on a narrow sand-beach, with their enemies above and on either side, their most desperate efforts availed not even to postpone their fate; and in the space of ten minutes after the warning yell was heard, the mangled bodies of forty men, women and children lay heaped upon the narrow strip of sand. The conflict had ended in the complete destruction of the emigrant company—so complete that the savages imagined not a single survivor remained to carry the disastrous tidings to the settlements.

But one such wretched survivor, however, there was. John Moredock, who, having fought like a young tiger until all hope of saving even a part of the unfortunate company was lost, and who then, favored by the smoke, and the eagerness of the assailants for scalps, and the plunder of the boats, glided through the midst of the savages and nestled himself in a cleft of the rocks. Here he lay for hours, sole spectator of a scene of Indian ferocity which transformed his young heart to flint, and awoke that thirst for revenge which continued to form the ruling sentiment of his future life, and which raged as insatiably on the day of his death, forty years later, when he had become a man of mark, holding high offices in his adopted State, as it did when crouching among the rocks of the Grand Tower; and, beholding the bodies of his mother, sisters and brothers mangled by the Indian tomahawk, he bound himself by a solemn oath never from that moment to spare one of the accursed race who might come within reach of his arm; and especially to track the footsteps of the marauding band who had just swept away all that he loved on earth, until the last one should have paid the penalty of life for life.

How long he remained thus concealed he never knew; but at length, as the sun was setting, the Indians departed, and John Moredock stepped forth from his hiding-place, not what he had entered it, a brave, light-hearted lad of nineteen, the pride of a large family circle and the favorite of a whole little colony of borderers, but an orphan and an utter stranger in a strange land, standing alone amidst the ghastly and disfigured corpses of his family and friends. He had hoped to find some life still lingering amidst the heaps of carnage; but all, all had perished. Having satisfied himself of this fact, the lonely boy—now transformed into that most fearful of all beings, a thoroughly desperate man—quitted the place, and, guiding himself by the stars, struck across the prairie toward the nearest settlement on the Kaskaskia, where he arrived the next morning, bringing to the inhabitants the first news of the massacre which had taken place so near their own village, and the first warning of the near approach of the prowling band which had been for several months depredating, at various points along that exposed frontier, in spite of the treaties lately made by their nations with the Federal Government.

John Moredock was by nature formed for a leader in times of danger, and his avowed determination to revenge the massacre of his friends and kindred by the extirpation of the murderous band coincided so exactly with the feelings of the frontiersmen, that, in spite of his lack of previous acquaintance, he in a few days found himself at the head of a company of twenty-five or thirty young men, whose lives had been spent in the midst of all kinds of perils and hardships, and who now bound themselves to their leader by an oath never to give up the pursuit until the last one of the marauding band engaged in the attack at Grand Tower should be slain.

Stanch as a pack of blood-hounds this little company of avengers ranged the frontier from the Des Moines to the Ohio, now almost within reach of their victims, and now losing all trace of them on the boundless prairies over which they roamed, unconscious of the doom by which they were being so hotly but stealthily pursued. Once, indeed, the whites came up with their game on the banks of a tributary of the Missouri, a hundred and fifty miles beyond the utmost line of the settlements; but as the Indians, though unsuspicious of any particular danger, had pitched their camp in a spot at once easy to defend and to escape from, and as Moredock wished to destroy and not to disperse them, he forbore striking a partial blow, and resolved rather to postpone his revenge than to enjoy it incompletely.

Fortune, however, seemed to repay him for this act of self-restraint by presenting the very opportunity he had sought, when, a few weeks afterward, he discovered the whole gang of marauders encamped for the night on a small island in the middle of the Mississippi. After a hasty consultation with his companions, a course of procedure was determined upon which strikingly displays both the monomaniacal tendency of the leader and the desperate ascendancy he had acquired over his followers. This was nothing less than to shut themselves up on that narrow sand-bar and to engage the savages in a hand-to-hand conflict—a conflict from which neither party could retreat, and which must necessarily end in the total destruction of one or the other. A most desperate undertaking truly, when we reflect that the numbers of the combatants were about equal, and that to surprise an Indian encampment was next to impossible. But John Moredock, and, probably, more than one of his companions, were monomaniacs, and considerations of personal danger never entered into their calculations. Revenge, not safety, was their object, and they took little thought of the latter when the opportunity of compassing the former was presented.

Slowly and stealthily, therefore, the canoes approached the island when all sounds there had ceased, and the flame of the camp-fire had sunk into a pale-red glow, barely marking the position of the doomed party among the undergrowth with which the central portion of the little isle was covered. The Indians, confiding in their natural watchfulness, seldom place sentinels around their camps; and thus Moredock and his band reached the island without being discovered. A few moments sufficed to set their own canoes as well as those of the Indians adrift, and then, with gun in hand and tomahawk ready, they glided noiselessly, as so many panthers, into the thicket, separating as they advanced so as to approach the camp from different quarters. All remained still as death for many minutes while the assailants were thus closing in around their prey, and not a twig snapped, and scarcely a leaf stirred in the thick jungle through which thirty armed men were making their way in as many different directions, but all converging toward the same point, where a pale glimmer indicated the position of the unsuspected savages. But though an Indian camp may be easily approached within a certain distance, it is almost impossible, if there be any considerable number of them, to actually strike its occupants while asleep. As savages, roaming at large over the face of the continent without fixed habitations, and relying upon chance for the supply of their few wants, they know nothing of that regularity of habit which devotes certain fixed portions of time to the various purposes of life, but each one eats, sleeps or watches, just as his own feelings may dictate at the moment, without any regard to established usages of time or place. Hence the probability of finding all the members of an Indian party asleep at the same time is small indeed.

On the present occasion two or three warriors, who were smoking over the embers, caught the alarm before the assailants had quite closed in. Still the surprise gave the white men a great advantage, and half a dozen of the savages were shot down in their tracks before they comprehended the meaning of the hideous uproar, which suddenly broke the midnight stillness as Moredock and his company, finding their approach discovered, rushed in upon them. This fatal effect of the first volley was a lucky thing for the adventurers; for the Indians are less liable to panics than almost any other people, and they closed with their assailants with a fury that, combined with their superior skill in nocturnal conflict, would have rendered the issue of the struggle a very doubtful matter had the number of combatants been more nearly even. As it was, the nimble warriors fought their way against all odds to the point where their canoes had been moored. Here, finding their expected means of flight removed, and exposed upon the naked sand-beach, the survivors still made desperate battle until all were slain except three, who plunged boldly into the stream, and, aided by the darkness, succeeded in reaching the main land in safety.

Twenty-seven of those engaged in the massacre at the Grand Tower had been destroyed at a single blow. But three had escaped from the bloody trap, and while these lived the vengeance of John Moredock was unsatisfied. They must perish, and he determined that it should be by his own hand. He therefore dismissed his faithful band, and thenceforth continued the pursuit alone. Having learned the names of the three survivors he easily tracked them from place to place, as they roamed about in a circuit of three or four hundred miles. Had the wretches known what avenger of blood was thus dogging their tracks, the whole extent of the continent would not have afforded space enough for their flight, or its most retired nook a sufficiently secure retreat. But quite as relentless Moredock pursued his purpose, and but few even of his acquaintances knew the motive of his ceaseless journey along the frontiers from Green Bay to the mouth of the Ohio, and far into the unsettled wastes beyond the Mississippi.

At length, about two years after the massacre of his family at the Tower, he returned to Kaskaskia, having completed his terrible task, and bearing the scalp of the last of the murderers at his girdle.

Moredock lived to be a popular and leading man in his State, an office-holder, a kind neighbor and beloved head of a family, yet he never relaxed in his hatred of the race who had poisoned the fountain of youthful hope for him.

DEBORAH SAMPSON, THE MAIDEN WARRIOR.

There comes to us, from the days of chivalry, in song and story, legends of ladies who followed their lords to the distant field of Palestine, hiding their soft hearts under the disguise of the page's dress. Time, the romancer, has thrown his enchanting vail over their adventures, surrounding them with the grace of mystery and the glory of sentiment.

Perhaps in the far-away future of our immortal republic, young men and maidens will dream over the story of Deborah Sampson, the girl-soldier of that Revolution which won us our liberties. It will not be said that she donned the uniform and shouldered the musket for the sake of some dear lover, that she might ever be near to watch over him in the hour of danger, and to nurse him if wounded, with all the tender solicitude of woman's love; but it will be told that she went into the service of her country because men were few and her heart was in the cause. She had health and courage, and that high patriotism which burned alike in manly and feminine breasts. That she was brave, is proven by her being twice wounded in battle. There is no need of putting any other construction than that of pure patriotism upon her actions; the steadiness with which she performed her duties show that it was no wild love of adventure which possessed her.

Deborah Sampson was born in the county of Plymouth, Massachusetts. Her parents were poor and vicious, and their children were taken from them by the hand of charity, to be placed with different families, where there was a prospect of their being better cared for. Deborah found a home with a respectable farmer, by whom she was treated as one of the family, except in the matter of education. To overcome this deprivation she used to borrow the books of school children, over which she pored until she learned to read tolerably well. This simple fact reveals that her mind was no ordinary one. She was a true child of New England, ambitious to be the equal of those by whom she was surrounded, and looking upon ignorance almost as degradation. Many of our now famous minds began their culture in this humble way, by the side of the kitchen fire, perhaps with a pine-torch, by the light of which to pursue their eager groping after knowledge.

As soon as the completion of her eighteenth year released her from indenture, she hastened to seek a situation in which to improve herself, and made arrangements with a family to work one-half her time for her board and lodging, while, during the other half, she attended the district-school. Her improvement was so rapid, that in a comparatively short space of time she was thought competent to teach, and by doing so for one term, the ambitious girl amassed the sum of twelve dollars! In all this we see the remarkable energy and force of character which enabled her to carry out the career she afterward chose. The young bound-girl who so soon would raise herself to the position of teacher, must have had in her elements, which, had she been a man, would have urged her to the performance of deeds that would have given her prominence in those stirring days.

While Deborah was teaching her little summer school, the spirit of resistance to tyranny which long had struggled toward the light, burst forth over the whole country, never to be hid again. The first battle had been fought at Lexington; the sound of the cannon had rolled from Bunker Hill in echoes which would not die. They thrilled and trembled along the air, in never-ending vibrations, smiting the ears of patriots, and rousing their hearts to the duties and perils of the hour. Deborah, in her little schoolroom, heard the sound. For her it had a peculiar message; it called her—she could not resist! Something in her courageous breast told her that she was as well fitted to serve her beloved country as the young men, who, with kindling eyes and eager feet, were rushing to its assistance. Walking slowly home from her school, along the lonely road, looking out at night from the little window of her chamber at the stars, she pondered the voice in her heart. The more she thought, the more earnest she became in her desire. There was no reason why she should silence the resolution which called her. She was accountable to none; was friendless, without kindred or home. Why was she given this vigorous and healthy frame, and this heroic heart, if not for the service of her suffering country? Perhaps Providence had loosened her from other ties, that she might attach herself solely to this holy cause. With such arguments as these she quieted the timidity which arose solely from maidenly fears that she might be detected in her plans, and subjected to the embarrassment of being refused or ridiculed on account of her sex.

With that humble wealth of twelve dollars she purchased the materials for a suit of men's clothing. Upon the cloth she worked secretly, as she found the opportunity, each article, upon completion, being hidden in a stack of hay. When her arrangements were completed she announced a determination to seek better wages, and took her departure, without her real purpose being suspected. When far enough away to feel secure, she donned her male attire, and pursued her way to the American army, where she presented herself in October, 1778, as a young man anxious to join his efforts to those of his countrymen in their endeavors to oppose the common enemy. She is described as being, at this time, of very prepossessing features, and intelligent, animated expression, with a fine, tall form, and such an air of modest courage and freshness as inspired confidence and respect in those who had become associated with her. She was gladly received, as a promising recruit, and enrolled in the army under the name of Robert Shirtliffe, the period of her enlistment being for the war.

While the company was recruiting she was an inmate of the Captain's family, and, by her exemplary conduct, won the esteem of all. A young girl, visiting in the family, was much in the company of young "Robert;" and, being of a coquettish disposition—priding herself, perhaps, on the conquest of the young soldier—she suffered her partiality to be noticed. "Robert," having no objections to see how easily a maiden's heart could be won, encouraged the feeling, until the Captain's wife, becoming alarmed, took occasion to remonstrate with the youth upon the subject. "Robert" took the matter in good part, and the affair ended in the exchange of some few tokens of remembrance at parting.

At the end of six or seven weeks, the company being full, was ordered to join the main army, and Deborah's military life commenced in earnest. The record does not give all the details of her career, though the record of a life in camp and on the field, under such circumstances, must be full of interest. She herself has said that volumes might be filled with her adventures. She performed her duties to the entire satisfaction of her officers; was a volunteer on several expeditions of a hazardous nature, and was twice wounded severely; the first time by a sword-cut on the side of her head, and the second by a bullet-wound through the shoulder. She served three years, and, during all that time, her sex never was suspected, though often in circumstances where detection seemed unavoidable. The soldiers nicknamed her "Molly," in playful allusion to her want of a beard; but little did they suspect that their gallant comrade was, indeed, a woman.

The last wound which she received, of a bullet through her shoulder, gave her great uneasiness, for fear that the surgeon, upon dressing it, would discover the deception which had been so long and so successfully practiced. She always described the emotion, when the ball entered, to be one of mental, not of physical anguish—a sickening terror at the probability of her sex being revealed. She felt that death on the battle-field would be preferable to the shame she would suffer in such a case, and prayed rather to die than to be betrayed. Strange as it may appear, she again escaped undetected. Recovering rapidly, she soon resumed her place in the ranks, as brave and willing as ever.

Sickness, however, was destined to bring about the catastrophe which the perils of the battle-field had never precipitated. She was seized with brain fever, then prevailing among the soldiers. For the few days that reason struggled with the disease her sufferings were great; and these were intensely aggravated by her mental anxiety—that ever-present fear, lest, during her unconsciousness, her carefully-guarded secret should become known. She was carried to the hospital, where the number of the patients and the negligent manner in which they were attended still secured her escape. Her case was considered hopeless, on which account she received still less attention. She continued to sink, until consciousness was gone, and life itself trembled on the faintest breath which ever held it.

One day, the surgeon of the hospital inquiring "how Robert was?" received assurance from the nurse that "poor Bob was gone." Going to the bed, and taking the wrist of the youth, he found the pulse still feebly beating. Attempting to place his hand on the heart, he found a bandage bound tightly over the breast. Then it was that the secret of the girl-soldier became known to the physician; but if she had been his own daughter he could not have guarded it more delicately. Deborah had fallen into good hands, in this crisis of her affairs.

It was Dr. Birney, of Philadelphia, who was then in attendance at the hospital. Without communicating his discovery to any one, he gave his patient such care that she was raised from the grave, as it were; and when sufficiently recovered to be removed, he had her conveyed to his own house, where she was the recipient of every kind attention from the family as long as she remained an invalid. And now occurred another of those romantic episodes which give an interest to the history of our hero-heroine. If Deborah Sampson had indeed been the "Robert" she professed to be, she would have been a favorite with the softer sex; since, without her seeking it, twice the affections of fair maidens were laid at her feet. We may conjecture, to the credit of the fair sex, that the purity and modesty of "Robert"—his unassuming excellence and womanly goodness, had much to do with success in this line.

A niece of the doctor's, a young and wealthy lady, became interested in the youth whom she had aided in restoring to health, by her attentions. "Pity," which is "akin to love," gradually melted into that warmer feeling. The modest and handsome young man, who shrunk from taking the slightest advantage of her kindness, aroused all the compassion and sensibility of her heart. Lovely and young, conscious that many, more influential than he, would be honored to sue for her hand, she yet allowed her affections to turn to the pale and unassuming, the humble and poor, soldier. The uncle was warned of his imprudence in allowing the young couple to be so much together, but he laughed in his sleeve at such suggestions, tickling his fancy with the idea of how foolish the censorious would feel when the truth should be made known. He had not confided his knowledge even to the members of his own family. It is not probable that he really believed his niece's feelings were becoming so warmly interested, or he would have given her a sufficient caution; she was allowed to be with the convalescent as much as she liked.

At first the heart of "Robert" opened to this innocent and lovely girl, whom she loved as a sister, and whose gentle kindness was so winning; she showed the gratitude which she felt, and perhaps even confided to her some of the lonely emotions which had so long remained unspoken in her breast; but it was not long before the young soldier, warned by past experience, felt apprehensive of the return of affection which she received, and strove, delicately, to withdraw from the painful position in which she was being placed. Taking this shrinking embarrassment for the sensitive modesty of one who, friendless and poor, dared not aspire to the hand of one so much above him in social position, the fair heiress, trusting the evident goodness of his heart, and actuated alike by love and the noblest generosity, made known her attachment to "Robert," and signified her willingness to furnish him the means of fitting himself for such a station, and then to marry him.

When Deborah beheld this guileless young creature, with blushes and tears, making this unexpected and unwelcome avowal, she felt, with bitter pain, the position in which she was placed. Then she wished that she indeed was the Robert Shirtliffe she had assumed to be, rather than wound the feelings of one to whom she was so much indebted, by a refusal of what had been so timidly offered. Yet to reveal her true character would be still more awkward and painful. The wounded sensibility of the young girl did not, in that hour, cause her so much suffering, as the remorse and regret of the false "Robert" caused him.

Saying that they should meet again, and that, though ardently desiring an education, she could not accept her noble offer, Deborah endeavored to hurt the sensitive girl as little as possible, while withdrawing from the dilemma in which she was placed. Shortly after, she departed, taking with her several articles of clothing, such as in those days were frequent gifts to the soldiers from the hands of fair women, and which were pressed upon her acceptance by the young lady.

The denouement rapidly followed her recovery. The physician had a conference with the commanding officer of the company with which Robert had served, which was followed by an order to the youth to carry a letter to General Washington. She now became aware, for the first time, that her secret was known, and that detection was no longer avoidable. She had suspected that Dr. Birney knew more than he had given intimation of, but her most anxious scrutiny of his words and countenance had never assured her of the truth of her fears. Now that the worst was come, she had no way but to meet it with that courage which was a part of her nature. Yet she would rather have faced the fire of the British cannon than to have confronted Washington with that letter in her hand.

Trembling and confused, she presented herself before the Commander-in-Chief, who, noticing her extreme agitation, with his usual kindness endeavored to restore her confidence; but finding her still so abashed, bade her retire with an attendant, who was ordered to procure her some refreshment, while the General read the letter of which she had been the bearer.

When she was recalled to his presence, he silently put into her hand a discharge from service, along with a brief note of advice, and a sum of money sufficient to bear her to some place where she might find a home. Very glad and grateful was she to escape thus unrebuked out of that presence.

After the war she married; and while Washington was President she paid a visit to the seat of Government on his invitation. She was received with every attention. Congress was then in session, and passed a bill granting her a pension for life. She lived in comfortable circumstances, passing from the stage of human life at an advanced age.