The Life and Times of Col. Daniel Boone, Hunter, Soldier, and Pioneer

"You are Colonel Crawford, I believe."

"Yes, Wingenund, you must remember me."

"Yes, I have not forgotten you; we have often drank and eaten together, and you have been kind to me many times."

"I hope that friendship remains, Wingenund."

"It would remain forever, if you were in any place but this, and were what you ought to be."

"I have been engaged only in honorable warfare, and when we take your warriors prisoners we treat them right."

The chief looked meaningly at the poor captive and said,

"I would do the most I can for you, and I might do something, had you not joined Colonel Williamson, who murdered the Moravian Indians, knowing they were innocent of all wrong and that he ran no risk in killing them with their squaws and children."

"That was a bad act – a very bad act, Wingenund, and had I been with him, I never would have permitted it. I abhor the deed as do all good white men, no matter where they are."

"That may all be true," said the chief, "but Colonel Williamson went a second time and killed more of the Moravians."

"But I went out and did all I could to stop him."

"That may be true, too, but you cannot make the Indians believe it, and then, Colonel Crawford, when you were on the march here, you turned aside with your soldiers and went to the Moravian towns, but found them deserted. Our spies were watching you and saw you do this. Had you been looking for warriors, you would not have gone there, for you know the Moravians are foolish and will not fight."

"We have done nothing, and your spies saw nothing that your own people would not have done had they been in our situation."

"I have no wish to see you die, though you have forfeited your life, and had we Colonel Williamson, we might spare you; but that man has taken good care to keep out of our reach, and you will have to take his place. I can do nothing for you."

Colonel Crawford begged the chief to try and save him from the impending fate, but Wingenund assured him it was useless, and took his departure.

Shortly afterward the Indians began their preparations for the frightful execution.

A large stake was driven into the ground, and wood carefully placed around it. Then Crawford's hands were tied behind his back, and he was led out and securely fastened to the stake.

At this time, Simon Girty was sitting on his horse near by, taking no part in the proceedings, but showing by his looks and manner that he enjoyed them fully as much as did the executioners themselves.

Happening to catch the eye of the renegade, Colonel Crawford asked him whether the Indians really intended to burn him at the stake. Girty answered with a laugh that there could be no doubt of it, and Crawford said no more. He knew that it was useless to appeal to him who was of his own race, for his heart was blacker and more merciless than those of the savages who were kindling the fagots at his feet.

The particulars of the burning of Colonel Crawford have been given by Dr. Knight, his comrade, who succeeded in escaping, when he, too, had been condemned to the same fate. These particulars are too frightful to present in full, for they could only horrify the reader.

Colonel Crawford was subjected to the most dreadful form of torture, the fire burning slowly, while the Indians amused themselves by firing charges of powder into his body. He bore it for a long time with fortitude, but finally ran round and round the stake, when his thongs were burned in two, in the instinctive effort to escape his tormentors.

The squaws were among the most fiendish of the tormentors, until the miserable captive was driven so frantic by his sufferings that he appealed to Girty to shoot him and thus end his awful sufferings.

This dying request was refused, and at the end of two hours nature gave out and the poor Colonel died.

Simon Girty assured Dr. Knight that a similar fate was awaiting him, and Knight himself had little hope of its being averted. A son of Colonel Crawford was subjected to the same torture, but, as we have stated, Dr. Knight effected his escape shortly afterward.

Simon Girty, the most notorious renegade of the West, remained with the Indians until his death. He became a great drunkard, but took part in the defeat and massacre of St. Clair's army in 1791, and was at the battle of the Fallen Timbers, three years later. Fearful of returning to his own kindred at the end of hostilities, he went to Canada, where he became something of a trader, until the breaking out of the war of 1812, when he once more joined the Indians and was killed at the battle of the Thames.

CHAPTER XVII

Adventure of the Spies White and M'Clelland – Daring Defence of her Home by Mrs. Merrill – Exploits of Kennan the Ranger

The block-house garrison at the mouth of Hocking River was thrown into considerable alarm on one occasion by the discovery that an unusual number of Indians were swarming in their town in the valley. Such a state of affairs, as a rule, means that the savages are making, or have made, preparations for a serious movement against the whites.

To ascertain the cause of the presence of so many warriors in that section, two of the most skillful and daring rangers of the West were sent out to spy their movements. These scouts were White and McClelland, and the season on which they ventured upon their dangerous expedition was one of the balmy days in Indian summer.

The scouts made their way leisurely to the top of the well-known prominence near Lancaster, Ohio, from whose rocky summit they looked off over the plain spreading far to the west, and through which the Hocking River winds like a stream of silver.

From this elevation, the keen-eyed scouts gazed down upon a curious picture – one which told them of the certain coming of the greatest danger which can break upon the frontier settlement. What they saw, and the singular adventures that befell them, are told by the Reverend J. B. Finley, the well-known missionary of the West.

Day by day the spies witnessed the horse-racing of the assembled thousands. The old sachems looked on with their Indian indifference, the squaws engaged in their usual drudgery, while the children indulged unrestrainedly in their playful gambols. The arrival of a new war party was greeted with loud shouts, which, striking the stony face of Mount Pleasant, were driven back in the various indentations of the surrounding hills, producing reverberations and echoes as if so many fiends were gathered in universal levee. On several occasions, small parties left the prairie and ascended the mount from its low and grassy eastern slope. At such times, the spies would hide in the deep fissures of the rocks on the west, and again leave their hiding-places when their unwelcome visitors had disappeared. For food, they depended on jerked venison and corn-bread, with which their knapsacks were well stored. They dare not kindle a fire, and the report of one of their rifles would have brought upon them the entire force of Indians. For drink, they resorted to the rain-water which still stood in the hollows of the rocks; but, in a short time, this source was exhausted, and McClelland and White were forced to abandon their enterprise, or find a new supply. To accomplish this, M'Clelland, being the oldest, resolved to make the attempt. With his trusty rifle in hand and two canteens slung over his shoulders, he cautiously descended, by a circuitous route, to the prairie skirting the hills on the north.

Under cover of the hazel thicket, he reached the river, and turning the bold point of a hill, found a beautiful spring within a few feet of the stream now known by the name of Cold Spring. Filling his canteens, he returned in safety to his watchful companion. It was now determined to have a fresh supply of water every day, and the duty was performed alternately.

On one of these occasions, after White had filled his canteens, he sat watching the water as it came gurgling out of the earth, when the light sound of footsteps fell on his ear. Upon turning around he saw two squaws within a few feet of him. The eldest gave one of those far-reaching whoops peculiar to Indians.

White at once comprehended his perilous situation. If the alarm should reach the camps or town, he and his companion must inevitably perish. Self-preservation compelled him to inflict a noiseless death on the squaws, and in such a manner as, if possible, to leave no trace behind. Ever rapid in thought and prompt in action, he sprang upon his victims with the rapidity and power of the lion, and grasping the throat of each, sprang into the river. He thrust the head of the eldest under the water, and while making strong efforts to submerge the younger (who, however, powerfully resisted him), to his astonishment, she addressed him in his own language, though in almost inarticulate sounds. Releasing his hold, she informed him she had been a prisoner ten years, and was taken from below Wheeling; that the Indians had killed all the family; that her brother and herself were taken prisoners, but he succeeded, on the second night, in making his escape. During this narrative, White had drowned the elder squaw, and had let the body float off down the current, where it was not likely soon to be found. He now directed the girl to follow him, and, with his usual speed and energy, pushed for the mount.

They had scarcely gone half way, when they heard the alarm-cry, some quarter of a mile down the stream. It was supposed some party of Indians, returning from hunting, struck the river just as the body of the squaw floated past. White and the girl succeeded in reaching the mount, where M'Clelland had been no indifferent spectator to the sudden commotion among the Indians. Parties of warriors were seen immediately to strike off in every direction, and White and the girl had scarcely arrived before a company of some twenty warriors had reached the eastern slope of the mount, and were cautiously and carefully keeping under cover. Soon the spies saw their foes, as they glided from tree to tree and rock to rock, till their position was surrounded, except on the west perpendicular side, and all hope of escape was cut off. In this perilous position, nothing was left but to sell their lives as dearly as possible.

This they resolved to do, and advised the girl to escape to the Indians and tell them she had been taken prisoner. She said, "No! Death in the presence of my own people is a thousand times better than captivity and slavery. Furnish me with a gun, and I will show I know how to die. This place I will not leave. Here my bones shall lie bleaching with yours, and, should either of you escape, you will carry the tidings of my death to my few relatives."

Remonstrance proved fruitless. The two spies quickly matured their means of defence, and vigorously commenced the attack from the front, where, from the very narrow backbone of the mount, the savages had to advance in single file, and without any covert. Beyond this neck, the warriors availed themselves of the rocks and trees in advancing, but, in passing from one to the other, they must be exposed for a short time, and a moment's exposure of their swarthy forms was enough for the unerring rifles of the spies. The Indians, being entirely ignorant of how many were in ambuscade, grew very cautious as they advanced.

After bravely maintaining the fight in front, and keeping the enemy in check, the scouts discovered a new danger threatening them. The foe made preparation to attack them on the flank, which could be most successfully done by reaching an isolated rock, lying in one of the projections on the southern hill-side. This rock once gained by the Indians, they could bring the whites under point-blank range without the possibility of escape. The spies saw the hopelessness of their situation, which it appeared nothing could change.

With this impending fate resting over them, they continued calm and calculating, and as unwearied as the strongest desire of life could produce. Soon M'Clelland saw a tall, swarthy figure preparing to spring from a covert, so near to the fatal rock that a bound or two would reach it, and all hope of life would then be gone. He felt that everything depended on one single advantageous shot; and, although but an inch or two of the warrior's body was exposed, and that at the distance of eighty or a hundred yards, he resolved to fire.

Coolly raising his rifle, shading the sight with his hand, he drew a bead so sure that he felt conscious it would do the deed. He touched the trigger with his finger; the hammer came down, but, in place of striking fire, it broke his flint into many pieces! He now felt sure that the Indian must reach the rock before he could adjust another flint, yet he proceeded to the task with the utmost composure. Casting his eye toward the fearful point, suddenly he saw the warrior stretch every muscle for the leap, and with the agility of a panther he made the spring, but, instead of reaching the rock, he uttered a yell and his dark body fell, rolling down the steep to the valley below.

Some unknown hand had slain him, and a hundred voices from the valley below echoed his death cry. The warrior killed, it was evident, was a prominent one of the tribe, and there was great disappointment over the failure of the movement, which, it was considered, would seal the doom of the daring scouts.

Only a few minutes passed, when a second warrior was seen stealthily advancing to the covert, which had cost the other Indian his life in attempting to reach. At the same moment the attack in front was renewed with great fierceness, so as to require the constant loading and firing of the spies to prevent their foes from gaining the eminence. Still the whites kept continually glancing at the warrior, who seemed assured of the coveted position.

Suddenly he gathered his muscles and made the spring. His body was seen to bound outward, but instead of reaching the shelf, for which it started, it gathered itself like a ball and rolled down the hill after his predecessor.

The unknown friend had fired a second shot!

This caused consternation among the Shawanoes, and brave as they unquestionably were, there was no one else who tried to do that which had cost the others their lives. Feeling that they had no ordinary foe to combat on the hill, the savages withdrew a short distance to consult over some new method of attack.

The respite came most opportunely to the spies, who had been fighting and watching for hours and needed the rest.

It suddenly occurred to M'Clelland that the girl was not with them, and they concluded that she had fled through terror and most probably had fallen into the hands of the Indians again, or what was equally probable, she had been killed during the fight.

But the conclusion was scarcely formed, when she was seen to come from behind a rock, with a smoking rifle in her hand. Rejoining the astonished and delighted spies, she quickly explained that she was the unsuspected friend who shot the two warriors when in the very act of leaping to the point from which they expected to command the position of the defenders.

While the fight was at its height, she saw a warrior advance some distance beyond the others, when a rifle-ball from the scouts stretched him lifeless. Without being seen, the girl ran quickly out to where he lay and possessed herself of his gun and ammunition.