In Kentucky with Daniel Boone

However, as it chanced, it was just as well that the first attempt of Daniel Boone to colonize Kentucky failed. For a little later, the first muttering of that great Indian uprising, called the Dunmore War, began to be heard, and along the whole border ran the firebrand, the scalping knife and the tomahawk.

But previous to this outbreak of the tribes, Boone was engaged in another enterprise which tested his quality as a woodsman and explorer. Dunmore, the governor of Virginia, had some time before sent a number of surveyors to the country round about the falls of the Ohio; and now he desired that these men be guided through the wilderness back to the settlements. Boone and a man named Stoner were engaged for this work, and set out heavily armed, but carrying little or no baggage. The surveying party was found and guided to the settlements according to contract, and without mishap. The whole journey was of some eight hundred miles and through hard country; but the two woodsmen managed to do it in the remarkable time of two months.

Louder and louder grew the muttering of the coming war; closer and closer pressed the tribes from all points of the compass. Delawares, Wyandots, Shawnees, Cayugas and Mingos; the forests gave up war parties in full paint and feathers each day; councils were held, dances were danced; vengeance was to be had, no matter what the cost, for the wrong that had been done the great chief Logan by the whites.

The soldiers were everywhere drilling to meet the expected onslaught of the Indians; the celebrated fighting chiefs, Red Eagle and Cornstalk, were upon the border, ripe for the struggle; and Dunmore knew that if once they gave themselves seriously to the work of revenge, he’d be hard pressed to beat them back.

Soon after his return with the surveying party, Daniel Boone was made a captain by the governor and given charge of three garrisons. And to these came Oliver Barclay and his friends Eph and Sandy.

“Do you really think Chief Logan will strike?” asked Oliver, eagerly, of Boone.

“It looks like it,” answered the backwoodsman. “Logan has been wronged, and as he’s a man of spirit, even if he is only an Injun, why, he’s up and ready to avenge it. In my opinion there’ll be a flare along the whole line that’ll turn many a night into day.”

“What of the settlers in the outlying places?”

“I’ve been passing the word for them to come in. Better lose their property than their lives.”

“Are they coming in?”

“A good many of them are; others are waiting to make sure that the redskins will rise.” There was a pause and then Boone proceeded: “There’s one thing that worries me, though, and that’s the case of those people at the head of that small branch, to the southwest. The scouts sent out warned everybody all through that region but them; by a kind of misunderstanding they were not looked after. As it stands, nobody is sure if they know how things stand with the Indians or not.”

“You’re going to have them looked after, though,” said Oliver.

Boone looked worried.

“It’s got to be done,” said he. “But I can’t go myself, and just now there is nobody to send.”

“Eph and I will go,” declared young Barclay, resolutely; “maybe Sandy, too—it’ll be good sport and some excitement.”

“And mixed in more than a mite of danger—don’t forget that,” said Boone.

“If there was no danger there would be no excitement,” laughed Oliver, and away he swung to search out Eph and the Scotch boy.

The latter, in preparation for action of some kind, was whetting the edge of a huge saber upon a stone which some one had given him. Eph Taylor sat at his side rubbing carefully at the lock of his much considered rifle Jerusha.

“She’s in good working order as she stands,” said Eph, by way of explanation. “And she always shoots true and fair; but then a little extra looking after won’t hurt her now, for there’s no telling when I’ll get the next chance to look after her rightly.”

“Now, there you spoke the truth,” said Oliver. “It may be, indeed, some time, for we’re going to take horse in ten minutes and be off to the head of the south branch.”

Both Eph and Sandy at once came to their feet.

“What’s happened?” asked the latter, his round, good-natured face all aglow.

“Has Logan begun the war?” asked Eph.

In a few words Oliver explained the situation; and in a marvelously short time Eph’s rifle was assembled and loaded; Sandy’s saber was wiped dry upon a tuft of grass and sheathed; the horses of all three were saddled and ready to start.

Boone had followed Oliver, and seeing them ready and determined, was the last man in the world to prevent their showing the quality that was in them.

“Look for the Baldwins, the McAfees and the Curleys,” said he. “Find the farm of one and you’ll learn from him the location of the others. And keep your eyes peeled for Injuns. Don’t trust to anything but the sight of your eyes and the touch of your hands. And if you find occasion to shoot, shoot swiftly and to kill, for the redskins are in no humor to be stopped by anything less than death.”

With a wave of the hand, the three boys were off along the winding trail which led toward the river; and this they followed all the remainder of the day. They came to the branch named by Boone toward nightfall, and went into camp in the midst of a clump of white oaks.

A turkey cock had fallen a few hours before under the deadly glance of Jerusha and while Sandy and Oliver were engaged in building a fire, Eph stripped the once proud bird of his feathers and prepared him for the spit. Sandy had filled his haversack with hard biscuits which had been made for the militia, and these, with the meat of the nicely browned turkey, made a bountiful supper.

“It seems to me to be a foolish thing for a great chief like Logan to do—this war,” said Eph, as he picked a turkey bone with much satisfaction. “A man like him, knowing how little chance the Injuns have against the troops of the colony, ought to have some horse sense.”

“They say Dunmore’s soldiers massacred his entire family,” said Oliver. “Of course, we can’t get the facts just yet, but if any of it is true, why, Logan, being an Indian, can see nothing else to do.”

“Many an innocent person will suffer for the doings of the hungry government and the red robbers,” said Sandy with Scottish foresight. “And it’s always so, I suppose, for they are the least prepared.”

They spent the night among the oaks and were stirring at an early hour in the morning. The sun was not an hour old when they were in the saddle once more and were riding along the branch in the direction of the scattered holdings of the detached settlers.

At noon they halted, allowed their mounts to graze for an hour and ate a snack themselves. Then into the saddle once more and off again along the tangled way. The sun was sliding down in the west, growing greater and redder as it went, and the trees were beginning to cast long shadows in the bare spaces, when Eph Taylor suddenly drew up his horse. Holding up a warning hand, he said:

“Listen!”

Like graven figures the boys sat their horses, their faces turned in the direction of the setting sun.

Sharp and with rending crispness of a sound traveling across a great silence, there came the unmistakable report of a rifle. A moment later there came another and still another. A clamor arose above the distant trees.

“Rifle shots!” cried Eph.

“And the Shawnee war cry!” said Oliver.

As one they inspected the locks of their pieces and their primings. Again and again came the rifle shots from the westward; and again and again from above the tree tops came the shrill yells of the redskins.

“We’ve been quite near one of the settlers’ houses without knowing it,” spoke Sandy Campbell. “And they are being attacked by Shawnees.” Looking steadily at his two friends he added: “What shall we do?”

“There is but one thing we can do,” replied Oliver.

“And that’s get over there as soon as we can and do our share in teaching these varmints a lesson,” finished Eph.

And they shook the reins of their good horses and sprang down the bank toward the brawling branch. There was a ford at no great distance and this they crossed with a rush, splashing the water high in the air. Then up the farther bank they sped and across a clearing which they perceived behind a thin fringe of trees. Swift and soft thudded the hoofs of their dying horses upon the ground; through the tops of some ancient oaks they caught the outline of the chimney of a white man’s dwelling; and between the thick growing trunks they saw the plumes and war paint of the savages who encircled it.