A council was next convoked to resolve on the fate 158 of Robinson; and then arose in his breast, feelings of the most anxious inquietude. Logan assured him, that he should not be killed; but the council appeared determined that he should die, and he was tied to the stake. Logan then addressed them, and with much vehemence, insisted that Robinson too should be spared; and had the eloquence displayed on that occasion been less than Logan is believed to have possessed, [120] it is by no means wonderful that he appeared to Robinson (as he afterwards said) the most powerful orator he ever heard. But commanding as his eloquence might have been, it seems not to have prevailed with the council; for Logan had to interpose otherwise than by argument or entreaty, to succeed in the attainment of his object. Enraged at the pertinacity with which the life of Robinson was sought to be taken, and reckless of the consequences, he drew the tomahawk from his belt, and severing the cords which bound the devoted victim to the stake, led him in triumph, to the cabin of an old squaw, by whom he was immediately adopted.
After this, so long as Logan remained in the town where Robinson was, he was kind and attentive to him; and when preparing to go again to war, got him to write the letter which was afterwards found on Holstein at the house of a Mr. Robertson, whose family were all murdered by the Indians. Robinson remained with his adopted mother, until he was redeemed under the treaty concluded at the close of the Dunmore campaign.
[121] CHAPTER VII.
When information of the hostile deportment of the Indians was carried to Williamsburg, Col. Charles Lewis sent a messenger with the intelligence to Capt. John Stuart, and requesting of him, to apprize the inhabitants on the Greenbrier river that an immediate war was anticipated, and to send out scouts to watch the warrior’s paths beyond the settlements. The vigilance and activity of Capt. Stuart, were exerted with some success, to prevent the re-exhibition of those scenes which had been previously witnessed on Muddy creek and in the Big Levels: but they could not avail to repress them altogether.
In the course of the preceding spring, some few individuals had begun to make improvements on the Kenhawa river below the Great Falls; and some land adventurers, to examine and survey portions of the adjoining country. To these men Capt. Stuart despatched an express, to inform them that apprehensions were entertained of immediate irruptions being made upon the frontiers by the Indians, and advising them to remove from the position which they then occupied; as from its exposed situation, without great vigilance and alertness, they must necessarily fall a prey to the savages.
When the express arrived at the cabin of Walter Kelly, twelve miles below the falls, Capt. John Field of Culpepper (who had been in active service during the French war, and was then engaged in making surveys,) was there with a young Scotchman and a negro woman. Kelly with great prudence, directly sent his family to Greenbrier, under the care of a younger brother. But Capt. Field, considering the apprehension as groundless, determined on remaining with Kelly, who from prudential motives did not wish to subject himself to observation by 160 mingling with others.[1] Left with no persons but the Scotchman and negro, they were not long permitted to doubt the reality of those dangers, of which they had been forewarned by Capt Stuart.
[122] Very soon after Kelly’s family had left the cabin, and while yet within hearing of it, a party of Indians approached, unperceived, near to Kelly and Field, who were engaged in drawing leather from a tan trough in the yard. The first intimation which Field had of their approach was the discharge of several guns and the fall of Kelly. He then ran briskly towards the house to get possession of a gun, but recollecting that it was unloaded, he changed his course, and sprang into a cornfield which screened him from the observation of the Indians; who, supposing that he had taken shelter in the cabin, rushed immediately into it. Here they found the Scotchman and the negro woman, the latter of whom they killed; and making prisoner of the young man, returned and scalped Kelly.
When Kelly’s family reached the Greenbrier settlement, they mentioned their fears for the fate of those whom they had left on the Kenhawa, not doubting but that the guns which they heard soon after leaving the house, had been discharged at them by Indians. Capt. Stuart, with a promptitude which must ever command admiration, exerted himself effectually to raise a volunteer corps, and proceed to the scene of action, with the view of ascertaining whether the Indians had been there; and if they had, and he could meet with them, to endeavor to punish them for the outrage, and thus prevent the repetition of similar deeds of violence.
They had not however gone far, before they were met by Capt. Field, whose appearance of itself fully told the tale of woe. He had ran upwards of eighty miles, naked except his shirt, and without food; his body nearly exhausted by fatigue, anxiety and hunger, and his limbs greviously lacerated with briers and brush. Captain 161 Stuart, fearing lest the success of the Indians might induce them to push immediately for the settlements, thought proper to return and prepare for that event.