McLellan was delighted.
“All right, Captain,” he replied with enthusiasm. “You leave the matter to me and I will guarantee that I and my friends will return with the desired captive. Only give us time and we will deliver the man of the woods, right side up and with care.”
The General laughed.
“Very good,” said he. “Go in, now, and win out.”
Next morning McLellan and his two companions started forth with confidence and were soon far in the hostile country, where many prints of moccasined feet warned them that the savages were in the vicinity. One day they followed a fresh trail, and, upon peering around a projecting clump of bushes, saw three savages sitting upon a log near a great fire, at which they were cooking some venison. They crawled softly towards them, and decided, in a whispered consultation, that Wells should shoot the redskin upon the left; Miller, the one upon the right; and that McLellan, leaving his rifle against a tree, should run the other fellow down and capture him.
At the given signal the rifles spoke in unison, and the two redskins who had been marked, fell prostrate to the earth; for both of the pioneers could hit the eye of a squirrel at fifty yards. The one in the centre leaped swiftly to his feet, and, darting through the thicket, was soon bounding away to safety. But McLellan was after him in a jiffy, and the redskin realized that he was running away from one of the speediest frontiersmen in all Ohio. On, on, they rushed, but, seeing that he was being rapidly overtaken, the savage turned in his course, headed for the stream, and, with one furtive glance at the oncoming man in buckskin, leaped from the high bank into the eddying current.
Raising his tomahawk in his right hand, the trapper made the venturesome leap with quite as much readiness as his opponent, and landed with a resounding splash. The water was very shallow in this spot. To his disgust, he found himself stuck up to the waist in the heavy mud. The redskin, too, was mired, but, brandishing a long knife aloft, now endeavored to strike it into McLellan’s body.
He was dealing with a crafty antagonist who had parried many a knife-thrust before, and, quick as a flash, the pioneer grabbed the right arm of the Shawnee. In an instant his tomahawk was raised as if to brain the red man, who cried, “Ugh! Ugh! Paleface, you too strong. I surrender.”
In a moment more the other two pioneers had reached the bank, and, leaning over the edge, pulled both savage and frontiersman out of the mud. Each was vigorously washed. To the surprise of all, the redskin was discovered to be a white man; the brother of Trapper Miller, himself, who had been captured by the savages when young, and had preferred to remain with them, although his kinsman had early left and had returned to his own people. “Ugh! Ugh!” he muttered. “I hate all of you.”
In spite of his protestations he was taken to the headquarters of “Mad Anthony;” was confined to the guard-house; and was questioned very closely in regard to the numbers of his Shawnee allies. He was extremely moody and resisted all attempts at conciliation, even from his brother, but at last some memory of his former relatives seemed to return; he began to grow more amiable; and, joining the company captained by a noted Ranger, served in the ranks of the whites against the people of his adoption.