“Lie low, boys!” he shouted. “I think that a crowd of redskins are just in front of us.”
He was right, and, as they hid in the tall grass, a troop of Indians passed by, moving rapidly and noisily along. Fortunately the red men did not discover their trail, and with great shouting and singing had soon walked out of hearing. The trappers arose, continued their flight, and kept a sharp lookout for enemies. They were soon to meet with more children of the forest.
Two of the fugitives now became very lame and were unable to keep up with the rest of the party. One had a bad attack of rheumatism; so bad, in fact, that he fell way behind the rest and did not come up, although they whistled, called, and strove to attract his attention in every possible way, in spite of the danger of being discovered by lurking redskins. They finally went on without him, and gave him up for lost. He at length reached Wheeling in safety, having passed through many dangers and hairbreadth escapes from capture by roving Indians.
Slover and his friend were hurrying towards the settlements, and naturally left a well-defined trail behind them. This was followed for several days by a band of Shawnees, who finally decided that the whites would be easy to capture and decided to ambush them.
This they did, and, as the frontiersmen were quietly passing between some high bluffs, a volley rang out from either side and two of their number fell dead. The rest sprang immediately to the shelter of trees, where Slover took aim at one of the Indians who could be seen raising his hand.
“Do not fire,” said he, in excellent English. “If you surrender to us, you will be well treated. We will take you to our houses and will allow you to leave, in a short time, for your own people.”
Slover and two of the frontiersmen gave themselves up immediately, but a young fellow named John Paul refused to do so, and, rushing to the rear, managed to get away. The redskins peppered the air with bullets, but none hit the fugitive and he got safely beyond range. After a long and arduous trip through the wilderness, he at length reached the frontier settlement at Wheeling, West Virginia.
As John Slover and his companions were being taken along by the Indians, one of them recognized him as the young paleface who had been brought up by the Miamis.
“You no good, Mannuchcothe,” said he. “You fight against your own brothers. You kill your own people. Ugh! Ugh! We fix you for this.”
John Slover began to think that perhaps what the savages had promised was not to take place, and when once they came in sight of their town, their whole demeanor changed. They began to howl and cry out: