“Justice shall be done to this poor redskin. I hear from some of my men that Lewis Wetzel was responsible for this affair. Captain Kingsbury will therefore take his company and scour the woods for the rascal. Let him be brought to me, dead or alive.”
Wetzel, meanwhile, had returned to his home in the Mingo Bottom settlement and was engaged in a shooting match for a turkey. When the soldiers arrived, and the frontiersmen learned what they were after, they gathered around their comrade with the remark that:
“Whoever touches Lewis Wetzel will have tew fight th’ hull gang uv us.”
Captain Kingsbury therefore withdrew, but Lewis Wetzel was not careful to keep beyond the clutch of his arm. Some time afterwards he paddled down the river to an island opposite Harmer’s Fort in order to spend the night with a friend, and news of his presence was brought to the soldiers within the stockade. A company of men was soon headed for the island: the frontiersman was surrounded at midnight; was thrown into the guard-house, heavily ironed, and was not only deprived of open air, but also of exercise. He quickly sickened and grew pale. When told that he would shortly be hung, he sent for General Harmer, and said:
“General, I am not ashamed of my deed, for ever since the day that my people were brutally slain by the children of the forest, I have considered it perfectly justifiable for me to do unto them what they have done unto me. If you will grant me one request, it is that you allow me to go loose among the savages armed only with a tomahawk. Then I will have one chance in a thousand to escape, but I will take that chance.”
The General shook his head.
“The scaffold is the proper death for you,” he replied. “As an officer of the law I must see that you receive the fit punishment for your crimes. But, as I see that you are growing pale under strict confinement, I hereby order that the irons be taken from your legs. Your handcuffs must remain.”
The trapper bowed his head, but as soon as the General had gone and he was allowed to move in the open air, he frisked about like a young colt. A number of soldiers guarded him closely, but as he walked and jumped around in front of them, he continually experimented with his handcuffs, in the endeavor to wrest his arms from their grip. Gradually he edged farther and farther from the guard. Finally he had moved to a position from which he felt that he could safely get away. With one mighty bound he had turned and was off into the forest. Volley after volley came from the soldiers, but he escaped untouched.
Wetzel knew well the woodland in which he found himself, and hastening to a dense thicket pushed through a close tangle of briars to a fallen tree. He wedged himself beneath this, and none too soon, for within a very few moments a number of Indians and soldiers approached. Twice some redskins sat upon the very tree beneath which he was crouching, and he heard one say:
“Ah, but the white dog would make good running through the ranks of our red brothers. We must stick our knives into him when we find him.”