Wetzel, the Scout; or, The Captives of the Wilderness

by Edward Sylvester Ellis

All such artifices were but artifices indeed, which the prisoners had learned long before, and which could not take them by surprise. The Shawnees had learned much from the Mingo Logan, as their attempts of conducting the attack were similar in several cases; but, as we have shown, they met with such poor success that they finally ceased, and for a long time not a shot was exchanged between the two parties. The whites believed that their silence was a ruse to give the impression that they had withdrawn, and thus threw them off their guard. For over an hour, not the slightest sound or movement betrayed the presence of the Shawnees.

Suddenly the combined yell of over a hundred throats rent the air, with such horrid force as to make the blood of every one tingle, and as many bullets rattled against the pickets and block-houses. But the settlers were not thrown off their guard; they cocked their rifles and held them pointed toward the wood. But no Indians made their appearance. This was another stratagem, the meaning of which could hardly be divined, if it had any meaning at all.

Finally the settlers saw with glad hearts that the day was at hand. The east was fast becoming gray and light and there would soon be an opportunity of resting their harassed and weary frames. Edwards and Captain Parks would not suffer one of the men to withdraw until the sun had risen above the wilderness, and its broad dazzling light showed the perfect day. Then, as nothing could be seen of their vindictive enemies, and it was pretty certain they had returned to a man, the majority of the settlers left the block-houses and their stations for refreshment and rest. It was found that three of the whites had been killed, and some half dozen slightly wounded. During the day the former were buried with appropriate and solemn ceremony. Several were so disfigured and mangled that the white sheet which had been thrown over them was not removed when they were placed within the ground.

It was in the afternoon that most of the settlers gathered in the corner of the settlement which had been set apart for the resting-place of the dead, to witness and participate in the ceremonies. The minister read, in a subdued and feeling voice, a short hymn, which was sung in low and mournful tones, and then all knelt upon the earth, and his clear, rich voice ascended to heaven. As they rose to their feet, he made a few remarks upon the solemn scene, and then the three bodies, one by one, were lowered into separate graves. In a short time they were covered with the sod, and their forms blotted forever from the face of the earth.

The scene in front of the settlement was horrid and soul-sickening in the extreme. The Shawnees during the preceding night had succeeded in removing a number of their dead companions, but over a dozen still remained scattered over the clearing and around the closed breach. In front could be seen three Indians stretched upon the earth, stark and stiff, their hands closed with a deadly clutch around their rifles, and their fixed glazing eyes staring at the blue sky above them. The disfigurement of their faces was rendered more ghastly by war paint daubed upon them. The blood had mixed with this until it was impossible to distinguish them, and, as the wound of each was in the face, some idea may perhaps be formed of their appearance. Others lay doubled and knotted in heaps just as when they died, and a couple were stretched face downward upon a stump, their arms dangling over. The greatest number were stretched before the breach. There they lay in every imaginable position; some as if quietly sleeping and others twisted and bent into inconceivable distortions, and scattered over the clearing were coagulated pools of blood, dark and murky on the hard earth, and bright and glistening on the logs where the sun could reach it.

It was near the middle of the afternoon, when most of the men were engaged in the funeral ceremonies of the dead, and while Kingman and Moffat were keeping watch in the northern block-house that a curious, yet characteristic circumstance took place. Moffat had seated himself for a time, while Kingman was still gazing intently through one of the loop-holes. The hunter watched him a few moments and then remarked,

“It seems to me, George, that something has taken your eye out there. What is it? Does one of the Shawnee’s top knots strike your fancy?”

“No; but I tell you, I ain’t satisfied yet by any means that the Injins are out of the wood.”

“What’s up? Seen one? Shouldn’t wonder if there was two or three there; but I’ll bet my life that there ain’t no more.”

“There is something moving in the bushes yonder, certain. Just take a look. It is close to that tree where you shot your first Shawnee.”