But matters could not remain thus. The warlike disposition of the powerful Shawnees could brook restraint for a long time.
In the summer of 1781, reports reached the settlements that a boat had been stopped near the mouth of the Sciota and all its inmates—nearly a score—had been massacred. The notorious Pete Johnson and Simon Girty figured in this outrage. They made several attempts to decoy them to shore, but the whites had been warned, and would have escaped had they possessed any knowledge of the channel of the river; but unfortunately they ran ashore during the night, and before they could escape, the savages, headed by Girty, poured a volley into them, which killed or rendered helpless all on deck, and then rushed upon the boat.
The women were outraged and tomahawked, Pete Johnson leading in the latter barbarity; and, as if to incite the settlers along the river, the flat-boat was carefully preserved from injury, and with several of the mangled corpses upon it set afloat.
It glided some twenty or thirty miles when it struck the shore and grounded.
One of the rangers, passing down the river, discovered it, and suspecting foul play, waded out and climbed into it.
As he passed over the gunwale he was nearly overcome with the horrid stench of the putrefying bodies. Nothing daunted, he plunged resolutely into the cabin, where the full horrors burst upon his vision. Stretched out at full length lay some eight or nine women and men, bloated and bloody, piled upon each other, and glued together in their own blackened blood.
He waded to the shore, broke off several dried branches, and piled them at the cabin door. It was now nearly dark, and he set fire to them and pushed the boat into the stream. At last the hull, burnt to a charred cinder, dipped beneath the water and disappeared from view.
CHAPTER XI.
THE CAPTAIN AND THE INDIAN.
The report of the outrage on the flat-boat, we say, reached our settlement, but it was discredited by many, among whom, of course, was Captain Parks. And even when the ranger himself related to the astonished people what he had witnessed and done, the irascible captain told him he had imagined it all. He held such faith in the chastisement given by Colonel Clark, that there was but one argument which could make him believe the savages had really commenced their outrages again. That argument, in its most convincing form, he was to receive.
As is generally the case, the long pre-emption from attack gave to the pioneers an undue sense of security, and many of them more than once culpably exposed themselves to danger. No warning or remonstrances could induce some from plunging into the forest and erecting their cabins more than a rifle-shot from the block-houses. The restless, eager enterprise, so peculiar to the American people, manifested itself in every proceeding.