"Ugh! ugh! ugh!"
They pause and point to the innumerable trackings of men and beasts into their beloved hunting grounds. Astonishment expands every feature. They creep along and trace the road. They see the settlements. It cannot be mistaken, the white man has invaded their sacred arcanum.
Amazement gives place to wrath. Every look, every gesture bespeaks the red man's resolve.
"We will defend our country to the last; we will give it up only with our lives."
Forthwith a runner flies over the hills to Johnson Hall on the Mohawk. Sir William is dead, dead endeavouring to unravel the perplexities of the Dunmore war, but his son, Sir Guy, meets the complaining Shawnees.
"The Cherokees sold Kentucky? That cannot be. Kentucky belongs to the King. My father bought it for him at Fort Stanwix, of the Iroquois. The Cherokees have no right to sell Kentucky. Go in and take the land." And so, around their campfires, and at the lake forts of the British, the Shawnee-Iroquois planned to recover Kentucky.
V
A BARREL OF GUNPOWDER
Scarcely was Jefferson home from signing the Declaration when back from Kentucky came little William's tall strong brother, George Rogers Clark, elected by those far-away settlers, in June of 1776, to represent them in the assembly of Virginia.
Cut by a thousand briars, with ragged clothes and blistered feet, Clark looked in at the home in Caroline and hurried on to Williamsburg.
"The Assembly adjourned? Then I must to the Governor. Before the Assembly meets again I may effect what I wish."