Just then Nitschman, who had climbed out of the boat, was passing by Antoine, who seized him by the collar. “Who is this son of –--?” demanded the six-foot Indian.
It was then that the ferryman broke down completely and confessed all.
Antoine shook his captive like a rat, and slapped his face many times, eventually tumbling him into the mud and kicking him like a sack of flour. Then, picking up an oar, he beat the ferryman over the head until he yelled for mercy. The noise roused the habitues of the hotel, and as the victims were shouting “murder,” the local Constable, who ran the hotel, placed Abram Antoine under arrest, beginning his fatal brand as “Bad Indian.”
Nitschman did not appear to press the charge next day, and the ferryman apologized for his part in the affair, so Abram was free, minus his beautiful wife and his reputation.
It was beginning with that terrible tragedy that he began to find solace at the tap room of the public house at Corydon. Philip Tome and even old Cornplanter himself tried his best to save him, but he became an Indian sot, losing his position with the land company, his home and his self-respect. All that he held on to, and that because being an Indian he was sentimental, was his Spanish rifle with the inlaid stock. He spent more and more of his time in the forests, shunning white people and fraternizing only with his own kind. He made a protege out of young Jim Jacobs, a Seneca hunter of unusual ability, and they spent many weeks at a time in the forests.
To him he confided that before he died he would literally have Nitschman’s scalp, have the blood atonement against the destroyer of his happiness.
A score of years had to pass before he met the ex-highwayman face to face. He had heard of the early exploits of this modern Claude Du Val, who was supposed to have reformed, and his blood boiled that such a villainous wretch could wander about scot free.
It was in the fall of the year, about 1822 or thereabouts, when the great county fair was in progress at Morris Hills, one of the leading towns above the New York State line, adjacent to the Indian reservations. All manner of persons were attracted by the horse races, displays of cattle, Indian foot races and lacrosse games, as well as the more questionable side shows and gambling performances.
Abram Antoine’s Indian friends had been sobering him up for weeks, and he presented a pretty good appearance for a man of over sixty, when he appeared to challenge all comers in tests of marksmanship with the rifle. Never had “The Chief,” as everybody called him, done better than the afternoon of the first day of the fair. The wild pigeons were flying high overhead in the clear, blue atmosphere of that fine crisp autumn day, but whenever he turned his rifle upwards he brought one down for the edification and applause of the crowd.
Just as he had shot a pigeon, his keen eye noticed a medium-sized, fair-haired man, loudly dressed, edging hurriedly through the throng, as if trying to get away. Antoine had never seen Nitschman except that night when he had trampled him into the mud, but this fellow’s size and general demeanor Corresponded with his mental conception of the one that he had ever afterwards regretted that he had not slain.