It is estimated that the whites lost three to the Indians’ one in Dunmore’s War.
Tomahawk improvements. Settlers often took possession by blazing trees with axes and carving their names thereon. Such entry to land was not legal, but usually was recognized and later made valid by legal process. Such was the claim made to the site of modern Wheeling, West Virginia, by Ebenezer Silas and Jonathan Zane in 1770.
CHAPTER II
INDIAN-HATERS
I journeyed up the Cheat and left its head waters and proceeded down the Greenbriar without observing any signs of the red peril which was creeping upon the country. A great gray eagle, poised at the apex of my upturned gaze, appeared to be absolutely stationary; a little brown flycatcher, darting across my path, made much commotion. Red-crested woodpeckers hammered industriously in dead wood for rations. So long as their tappings resounded ahead of me I feared no ambush.
Wherever nut-trees stood the squirrels made more noise than did the House of Burgesses when dissolved by Governor Dunmore for expressing revolutionary sentiments. A most gracious country, and because of its fairness, most fearfully beset. That which is worthless needs no sentinels. I met with no humans, white or red; but when within a few miles of Patrick Davis’ home on Howard Creek I came upon a spot where three Indians had eaten their breakfast that very morning.
I knew they must be friendly to the whites as they had not attempted to hide their temporary camp. They had departed in the direction of the creek, which also was my destination. I planned resting there over night and then crossing the main ridge of the Alleghanies during the next day, stopping the night with the Greenwood family on Dunlap’s Creek.