He offered no explanation of his absence and I asked him nothing. It had required five weeks to march eleven hundred men one hundred and sixty miles and to convey the necessary supplies the same distance.
As we scouts in the lead entered the bottom Cousin called my attention to the high-water marks on the trees. Some of these measured ten feet. The Point itself is high. From it we had a wide view of the Ohio and Kanawha, up- and down-stream. It was Cousin who discovered a writing made fast to a tree, calling attention to a paper concealed in the hollow at the base of the tree. We fished it out and found it was addressed to Colonel Lewis. Cousin and I took it to him. Before opening it, he gave Cousin a shrewd glance and remarked:
“I am glad to see you back, young man.”
“If I’ve read the signs right I ’low I’m glad to git back,” was the grave reply.
The letter was from Governor Dunmore, and he wrote to complain because our colonel had not joined him at the Little Kanawha. He now informed our commander he had dropped down to the mouth of the Big Hockhocking, and we were expected to join him there. After frowning over the communication, Colonel Lewis read it aloud to some of his officers and expressed himself very forcefully. It was soon camp gossip, and every man was free to discuss it.
Much anger was expressed against Governor Dunmore. And it did seem absurd to ask our army to move up the Ohio some sixty miles when such a tedious maneuver would lead us farther from the Indian towns than we were while at the Point. Had the order been given for the army to go to the Hockhocking there would have been many desertions.
I learned later that the letter was brought to the Point by Simon Kenton and Simon Girty, who with Michael Cresap were serving as scouts with Dunmore. While the camp was busily criticizing the governor our scouts from the Elk came in and reported seeing Indians hunting buffalo. When within six miles of the Point, they found a plowshare, some surveying-instruments, a shirt, a light blue coat and a human under jaw-bone.
Shelby Cousin said the dead man was Thomas Hoog, who with two or three of his men were reported killed by the Indians in the preceding April while making improvements. Cousin insisted his death had been due to wild animals or an accident, after which the animals had dragged his remains into the woods. He argued that an Indian would never have left the coat or the instruments.
We passed the seventh and eighth of the month in making the camp sanitary and in building a shelter for the supplies yet to arrive down the river. Preparations also went ahead for moving the army across the Ohio. Most of the scouts were sent out to hunt up lost beeves, while a sergeant and squad were despatched with canoes to the Elk after flour.
Three men came in from the Elk and reported that Colonel Christian was camped there with two hundred and twenty men, that he had only sixteen kettles, and was fearing his men would be ill from eating too much roast meat “without broth.” On the eighth there arrived more letters from Governor Dunmore, in which His Lordship expressed his surprise and annoyance because of our failure to appear at the Hockhocking.