As I believed the footing the fellows found was left by the three Indians I had pronounced to be friendly, I was not much exercised in my mind by the warning. I did not believe the Indians would seek to cut off the settlement. They must strike and be off, and they would prefer to have the settlers in flight over the mountains, with the inevitable stragglers easily cut off, than to have them stubbornly remaining in the cabins and fort.
If time was not vital, and providing the Shawnees could bring a large force, then an encircling movement would be their game. But Cornstalk and Logan would not lead a big force into any of the valleys. They knew as well as the whites that the war was to be won by one decisive battle.
These isolated raids up and down the western valleys were simply of value in that they might unnerve the settlers and keep them from leaving their cabins to join the army Dunmore proposed to send against the Shawnee towns. And last of all I was fagged by my long ride and would have one night’s unworried sleep, let the risk be ever so great.
The dinner, much belated, was now ready, and the workers were asked to assemble in and around the Davis cabin. Four men were left to do sentinel duty, and the children were told to keep on with their work and play as they would be served after the men had eaten. Huge pot-pies were hurried from all the cabins to where the backwoodsmen were waiting to prove their appetites.
Several jugs of rum garnished the feast. The Widow McCabe contributed a scanty stock of tea, but the men would have none of it on the grounds that it did not “stick to the ribs.”
My helping of pie was served on a huge china plate that had been packed over the mountains with much trouble and when every inch of room was needed for the bare necessities. Thus tenacious were the women in coming to this raw country to preserve their womanliness. I might have thought I was being favored had not Mrs. Davis frankly informed me that her few pieces of china were shunned by her men-folks on the plea the ware “dulled their sculping-knives.”
Finishing my meal, I seated myself on a stump and proceeded to remove my moccasins and mend them. Davis joined me in a similar task; for while it required only two or three hours to make a pair of moccasins it was necessary to mend them almost daily. Davis greatly admired the awl I bought over the mountains, although it was no more serviceable than the one he had made from the back spring of a clasp-knife.
A settler might be unfortunate enough not to possess a gun, but there was none who did not carry a moccasin-awl attached to the strap of his shot-pouch, a roll of buckskin for patches and some deerskin thongs, or whangs, for sewing. While we sat there barefooted and worked we discussed the pending big battle. He held what I considered to be a narrow view of the situation. He was for having every valley act on the defensive until the Indians were convinced they were wasting warriors in attempting to drive the settlers back over the mountains.
While we argued back and forth those children having finished their dinner took to playing at “Injun.” The boys hid in ambush and the little girls endeavored to steal by them without being “sculped.” Along the edge of the clearing were five or six sentinels. They were keeping only a perfunctory watch, their eyes and ears giving more heed to the laughter and banter than to the silent woods. At the northern end of the clearing some lovesick swain surrendered to sentiment and in a whimsical nasal voice began singing:
| “Come all ye young people, for I’m going for to sing Consarnin’ Molly Pringle and her lov-yer, Reuben King.” |