All these thoughts of raids and reprisals, of white striving to outdo red in cruelty, may seem to harmonize but ill with that soft June morning, the flight of the red-start, the song of the oriole and the impish chatter of the squirrels. Beech and oak urged one to rest in the shade; the limpid waters of the river called for one to strip and bathe.
To heed either invitation incautiously invited the war-ax to be buried in the head. However, we of the border always had had the Indian trouble, and each generation had taken its pleasure with a wary eye and ready weapons. Although the times were very dangerous and I was serving as scout for thirty-three cents a day I could still enjoy the sweet aromas and sympathize with the song of birds and yet keep an eye and ear open for that which concerned my life.
In ascending the Monongahela I had seen many settlers crossing the river to make the eastern settlements. I was told that a thousand men, women and children had crossed during the space of twenty-four hours. Down on the Clinch and Holston the settlers were either “forting” or fleeing.
Much of this retirement was compelled by the sad lack of powder and lead, even of guns. More than one settler depended entirely upon ax or scythe for protection. Such were prevented from using the advantage of their stout walls and could do the foe no mischief until after the door had been battered down, when of course all the advantage shifted to the side of the invader.
By this I do not mean to disparage such tools as implements of war. A sturdy fellow with both hands gripping a scythe can do an amazing amount of damage at close quarters, as more than one Shawnee war-party has learned.
Briefly summed up, there were dissensions between some of the colonies over the land-disputes; sparks were flying between the colonies and the mother-country; every day brought gruesome news from the back-country; there was a scarcity of guns and ammunition; militia captains were eagerly stealing one another’s men to fill their quotas.
Yet regardless of all these troubles let it be understood that for once the borders welcomed war and insisted upon it. As early as March, a month before the Pipe and Yellow Creek outrages, the Williamsburg Gazette printed an address to Lord Dunmore, stating that “an immediate declaration of war was necessary, nay inevitable.” Not only did the whites want the war, but the natives also were eager for it.
But enough of whys and wherefores, as they make poor story-telling, and leave me, Basdel Morris, overlong in quitting the thicket about my tree. And yet the wise man always looks backward as well as forward when entering on a trail, and children yet unborn may blaze a better trace if they understand what lies behind them.
I ate my breakfast there in the thick growth, packing my hungry mouth with parched corn and topping off with a promise of turkey, once I drew beyond the danger-belt. Trying to make myself believe my appetite was satisfied, I began the delicate task of leaving cover without leaving any signs. My horse was a fourth of a mile from my tree, so that in finding him the Indians would not find me.
The river sang a drowsy song a short distance from my tree and down a gentle slope. I knew of a spring beneath its bank, and I was impatient to taste its cold waters. I moved toward it slowly, determined that if an Indian ever secured my long black hair it would not be because he caught me off my guard. With ears and eyes I scouted the river-bank.