CHAPTER XX.
MANNER OF SURPRISING THEIR ENEMIES.
Courage, art, and circumspection are the essential and indispensable qualifications of an Indian warrior. When war is once begun, each one strives to excel in displaying them, by stealing upon his enemy unawares, and deceiving and surprising him in various ways. On drawing near to an enemy’s country, they endeavour as much as possible to conceal their tracks; sometimes they scatter themselves, marching at proper distances from each other for a whole day and more, meeting, however, again at night, when they keep a watch; at other times they march in what is called Indian file, one man behind the other, treading carefully in each other’s steps, so that their number may not be ascertained by the prints of their feet. The nearer they suppose themselves to be to the enemy, the more attentive they are to choosing hard, stony, and rocky ground, on which human footsteps leave no impression; soft, marshy and grassy soils are particularly avoided, as in the former the prints of the feet would be easily discovered, and in the latter the appearance of the grass having been trodden upon might lead to detection; for if the grass or weeds are only bent, and have the least mark of having been walked upon, it will be almost certainly perceived, in which the sharpness and quickness of the Indians’ sight is truly astonishing.
In some instances they deceive their enemies by imitating the cries or calls of some animal, such as the fawn, or turkey. They do this so admirably well, that they even draw the dam of the one and the mate of the other to the spot to which they want to come. In this manner they often succeed in decoying the enemies to the place where they are lying in ambush, or get an opportunity of surrounding them. Such stratagems, however, cannot be resorted to in all seasons; with the turkey, it only answers in the spring, and with the fawn’s dam until about midsummer. In the same manner, when scattered about in the woods, they easily find each other by imitating the song of some birds, such as the quail and the rook, and at evening and morning, and particularly in the night, the cry of the owl. By this means they all join each other, though not at the same time, as they are not, perhaps, all within hearing; but the cry of the owl is repeated from time to time until they are all assembled.
It is certain that the Indians, by the prints of the feet and by other marks and signs perceivable only to themselves, can readily discover, not only that men have passed through a particular path or line of march, but they can discriminate to what particular nation those men belong, and whether they are their friends or their enemies. They also sometimes make discoveries by examining obscure places, and by that means get informed of an enemy’s design. Nay, there are those among them who pretend to be able to discriminate among various marks of human footsteps the different nations of those to whom they respectively belong. I shall not undertake to assert thus far, but I shall relate an anecdote, the truth of which I firmly believe, in proof of their extraordinary sagacity in this respect.
In the beginning of the summer of the year 1755, a most atrocious and shocking murder was unexpectedly committed by a party of Indians, on fourteen white settlers within five miles of Shamokin.[176] The surviving whites, in their rage, determined to take their revenge by murdering a Delaware Indian who happened to be in those parts and was far from thinking himself in any danger. He was a great friend to the whites, was loved and esteemed by them, and in testimony of their regard, had received from them the name of Duke Holland,[177] by which he was generally known. This Indian, satisfied that his nation was incapable of committing such a foul murder in a time of profound peace, told the enraged settlers, that he was sure that the Delawares were not in any manner concerned in it, and that it was the act of some wicked Mingoes or Iroquois, whose custom it was to involve other nations in wars with each other, by clandestinely committing murders, so that they might be laid to the charge of others than themselves. But all his representations were vain; he could not convince exasperated men whose minds were fully bent upon revenge. At last, he offered that if they would give him a party to accompany him, he would go with them in quest of the murderers, and was sure he could discover them by the prints of their feet and other marks well known to him, by which he would convince them that the real perpetrators of the crime belonged to the Six Nations. His proposal was accepted, he marched at the head of a party of whites and led them into the tracks. They soon found themselves in the most rocky parts of a mountain, where not one of those who accompanied him was able to discover a single track, nor would they believe that man had ever trodden upon this ground, as they had to jump over a number of crevices between the rocks, and in some instances to crawl over them. Now they began to believe that the Indian had led them across those rugged mountains in order to give the enemy time to escape, and threatened him with instant death the moment they should be fully convinced of the fraud. The Indian, true to his promise, would take pains to make them perceive that an enemy had passed along the places through which he was leading them; here he would shew them that the moss on the rock had been trodden down by the weight of an human foot, there that it had been torn and dragged forward from its place: further he would point out to them that pebbles or small stones on the rocks had been removed from their beds by the foot hitting against them, that dry sticks by being trodden upon were broken, and even that in a particular place, an Indian’s blanket had dragged over the rocks, and removed or loosened the leaves lying there, so that they lay no more flat, as in other places; all which the Indian could perceive as he walked along, without even stopping. At last arriving at the foot of the mountain on soft ground, where the tracks were deep, he found out that the enemy were eight in number, and from the freshness of the footprints, he concluded that they must be encamped at no great distance. This proved to be the exact truth, for, after gaining the eminence on the other side of the valley, the Indians were seen encamped, some having already laid down to sleep, while others were drawing off their leggings[178] for the same purpose, and the scalps they had taken were hanging up to dry. “See!” said Duke Holland to his astonished companions, “there is the enemy! not of my nation, but Mingoes, as I truly told you. They are in our power; in less than half an hour they will all be fast asleep. We need not fire a gun, but go up and tomahawk them. We are nearly two to one and need apprehend no danger. Come on, and you will now have your full revenge!” But the whites, overcome with fear, did not choose to follow the Indian’s advice, and urged him to take them back by the nearest and best way, which he did, and when they arrived at home late at night, they reported the number of the Iroquois to have been so great, that they durst not venture to attack them.
This account is faithfully given as I received it from Duke Holland himself, and took it down in writing at the time. I had been acquainted with this Indian for upwards of twenty years, and knew him to be honest, intelligent and a lover of truth. Therefore I gave full credit to what he told me, and as yet have had no reason to disbelieve or even to doubt it. I once employed him to save the life of a respectable gentleman, now residing at Pittsburg, who was in imminent danger of being killed by a war party. Duke Holland conducted him safely through the woods, from the Muskingum to the Ohio settlement. He once found a watch of mine, which had been sent to me from Pittsburg by a man who had got drunk, and lost it in the woods about fifty miles from the place where I lived. Duke Holland went in search of it, and having discovered the tracks of the man to whom it had been entrusted, he pursued them until he found the lost article, which he delivered to me.
