In Kentucky with Daniel Boone

by John T. McIntyre

“It is the hand with which I hold the bow,” mourned the young savage. “And in the battles that are to come, I cannot do the work that has been given me. But the white face will pay,” said he, as he arose to his feet and stood looking down at Oliver. “The white face will pay.”

He turned and stalked away; and as the eyes of the white boy followed him there seemed to be an ominous something in the very way in which he bore himself—a threat of reprisal that was to come.

But whatever gloomy fears found a place in young Barclay’s mind, they were not realized that night at least. He slept where he lay, under guard of three unwinking redskins. And when morning came he was given some food, his hands were pinioned behind him, and with a rope tied about his body, the other end of which was fast to the saddle of a warrior, he was forced to march in the midst of the band which began filing through the forest toward the great meeting place of the hostile tribes.

On the way they were joined by other war parties of their own nation; and by nightfall of the following day, young Barclay found himself in the heart of a vast Indian encampment. Far into the night he saw the council fires burning and saw the chiefs and head men of the nations gathered in conference. He heard the celebrated Logan. He heard Cornstalk and his great son Elenipsico as they stood out before the leaders of the tribes and poured forth their torrents of eloquence. That he understood little or nothing of the Indian language made scarcely any difference in the effect the orations had upon the boy. The manner of the great chiefs, their expressions as they recounted their grievances, the fierce passion of their appeal to the silent circle with its iron faces, sent a chill to his heart. He saw that the coming struggle was to be no mean one, that the frontier was, indeed, to be a blaze from end to end.

But what was to be done in his own case of course naturally interested him more than anything else. In a time like this, when open war was declared and the tribes gathered to defy the forces of the colonies, prisoners were seldom taken, and when they were, it was for the purpose of putting them to the torture.

Oliver had heard the grisly tales the old frontiersmen had to tell of the stake, of the running of the gauntlet, and the various other barbarities that the savage mind conceived, and visions of these rose before his eyes. But, for all, he was shrewd enough and clear-sighted enough to perceive that these things were gone through with at the Indians’ leisure.

“Just now,” he told himself, “they have much more important matters before them; I shall get their attention later; and even at that, much sooner, perhaps, than I want it.”

The Virginia Legislature had called into being an army of something more than a thousand fighting men, and these were now encamped at a place called Point Pleasant, not more than a few hours’ ride from the encampment of Logan and his fellow chiefs.

Oliver drew from his captor’s manner that the day of battle was near; but that it was to be on the one that was next to break he had no idea until the dawn brought those preparations which were unmistakable. Like a great fan the Mingos, the Wyandots, the Cayugas, the Delawares and the Shawnees spread themselves through the forest; like panthers stalking their prey they advanced.

And this knowledge put a great hope in his heart, for on the morning his guards had not bound his arms with their customary care; in their hurry to be gone they had slighted this duty; and now Oliver knew that it required only a slight struggle to give him the use of his hands. However, he made no sign of this, plodding on in the midst of the Shawnees, apparently dejected and heavy of mind, but in reality keenly observant and watching like a hawk for any chance that would give him liberty.