He went home in a very frenzy of passion; ate his supper in silence and as his parents noticed in a sort of semi-consciousness; eating more than he habitually did.
After supper he told them of his dream, as he chose to call it, saying: “After I have rescued Dorothy I will take her to her mother; then I will attend a theological school for some months. After I have finished, I will come back here and help during the summer; then I shall give my whole time to preaching.”
He made hasty preparation to leave for the Miami country; knowing in an unaccountable way that Dorothy was yet alive. He went to bed and slept until the moon rose over the mountains, which gave sufficient light to travel, then set forth afoot, carrying only his girdle, a hunting knife, hatchet, blanket and several days’ rations of parched corn and jerked meat.
He took the Warrior’s Trail northward, traveling the first sixty miles in twenty hours, stopping only for a drink of water now and then, munching an occasional mouthful of parched corn or dried meat as he walked. Darkness having come again and, needing rest, he bathed in a small stream, and in a dry, sheltered spot under an overhanging cliff slept until the gray of morning; then he hurried on, breakfasting upon the corn and meat as he walked.
On the afternoon of the fourth day, he reached the south bank of the Ohio, opposite the mouth of the Miami, and could see the willows where the Indians had waited in their canoes. Walking up the stream to offset the distance the current would wash him down while swimming across, he selected from a pile of drift two small, dry [pg 237] cottonwood logs and lashed and launched them into the river; having tied his clothing on one end and holding to the other, he swam across, landing on the opposite shore at the mouth of the draw a few yards above the willows.
Having dressed again, he ate the last of his ration of corn and meat, which was supplemented by a few late dewberries which he found growing on the bluff. Then hiding in the willows at the mouth of the river, he spread his blanket on the soft white sand and almost immediately went to sleep.
Some hours later he was aroused by the grating of the prow of a canoe upon the sandy beach a few yards above him; then another landed. Though the sound may have been made by hostile Indians, it was a break in his loneliness; as since leaving home, he had not seen or heard a human being. It was too dark to see, but listening intently he was convinced his neighbors were Indians because they were stealthy of movement and talked in brief and subdued monotone.
He finally made out they were Mingoes; and thought he recognized one by his voice as Deer Runner; one of the Indians who had been with him at Jenkins’ Station the year before.
Greeting them as friends, he called the name of this Indian and announced his own. There was a moment of absolute silence; then he asked about the Prophet and several others of his friends. Then he heard one say to his companions: “It is Chief Cross-Bearer, the strong armed. Let us light a fire so we can see his face and cook something. I am hungry.” Then he came over to where John sat, and for an Indian, greeted him cordially; the others followed.
[pg 238] He told them the cause of his journey; and in turn was informed that two white women who had been taken from a boat on the Ohio, were held prisoners at an Indian town about fifty miles up the Miami.