Voices; Birth-Marks; The Man and the Elephant

by Mathew Joseph Holt

As they circled a bend some distance below, a man stepped out on the rock and stooped and helped Jerry out of the river. It was Richard Cameron.

School had been out some time; even the older boys and girls who were kept an hour longer than the little ones, had all gone home; yet the master sat by the window thinking of his dead wife. Glancing towards the grove of cedars on the mountain he barely made out the two small children on John Calvin Rock and beside them he saw three men whom he supposed were the returned hunters.

When he reached home he learned that the two children were lost and that a searching party had been sent out into the mountains.

Mrs. Campbell and Mrs. Fairfax becoming uneasy at the long absence of the children climbed to the rock and not finding them, sent Ruth Crawford, the servant, to the settlement asking for help. They then called Richard Cameron and after he had gotten his rifle the three, followed by Jerry, began the search.

It was not long before Jerry picked up the trail which Richard followed a weary way to the river landing. On the way, in the moist earth at the spring he had found a few tracks of the Indians and the foot prints of the children; searching the willows he had found where the canoe had been cached.

Realizing that the children were prisoners and that unaided he could not effect their rescue, he hastened back towards the settlement.

Several hours travel back the trail, he came upon the hunters who had been joined by Mr. Clark and who, having [pg 111] spent the day in search for the children, were making camp for the night.

He told what he had learned; and after piecing this with the schoolmaster’s story and what they had discovered, they were satisfied the children were captives of the three Indians they had seen two days before and who now were making for the Ohio River country.

Resting several hours, they traveled that night to the mouth of Meadow Creek and in the morning followed down the river bank; finding on every portage around the rapids traces of the Indians and the children. At the Indian lead mines they found a canoe and in that paddled down the river to Point Pleasant.

Here they found the station of Caleb Smith in ashes; saw a large war party of Indians and felt assured that from its leader they could get definite information of the children. Richard Cameron offered to walk to the camp and surrender as a prisoner to be with the children; but Mr. Campbell would not hear of it believing that he would be tortured to death, as it was evident the Indians were on the war path. The whole Indian country was in arms and the Ohio, about the mouth of the Kanawha, literally swarmed with war canoes.