[pg 128] Twelve days later they reached the head of canoe travel on the Kanawha and rested for the night. The next morning at first light, Logan with the two children, leaving the two Indians, traveled eastward along a narrow trail, following the stream until it became a mountain torrent, dashing in spray over boulders and down declivities. At night they slept at its very head under an overhanging cliff, from the foot of which the river’s first waters gurgled forth.
Mid-afternoon of the next day they crossed the divide through the pass; and from a projecting rock on the eastern slope saw again their own home and below in the Valley, the church and school house of the settlement.
Richard Cameron was milking the cows. He saw Jerry run up the mountain path and heard several glad, sharp barks. He looked up and saw an Indian, whom he recognized as Logan, and accompanying him two small Indian children.
The children ran forward, the dog barking and frisking at their heels. When they were near they called out: “Hello, Richard! Hello, Mr. Mason!” and together they all ran to the house.
For the moment Logan was forgotten. He seated himself on a log near the gate. In a short while Captain Campbell came out and cordially though formally greeted him. He remained some weeks a welcome guest.
Mrs. Campbell was too happy to sleep soundly that night. Sometime after midnight, she heard the “Cahonk, cahonk” of the wild geese flying southward, the first of the season.
[pg 129]
CHAPTER VII.—Diamond Cut Diamond.
The purpose of the easy going settler of Virginia in coming to America was not to find religious freedom, but to better his financial condition. He parted from old England with regret; found the same church in Virginia he had left at home; lived under the same laws and in many ways under the same conditions. He venerated the laws of England and contributed without grumbling towards the support of the Established Church under a general taxation system for that purpose; but appeals by his clergy to curtail privileges granted by acts of toleration aroused no such zeal as was exhibited by his New England non-conformist brother in his attitude towards Baptist and Quaker.
America was fallow soil for new thought; and the first seed sown was that which led to the first constitutional amendment. Sowers of new thought, argued: “You cannot by law control men in their attitude of mind and heart toward God. Religious freedom must come. It is an inalienable right and cannot be denied. It is useless for the state to disturb itself by enacting rules of regulation.” Finally they threatened: “To obtain this right you will force us to support the new issue of local self-government; and if the two, religious freedom and self-government for the colony join forces, it means war.”