University of Virginia Library

17. CHAPTER XVII.

Thus fell the young Kentuckian,—a youth endeared
to all who knew him, by his courage and
good humour; and whose fall would, at a moment
of less confusion, have created a deep and melancholy
sensation. But he fell amid the roar and
tempest of battle, when there was occasion for
other thoughts and other feelings than those of
mere individual grief.

The Indians had been driven from their village
as described, aiming not to fight but to fly; but
being intercepted at all points by the assailants,
and met, here by furious volleys poured from the
bushy sides of the hill, there by charges of horsemen,
galloping through the meadows and cornfields,
they were again driven back into the town,
where, in sheer desperation, they turned upon their
foes to sell their lives as dearly as they might.
They were met at the edge of the village by the
party of horse and footmen that had first dislodged
them, with whom, being driven pell-mell among
them by the shock of the intercepting bands, they
waged a fierce and bloody, but brief conflict; and
still urged onwards by the assailants behind,
fought their way back to the square, which, deserted
almost entirely at the period of young
Bruce's fall, was now suddenly seen, as he drew
his last gasp, scattered over with groups of men
flying for their lives, or struggling together in

mortal combat; while the screams of terror-struck
women and children gave a double horror to the
din.

The return of the battle to their own immediate
vicinity produced its effects upon the few who had
remained by the dying youth. It fired, in especial,
the blood of Captain Ralph, who, snatching up a
fallen axe, rushed towards the nearest combatants,
roaring, by way of consolation, or sympathy, to the
bereaved father, “Don't take it hard, Cunnel,—I'll
have a scalp for Tom's sake, in no time!” As for
Bloody Nathan, he had disappeared long before,
with most of the horsemen, who had galloped up
to the stake with the younger Bruce and his father,
being evidently too fiercely excited to remain idle
any longer. The father and brother of the deceased,
the two cousins, and Pardon Dodge, who
lingered by the latter, still on his horse, as if old
companionship with the soldier, and the service
just rendered the maid, had attached him to all
their interests, were all that remained on the spot.
But all were driven from a contemplation of the
dead, as the surge of battle again tossed its bloody
spray into the square.

“Thar's no time for weeping,” muttered Bruce,
softly laying the body of the youth (for Tom had
expired in his arms,) upon the earth: “he died like
a man, and thar's the eend of it.—Up, Dick, and
stand by the lady—Thar's more work for us.”

“Everlasting bad work, Cunnel!” cried Dodge;
“they're a killing the squaws! hark, dunt you
hear 'em squeaking? Now, cunnel, I can kill
your tarnal man fellers, for they've riz my ebenezer,
and I've kinder got my hand in; but, I
rather calkilate, I han't no disposition to kill wimming!”

“Close round the lady!” shouted Bruce, as a

sudden movement in the mass of combatants, and
the parting from it of a dozen or more wild Indian
figures, flying in their confusion, for they
were pursued by thrice their number of white-men,
right towards the little party at the stake,
threatened the latter with unexpected danger.

“I'm the feller for 'em, now that my hand's in!”
cried Pardon Dodge; and taking aim with his
rifle,—the only one in the group that was charged,
at the foremost of the Indians, he shot him dead
on the spot,—a feat that instantly removed all
danger from the party; for the savages, yelling at
the fall of their leader, and the discovery of antagonists
thus drawn up in front, darted off to the
right hand at the wildest speed, as wildly pursued
by the greater number of Kentuckians.

And now it was, that, as the wretched and defeated
barbarians, scattering at Dodge's fire, fled
from the spot, the party at the stake beheld a
sight well fitted to turn the alarm they had for a
moment felt on their own account, into horror and
pity. The savage shot down by Dodge was instantly
scalped by one of the pursuers, of whom
five or six others rushed upon another man—for a
second of the fugitives had fallen at the same moment,
but only wounded,—attacking him furiously
with knives and hatchets, while the poor wretch
was seen with raised arms vainly beseeching for
quarter. As if this spectacle was not in itself
sufficiently pitiable, there was seen a girlish figure
at the man's side, struggling with the assailants,
as if to throw herself between them and their
prey, and uttering the most heart-piercing shrieks.

“It is Telie Doe!” shouted Forrester, leaping
from his kinswoman's side, and rushing with the
speed of light, to her assistance.—He was followed,
at almost as fleet a step, by colonel Bruce, who

recognised the voice at the same instant, and
knew, by the ferocious cries of the men,—“Kill
the cursed tory! kill the renegade villain!” that it
was the girl's apostate father, Abel Doe, who was
dying under their vengeful weapons.

“Hold, friends, hold!” cried Roland, as he sprang
amid the infuriated Kentuckians. His interposition
was for a moment successful: surprise arrested
the impending weapons; and Doe, taking advantage
of the pause, leaped to his feet, ran a few
yards, and then fell again to the ground.

“No quarter for turn-coats and traitors! no
mercy for white Injuns!” cried the angry men,
running again at their prey. But Roland was before
them; and as he bestrode the wounded man,
the gigantic Bruce rushed up, and catching the
phrensied daughter in his arms, exclaimed, with
tones of thunder, “Off, you perditioned brutes!
would you kill the man before the eyes of his own
natteral-born daughter? Kill Injuns, you brutes,
—thar's the meat for you!”

“Hurrah for cunnel Tom Bruce!” shouted the
men in reply; and satisfying their rage with direful
execrations, invoked upon “all white Injuns
and Injun white-men,” they rushed away in pursuit
of more legitimate objects of hostility, if such
were still to be found,—a thing not so certain, for
few Indian whoops were now mingled with the
white-man's cry of victory.

In the meanwhile, Roland had endeavoured to
raise the bleeding and mangled renegade to his
feet; but in vain, though assisted by the efforts of
the unhappy wretch himself; who, raising his
hands, as if still to avert the blows of an unrelenting
enemy, ejaculated wildly,—“It a'n't nothing,
—it's only for the gal—Don't murder a father before
his own child!”

“You are safe,—fear nothing,” said Roland
and at the same moment, poor Telie herself rushed
into the dying man's arms, crying, with tones
that went to the Virginian's heart,—“They're
gone, father, they're gone!—Now get up, father,
and they won't hurt you no more: the good captain
has saved you, father; they won't hurt you,
they won't hurt you no more!”

“Is it the captain?” cried Doe, struggling again
to rise, while Bruce drew the girl gently from his
arms; “Is it the captain?” he repeated, bending
his eager looks and countenance ghastly with
wounds upon the Virginian. “They han't murdered
you then? I'm glad on it, captain;—I'll
die the easier, captain! And the gal too?” he
exclaimed, as his eyes fell upon Edith, who scarce
knowing in her horror what she did, but instinctively
seeking the protection of her kinsman, had
crept up to the group now around the dying
wretch—“It's all right, captain!—But where 's
Dick? where's Dick Braxley? You han't killed
him among you?”

“Think not of the villain,” said Roland: “I
know naught of him.”

“I'm a dying man, captain,” exclaimed Doe;
“I know'd this would be the end of it. If Dick's
a prisoner, jist bring him up and let me speak
with him. It will be for your good, captain.”

“I know nothing of the scoundrel—Think of
yourself,” said the Virginian.

“Why, there, don't I see his red han'kercher!”
cried Doe, pointing to Dodge, who from his horse,
which he had not yet deserted, perhaps, from fear
of again losing him, sat looking with soldier-like
composure on the expiring renegade, until made
conscious that the shawl which he had tied round
his waist somewhat in manner of an officer's sash,

had become an object of interest to Doe and all
others present.

“I took it from the Injun feller,” said he, with
great self-complacency, “the everlasting big rascal
that was a carrying off madam on my own
hoss, and madam was jist as dead as a piece of
rock. I know'd the crittur, and sung out to the
feller to stop, and he would 'nt; and so I jist blazed
away at him, right bang at his back,—knocked
him over jist like a streak o' lightening, and had
the scalp off his 'tarnal ugly head, afore you could
say John Robinson!—and all the while, madam
was jist as dead as a piece of rock. Here's the
top-knot, and an ugly dirty top-knot it is!” With
which words, the valiant Dodge displayed his
trophy, a scalp of black hair, yet reeking with
blood.

A shiver passed through Edith's frame, she
grasped her cousin's arm to avoid falling, and
with a countenance as white and ghastly as countenance
could be, exclaimed,—

“It was Braxley!—It was he carried me off—
But I knew nothing—It was he! Yes, it was he!”

“It war'n't a white-man?” cried Dodge, dropping
his prize in dismay; while even Roland
staggered with horror at the thought of a fate so
sudden and dreadful overtaking his rival and
enemy.

“Ha, ha!” cried the renegade, “with a hideous
attempt at laughter; “I told Dick the devil
would have us; but I had no idea Dick would be
the first afore him! Shot,—scalped—sarved like
a mere dog of an Injun! Well, the game's up
at last, and we've both made our fortun's!—Captain,
I've been a rascal all my life, and I die no
better. You would 'nt take my offer, captain—
It's no matter.” He fumbled in his breast; and

presently drew to light the will, with which he so
vainly strove the preceding night to effect his object
with Roland: it was stained deeply with his
blood. “Take it, captain,” he cried, “take it; I
give it to you without axing tarms: I leave it to
yourself, captain. But you'll remember her, captain?
The gal, captain! the gal! I leave it to
yourself—”

“She shall never want friend or protector,”
said Roland.

“Captain,” murmured the renegade with his
last breath, and grasping the soldier's hand with
his last convulsive effort—“you 're an honest feller:
I'll—yes, captain, I'll trust you!”

These were the renegade's last words; and before
Bruce, who muttered, half in reproach, half
in kindness, “The gal never wanted friend or protector,
till she fled from me, who was as a father
to her,” could draw the sobbing daughter away,
the wretched instrument of a still more wretched
principal in villany had followed his employer to
his last account.

In the meanwhile, the struggle was over, the
battle was fought and won. The army,—for such
it was, being commanded in person by the hero of
Kaskaskias,[1] the great protector, and almost
founder of the West,—summoned in haste to
avenge the slaughter at the Blue Licks—a lamentable
disaster, to which we have several times
alluded, although it was foreign to our purpose to
venture more than an allusion,—and conducted
with unexampled speed against the Indian towns
on the Miami, had struck a blow which was destined
long to be remembered by the Indians, thus
for the first time assailed in their own territory.

Consisting of volunteers well acquainted with the
woods, all well mounted and otherwise equipt, all
familiar with battle, and all burning for revenge,
it had reached within but ten or twelves miles of
Wenonga's town, and within still fewer of a
smaller village, which it was the object of the
troops first to attack, at sunset of the previous
day, and encamped in the woods to allow man
and horse, both well nigh exhausted, a few hours
refreshment, previous to marching upon the neighbouring
village; when Nathan, flying with the
scalp and arms of Wenonga in his hand, and looking
more like an infuriated madman than the inoffensive
man of peace he had been so long esteemed,
suddenly appeared amidst the vanguard,
commanded by the gallant Bruce, whom he instantly
apprised of the condition of the captives
at Wenonga's town, and urged to attempt their
deliverance.

This was done, and with an effect which has
been already seen. The impetuosity of Bruce's
men, doubly inflamed by the example of the father
and his eldest son, to whom the rescue of their
late guests was an object of scarce inferior magnitude
even compared with the vengeance for
which they burned in common with all others, had
in some measure defeated the hopes of the General,
who sought, by a proper disposition of his
forces, completely to invest the Indian village, so
as to insure the destruction or capture of every
inhabitant. As it was, however, very few escaped;
many were killed, and more, including all the
women and children, (who, honest Dodge's misgivings
to the contrary notwithstanding, were in
no instance designedly injured) taken prisoners.
And this, too, at an expense of but very few lives
lost on the part of the victors; the Indians attempting

resistance only when the fall of more
than half their numbers, and the presence of foes
on every side, convinced them that flight was
wholly impracticable.

The victory was, indeed, so complete, and—as
it appeared that several bands of warriors from
more distant villages were in the town at the time
of attack—the blow inflicted upon the tribe so
much severer than was anticipated even from a
series of attacks upon several different towns, as
was at first designed, that the victors, satisfied that
they had done enough to convince the red-man of
the irresistible superiority of the Long-knife, satisfied,
too, perhaps, that the cheapness of the victory
rendered it more valuable than a greater
triumph achieved at a greater loss, gave up at
once their original design of carrying the war
into other villages, and resolved to retrace their
march to the Settlements.

But the triumph was not completed, until the village,
with its fields of standing corn, had been entirely
destroyed—a work of cruel vengeance, yet
not so much of vengeance as of policy; since the
destruction of their fields, by driving the savages
to seek a winter's subsistence for their families in
the forest, necessarily prevented their making
warlike inroads upon their white neighbours, during
that season. The maize-stalks, accordingly,
soon fell before the knives and hatchets of the
Kentuckians; while the wigwams were given to
the flames. When the last of the rude habitations
had fallen, crashing, to the earth, the victors began
their retreat towards the frontier; so that
within a very few hours after they first appeared,
as if bursting from the earth, amid the amazed
barbarians, nothing remained upon the place of

conflict and site of a populous village, save scattered
ruins and mangled corses.

Their own dead the invaders bore to a distance,
and interred in the deepest dens of the forest;
and then, with their prisoners, carried with
them as the surest means of inducing the tribe to
beg for peace, in order to effect their deliverance,
they resumed the path, which, in good
time, led them again to the Settlements.