University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.

“What's the matter, Tom Bruce?” said the
father, eyeing him with surprise.

“Matter enough,” responded the young giant,
with a grin of mingled awe and delight; “the
Jibbenainosay is up again!”

“Whar?” cried the senior, eagerly,—“not in
our limits?”

“No, by Jehoshaphat!” replied Tom; “but
nigh enough to be neighbourly,—on the north
bank of Kentuck, whar he has left his mark
right in the middle of the road, as fresh as
though it war but the work of the morning!”

“And a clear mark, Tom?—no mistake in it?”

“Right to an iota!” said the young man;—“a
reggelar cross on the breast, and a good tomahawk-dig
right through the skull; and a longlegg'd
fellow too, that looked as if he might have
fou't old Sattan himself!”

“It 's the Jibbenainosay, sure enough; and so
good luck to him!” cried the commander: “thar's
a harricane coming!”

“Who is the Jibbenainosay?” demanded Forrester.

“Who?” cried Tom Bruce; “Why Nick,—
Nick of the Woods.”

“And who, if you please, is Nick of the
Woods?”

“Thar,” replied the junior with another grin,
“thar, strannger, you 're too hard for me. Some

think one thing, and some another; but thar's
many reckon he's the devil.”

“And his mark, that you were talking of in
such mysterious terms,—what is that?”

“Why, a dead Injun, to be sure, with Nick's
mark on him,—a knife-cut, or a brace of 'em, over
the ribs in the shape of a cross. That's the way
the Jibbenainosay marks all the meat of his killing.
It has been a whole year now since we
h'ard of him.”

“Captain,” said the elder Bruce, “you don't
seem to understand the affa'r altogether; but if
you war to ask Tom about the Jibbenainosay till
doomsday, he could tell you no more than he has
told already. You must know, thar's a creatur'
of some sort or other that ranges the woods round
about our station h'yar, keeping a sort of guard
over us like, and killing all the brute Injuns that
ar' onlucky enough to come in his way, besides
scalping them, and marking them with his mark.
The Injuns call him Jibbenainosay, or a word on
that natur', which them that know more about
the Injun gabble than I do, say means the Spiritthat-walks;
and if we can believe any such lying
devils as Injuns, (which I am loath to do, for the
truth ar'nt in 'em,) he is neither man nor beast, but
a great ghost or devil that knife cannot harm nor
bullet touch; and they have always had an idea
that our fort h'yar in partickelar, and the country
round about, war under his friendly protection—
many thanks to him, whether he be a devil or not;
for that war the reason the savages so soon left
off a worrying of us.”

“Is it possible,” said Roland, “that any one can
believe such an absurd story?”

“Why not,” said Bruce, stoutly. “Thar's the
Injuns themselves, Shawnees, Hurons, Delawares

and all,—but partickelarly the Shawnees, for he
beats all creation a-killing of Shawnees,—that believe
in him, and hold him in such etarnal dread,
that thar's scarce a brute of 'em has come within
ten miles of the station h'yar, this three y'ar: because
as how, he haunts about our woods h'yar
in partickelar, and he kills 'em wheresomever he
catches 'em,—especially the Shawnees, as I said
afore, against which the creatur' has a most butchering
spite; and there's them among the other
tribes that call him the Shawneewannaween, or the
Howl of the Shawnees, because of his keeping
them ever a howling. And thar's his marks, captain,—what
do you make of that? When you
find an Injun lying scalped and tomahawked, it
stands to reason thar war something to kill
him?”

“Ay, truly,” said Forrester; “but I think you
have human beings enough to give the credit to,
without referring it to a supernatural one.”

“Strannger,” said Big Tom Bruce the younger,
with a sagacious nod, “when you kill an Injun
yourself, I reckon,—meaning no offence—you will
be willing to take all the honour that can come of
it, without leaving it to be scrambled after by
others. Thar's no man 'arns a scalp in Kentucky,
without taking great pains to show it to his
neighbours.”

“And besides, captain,” said the father, very
gravely, “thar are men among us who have seen
the creatur'!”

“That,” said Roland, who perceived his new
friends were not well pleased with his incredulity,
“is an argument I can resist no longer.”

“Thar war Ben Jones, and Samuel Sharp, and
Peter Smalleye, and a dozen more, who all had
a glimpse of him stalking through the woods, at

different times; and, they agree, he looks more
like a devil nor a mortal man,—a great tall fellow
with horns and a hairy head like a buffalo-bull,
and a little devil that looks like a black b'ar, that
walks before him to point out the way. He war
always found in the deepest forests, and that's the
reason we call him Nick of the Woods; wharby
we mean Old Nick of the Woods; for we hold
him to be the devil, though a friendly one to all
but Injuns. Now, captain, I war never superstitious
in my life,—but I go my death on the Jibbenainosay!
I never seed the creatur' himself,
but I have seen in my time two different savages
of his killing. It's a sure sign, if you see him in
the woods, that thar's Injuns at hand: and it's a
good sign when you find his mark, without seeing
himself; for then you may be sure the brutes are
off,—they can't stand old Nick of the Woods no
how! At first, he war never h'ard of afar from
our station; but he has begun to widen his range.
Last year he left his marks down Salt River in
Jefferson; and now, you see, he is striking game
north of the Kentucky; and I have h'ard of them
that say he kills Shawnees even in their own
country; though consarning that I'll not be so
partickelar. No, no, captain, thar's no mistake in
Nick of the Woods; and if you are so minded,
we will go and h'ar the whole news of him. But,
I say, Tom,” continued the Kentuckian, as the
three left the porch together, “who brought the
news?”

“Captain Ralph,—Roaring Ralph Stackpole,”
replied Tom Bruce, with a knowing and humourous
look.

“What!” cried the father, in sudden alarm;
“Look to the horses, Tom!”.

“I will,” said the youth, laughing: “it war no

sooner known that Captain Ralph war among us
than it was resolved to have six Regulators in the
range all night! Thar's some of these new colts,
(not to speak of our own creaturs,) and especially
that blooded brown beast of the captain's, which
the nigger calls Brown Briery, or some such
name, would set a better man than Roaring Ralph
Stackpole's mouth watering.”

“And who,” said Roland, “is Roaring Ralph
Stackpole? and what has he to do with Brown
Briareus?”

“A proper fellow as ever you saw!” replied
Tom, approvingly;—“killed two Injuns once, single-handed,
on Bear-Grass, and has stolen more
horses from them than ar another man in Kentucky.
A prime creatur'! but he has his fault,
poor fellow, and sometimes mistakes a christian's
horse for an Injun's, thar's the truth of it!”

“And such scoundrels you make officers of?”
demanded the soldier, indignantly.

“Oh,” said the elder Bruce, “thar's no reggelar
commission in the case. But whar thar's a knot
of our poor folks out of horses, and inclined to
steal a lot from the Shawnees, (which is all fa'r
plundering, you see, for thar's not a horse among
them, the brutes, that they did not steal from
Kentucky,) they send for Roaring Ralph and make
him their captain; and a capital one he is, too,
being all fight from top to bottom; and as for the
stealing part, thar's no one can equal him. But,
as Tom says, he sometimes does make mistakes,
having stolen horses so often from the Injuns, he
can scarce keep his hands off a christian's; and
that makes us wrathy.”

By this time the speakers had reached the gate
of the fort, and passed among the cabins outside,
where they found a throng of the villagers, surrounding

the captain of horse-thieves, and listening
with great edification to, and deriving no
little amusement from, his account of the last
achievement of the Jibbenainosay. Of this, as it
related no more than the young Bruce had already
repeated,—namely, that, while riding that morning
from the north side, he had stumbled upon the
corse of an Indian, which bore all the marks of
having been a late victim to the wandering demon
of the woods,—we shall say nothing:—but
the appearance and conduct of the narrator, one
of the first, and perhaps the parent, of the race of
men who have made Salt River so renowned in
story, were such as to demand a less summary
notice. He was a stout, bandy-legged, broad-shouldered,
and bull-headed tatterdemalion, ugly,
mean, and villainous of look; yet with an impudent,
swaggering, joyous self-esteem traced in
every feature and expressed in every action of
body, that rather disposed the beholder to laugh
than to be displeased at his appearance. An old
blanket-coat, or wrap-rascal, once white, but now
of the same muddy brown hue that stained his
visage, and once also of sufficient length to defend
his legs, though the skirts had long since been
transferred to the cuffs and elbows, where they
appeared in huge patches, covered the upper part
of his body; while the lower boasted a pair of
buckskin breeches and leather wrappers, somewhat
its junior in age, but its rival in mud and
maculation. An old round fur hat, intended
originally for a boy, and only made to fit his
head by being slit in sundry places at the bottom,
thus leaving a dozen yawning gaps, through
which, as through the chinks of a lattice, stole out
as many stiff bunches of black hair, gave to the
capital excrescence an air as ridiculous as it was
truly uncouth, which was not a little increased by
the absence on one side of the brim, and by a
loose fragment of it hanging down on the other.
To give something martial to an appearance in
other respects so outlandish and ludicrous, he had
his rifle, and other usual equipments of a woodsman,
including the knife and tomahawk, the first
of which he carried in his hand, swinging it about
at every moment, with a vigour and apparent
carelessness well fit to discompose a nervous person,
had any such happened among his auditors.
As if there was not enough in his figure, visage,
and attire to move the mirth of beholders, he
added to his other attractions a variety of gestures
and antics of the most extravagant kinds,
dancing, leaping and dodging about, clapping his
hands and cracking his heels together, with the
activity, restlessness, and, we may add, the grace,
of a jumping-jack. Such was the worthy, or unworthy,
son of Salt River, a man wholly unknown
to history, though not to local and traditionary
fame, and much less to the then inhabitants of
Bruce's Station, to whom he related his news of
the Jibbenainosay with that emphasis and importance
of tone and manner which are most significantly
expressed in the phrase of `laying down
the law.'

As soon as he saw the commander of the Station
approaching, he cleared the throng around
him by a skip and a hop, seized the colonel by the
hand, and doing the same with the soldier, before
Roland could repel him, as he would have done,
exclaimed, “Glad to see you, cunnel;—same to
you, strannger—What's the news from Virginnie?
Strannger, my name's Ralph Stackpole,
and I'm a ring-tailed squealer!”

“Then, Mr. Ralph Stackpole, the ring-tailed

squealer,” said Roland, disengaging his hand, “be
so good as to pursue your business, without regarding
or taking any notice of me.”

“'Tarnal death to me!” cried the captain of
horse-thieves, indignant at the rebuff, “I'm a gentleman,
and my name 's Fight! Foot and hand,
tooth and nail, claw and mud-scraper, knife, gun,
and tomahawk, or any other way you choose to
take me, I'm your man! Cock-a-doodle-doo!”
And with that, the gentleman jumped into the air,
and flapped his wings, as much to the amusement
of the provoker of his wrath as of any other person
present.

“Come, Ralph,” said the commander of the
Station, “whar'd' you steal that brown mar' thar?”
—a question whose abruptness somewhat quelled
the ferment of the man's fury, while it drew a
roar of laughter from the lookers-on.

“Thar it is!” said he, striking an attitude and
clapping a hand on his breast, like a man who felt
his honour unjustly assailed. “Steal! I steal any
horse but an Injun's! Whar's the man dar's insinivate
that? Blood and massacree-ation! whar's
the man?”

“H'yar,” said Bruce, very composedly. “I know
that old mar' belongs to Peter Harper, on the north
side.”

“You're right, by Hooky!” cried Roaring
Ralph: at which seeming admission of his knavery
the merriment of the spectators was greatly increased;
nor was it much lessened when the fellow
proceeded to aver that he had borrowed it,
and that with the express stipulation that it should
be left at Bruce's Station, subject to the orders of
its owner. “Thar, cunnel,” said he, “thar's the
beast; take it; and just tell me whar's the one you

mean to lend me,—for I must be off afore sunset.”

“And whar are you going?” demanded Bruce.

“To St. Asaphs,”—which was a Station some
twenty or thirty miles off,—replied Captain Stackpole.

“Too far for the Regulators to follow, Ralph,”
said Colonel Bruce; at which the young men present
laughed louder than ever, and eyed the visiter
in a way that seemed both to disconcert and
offend him.

“Cunnel,” said he, “you're a man in authority,
and my superior officer; wharfo' thar' can be no
sealping between us. But my name's Tom Dowdle,
the rag-man!” he screamed, suddenly skipping
into the thickest of the throng, and sounding
a note of defiance; “my name's Tom Dowdle,
the rag-man, and I'm for any man that insults me!
log-leg or leather-breeches, green-shirt or blanket-coat,
land-trotter or river-roller,—I'm the man for
a massacree!” Then giving himself a twirl upon
his foot that would have done credit to a dancing-master,
he proceeded to other antic demonstrations
of hostility, which, when performed in
after years on the banks of the Lower Mississippi,
by himself and his worthy imitators, were, we
suspect, the cause of their receiving the name of
the mighty alligator. It is said, by naturalists, of
this monstrous reptile, that he delights, when the
returning warmth of spring has brought his fellows
from their holes, and placed them basking
along the banks of a swampy lagoon, to dart into
the centre of the expanse, and challenge the whole
field to combat. He roars, he blows the water
from his nostrils, he lashes it with his tail, he
whirls round and round, churning the water into
foam; until, having worked himself into a proper

fury, he darts back again to the shore, to seek an
antagonist. Had the gallant captain of horse-thieves
boasted the blood, as he afterwards did
the name, of an `alligator half-breed,' he could
have scarce conducted himself in a way more
worthy of his parentage. He leaped into the
centre of the throng, where, having found elbow-room
for his purpose, he performed the gyration
mentioned before, following it up by other feats
expressive of his hostile humour. He flapped his
wings and crowed, until every chanticleer in the
settlement replied to the note of battle; he snorted
and neighed like a horse; he bellowed like a bull;
he barked like a dog; he yelled like an Indian; he
whined like a panther; he howled like a wolf, until
one would have thought he was a living menagerie,
comprising within his single body the spirit
of every animal noted for its love of conflict.
Then, not content with such a display of readiness
to fight the field, he darted from the centre
of the area allowed him for his exercise, and invited
the lookers-on individually to battle. “Whar's
your buffalo-bull,” he cried, “to cross horns with
the roarer of Salt River? Whar's your full-blood
colt that can shake a saddle off? h'yar's an old
nag can kick off the top of a buck-eye! Whar's
your cat of the Knob's? your wolf of the Rolling
Prairies? h'yar's the old brown b'ar can claw the
bark off a gum-tree! H'yar's a man for you, Tom
Bruce! Same to you, Sim Roberts! to you, Jimmy
Big-nose! to you, and to you, and to you! Ar'n't
I a ring-tailed squealer? Can go down Salt on my
back, and swim up the Ohio! Whar's the man to
fight Roaring Ralph Stackpole?”

Now, whether it happened that there were none
present inclined to a contest with such a champion,
or whether it was that the young men look

ed upon the exhibition as a mere bravado meant
rather to amuse them than to irritate, it so occurred
that not one of them accepted the challenge;
though each, when personally called on, did his
best to add to the roarer's fury, if fury it really
were, by letting off sundry jests in relation to
borrowed horses and Regulators.[1] That the fellow's
rage was in great part assumed, Roland,
who was, at first, somewhat amused at his extravagance,
became soon convinced; and growing
at last weary of it, he was about to signify to his
host his inclination to return into the fort, when
the appearance of another individual on the ground
suddenly gave promise of new entertainment.