University of Virginia Library

25. CHAPTER XXV.

After many other trials and adventures Glenville returned
safe to his home in Kentucky. Here with his wages
he loaded a boat with “produce,” and set float for New
Orleans; intending with the cash realized by the trip, on
his return, to go into Illinois with a stock of goods and
“keep store.” But at Orleans he was seized with the
yellow fever, and was finally given over by his physician,
and orders issued, in anticipation of death, for his interment.
That very night, however, in delirium, and while
his kind yet weary nurse slumbered in a chair, he arose
and finding a basin of water brought to wash him in the

morning, he instantly seized and swallowed the whole
contents—the only thing deemed wanting to kill him!
And yet when put again into bed, he fell into a calm and
delicious slumber; perspired freely; and when he awoke
the fever was gone, and my friend saved. Let careful persons,
therefore, who keep a memorandum book put this
along side the celebrated Scotch-herring-recipe,—“Cure for
Orleans fever: two quarts of cold water, and cover up in
bed.”

Glenville did, indeed, get home and with some money
from a successful sale; but he was worn and emaciated,
and many months passed before he could cross the Ohio
and set up his store. His cup of bitterness was not drained;
and evil came now in a form demanding stout heart
and steady nerves. Ay! our dark and illimitable forests
then hid men of lion hearts, of iron nerves, of sure and
deadly weapons! Perhaps such dwell there yet; if so,
wo! to the enemy that rashly arouses them from their
lairs and challenges, where civilized discipline avails not!
and where battle is a thousand conflicts man to man, rifle
to rifle, knife to knife, hatchet to hatchet! And Glenville,
boy as he was, proved himself worthy a name among the
lion-hearted!

We stood once on a solemn spot in the wilderness and
leaned against the very tree where the bloody knife of the
only survivor had rudely and briefly carved the tale of the
tragedy. It stoodn early thus:

“18 injins—15 wites—injins all kill'd and buried here—
14 wites kill'd and buried too—P. T.”

Laugh away, men of pomatum and essence, at Hoosiers,
and Corncrackers, and Buckeyes: ay! lace-coats, mow them
down in an open plain with cannister and grape, you safely
encased behind bulwarks; or cut them to pieces with
pigeon breasted, mailed and helmed cuirassiers,—but seek
them not as enemies in their native and adopted woods!
The place of your graves will be notched in their trees, and

you will never lie under polished marble, in a fashionable
and decorated cemetery!

But Glenville, in store keeping witnessed a farce before
his tragedy. Among his earthen and sham-Liverpool, were
found some articles, similar to things domesticated in great
houses, and which, although not made unto honour, were in
the present case very unexpectedly elevated in the domestic
economy. These modesties occupied a retired and rather
dusky part of the store; when one day an honest female
Illinois—(i. e. a Sucker's wife)—in her travels around the
room in search of crocks suddenly exclaimed: “Well! I
never! if them yonder with the handles on, aint the nicest
I ever seen!—Johnny, what's the price?—but I must have
three any how;—here Johnny do up this white one—(rapping
it with her knuckles)—and them two brown ones up
thare.”

A large purchase, to be sure, of the article; but curiosity
asked no questions: and in due time the trio were packed
and hanging in a meal bag from the horn of the lady's saddle;
who, on taking leave, thus addressed our marvelling
shop keeper:—

“Mr. Glenville, next time you go gallin, jist gimme and
my ole-man a call,—we've got a right down smart chance
of a gall to look at—good bye.”

Our hero, who had early discovered, that store keeping is
none the worse when the owner is in favour with the softer
sex, did not forget this invitation, and in due season made his
kind friends a visit: and when supper was placed on the
table by the smiling maid and her considerate mother, what
do you think was there?

“Corn bread?”

Hold your ear this way—(a whisper.)

“No!—he! he! he!”—

Yes, indeed, and doubledeed!—the white one full of
milk!! And after that you know our humblest democrat,
may well look up to the presidency.

It had become about this time necessary for Mr. G. to
visit Louisville. For that purpose, he left his store in
charge of a young man; the latter promising among other
things to sleep in the store, instead of which, however, he
always slept at a neighbouring cabin. Hence what was
feared happened,—the store was robbed. Not truly in the
eastern style, of small change in the desk, some half dozen
portable packages, or paltry three dozen yards of something;—no,
no, the robbery was on the wholesale principle
commensurate with the vastness of our woods and prairies.
The entire stock in trade was carried off—bales,
boxes, bags, packages, and even yard-sticks and scales to
sell by—yes! and hardware, and software, and brittleware,
—ay! crocks with and without handles, and whatever may
have been their standing in society,—all, all—were taken!
so that when the clerk came in the morning to retail to the
Suckers, there was indeed, a beggarly account—not of
empty boxes, these being mostly carried away—but of
empty shelves, and empty desks, and empty store. His
occupation was even more completely gone then Othello's.

On the river bank[6] were, indeed, traces enough of a
mysterious departure of merchandise; but whether the
embarkation had been in skows, or “perogues,” and other
troughlike vessels, was uncertain. Nor could it even be
conjectured, for what port the store had been spirited away;
or for what secret cove or recess of tall weeds matted into
texture with sharp briars and thorny bushes!

Previous to Glenville's return, a fellow that had been
noticed lurking in the woods near the store for two days
before the robbery, was recognised in a small village, the
day after, and in suspicious circumstances. He was,
therefore apprehended; when, after a short imprisonment,
he confessed having been employed by some strangers to

steer a flat boat loaded with something or other from Glenville's
landing. On his return, our merchant went to the
sheriff, who indignant at a villainy that had so completely
ruined a very young man after years of toil and danger
passed in acquiring his little property, did himself suggest
and offer voluntarily to aid in a scheme to compel the prisoner
to disclose, at least, where the goods were concealed,
and before they should be removed from the country or
ruined by the damp.

We are not advocates for Lynching, but we do know
that where laws cannot and do not protect backwoodsmen,
they fall back on reserved rights and protect themselves.
Nay, such, instead of laying aside defensive weapons,
after legislators shall have been wheedled, or frightened, or
bribed into vile plans by puling or fanatical moralists to
nurse the wilful and godless murderer on good bread,
wholesome water and occasional soups, all the remainder
of his forfeited days—we know that such woodmen will
go better armed, to slay and not unrighteously on the spot
every unholy apostate that maliciously and wilfully strikes
down and stamps on God's image! And when the day
comes that the avenger of a brother's blood wakes in our
land—let no canting infidel or universalist blame those that
now resist the abrogation of divine laws!—but let him
blame hypocritical juries, rabblerousing governors, and
all that are now deserting the weak, the innocent, the unwary,
the defenceless, and crying “God pity and defend
and save and bless—the murderer!”[7] and “Shame on
the dead—poor lifeless victim!”

The sheriff and Glenville with two fearless and voluntary
associates prevailed on the jailor to loan them the prisoner
for a day or two, making known their scheme and giving
suitable pledges for his redelivery. The loan was
made, and then, on reaching a fit place, the prisoner was
dismounted, and Glenville proposed to him the following:

“My friend, we know very well you helped to rob my
store, and that you know well enough where your comrades
are and how the goods can be recovered; now, if
you will tell, not only will we get you out of jail, provided
you will leave the country, but I will give you also ten
dollars; but if you won't tell, why then we'll flog you into
it—come, what do you say?”

“Well, he be some-thing'd if he know'd; and if he did,
he wasn't going to be lick'd into tellin—and he'd sue them
for salt and battery.”

Peril, indeed, was in this illegal process; but the party
had good reasons for believing the fellow a desperate robber,
and so they seemed to be preparing for a severe flaggellation,
when he supposing all was solemn earnest,
said he was ready to confess, and, provided Mr. G. would
forgive and not prosecute, he would conduct the present
party to the plunder, or a part of it. The promise was readily
given and the fellow was unbound and remounted without
any trammel, but with this comfortable assurance, that
if he tried to escape or to betray them into any rendezvous
of robbers, he should be instantly shot down, and that whether
they died themselves for it or not.[8]

Accordingly, away all started through the woods, where
the prisoner yet rode, confident, as if following a blaze, and
stopping only at intervals to look at the sun, or the moss,
or to examine a tree or branch, and shewing if he had one

hundred yards fair start, it would be no easy matter
either to catch or shoot him. At last, a wild turkey was
seen trotting across their course, fully eighty yards off, and
then Glenville, nearly as good a shot as the writer, merely
stopping his horse, levelled and fired from his saddle, when
to his own surprise, as well as that of the others, the bird
fell dead in his tracks! After this the guide would check
his own horse, if he voluntarily stepped faster than the
others, lest he should seem meditating an escape; for if a
moving turkey could be shot, so he seemed to think could
more easily be, a moving man.

The fellow, however, led at length into a deep ravine on
Big Wolf Creek; and there, sure enough, some in a cave
and some in a hollow tree were portions of the merchandise
—it being evident also that within a very few hours a still
larger portion had been removed to some other depot! By
the force of additional threats, promises and entreaties, the
rascal named the other robbers, he being merely a subordinate;
but as no small hazard would be encountered in
attacking the temporary cabin, where the principal robber
and the remaining goods were, it was determined first to
get additional volunteers and make more suitable preparation.
Packing the damaged and soiled goods on their
horses, the sheriff's party returned with their prisoner to
the village of Shanteburg, and redelivered him to the jailor,
intending if his information proved substantially correct to
have the fellow not only liberated, but otherwise rewarded.

Here, also, two others volunteered to join in the robber
hunt; upon which all, with loaded rifles, and knives and
hatchets in their belts, soon mounted, and were plunging
again into the darkness of the forest, now black from a
moonless night. Early on the next morning they came in
sight of the cabin. When within fifty yards, the robber
stepping to the door let his rifle fall in that peculiar manner
that belongs to a practiced marksman, at the same time

warning off his visitors, and solemnly swearing he would
kill the man that first approached his barricade. At the
instant, however, of the man's appearance and even before
he had faily uttered a word, our friends had “treed” in a
twinkling, and now stood with pointed weapons and keen
eyes towards the bold thief. Glenville, on leaping from
his horse, instead of treeing, stood boldly out and thus exclaimed
loud enough to be heard by all: “Sheriff, you are
all running this risk for me—'tis my duty to lead. I'll
attack the scoundrel; if he shoots me—avenge my death!”
With that he fearlessly advanced with his levelled rifle and
then halting, called to the villain: “Throw down your
gun—in ten seconds one of us is a dead man—one, two,
three:” and so the two stood, each with his bead darkened
by the other's breast—the sheriff's men, also unwilling
to shed blood; yet with a finger every man on his set
trigger—till Glenville called “seven”—when the robber
suddenly threw up his muzzle, and cried out, “surrendered!”
The next instant he was seized and bound. This was the
leader. His main accomplices were not discovered, and
only another portion of the stolen goods, which, together
with the robber, were now conveyed in triumph to Shanteburg.
That afternoon the fellow was lodged in jail, and of
necessity in the same room with the subordinate thief: yet,
while all possible care was used to prevent escape, in less
than forty-eight hours both contrived to get out! and from
that hour to the present, neither they, nor the remainder of
the merchandize was ever seen or recovered. It was, indeed
ascertained that they belonged to a small foraging party
from the grand gang of outlaws, whose head-quarters then
were among the islands and cane-breakers of the Missouri:
and so doubtless they escaped by the aid of concealed comrades
and all got safe off with Mr. Glenville's balance
in trade, to the army of the confederates. Perhaps they
lived to rob again—may be to murder; and for which latter
service our modern pseudo-philanthropists would pity and
feed them! Many neighbours out there will alway physic
such with lead pills—at least till Reformers have prisons
prepared fit to hold their pets longer than a few hours!

This pleasant adventure, terminated Mr. G's first essay
at store-keeping. It gained him, however, a character, and
no one would have become so popular in the New Purchase,[9]
but for mistaken opinions in the neighbours about “Mr.
Carlton's bigbuggery and stuckupness.” As it was, Glenville
nearly went over Simpson rough shod. And all these little
affairs aided our firm in sore disappointments and losses;
for then the senior would say—

“Well!—we might have had better luck.”

And the junior reply,

“Why, yes—and another consolation: this is not the
first disappointment, and it wont be the last!”

We, in short, thus learned to imitate the sailor, who, in
witnessing a conjuror's tricks, was pitched into the yard by
the accidental blowing up of some gunpowder; but which
supposing to be one of the tricks, he held on to his bench,
and exclaimed: “Well!—what next?”