University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.

A few weeks subsequent to the transactions narrated
in the last chapter, a heavy travelling-carriage was seen
slowly winding its way among the mountains of the
Allegheny chain, drawn by a pair of tall horses, whose
fine eyes and muscular limbs bore testimony, to an
experienced observer, of excellent blood and gentle
breeding, but who now tottered along, galled, raw-boned,
and dispirited, from the effects of a long journey. The
heavily-laden vehicle bore also incontestible marks of
rough usage, and resembled, in its appearance, a noble
ship, which, having been dismantled in a storm, is
brought with difficulty into port. It had once been both
strong and costly, and was, in truth, one of the most
elegant of those cumbrous machines which were used
by such of our ancestors as were sufficiently wealthy
to indulge in such luxuries; bearing a coat-of-arms
upon its panels, and being amply decorated in the
patrician taste of that day.

A journey over the Allegheny mountains, then inhabited
only at distant intervals, and whose best roads were
mere bridle-paths, beaten by the feet of pack-horses, and
occasionally travelled with difficulty by wagons carrying
merchandise, had left to the shattered coach but few
vestiges of its former splendor. The tongue, which had
been broken, was replaced by the green stem of a young
tree, hastily hewed out of the forest for the purpose; a

dislocation of one of the springs, had been remedied
by passing a long stout pole underneath the body
of the carriage; and a shattered axletree, which had
been spliced repeatedly, bent and creaked under its load,
as if every revolution of the wheels would be the last.
In matters of less moment, the havoc had been even
greater. The curtains, by frequent and rather violent
collision with the overhanging branches of the forest,
had been rent and perforated in many places, and the
straps within which they were usually furled, having
been torn away, they now floated in the breeze in
tattered fragments, or flapped against the sides of the
carriage, like the sails of a vessel in a calm; while a
bough had occasionally penetrated so far as to tear
away the velvet lining and its gaudy fringe.

Two ladies, both of whom were young, and a female
negro servant, occupied this weatherbeaten conveyance;
accompanied, as every experienced reader will readily
imagine, by a voluminous store of trunks, band-boxes,
baskets, bags, and bundles. The husband of one of
these ladies, a plain, gentlemanly-looking man, of five-and-twenty
years of age, rode in advance of the cavalcade,
on horseback, encumbered with no other appendage
than a brace of large pistols, suspended across his
saddle in a pair of holsters.

Then came a train of wagons, some drawn by horses,
and others by oxen, carrying household furniture, farming
implements, and provisions. Behind these, a drove
of horses and cattle, stretched along the mountain-path,
strolled lazily forward, halting frequently to drink at the
clear rivulets which crossed the road, or straying off to

graze, wherever an inviting spot of green offered a few
refreshing mouthfuls of herbage to the wearied animals.
Mingled with the cavalcade, or lagging in its rear, was
a large company of negro servants, men, women, and
children, of every age, from helpless infancy to hoary
decrepitude; whistling and singing and laughing as they
went, inhaling with joy the mountain air, and luxuriating
in the happy exchange of daily labor for the lighter
toils of the road.

Such were the retinue and appearance of a wealthy
planter from Virginia, who was emigrating, with all his
family and movable property, to the newly settled wilds
of Kentucky; and who bore no small resemblance to
some ancient patriarch, travelling at the head of his
dependants and herds, in search of wider plains and
fresher pastures than were afforded in the land of his
fathers. Mr. and Mrs. Mountford, and the unfortunate
Miss Pendleton, were the principal persons of the party
which we have attempted to describe, and whose adventures
will occupy the remainder of this chapter.

They had passed nearly all the ridges of those formidable
mountains, and were now looking eagerly forward
towards the land of promise, and imagining every cliff
that rose before them to be the last. The day was drawing
to a close, when they reached the summit of one of
those numerous ridges which compose the Allegheny
chain, and halted for a few moments to rest the animals,
who were panting and wearied with the toilsome ascent.
Looking forward, they beheld before them a deep valley,
bounded on the opposite side by a range of mountains
as steep and as high as the one on whose crest they

were now reposing. Its sides were composed of a series
of perpendicular precipices of solid rock, clothed with
stinted pines, laurel, and other evergreens, and which, at
this distance, seemed to oppose an impassable barrier to
the farther advance of the travellers. On more minute
examination, parts of the road could be seen winding
along the edge of the cliffs, and surmounting the ascent
by a variety of sharp angles. A troop of pack-horses,
with their large panniers, were seen descending by this
path, at a distance so great as to render it barely possible
to distinguish their forms, and ascertain their
character—sometimes stretched in an extended line
along the summits of the elevated parapets of rock, then
disappearing behind a projecting cliff, or a copse of
evergreen, and again turning an abrupt angle, as if
counter-marching to retrace their footsteps. The sun
was now sinking behind the western hills, and though
still visible to our travellers, no longer shone upon the
eastern exposure of the mountain which they were contemplating—a
circumstance which gave a still more
shadowy appearance to the descending troop, whose
regular array of slow-moving figures, impressed upon
the perpendicular sides of the cliffs, resembled the airy
creations of a magic lantern, rather than the forms of
living beings. Now they were seen traversing the extreme
verge of some bold promontory, where the sun-beams
flashed from the shining harness, and afforded a momentary
disclosure of a variety of different colors, which
again were blended into one dark mass, as the cavalcade
passed on into the deeper shades of the mountain-glens.
As they gazed, the silence was agreeably broken by the
inspiring notes of the bugle, with which the drivers
cheered their lonesome way, and whose sprightly sounds,
echoed from hill to hill, sometimes faintly heard, and
sometimes bursting upon the ear in full chorus, gave a
tinge of wild romance to the scene.

From the contemplation of this prospect, their
attention was drawn to the western side of the mountain
on whose summit they stood, and whose declivities they
were about to descend. Looking downward, they
saw from their dizzy height a series of precipices, with
bald sides, and turreted and spiral crests, terminating
in a dark valley, which seemed to be almost directly
below their feet, although the distance was so great as
to render it impossible to distinguish objects in the deep
abyss. Here, as on the opposite side of the valley, the
path wound from cliff to cliff, and from one natural
terrace to another, like the angles of a winding stair-case;
but little of it was visible from the spot occupied
by our travellers. In this direction the sound of voices
was heard ascending, and approaching nearer and
nearer; and presently a large drove of cattle, conducted
by several men, was seen winding along the base of the
precipice on which the party stood, at a short distance
from them, and where the terrace traversed by the road
widened into a plain surface containing several acres.
Here a sudden terror seized the cattle. The foremost
of the animals halted and began to smell the ground
with manifestations of violent agitation, and then uttered
a low terrific yell. At this signal the whole herd, which
had been loitering drowsily along, urged slowly forward
by the voices of the drovers, rushed madly towards the

spot, bellowing with every appearance of rage and
affright. In vain the drivers attempted to force them
onward. The largest and fiercest of the herd surrounded
the place where the first had halted, roaring,
pawing the ground, and driving their horns into the earth,
while the others approached and retreated, bellowing in
concert as if suddenly possessed by a legion of demons.
Foaming at the mouth, their eyes gleaming with fury,
and all their muscles strained into action, they seemed a
different race from the quiet, inoffensive animals, who
but a few minutes before had been seen lazily toiling up
the mountain-path. Those who were intimately acquainted
with their habits at once pronounced that blood
had recently been spilt in the road. With the assistance
of Mr. Mountford's negroes, the alarmed herd was at
length driven forward, but not until one of the drovers,
in leaping his horse over a log, at some distance from
the road, discovered the corpse of a man concealed
behind it, and partly covered with leaves. An exclamation
of surprise and horror announced this discovery,
and drew the other drovers to the spot, where Mr.
Mountford soon joined them. The body, which was
that of a young gentleman, was marked with several
wounds, which left little doubt that a murder had been
committed. However men may have been accustomed
to danger, or to scenes of violence, there is something in
the crime of murder which never fails to alarm and
shock them. Even where the injured party is a stranger,
and no particular circumstances occur, to awaken
special sympathy for him, or for those who may survive
to mourn his fate, the dreadful act itself, stripped of all
adventitious horrors, strikes a chill into the heart.
When such a scene is presented in the solitary wild,
where the gloom of the forest and the silence of the
desert are all around, and the quick breathing of the terrified
spectator is whispered back by the woodland echo,
a deeper shade of solemnity is thrown about the melancholy
catastrophe. The busy crowds, the cares and levities
of life, are not there, to call away the heart from the
indulgence of natural emotions; it has leisure to contemplate
undisturbed the cold image of death, and to reflect
on the atrocities of man. Fancy spreads her wings,
and looks abroad in search of the perpetrator and the
motive of the crime, and the absence of every trace which
might lead to discovery or explanation, involves the
dark transaction in the shadows of mystery. The
deceased seems to have been struck by some invisible
hand, and a similar blow may be impending over the
spectator, on whom the eye of the homicide may even
now rest, as he meditates some new violence in the concealment
of an adjacent thicket, or the gloom of a
neighboring cavern.

Such were the meditations of some of the party who
were collected around the body of the murdered stranger.
A consultation was immediately held, as to the
course which ought to be pursued, when it was arranged
that a party should remain with the corpse, while an
express was sent to the nearest settlement to apprize
the legal authorities of the outrage. Both these duties
were cheerfully undertaken by the drovers, with the
assistance of Mr. Mountford's servants. The latter gentleman
resumed his journey, and on reaching the bosom

of the valley, and learning that his road still lay through
an uninhabited wilderness for many miles, determined
to encamp here for the night. It was an inviting spot.
Though surrounded by mountains as savage and sterile
as the imagination can well conceive, the glen in which
the party rested was beautiful and fertile. The rich soil
was covered with a luxuriant growth of forest trees and
shrubbery. The sun-beams, which during the day had
been reflected from the bare rocks and silicious sands
of the mountain, afflicting the eye-sight of the travellers
by their intense brilliancy, or overcoming them with
excessive heat, were now intercepted by the tall summits
of the ridges lying towards the west. The foliage
was fresh and green, and a delightful coolness pervaded
the atmosphere. A wide clear rivulet, meandering
through the valley, imparted an agreeable moisture to
the air, and invited the thirsty herds to its brink, while
it afforded more than one luxury and convenience to the
travellers. By the margin of the stream, on a spot
trodden hard by the feet of successive travellers, who
had been accustomed to encamp here, and covered with
a short green sward, the cavalcade of carriers had
halted, and were unlading their pack-horses; and Mr.
Mountford, passing on, chose a similar place on the farther
side of the rivulet. The arrangements for encamping
were soon made. Two large tents were taken from
the wagons and pitched for the accommodation of Miss
Pendleton and her friends, on a plain of table-land near
the brink of the water-course. In the rear of these,
smaller tents, composed of coarser materials, were
arranged for the sable troop of dependants. A large
fire was kindled upon the ground, and the servants
began to prepare a substantial meal for the hungry
party.