[Illustration: "You were never meant for the frontier."]
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A VIRGINIA SCOUT
By HUGH PENDEXTER
Author of Kings of the Missouri, Etc.
Frontispiece by D. C. Hutchison
INDIANAPOLIS THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY PUBLISHERS
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Copyright 1920 The Ridgway Company
Copyright 1922 The Bobbs-Merrill Company
Printed in the United States of America
PRESS OF BRAUNWORTH & CO. BOOK MANUFACTURERS BROOKLYN, N. Y.
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To Faunce Pendexter
My Son and Best of Seven-Year-Old Scouts This Story Is Lovingly Dedicated
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE I. Three Travelers 1 II Indian-Haters 23 III Over the Mountains 55 IV I Report to My Superiors 81 V Love Comes a Cropper 106 VI The Pack-Horse-Man's Medicine 133 VII Lost Sister 167 VIII In Abb's Valley 193 IX Dale Escapes 229 X Our Medicine Grows Stronger 265 XI Back to the Blue Wall 289 XII The Shadows Vanish 311 XIII Peace Comes to the Clearing 352
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A Virginia Scout
CHAPTER I
THREE TRAVELERS
It was good to rest in the seclusion of my hollow sycamore. It was pleasant to know that in the early morning my horse would soon cover the four miles separating me from the soil of Virginia. As a surveyor, and now as a messenger between Fort Pitt and His Lordship, the Earl of Dunmore, our royal governor, I had utilized this unique shelter more than once when breaking my journey at the junction of the Monongahela and the Cheat.
I had come to look upon it with something of affection. It was one of my wilderness homes. It was roughly circular and a good eight feet in diameter, and never yet had I been disturbed while occupying it.
During the night I heard the diabolic screech of a loon somewhere down the river, while closer by rose the pathetic song of the whippoorwill. Strange contrasts and each very welcome in my ears. I was awake with the first rays of the sun mottling the bark and mold before the low entrance to my retreat. The rippling melody of a mocking-bird deluged the thicket. Honey-bees hovered and buzzed about my tree, perhaps investigating it with the idea of moving in and using it for a storehouse. The Indians called them the "white man's flies," and believed they heralded the coming of permanent settlements. I hoped the augury was a true one, but there were times when I doubted.
Table of contents (by pages)
- 1: A Virginia Scout by Hugh Pendexter
- 2: In killing his son and young Russell
- 3: With similar bloody murders being perpetrated at Muddy Creek
- 4: We of the border always had had the Indian trouble
- 5: The buzzards ever circling nearer
- 6: His killer struck him down from behind
- 7: Then Cornstalk made his last visit
- 8: That's only because o' what I seen at Keeney's Knob
- 9: I had selected a spot on top of a ridge
- 10: And a scout for Virginia traveling toward the Greenbriar
- 11: Seen any Injun signs on the way
- 12: Ike Crabtree would 'a' liked to been in this fun
- 13: As for that old cuss of a Bald Eagle
- 14: These flaps were decorated with crude beadwork
- 15: This sentiment of the frontier was shown when Henry Judah
- 16: And providing the Shawnees could bring a large force
- 17: The Widow McCabe contributed a scanty stock of tea
- 18: Moulton turned and ran toward the woods again
- 19: A Shawnee sculp or I'm a flying squirrel
- 20: Kirst was too grotesque to laugh at
- 21: He knows Oconostota has a long memory
- 22: Who waited on Crabtree and heaped his plate with food
- 23: Instantly the fellows outside dropped behind stumps
- 24: Crabtree loved to kill Indians
- 25: Uncle Dick was still at the fireplace
- 26: And his warning recalled the Grisdols to my mind
- 27: Controlling an impulse to close in I reloaded
- 28: Trailing his double barrel rifle
- 29: And within half a mile or less of the Grisdol cabin
- 30: Crowding Cousin deep into the bushes
- 31: The iron kettle rattled to the ground
- 32: They believed the Injuns meant it
- 33: Near this hamlet lived Colonel Andrew Lewis
- 34: His face as immovable as any Shawnee chief's
- 35: I's gwine to fotch him in two shakes of a houn' dawg's tail
- 36: Nor was Governor Dunmore given to set forms
- 37: Gaily exclaimed His Excellency
- 38: That's something to ask of the House of Burgesses
- 39: There is plenty of powder at Williamsburg
- 40: Croghan repudiates the acts of Connolly
- 41: Colonel Lewis indulged in a frosty smile
- 42: That Doctor Connolly has been indiscreet
- 43: Or before Colonel Lewis and Morris had their conversation
- 44: I could even feel much at ease in meeting Ericus Dale
- 45: It's Dunmore and the border scum who want war
- 46: Pennsylvania has the right idea
- 47: I've taken a strong liking to Ward
- 48: I might have accepted her verdict as a just sentence
- 49: I never was that in Williamsburg
- 50: If it couldn't be Patsy Dale it could be no one
- 51: The squaw had laughed when I told the size I wanted
- 52: Patsy Dale was admired by many men
- 53: And I shook the reins and thundered up the road to Staunton
- 54: Dey gwine to slam right ag'in' 'em
- 55: And therein I found hope for Patsy Dale
- 56: The Greenwoods have no powder to spare
- 57: Crabtree kills friendly Indians
- 58: Taking the moccasin from my shirt
- 59: She stared at the moccasin in bewilderment
- 60: We don't go for to kill every Injun we see
- 61: A few rods away he halted and called out Dale
- 62: What call had Ward to say he was a fool
- 63: Entering the cabins close to the fort
- 64: Do the Shawnees fire guns at the Pack Horse Man
- 65: Soon a soft pattering of moccasins
- 66: The ancient friend of the Shawnees and Mingos
- 67: Nothing of my vague suspicions concerning John Ward
- 68: There should be no need of belts
- 69: When all these women were new to the frontier
- 70: What about his influence over the Indians
- 71: I honestly believe the Shawnees are playing a game
- 72: He follered 'em quite some considerable
- 73: Cried the squaw in excellent English
- 74: And he glared at the warrior seated at the foot of the tree
- 75: After a short pause he said The Shawnees are not driven
- 76: When we drew near the creek he began to look about him
- 77: Moulton aside and briefly explained his great sorrow
- 78: But Ward comes back to settlements
- 79: We knew scouts were ranging up the Clinch and Holston
- 80: What if Ward were the creature Cousin pictured him
- 81: The tall man with the long black beard was Granville
- 82: Dicks's prob'ly sleepin' in the Granville cabin
- 83: Granville and the two children dropped
- 84: A voice called from the Granville cabin
- 85: He was scowling savagely through his peephole
- 86: Patricia Dale was walking composedly toward her father
- 87: I meant Granville and his sister
- 88: Wish he had smoothbores an' a few pounds o' shot
- 89: Through the opening he slowly pushed the gourd
- 90: The bar of sunlight had vanished
- 91: In our favor was the Granville cabin
- 92: From the ridge soared a burning arrow
- 93: Then it was easy to make the Granville cabin
- 94: On the right rose ridge after ridge of the Alleghanies
- 95: And informed me Red Arrow is a Shawnee warrior
- 96: Patricia glanced in our direction
- 97: Sententiously began Black Hoof
- 98: You will do as Catahecassa says
- 99: And Black Hoof pushed her back
- 100: Then came the warriors and Ward
- 101: And informed her Catahecassa ordered his men to burn you
- 102: The Shawnees were impatient to try their new cannon
- 103: The prisoners belong to the Shawnees
- 104: I did comprehend the inconceivable
- 105: Suddenly Black Hoof began shivering
- 106: Now the opening was filled with the Shawnees
- 107: The screaming defiance of young Cousin
- 108: And I asked him to relieve me of the cords and saplings
- 109: Some twenty five miles above Chillicothe
- 110: She must keep close to her manito
- 111: Cornstalk had watched her closely
- 112: Cornstalk asked How long before you roast this white man
- 113: Spending all his time in a secret conference with Cornstalk
- 114: In my excitement I ran to where Ellinipsico stood
- 115: Ellinipsico was calling on his men to follow him
- 116: I did not try to interfere with his maneuver
- 117: The trip down the Scioto had its danger thrills
- 118: The moccasins had to be mended
- 119: So we took the kettle and left a stout
- 120: Returning and securing the kettle
- 121: She fell asleep with her back against a black walnut
- 122: The hunting shirt spread across my chest
- 123: Scattered among these tall ones were white and yellow oaks
- 124: Were flocking to the Great Levels of the Greenbriar
- 125: Joining Colonel Charles Lewis at the Elk
- 126: I came upon a scout named Nooney
- 127: Ericus Dale was lucky to die without being tortured
- 128: To think that Kirst got way up there
- 129: The letter was from Governor Dunmore
- 130: The Kanawha was the gate to Augusta
- 131: That's mighty comfortin' to figger on
- 132: With a blanket o' Shawnee pow wow
- 133: Hughey and Mooney halted and returned the fire
- 134: Mooney was the first to reach Colonel Lewis
- 135: He led Augusta and Botetourt men
- 136: Cousin drew up his leg to kick free
- 137: It was Cornstalk who was holding them to the bloody work
- 138: Not even excepting the battle of Bushy Run
- 139: The case of such as Collet yes
- 140: We could capture the ridge but
- 141: Then ordered Captains Isaac Shelby
- 142: About five miles from Chillicothe