USA > Kentucky > The story of Kentucky > Part 3
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Three fat turkeys hung suspended before the fire, with a pan under each to catch the drippings, which Jemima dipped up from time to time and poured over the roasting fowls. " What's that. mother? " she suddenly exclaimed, springing up with a look of alarm. "Didn't you hear some one scream ? "
"I heard a gun - Colonel Campbell's, I reckon. He's jest gone across the river with two boys." But all hands went out to look. As they stood gazing across the river they saw Colonel Campbell rush down to the landing. spring into his boat and row across. He came up the bank much excited. Two Indians had shot at him, he said, and the two boys who had no guns were doubtless killed.
As there were ten or twelve men across the river hunting, this report created great excitement. Colonel Boone was called, and collecting a large party of men, he crossed the river to search for the missing boys. The party did not return until dark, and had seen neither the boys nor Indians. All
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the hunters returned in due season, and for four days the search was continued. At last they found one of the boys; he had been killed and scalped - the other was never heard of again.
Jemima Boone, who was only fourteen, was . a warm admirer of Betsey Calloway, who was sixteen. With her black eyes, her rich complexion and bright ways, Betsey had many admirers besides Jemima. She was so clever ! No one could dress -or rather undress -a turkey so deftly. And her cotton gown, made by her own hands, had such a jaunty air.
From all we have heard of Betsey, it is evident she understood and felt the real dignity of life - of even a mere girl's life. She knew little enough of geography and still less of arithmetic; possibly she thought the world was flat, and not more than forty-five miles square, at that. But for all this Betsey was as quick at detecting genuine goodness under a homely garb, and shallowness and pretense beneath a fair outside, as the most scholarly girl- graduate of the present day; perhaps quicker. Hence she favored, among all her numerous ad- mirers, the serious, sensible Samuel Henderson, a brother of the Colonel.
In blackberry time, the three girls, Jemima. Betsey and her sister Fanny, often strolled along the edge of the woods, or by the river side, gather-
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ing berries. True, there might be Indians in the woods ; it was their crafty way to steal upon their victims when least expected. Indeed a man had been murdered in just that way at Lee's Station only two months ago. But Betsey was not afraid of Indians; not she! and Jemima and Fanny seldom thought of them, especially when every- thing was so beautiful.
One lovely morning when all the men were off hunting, Jemima said to her two girl friends. " There's one boat left ; let's have a nice row on the river." Their mothers did not object, and the girls set off in high glee. They rowed up and down ; they splashed the water to see how far the ripples would go ; they sang old songs from over the seas, all unconscious of the fierce eyes watching them from the cane-brake near the landing.
At noon thev turned toward home. As they were about to land the bushes began to rustle, and suddenly two wicked-looking savages rushed out, seized their boat and dragged it upon the shore. while three others stood ready to shoot them should they attempt to escape. The girls began to scream and Betsey fought bravely with her oar, but all in vain. They were hurried away through the woods, they knew not to what horrible fate.
Betsey, ever fertile in resources, began to mark their way by breaking the bushes, until one of the
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Indians threatened her with his tomahawk, when she tore off bits of her dress and scattered along the way. The two younger girls only sobbed, and said their prayers and tried to keep pace with their cruel captors. We can imagine the despair which these poor girls felt as they hastened through the interminable forest. Could it be only a few min- utes ago, they thought to themselves, in the sombre religious strain of those sombre days, that they were laughing and singing so gaily on the spark- ling waters, blissfully unconscious of the immortal souls within them, now in such imminent peril of the Judgment ?
When Daniel Boone and the rest of the hunters returned from the hunt they found the fort in a great commotion ; Mrs. Boone and Mrs. Calloway were weeping for their lost ones, and every one was thinking his turn might come next. Preparations for the pursuit were made at once. Every man in the fort desired to go, but Colonel Boone would have only eight. In an expedition where quick- ness and silence were indispensable it would not do to take too many; for, as soon as the Indians found themselves hunted down. they would scalp their captives and take to the woods. All acknowl- edged the truth of this, and looked around in eager expectancy to see who were most likely to be chosen for such delicate duty.
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In the pause Samuel Henderson stepped forward and said quietly but with an air of determination, " Whoever goes or stays, I am going."
Boone looked at him, but said nothing. Then two other young men, John Holder and Flanders Calloway, came out boldly and declared they at all hazards, would go, too. Boone did not talk much, but perhaps saw all the more for that; and he probably reflected that the expedition would lose nothing by enlisting these brave young fellows whose hearts were in the enterprise. At any rate, they were included in the party. Colonel Calloway went, of course, and also Colonel Floyd -from whose pen we have by far the most graphic account that has been preserved.
They travelled all that night and the following day, finding now and then a bit of muslin or a broken switch, or the print of Betsey's shoe in the buffalo path which the Indians sometimes travelled. Betsey had refused to change her shoes for mocca- sins as they had forced the other girls to do. At last they saw a gentle smoke curling in the air; the captors had kindled a fire to cook some buf- falo meat. Boone took the lead, motioning to the others to keep utter silence.
They crept cautiously forward, screening them- selves behind a clump of bushes. The three girls were there, alive, but sadly worn with fatigue
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and distress. The two younger girls lay sobbing with their heads on Betsey's lap. She was trying to comfort them, though there could have been but little hope in her own heart. She had a red handkerchief tied over her head, having probably lost her bonnet along the way. One of the party. seeing only the red kerchief and the round, sun- browned cheek, lifted his gun and was about to administer a crushing blow upon poor Betsey's de- fenseless head, when Henderson caught his hand. with such a look of mingled fury and horror as the blundering hunter must have remembered for many a day.
Just as they were taking aim the Indians saw them and sprang away, leaving all their knives, war-clubs and tomahawks behind them. Four of the kidnapers were shot, only one escaping to tell the tale.
But who can describe the joy of the three forlorn captives at this unexpected deliverance from death. or from a life worse than death! All the bright- ness and beauty came back to the world. And on their return the thirty miles they had traversed seemed scarcely more than ten.
Nothing is told us of that homeward journey. but we can well believe that the elders kindly trudged along in front. or fell to the rear, and gave the three youthful couples a fair chance for sym-
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pathetic confidences ; for in due season came three merry weddings attended with all the pomp and circumstance possible in a howling wilderness. And young Cabell derived more pleasure from the festivities than he had from many a stately. Virginia marriage-feast.
In the midsummer days - after the marriage of Samuel Henderson and Elizabeth Calloway, by Squire Boone (the brother of Daniel, and a sort of amateur Baptist preacher) - George Rogers Clarke returned from Virginia, bringing with him five hundred pounds of powder. This he had extorted from the Legislature for the defence of Kentucky; for by this time the forests were full of Indians, seeking Yankee scalps, for which the British had offered rewards.
" I told the Virginia folks," said Clarke, " that Kentucky would wait a reasonable length of time and then look elsewhere for assistance. I told them that a country that was not worth defending was not worth having."
France had planted a chain of colonies along the Mississippi River from the lakes to the gulf; Spain hoped to achieve the Mississippi Valley. Either of these powers would gladly have taken Kentucky under her wing. But, though neither Congress nor Virginia took any notice of her appeals, except to say what she should not do,
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Kentucky determined to rely upon herself. She decided to stand alone; to fight her own battles; to make her own laws. All the settlers were now gathered into the two fortified stations of Boones- boro' and Harrodsburg. Many had fled; some, as Colonel Floyd warned them, "to die on the way, like cowards."
Cabell, who by the advice of his father, had pur- chased a thousand acres of land, decided to remain in Kentucky. As the Virginia laws at that time gave all the landed estate to the oldest son, it was considered a lucky thing that Edmund had such a knack at providing for himself. He deemed it his duty to remain on "his property," and he was not ill-pleased with his lot. He had become greatly attached to Boone, and the two Hendersons and Colonel Floyd were men of intelligence and refine- ment. Clarke was now at Harrodsburg; so was Logan, an attractive, brave and resolute man ; he had maintained a station of his own until anxiety for the safety of his family induced him to remove them to Harrod's Station. As for Kenton, he was wherever the fighting was thickest.
But amongst these pioncers there were also many worthless vagabonds whose coarseness and vulgarity were hard to endure. There was Tuggs. for instance ; he and Cabell had mutually shunned each other since their first encounter. To do
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Cuibell justice, it must be admitted that he had exerted himself to be civil whenever they met. vine morning as Cabell was cleaning his rifle, he ww Tuggs coming rather hurriedly toward the He looked so pale and excited that Cabell Hed out, " Anything wrong, Tuggs?"
" A rattlesnake bit me," he panted, "jest es I was goin' to shoot the finest buck ever you seed."
"Where? " exclaimed Cabell eagerly.
" Jest down back o' the woods yander. If you barry you'll git one, certain. There's a hull drove uv 'em."
Deer were now exceedingly scarce around the fort. Cabell looked at Tuggs earnestly. "You look pale, Tuggs ; can't I do anything for you ?" "No; I know what 'o do fur it. You hurry down thar or you'll lose that thar deer."
Could it be that [uggs was going to De, that he was so un- sually gracious ? Had 'ne poison already be- jun to take effect ? Cabell started off at a quick pace, but could
THE TORTURE POST.
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not refrain from glancing back. Tuggs was still gazing after him as if more concerned for the suc- cess of the deer-killing than for the cure of his dangerous wound.
Cabell hurried round the woods, but saw no deer. While stealing lightly among the trees, glancing keenly about for signs of game, he heard a slight noise behind him, and suddenly two Indians sprang out of the bushes and covered him with their guns. He sprang at once behind a tree, and levelling his gun, first at one and then the other foeman, for a few minutes held them at bay. He had just made up his mind to shoot one and knock down the other when suddenly he was seized from behind by two more who had stolen upon him in the rear. His hands were quickly bound and he was dragged rapidly through the woods. Tuggs had betrayed him.
When they had gone about ten miles they came upon four horses grazing in an open space. Cabell's captors fastened a long rope around his waist; then they mounted and dragged him after them by the halter, laughing at the ludicrousness of his en- forced march. As they rode quite rapidly Cabell was compelled to run with all his might: leaping great stones, rushing through streams, torn by brambles, panting loudly, thinking every moment to fall and be shot, but still running.
At last they halted ; Cabell sank down ex-
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Atusted. The Indians gave him food and water and then began to question him in broken English, tilling him " foolish boy " for not calling aloud for his friends at the fort.
"Do you take me for a squaw?" he asked, glar- ing at them. He knew too well the fate reserved for him : to be tortured for their amusement until utterly wearied and then to be burned at the stake. " Kill me now," he demanded. " I'll not be dragged another step."
They understood his looks and gestures better than his words. After a short powwowing among them Cabell was placed on the horse of the young- est, who ran alongside, holding the halter. They went on as rapidly as before for ten or twelve miles further; then the young Indian began to pant. Cabell, touched by his seeming self-sacrifice, offered to dismount and take his turn at running. The Indian looked at him suspiciously, but as- wented, and he was allowed to run all that day. At night he was bound tightly down to the ground. His feet were fastened to stakes and his arms pin- ioned to a stout stick placed across his breast.
Escape was impossible. All through that long night, as he looked up at the moon and stars and wondered that they looked the same, he sought comfort, or at least forgetfulness, in the precious promises of a loving, omnipotent Father. Did he
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lose faith in that love? O, no! He only repeated : " He that believeth . . . hath everlasting life." Hc had now arrived at that dreadful door before which every one must stand; through which no one need pass but once. If it should be his fate to go now - it was well. Nevertheless there is always in the heart of the brave man the wish to live.
Another day's travel brought the party in sight of an Indian village. Here they halted and gave vent to the shrill scalp-halloo. A crowd came tear- ing out with shrieks and yells to meet them. Cabell was stripped, a long double line was quickly formed. and through this he ran, naked, and beaten with clubs and thorny switches. His generosity in the matter of walking did not. as he had hoped it might, make any difference in his treatment.
Fortunately for Cabell, just as he was nearing the goal there was another scalp-halloo ; and hastily fastening him to a stake with stout thongs of buf- falo hide, the whole party rushed off with fierce yells of delight. The whole afternoon was devoted to the torture of these new prisoners, who bore the cruelties with a fortitude unsurpassed by even the Christian martyrs. " And thousands have suffered and died like this," thought Cabell, who was forced to witness the terrible scene. At length they ceased to shrink from the fire brands and appeared to be praying. and at last fell forward insensible.
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One of the prisoners - held in reserve, possibly, for another occasion - was bound to a small tree and left for the night. They seemed to have for- gotten Cabell, whose air of impenetrable calm con- cealed a depth of horror unfathomable. He was cold and hungry, but these indeed seemed minor afflictions compared with those he had been forced to witness.
As soon as it was dusk Cabell began to work at the ropes with which he was bound. After a few desperate tugs, to his great joy the cords slipped over his wrists ; his hands were free. By midnight all the knots were untied.
Wrapping a blanket about him he stepped lightly over the sleeping guard, gathered up a knife, two guns and a corn-pouch ; then he cut the cords of the other prisoner. Silently and cautiously the two crept into the woods and made off as fast as their feet would carry them. As Cabell was now an ex- perienced woodsman they had no trouble in find- ing their way. From the distance and direction he had come from Boone's Station, Cabell knew they could not be far from Point Pleasant, and accordingly bent his steps in that direction.
The fugitives ran all that night and until noon next day: then, completely exhausted, they hid themselves in a thicket and slept until night. The abundance of wild grapes in the woods, and the
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parched corn in the pouch, kept them from starv. ing. At sunset next day they arrived at the Point Pleasant settlement in rather a pitiable condition. the costume of both including but one suit. Eliot. Cabell's companion, had generously divided his own with his deliverer.
Eliot proved to be a great talker as well as a skillful Indian fighter. He lived at Fort Wheeling. . he said, where they had been annoyed for a long while by the depredations of various tribes, notably the Mingoes. In endeavoring to recover some stolen horses, a small party of settlers had succeeded in killing a Mingo chief and several of his war- riors. Not being expert woodsmen they had lost their way in the wilderness; there they were soon captured. The cruelties Cabell had witnessed were in retaliation for the loss of their slain warriors.
When Cabell heard all of his comrade's story he could not wholly condemn the Indians. The whites, too, had been unnecessarily cruel. They had come to consider the Indian as fair game ; they had hunted him down as remorselessly as though he were a wild beast. Even the remembrance of his sufferings could not shut out from Cabell's mind the logical results of continued injustice upon a barbaric nature.
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CHAPTER III.
THE COUNTY OF KENTUCKY.
T HOUGH now fairly on his way home, Cabell hesitated to present himself before his Georg: Rogers Clark* high-toned relatives in his dilapidated garb. He drew for himself a harrowing picture of his coming in from the woods - tattered, beggarly, hungry and way-worn. In fancy he heard the derisive mirth with which the gay company usually assembled beneath his father's expansive roof greeted the returning prodigal. And the Lady Augusta! she, too, perhaps, would be there, more lovely and more impertinent than ever, a wit- ness of this forlorn home-coming. No; another such wound as that he would not risk.
He accompanied Eliot to Wheeling. Here he lingered for some weeks, working to procure such clothes as its meagre market afforded. Yet yearn-
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ing thoughts of his own people, so near at hand, stirred within him. It was a long battle, but affec- tion at last won the victory over pride. The middle of November found him on his way home.
Eliot took him in his canoe as far as Fort Pitt .; but Cabell did not tarry there long. The call " To arms! " had swept away his few friends at that place. Even " Old Monmouth " had disappeared. With a last heroic effort he had enlisted in the army of freedom. It is easy to enlist, but once a soldier there is no going back ; and in due time Cabell's old friend descended into history as one of the units in the official report of the battle of Long Island - "one thousand lost."
Cabell reached his old Virginia home the second week in December. Instead of the anticipated brilliant assembly and the cold reception, he found a serious family group dressed in homespun cloth- ing but little better than his own. Better still, he found a welcome as warm as he could wish. The
old order of things was completely changed. When Cabell left home nothing was used in the house that had not come from England. Now indulgence in London luxuries was deemed disgraceful. To- bacco sheds were turned into corn-cribs ; all pro- visions that could be spared were sent to the American army. Many of the slaves had joined the British and it was now the fashion to work.
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We may well feel serious when we say good-by to our friends and go away for an extended absence. We are certain to find them strangers on our return. Cabell's brothers were both officers in the militia - fine, manly fellows, Edmund thought them, sur- prised at his feeling of affectionate pride. They seemed equally pleased with him, and were eagerly interested in all his adventures. He was now an extensive land-owner and, as in England only aris- tocrats . possessed real estate, he was naturally regarded as a person of importance.
The whole family united in giving him a minute account of the war. Seven Massachusetts men had been shot down on Lexington Green while engaged in a peaceable militia drill. Was that to be borne ? Then came the battle of Bunker Hill; the capture of Ticonderoga and of Crown Point; the king's re- fusal of the humble petition of the colonies; the appointment of George Washington, a Virginian whom they all knew, as commander-in-chief of the New England army (and he had justified Mr. Adams' high estimate of him, they said, by keeping the British penned up in Boston all winter) ; - then came the glorious victory at Charlestown, followed by that dreadful defeat on Long Island; and then the terrible winter, when the depressed and retreat- ing army left a trail of bloody footprints on the frozen ground, as they fell back before the well-
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provisioned British army. The mercenary rich, said Cabell's narrators, were daily going over to the enemy - preferring the sacrifice of their country to the loss of a few dollars.
His father, Colonel Cabell, was not especially pleased at having to pay so much for the privilege of selling his tobacco in England, yet he did not think the demands of the king unreasonable. England ought to be repaid the seven million dol- lars which the seven years war with the French and Indians had taken out of her treasury. Still, if the British ministry wanted the debt paid, they were making a great mistake in tying the colonies' hands rather than giving them a better chance to make the money. William Pitt, America's best friend. ' had declared that the colonists had no right to make even a nail except by permission of England ; and Lord Dartmouth would have hung for piracy any one of them who dared to print a Bible. New England, of course, being dependent on her com- merce and manufacture, suffered most. When the port of Boston was closed, then even the independ- ent Virginia land-owner began to see that there was little hope of comfortable relations between the two countries so long as the colonies were ruled by a Parliament that neither knew nor cared anything about their rights or needs.
The one thing which Colonel Cabell resented
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with all his might, was the continued importation of convicts to America to serve out their sentence and then be turned loose on the country -as if America were a penal colony. " A strange father, indeed." he declared, "would he be who would empty the deadly refuse of his own land upon that
AMBUSHED.
of his children." Yet no one thought of making the king responsible for the persecutions of his cruel ministry, urged on by the hated Lord Dart- mouth. That the English people sympathized with their ill-used American cousins, they well knew.
As for Lord Dunmore, Colonel Cabell thought .
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none the less of him that he had done his duty like a brave and spirited man and remained to harass and retard the rebels all he could. It would have suited these same rebels much better if Lord Dun- more had run away as had some of the other royal governors.
In the two weeks of his visit, Edmund obtained a thorough view of the situation from his father's standpoint. He politely declined his brother's offer of a lieutenancy in the militia company of which he was colonel ; spending the most of his time with his mother and her young lady visitors, who were sewing and knitting for the soldiers.
Edmund had gained much in manliness as well as spiritual grace from the difficulties and hardships of his frontier experience; but he had lost some- what, too. He had been so long accustomed to the freedom of the forest that even the ordinary forms of civilized life had become irksome to him. His youthful awkwardness had merged into an austere dignity and reserve calculated to impress even his own family with great expectations of future dis- tinction. It was scarcely a surprise to them when he announced his intention of joining the disheart- ened little band on the banks of the Delaware : though it seemed strange that the son of a wealthy planter should be willing to accept the humble position of a private soldier.
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That this younger son of his old friend made a favorable impression on General Washington we infer from the fact that Edmund Cabell was in- cluded in the two thousand four hundred "picked men," who, three days later, crossed the Delaware in a driving storm, their boats in imminent peril on account of the floating ice, and fell upon the carousing Hessians at Trenton, capturing one thou- sand men. It was Christmas night, and so cold that two of the men were frozen to death. This, with the two killed in the fight, was the extent of the loss. A brave beginning, Sergeant Cabell.
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