USA > Massachusetts > Our western border : its life, combats, adventures, forays, massacres, captivities, scouts, red chiefs, pioneer women, one hundred years ago, containing the cream of all the rare old border chronicles > Part 69
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They were now quite sober. Their feet were unbound, but their arms were still securely tied. We marched them into the woods off the road, and having used them as Regulators were wont to use such delin- quents, we set fire to the cabin, gave all the skins and implements to the young Indian warrior, and proceeded, well pleased, towards the settlements.
OGILVIE'S ADVENTURE-ONE CONTRARY TO THE ABOVE.
Mr. Ogilvie, once well known in Virginia as a supporter of the God- winian philosophy, conceiving a vehement desire to see the western country, at that time newly settled, set off from Richmond for Lexing- ton, in Kentucky. It was in the month of October, after a most lonely and wearisome day's ride that, a little before sunset, he came to a small cabin on the road, and fearing he should find no other opportunity of procuring refreshment for himself and his jaded horse, he stopped and inquired if he could be accommodated for the night. An old woman, the only person he saw, civilly answering him in the affirmative, he gladly alighted, and going in to a tolerable fire, enjoyed the luxury of rest, while his hostess was discharging the duties of hostler and cook. In no long time, she set before him a supper of comfortable but homely fare, of which having liberally partaken, and given divers significant Aods, the old woman remarked, she " expected " he " chose bed," and pointing to one which stood in the corner of the room, immediately went into the yard a while to give him an opportunity of undressing.
Before he had been long in bed, and while he was congratulating
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himself on his good fortune, the latch of the door was drawn, and there entered a dark-looking man, of gigantic stature and form, with stiff, black hair, eyebrows and beard. He was apparently about eight and twenty, was dressed in a hunting shirt, which partly concealed a pair of dirty buckskin overalls, and he wore moccasins of the same material. Mr. Ogilvie thought he had never seen anything half so ferocious. As soon as this man entered the room, his mother, for so she proved to be, pointing to the bed, motioned him to make no noise; on which, with inaudible steps, he walked to the chimney, put up his gun on a rude rack provided for that and other arms, and sat softly down to the fire, then throwing a bright blaze around the room.
Our traveler, not liking the looks of the new comer and not caring to be teased by conversation, drew his head under the bed clothes, so that he could see what was passing without leaving his own face visible. The two soon entered into conversation, but in so low a voice that Mr. Ogil- vie could not distinguish what was said. His powers of attention were wrought up to the most painful pitch of intensity. At length the man, looking toward the bed, made some remark to his mother, to which Mr. Ogilvie heard her reply, "No, I hardly think he's asleep yet;" and they again conversed in a low voice as before. After a short interval, while the man sat with his feet stretched out towards the fire, on which he was intently gazing, he was heard to say :
" Don't you think he's asleep now ? "
" Stop," says she, " I'll go and see ; " and moving near the bed, un- der the pretext of taking something from a small table, she approached so near as to see the face of our traveler, whose eyes were, indeed, closed, but who was anything but asleep.
On her return to the fire-place, she said, " Yes, he's asleep now."
On this the mountaineer, rising from his stool, reached up to the rack, and taking down with his right hand an old greasy cutlass, walked with the same noiseless step towards the traveler's bed, and stretching out the other hand, at the moment that Mr. Ogilvie was about to implore his pity, took down a venison ham, which hung on the wall near the head of the bed, walked softly back to the fire and began to slice some pieces for his supper, and Mr. Ogilvie, who lay more dead than alive, and whose romantic fancy heightened the terrors of all he saw, had the unspeakable gratification to find that these kind-hearted children of the forest had been talking low, and that the hungry hunter, who had eaten nothing since morning, had forborne making a noise, lest they should in- terrupt the slumbers of their way-worn guest. The next day Mr. Ogilvie, who was an enthusiast in physiognomy, discovered remarkable benevolence in the features of the hunter, which, by the false and deceitful glare of the
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OBSTINATE COMBAT OF HIGGINS, THE RANGER.
fire light, had escaped him; and in his recital of this adventure, which furnished him with a favorite occasion of exercising his powers of de- clamation to great advantage in a matter of real life, he often declared that he had never taken a more refreshing night's rest, or made a more grateful repast, than he had done in this humble cabin.
OBSTINATE COMBAT OF HIGGINS, THE RANGER.
Thomas Higgins, a native Kentuckian, in the war of 1812, enlisted in a company of rangers, and was stationed, in the Summer of 1814, in a block-house or station eight miles south of Greenville, in what is now Bond county, Illinois. On the evening of the 30th of August, a small party of Indians having been seen prowling about the station, Lieuten- ant Journay with all his men, twelve only in number, sallied forth the next morning, just before daylight, in pursuit of them. They had not proceeded far on the border of the prairie before they were in an am- buscade of seventy or eighty savages. At the first fire the Lieutenant and three of his men were killed. Six fled to the fort under cover of the smoke, for the morning was sultry and the air being damp the smoke from the guns hung like a cloud over the scene ; but Higgins remained behind, to have "one more pull at the enemy " and avenge the death of his companions.
He sprang behind a small elm, scarcely sufficient to protect his body, when, the smoke partly rising, discovered to him a number of Indians, upon which he fired and shot down the foremost one. Concealed still by the smoke, Higgins reloaded, mounted his horse and turned to fly, when a voice, apparently from the grass, hailed him with: "Tom, you won't leave me, will you?" He turned immediately around and seeing a fellow soldier by the name of Burgess lying on the ground wounded and gasping for breath, replied : "No, I'll not leave you-come along." "I can't come," said Burgess; " my leg is all mashed to pieces." Higgins dismounted, and taking up his friend, whose ankle had been broken, was about to lift him on his horse, when the animal taking fright, darted off in an instant, and left them both behind. "This is too bad," said Higgins ; " but don't fear ; you hop off on your three legs, and I'll stay behind between you and the Indians and keep them off. Get into the tallest grass and crawl as near the ground as possible." Burgess did so and escaped.
The smoke which had hitherto concealed Higgins now cleared away, 41
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and he resolved, if possible, to retreat. To follow the track of Burgess was most expedient. It would, however, endanger his friend. He de- termined, therefore, to venture boldly forward, and, if discovered, to secure his own safety by the rapidity of his flight. On leaving a small thicket, in which he had sought refuge, he discovered a tall, portly sav- age near by, and two others in a direction between him and the fort. He paused for a moment and thought if he could separate and fight them singly, his case was not so desperate. He started, therefore, for a little rivulet near, but found one of his limbs failing him-it having been struck by a ball in the first encounter, of which, till now, he was scarcely conscious. The largest Indian pressed close upon him, and Higgins turned round two or three times in order to fire.
The Indian halted and danced about to prevent his taking aim. He saw it was unsafe to fire at random, and perceiving two others approach- ing, knew he must be overpowered in a moment, unless he could dis- pose of the forward Indian first. He resolved, therefore, to halt and receive his fire. The Indian raised his rifle, and Higgins, watching his eye, turned suddenly, as his finger pressed the trigger, and received the ball in his thigh. He fell, but rose immediately and ran. The fore- most Indian, now certain of his prey, loaded again, and with the other two pressed on. They overtook him-he fell again, and as he rose the whole three fired, and he received all their balls. He now fell and rose a third time; and the Indians, throwing away their guns, advanced upon him with spears and knives. As he presented his gun at one or the other, each fell back. At last the largest Indian, supposing his gun to be empty from his fire having been thus reserved, advanced boldly to the charge. Higgins fired and the savage fell.
He had now four bullets in his body-an empty gun in his hand- two Indians unharmed as yet before him, and a whole tribe but a few yards distant. Any other man would have despaired. Not so with him. He had slain the most dangerous of the three, and having little to fear from the others, began to load his rifle. They raised a savage whoop and rushed to the encounter. A bloody conflict now ensued. The Indians stabbed him in several places. Their spears, however, were but thin poles, hastily prepared, and bent whenever they struck a rib or a muscle. The wounds they made were not, therefore, deep, though numerous.
At last one of them threw his tomahawk. It struck him upon the cheek, severed his ear, laid bare his skull to the back of his head, and stretched him upon the prairie. The Indians again rushed on; but Higgins, recovering his self-possession, kept them off with his feet and hands. Grasping, at length, one of their spears, the Indian, in attempt-
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OBSTINATE COMBAT OF HIGGINS, THE RANGER.
ing to pull it from him, raised Higgins up, who, taking his rifle, dashed out the brains of the nearest savage. In doing so, however, it broke -the barrel only remaining in his hand. The other Indian, who had, heretofore, fought with caution, came now manfully into the battle. His character as a warrior was in jeopardy. To have fled from a man thus wounded and disarmed, or to have suffered his victim to escape, would have tarnished his fame forever. Uttering, therefore, a terrific yell, he rushed on and attempted to stab the exhausted ranger, but the latter warded off his blow with one hand and brandished his rifle- barrel with the other. The Indian was as yet unharmed, and, under ex- isting circumstances, by far the most powerful man. Higgins' courage, however, was unexhausted and inexhaustible. The savage, at last, be- gan to retreat from the glare of his untamed eye, to the spot where he dropped his rifle. Higgins knew that if he recovered that his own case was desperate; throwing, therefore, his rifle-barrel aside, and drawing his hunting knife, he rushed upon his foe. A desperate strife ensued -deep gashes were inflicted on both sides. Higgins, fatigued and ex- hausted by the loss of blood, was no longer a match for the savage. The latter succeeded in throwing his adversary from him, and went im- mediately in pursuit of his rifle. Higgins, at the same time, rose and sought for the gun of the other Indian. Both, therefore, bleeding and out of breath, were in search of arms to renew the combat.
The smoke had now passed away, and a large number of Indians were in view. Nothing, it would seem, could now save the gallant ranger. There was, however, an eye to pity and an arm to save-and that arm was a woman's! The little garrison had witnessed the whole combat. It consisted of but six men and one woman: that woman, however, was a host-a Mrs. Pursley. When she saw Higgins contend- ing, single-handed, with a whole tribe of savages, she urged the rangers to attempt his rescue. The rangers objected, as the Indians were ten to one. Mrs. Pursley, therefore, snatched a rifle from her husband's hand, and declaring that "so fine a fellow as Tom Higgins should not be lost for want of help," mounted a horse and sallied forth to his rescue. The men, unwilling to be outdone by a woman, followed at full gallop, reaching the spot where Higgins fainted and fell before the Indians came up, and while the savage with whom he had been engaged was looking for his rifle, his friends lifted the wounded ranger up, and throwing him across a horse before one of the party, reached the fort in safety.
Higgins was insensible for several days, and his life was preserved by continual care. His friends extracted two of the balls from his thigh ; two, however, yet remained, one of which gave him a good deal of pain.
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Hearing, afterwards, that a physician had settled within a day's ride of him, he determined to go and see him. The physician asked him fifty dollars for the operation. This Higgins flatly refused, saying it was more than a half-year's pension. On reaching home he found the ex- ercise of riding had made the ball discernible; he requested his wife, therefore, to hand him his razor. With her assistance he laid open his thigh until the edge of the razor touched the bullet, then, inserting his two thumbs into the gash, "he flirted it out," as he used to say, "with- out costing him a cent." The other ball yet remained; it gave him, however, but little pain, and he carried it with him to his grave. Hig- gins died in Fayette county, Illinois, a few years since. He was the most perfect specimen of a frontierman in his day, and was once assist- ant doorkeeper of the House of Representatives in Illinois. The facts above stated are familiar to many, to whom Higgins was personally known, and there is no doubt of their correctness.
COLTER'S FAMOUS RACE FOR LIFE.
On the arrival of the exploratory party of Lewis and Clark at the head waters of the Missouri, Colter, one of the guides, obtained per- mission for himself and another hunter by the name of Potts to remain awhile and hunt for beaver. Aware of the hostility of the Blackfoot Indians, one of whom had been killed by Lewis, they set their traps at night and took them up early in the morning, remaining concealed during the day.
They were examining their traps early one morning, in a creek which they were ascending in a canoe, when they suddenly heard a great noise resembling the tramp of animals; but they could not ascertain the fact, as the high, perpendicular banks on each side of the river im- peded their view. Colter immediately pronounced it to be occasioned by Indians, and advised an instant retreat, but was accused of cowardice by Potts, who insisted the noise was occasioned by buffaloes, and they proceeded on. In a.few minutes afterwards their doubts were removed by the appearance of about five or six hundred Indians on both sides of the creek, who beckoned them to come ashore. As retreat was now impossible, Colter turned the head of the canoe to the shore, and at the moment of its touching, an Indian seized the rifle belonging to Potts ; but Colter, who was a remarkably strong man, immediately re- took it and handed it to Potts, who remained in the canoe, and on re-
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COLTER'S FAMOUS RACE FOR LIFE.
ceiving it pushed off into the creek. He had scarcely quitted the shore when an arrow was shot at him, and he cried out, " Colter, I am wounded." Colter remonstrated with him on the folly of attempting to escape, and urged him to come ashore. Instead of complying he in- stantly leveled his rifle at an Indian and shot him dead on the spot. This conduct, situated as he was, may appear to have been an act of madness, but it was doubtless the effect of sudden but sound enough reasoning; for if taken alive he must have expected to have been tortured to death, according to the Indian custom, and in this respect the Indians in this region excelled all others in the ingenuity they dis- played in torturing their prisoners .* He was instantly pierced with arrows so numerous that, to use the language of Colter, " he was made a riddle of.'
They now seized Colter, stripped him entirely naked, and began to consult on the manner in which he should be put to death. They were first inclined to set him up as a mark to shoot at, but the chief interfered, and, seizing him by the shoulder, asked him if he could run fast. Colter, who had been some time among the Kee Katsa, or Crow Indians, had, in a considerable degree, acquired the Blackfoot language, and was also well acquainted with Indian customs. He knew that he had now to run for his life, with the dreadful odds of
* The Flathead Indians, who reside in Oregon, and the Blackfoot tribe, who hunt at the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains, are almost continually at war with each other. An English traveler, who remained a considerable time among the former, has given a description of the method of tor- turing their prisoners. A chief of the Blackfoot tribe having been taken captive in one of their wars, was condemned to death; and the Englishman repaired to camp to witness the frightful spectacle. The prisoner was fastened to a tree. The Flatheads, after heating an old gun-barrel red- hot, burnt with it, successively, his legs, thighs, stomach, cheeks and belly ; and then cut the flesh around his nails, which they tore out ; and afterwards cut off his fingers joint by joint. During this horrible torment the prisoner did not shrink in the least, nor testify the slightest emotion. Instead of crying for mercy and uttering groans, he endeavored to excite the barbarous ingenuity of his executioners by taunts and the most insulting reproaches. One of the Flatheads rushed upon him, and in an instant, with his knife, scooped out one of his eyes and clove his nose in two. But the poor fellow did not desist from his provocations. "I killed your brother," he cried. "I tore off the grey scalp of your father." The warrior to whom he spoke again rushed upon him and tore off his scalp, and was about to plunge a knife into his heart when the voice of his chief for- bade him.
With his naked skall, his cloven nose, and the blood streaming from the socket of his eye, the in- trepid Blackfoot offered a hideous spectacle, notwithstanding which, in this terrible condition, he continued to heap reproaches and outrageous insults upon his foes. " It was I," said he to the chief, " who took your wife prisoner ! We tore out her eyes and tongue! We treated her like a dog ! Forty of our young warriors "-He had not time to finish what he was going to say, for, at the mention of his wife, the fury of the chief broke through all bounds, and seizing his rifle he put an end at once to the insults which he, the prisoner, uttered, and the sufferings he endured. These cruelties were even surpassed by those that were exercised on the female prisoners ; and it must be owned that the Flathead women showed a more fiendish barbarity than the men. The details of the tortures which they inflicted are too horrible to be described, save with a pen dipped in blood.
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five or six hundred against him, and these armed Indians; he therefore cunningly replied that he was a very bad runner, although, in truth, he was considered by the hunters as remarkably swift.
The chief now commanded the party to remain stationary, and led Colter out on the prairie three or four hundred yards and released him, bidding him to save himself if he could. At that instant the war whoop sounded in the ears of poor Colter, who, urged with the hope of pre- serving life, ran with a speed at which he himself was surprised. He proceeded towards Jefferson's Fork, having to traverse a plain six miles in breadth, abounding with the prickly pear, on which he every instant was treading with his naked feet. He ran nearly half-way across the plain before he ventured to look over his shoulder, when he perceived that the Indians were very much scattered, and that he had gained ground to a considerable distance from the main body ; but one Indian, who carried a spear, was much before all the rest, and not more than a hundred yards from him.
A faint gleam of hope now cheered the heart of Colter; he derived confidence from the belief that escape was within the bounds of possi- bility, but that confidence was nearly fatal to him, for he exerted him- self to such a degree that the blood gushed from his nostrils, and soon almost covered the forepart of his body. He had now arrived within a mile of the river, when he distinctly heard the appalling sounds of footsteps behind him, and every instant expected to feel the spear of his pursuer. Again he turned his head and saw the savage not twenty yards from him. Determined, if possible, to avoid the expected blow, he suddenly stopped, turned around and spread out his arms. The In- dian, surprised at the suddenness of the action, and perhaps at the bloody appearance of Colter, also attempted to stop; but, exhausted with running, he fell while attempting to throw his spear, which stuck in the ground and broke in his hand. Colter instantly snatched up the pointed part, with which he pinned him to the earth, and then con- tinued his flight.
The foremost of the Indians, on arriving at the place, stopped until others came up to join them, and then gave a hideous yell. Every mo- ment of this time was improved by Colter, who, although fainting and exhausted, succeeded in gaining the skirting of the cotton-wood trees on the borders of the Fork, to which he ran and plunged into the river. Fortunately for him, a little below this place was an island, against the upper point of which a raft of drift timber had lodged; he dived under the raft, and, after several efforts, got his head above water, among the trunks of trees covered over with smaller wood to the depth of several feet. Scarcely had he secured himself when the Indians arrived on the
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AN INDIAN'S SAGACITY AT TRAILING.
river, screeching and yelling, as Colter expressed it, "like so many devils."
They were frequently on the raft during the day, and were seen through the chinks by Colter, who was congratulating himself on his escape, until the idea arose that they might set the raft on fire. In hor- rible suspense he remained until night, when, hearing no more from the Indians, he dived from under the raft and swam silently down the river to a considerable distance, when he landed and traveled all night. Although happy in having escaped from the Indians, his situation was still dreadful; he was completely naked, under a burning sun; the soles of his feet were filled with the thorns of the prickly pear; he was hun- gry and had no means of killing game, although he saw abundance around him, and was at a great distance from the nearest settlement. Almost any man but an American hunter would have despaired under such circumstances. The fortitude of Colter remained unshaken. After seven days' sore travel, during which he had no other sustenance than the root known by naturalists under the name of psoralea escu- lenta, he at length arrived in safety at Lisa's Fort, on the Big Horn branch of the Roche Jaune or Yellow Stone river.
AN INDIAN'S SAGACITY AT TRAILING.
Heckewelder, in his Historical Account of the Indians, when speak- ing of their manner of surprising their enemies, relates a striking anec- dote, by way of exemplification of the Indian's sagacity as well as ve- racity : "In the beginning," says he, "of the Summer of 1755, a most atrocious murder was unexpectedly committed by a party of Indians on fourteen white settlers, within five or six miles of Shamokin, Pa. The surviving whites, in their rage, determined to take their revenge by murdering a Delaware Indian who happened to be in those parts, and was far from thinking himself in danger. He was a great friend to the whites, was loved and esteemed by them, and in testimony of their re- gard, had received from them the name of Luke Holland, by which he . was generally known. The Indian told the enraged settlers that the Dela- wares were not in any manner concerned in it, and that it was the act of some wicked Mingoes or Iroquois, whose custom it was to involve other nations in wars with each other by clandestinely committing mur- ders, so that they might be laid to the charge of others than themselves.
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But all his representations were vain; he could not convince exasperated men whose minds were fully bent upon revenge.
"At last, he offered that if they would give him a party to accompany him, he would go with them in quest of the murderers, and was sure he could discover them by the prints of their feet and other marks well known to him, by which he would convince them that the real perpe- trators of the crime belonged to the Six Nations. His proposal was accepted; he marched at the head of a party of whites, and led them into the tracks. They soon found themselves in the most rocky parts of the mountain, where not one of those who accompanied him was able to discover a single track, nor would they believe that ever a man had trodden on this ground, as they had to jump over a number of crevices between the rocks, and in some instances to crawl over them. Now they began to believe that the Indian had led them across those rugged mountains in order to give the enemy time to escape, and threatened him with instant death the moment they should be fully con- vinced of the fraud. The Indian, true to his promise, would take pains to make them perceive that an enemy had passed along the places through which he was leading them; here he would show them that the moss on the rock had been trodden down by the weight of a human foot; there that it had been torn and dragged forward from its place: further, he would point out to them that pebbles or small stones on the rocks had been removed from their beds by the foot hitting against them; that dry sticks, by being trodden upon, were broken, and even that, in a particular place, an Indian's blanket had dragged over the rocks and removed or loosened the leaves lying there, so that they lay no more flat, as in other places; all which the Indian could perceive as he walked along, without ever stopping.
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