Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters Part 9

They stepped into the timber, and fought. It was nip and tuck. No friends were at hand. But Simon was still too young; down he went, under the rain of blows, and Leitchman, taunting him with the loss of his sweetheart, proceeded to "give him the boots."

Simon lay and took it, saying no word. His mind was active. He noted his enemy's long hair, reaching to the waist--a fashion among the border beaux. An idea occurred to him. He grasped one of the piston-like legs and sank his teeth into it. Yelling, Leitchman dragged him and sought to get free. Down he tumbled, also, tripped in his efforts. Simon grabbed at his hair, wound it around the trunk of a small sapling, and had him!

He saw red, did Simon; a moment more, and the man was gasping as if dying. This was more than bargained for. Horrified, Simon plunged into the wilderness, just as he was. He was a poor boy, a hard worker on the Kenton farm, and had not learned even to read or write; now he thought himself a murderer; he changed his name to Butler and the forests swallowed him.

In those days there was always hunting and exploring and Indian-fighting to occupy the wanderer. Anybody accustomed to a rifle could be of use in opening new country. He speedily fell in with another wanderer, driving a pack-horse. They lived like Indians in the Alleghany Mountains region of southwestern Pennsylvania.

Two years pa.s.sed. In March, 1773, Simon Butler, aged eighteen, was camped with two other hunters, named Strader and Yager, beside the Great Kanawha River of northwestern West Virginia. They were trappers as well as hunters: white Indians who traded their furs in at Fort Pitt.

This day Indians attacked the camp; Yager toppled over, dead; and when Simon and his older comrade, Strader, managed to gain the highway of the Ohio River, westward, they were nearly dead, too, from starvation.

Simon soon became a scout. He achieved fame as a spy against the Indians. From Fort Pitt he and another Simon--Simon Girty--employed by the military government of Virginia traversed the forests far and near, watching the movements of the Indians. Simon Girty deserted to the Shawnees, during the Revolution, and was a cruel enemy to all his former fellow-Americans; but Simon Butler remained true blue.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Simon Kenton in trouble. (From an Old Print)]

When in the fall of 1774 he entered Kentucky the lovely, he had reached full stature. Six feet one inch he measured, in his stockinged feet--a real Long Hunter; weighed one hundred and ninety pounds, and could spare not an ounce; was the light-haired, blue-eyed, gentle-mannered, laughing type of fighter, with a great good-nature and a single-track, simple mind; but when he was desperate or angered his blue eyes blazed and his strength was prodigious.

So, at nineteen, Simon Butler had turned out a personage to be reckoned with.

He was at the Lower Blue Licks country, where Daniel Boone was captured later, before the founding of Boonesborough. He built a cabin at Washington, south of the Ohio River in northeastern Kentucky, and from there prowled about with two comrades. In September of 1775 another white wanderer told them that American men and women were living on the Kentucky River in the interior to the south.

Rejoicing, they abandoned Washington, and traveled down to new Boonesborough. It seemed good to see white women again.

Simon still thought that he had killed his rival Leitchman. He kept his name of Butler. Daniel Boone was glad to have such reinforcement.

Soon he liked the young man. In the course of the sieges of 1777 Simon rescued him, before the gates; shot his nearest foe and grabbing him carried him, leg broken, into the fort.

Daniel Boone was a man of few words. But he spoke roundly--for him.

"Well, Simon, you have behaved yourself like a man, today--indeed, you are a fine fellow."

It was a great tribute from Daniel Boone.

However, even the excitement of the daily life at Boonesborough palled on young Simon Kenton-Butler or Butler-Kenton. He was the restless kind. When danger did not come to him, he went out to seek it. He delighted in the daring foray and in spy work. A narrow squeak was a joke to him. The greater the risk, the more heartily he laughed about it.

The two Indians whom he had tumbled from their frisky pony at one shot, near Paint Creek, and the whish of the bullet grazing his head, and his dive for a tree, only whetted his appet.i.te for more fun; consequently when the Daniel Boone party turned about, he and his comrade Montgomery lingered, to experiment with Paint Creek town itself.

All the rest of that day they hid in the corn-field on the edge of the town, waiting for Indians to appear and gather roasting-ears. That was sheer nerve; they were in the heart of the Indian country and more than one hundred miles from any protection except their own wits and their rifles. But they saw no Indians other than a few little children. The town certainly was deserted for the war trail.

Therefore at dusk they slipped into the town, stole four horses, led them out, mounted two, drove the others, rode all night, to the Ohio River, swam it, and avoiding the trail of the Indian army to Boonesborough galloped gaily into Logan's Station beyond the Kentucky.

One scalp and four horses! Simon laughed easily. The trip had been worth while.

He "loafed" only until the danger to Boonesborough was past. For that s.p.a.ce all the Kentucky forts sat tight. But Colonel John Bowman of the militia was here, at Logan's. Boonesborough had come safely through the red tempest; the Indians had retired; he planned a counter blow, and wished to learn just what were the conditions at the Chief Black Fish town of Little Chillicothe on the Little Miami River: whether it was on guard, whether the warriors had left to strike at another point, and so forth. That called for skillful work.

Who more willing to act the spy than the happy-go-lucky young giant, fair-haired Simon Kenton alias Butler? With him he took his comrade Montgomery again, and Ranger George Clark. Alas, it was to be Montgomery's last outward trip. The Simon Kenton trail was always the danger trail, and he made it doubly dangerous by his recklessness.

They had no difficulty in reaching Little Chillicothe. It was a large town, of the Shawnee round bark houses, and surrounded by a rude palisade fence. When all the families seemed to be asleep, and silence reigned, they went inside--gliding here and there and wakening not even the dogs.

Simon sought out his two comrades, and touched them, as a signal. They followed him. At the edge of the town he had found the Shawnees'

horse-pound, or yard. It contained more than a dozen horses. The opportunity was too good to be pa.s.sed by. Nothing would do but that they must have each a horse, upon which to ride back.

Even with that all might have been well, had they not waxed greedy.

Now they did a very foolish thing--the first of several foolish things.

Simon was determined to steal all; the two others agreed to it. They rapidly fitted the hide halters that they discovered, mounted, and began to lead and drive the loose horses through the opened gateway.

But the horses were wild; did not like the smell of white men. They snorted alarmingly, and cavorted and reared. Dogs commenced to bark, voices arose, inquiring and scolding; the three men worked desperately with the stubborn animals. And suddenly the voices swelled.

"The horses! The Long Knives are here, stealing our horses!"

The town was in an up-roar.

"To the tall timber and keep goin'," Simon panted. "Lead all you've got. I'll follow."

So instead of riding free, out they hustled, Clark and Montgomery each with a fistful of halter thongs, Simon lashing and whooping and laughing behind.

They dashed at top speed through the forest, never minding the branches. They had seven horses. Such a mad-cap prank it was! The village rang with the hue and cry, and the forest aisles echoed.

Presently the tumult died away. The blind course had plunged into a swamp, and the three mischief-makers were forced to halt uncertainly.

They listened keenly. They heard no sound of pursuit. The town evidently was reconnoitering.

So they side-stepped the swamp and resumed their own noisy route. They did not stop again that night; they rested at day-break, long enough to eat a few mouthfuls; all that day they rode, and all the night again; with the morning they had arrived upon the bank of the Ohio.

They had left a trail plain enough for a five-year-old child to follow.

But here they were, and--

"Across the Ohio and we're safe, boys," quoth Simon. "Hooray! Didn't we come it over 'em proper?"

The wind was blowing a gale, up-stream, and the Ohio was whipped into white-caps. It looked like a stormy pa.s.sage.

"You fellows tote our fixin's over on a raft; I'll swim with the hosses," bade the nimble Simon.

They worked; made a raft of logs and branches; loaded the guns and blankets and ammunition upon it; herded the horses into the stream, and while his two comrades threw stones and sticks at them from the sh.o.r.e Simon himself forged into the stream, to swim just below them.

He was a strong man, but the high waves choked him, the current carried him down, down in spite of his efforts; pretty soon he and the snorting horses were separated. They had had enough, and turned back to the sh.o.r.e. Montgomery and Clark could not head them; out they all scrambled.

Pshaw! Around turned Simon, and staggered out, too, for another try.

The same thing occurred. He could not keep up with the horses, and they refused to cross without a guide. In fact, they wanted to go home.

He sank exhausted upon the bank.

"Plague take 'em! I've got to rest a spell."

"What next?" queried Montgomery. "Shall we leave 'em and ferry ourselves over on the raft?"

"The Injuns are hot after, you can be sure of that," said Clark. "But I for one hate to lose a bunch of hosses as fine as these are."

"Lose 'em we sha'n't," Simon a.s.serted. "I intend to risk my scalp by stayin' with 'em. We've twenty-four hours the start."

"We can't cross 'em; that's sartin, in the state o' the water; hoss or man either can't swim it," Montgomery declared. "I vote to stay with 'em, myself. But we might keep goin' up or down stream, and mebbe throw the beggars off the scent. It'd give us distance, anyway."