Stories of American Life and Adventure Part 10

The next day Scouwa started back for another load of buffalo meat. When he had gone five miles, he saw a tree which a bear had taken for its winter home. The hole in the tree was far from the ground. Scouwa made some bundles of dry, half-rotten wood. These he put on his back, and then climbed a small tree that stood close to the one with a hole in it. The rotten wood he touched to a burning stick from a fire he had kindled. Then he dropped the smoking bundles of rotten wood one after another down into the bear's den, and quickly slid to the ground again.

The bear did not like smoke. After a while he crawled out of the hole to get breath. Scouwa shot him.

He hung the bear meat out of the reach of wolves, and carried back to the hut all that he could take at one time. The old man and the boy were greatly pleased when they heard that there was bear meat as well as buffalo meat in plenty. After this they had food enough.

SCOUWA BECOMES A WHITE MAN AGAIN.

The next year after this hard winter in the woods, the Indians that Scouwa lived with went down the River St. Lawrence to Canada. At this time Canada belonged to the French. The French were at war with the English, to whom Pennsylvania belonged. The Indians were on the side of the French.

Scouwa heard that there were prisoners from his country who were to be sent back in exchange for French prisoners. He slipped away from the Indians, and went to Montreal. Here he put himself among the other prisoners.

After a while the prisoners were sent back to their own country. Scouwa came to his own family again. They did not know that he was alive. He put on white man's clothes. He let his hair grow like a white man's. He spoke English once more. He was no longer called Scouwa, but James Smith. But still he walked like an Indian. All his movements were those of an Indian. He had lived nearly six years among the savages.

He afterward became a colonel among the white men. He moved to Kentucky, and fought against the Indians. But he made his men dress and fight as the red men did. He thought it was the best way of fighting in the woods.

A BABY LOST IN THE WOODS.

When people first began to move across the Alleghany Mountains, there were no roads for wagons; but there were narrow paths called trails.

Families traveled to the west, carrying their goods on horseback along these trails. Here is a story that will show you how they traveled.

Among those who went from Virginia to Kentucky, in 1781, was a man named Benjamin Craig, who took his whole family with him. Mr. Craig wore a hunting shirt and leggings of buckskin and a fur cap. Like all men in the backwoods, he carried a hatchet and a knife stuck in his belt, and he almost always had his old-fashioned flintlock rifle on his right shoulder. A horn to hold powder was worn under his left arm, and supported by a string over his right shoulder. He had a little buckskin bag of bullets fastened to his belt. At the head of the party, he traveled over the mountains on foot, walking before his horses.

The horses came one after another. On the first horse rode Mrs. Craig.

She carried her baby in her arms. Tied on the back of the horse were a pot and a skillet for frying. In a bag on the same horse were some pewter plates and cups, and a few knives and forks.

The horse on which Mrs. Craig rode was followed by a pack horse; that is, a horse carrying things fastened on his back. This horse was led by means of a rope halter, the end of which was tied to the saddle of the horse in front. The pack on his back contained some meal and some salt.

This was all the food the family carried for the long journey over the mountains. Mr. Craig expected to get meat by shooting deer or wild turkeys in the woods.

The same pack horse carried a flat piece of iron to make a plow, and some hoes and axes. The hoes and axes were without handles, except one ax, which was used to cut firewood during the journey. Handles could be made for the tools after the family got to Kentucky.

Behind this horse another one was tied. He carried two great basket-like things hanging on each side of him. These baskets or crates were made of hickory boughs. All the clothing and bedding that people could take on such long and rough journeys was stored in these crates.

In the middle of each crate a hole was left. In one of these holes rode little Master George, a boy of six. In the other was stowed Betsey, a girl of four. One fine day during the journey, the baby was put into the basket by the side of Betsey, and then the two older children amused themselves by pointing out to the baby the things they saw by the wayside.

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At length the narrow trail or path pa.s.sed along the edge of a dangerous cliff. George and Betsey shut their eyes, so as not to see how steep the place was. They were afraid the horse might fall off, and they be dashed to pieces. But baby Ben only laughed and crowed, for what did a little fellow like him know about danger. A hired man walked behind the last horse to see that nothing was lost.

When night came, the horses were unloaded and turned loose. The little bells tied round their necks had been stuffed with gra.s.s during the day to keep them from jingling. This gra.s.s was removed, and the bells set a-tinkling, so that the horses could be found in the morning. The tired pack horses began at once to eat the long gra.s.s, now and then nibbling the boughs of young trees.

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A fire was built by a stream, and supper was cooked. If it had been raining, the men would have built a little tent of boughs or bark for the family, but, as the weather was clear, beds were made of gra.s.s and dry leaves in the open air. The whole family slept under blue woolen coverlets, with only the starry sky for shelter. The fire was kept up for fear of wolves.

In the morning the children played about while the mother got breakfast. When the meal was over, Mr. Craig and the hired man went to look for one of the horses that had strayed away. Baby Ben climbed into his mother's lap, as she sat upon the log, and fell asleep. In order to have things all packed by the time the men returned, the mother laid the little fellow on some long dry gra.s.s that grew among the boughs of a fallen tree. When the father returned, it was nine o'clock. He hurried the mother upon her horse among the pots and pans, saying that he wished to overtake a company of travelers that was ahead of him, so as to travel more safely.

"Now fetch me the baby," said Mrs. Craig.

"No, mother, please let the baby ride with me again," said little Betsey, just come back from washing her face in the creek.

"All right," said Mrs. Craig. "Put the baby on with the children. This horse is slow, and I will ride on. You can bring the other horses, and catch up with me soon."

By the time the second horse was loaded, and George and Betsey were stowed away in their baskets, both the father and Betsey had forgotten about the baby. The mother had got so far ahead that it took the other horses nearly an hour to overtake her's.

"Where is the baby?" cried the mother when she looked back and saw but two children on the horse behind.

Sure enough, where was the baby? Lying under a tree top in the lonesome woods, where there might be fierce wolves, great panthers, or hungry wildcats.

Mr. Craig was almost frantic when he thought of the baby's danger. He stripped the things from the middle horse, and sprang on his back, gun in hand. He laid whip to the horse, and was soon galloping back over the rough path. For more than an hour the mother and children waited with the hired man, to learn whether the baby had been killed by some wild animal or not.

At last the sound of Mr. Craig's horse coming back was heard, and all held their breath. As the father came in sight in a full gallop, he shouted, "Here he is, safe and sound! The little rascal hadn't waked up."

Mrs. Craig and Betsey shed tears of joy. George turned his face away, and wiped his eyes with his coat sleeve. He wasn't going to cry: he was a boy.

ELIZABETH ZANE.

On the banks of the Ohio River, near the place where the city of Wheeling now stands, there was once a fort called Fort Henry. This fort was of the kind called a blockhouse, which is a house built of logs made to fit close together. The upper part of the house jutted out beyond the lower, in order that the men in the blockhouse might shoot downwards at the Indians if they should come near the house to set it on fire. Fort Henry was surrounded with a stockade; that is, a fence made by setting posts in the ground close together.

During the Revolutionary War the Indians in the neighborhood of this fort were fighting on the side of the English. A large number of them came to Fort Henry, and tried to take it. All the men that were sent outside of the fort to fight the Indians were either killed, or kept from going back. The women and the children of the village which stood near had all gone into the fort for safety.

When at last the fiercest attack of the Indians was made, there were only twelve men and boys left inside of the fort. These men and boys had made up their minds to do their best to save the lives of the women and children who were with them. Every man and every boy in the fort knew how to shoot a rifle. They had guns enough, but they had very little powder. So they fired only when they were sure of hitting one of the enemy.

The Indians kept shooting all the time. Some of them crept near to the blockhouse, and tried to shoot through the cracks, but the bullets of the men inside brought down these brave warriors.

After many hours of fighting, the Indians went off a little way to rest. The white men had now used nearly all their gunpowder. They began to wish for a keg of powder that had been left in one of the houses outside. They knew that whoever should go for this would be seen and fired at by the Indians. He would have to run to the house and back again. The colonel called his men together, and told them he did not wish to order any man to do so dangerous a thing as to get the powder, but he said he should like to have some one offer to go for it.

Three or four young men offered to go. The colonel told them he could not spare more than one of them. They must settle among themselves which one should go. But each one of the brave fellows wanted to go, and none of them was willing to give up to another. Then there stepped forward a young woman named Elizabeth Zane.

"Let me go for the powder," she said.

The brave men were surprised. It would be a desperate thing for a man to go. n.o.body had dreamed that a woman would venture to do such a thing, nor would any of them agree to let a young woman go into danger.

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The colonel said, "No," her friends begged her not to run the risk.

They told her, besides, that any one of the young men could run faster than she could.