They came to a good spot, and hid. This time it was two Indians on horses, sure enough, moving rapidly to catch them. Morning was near. The forest paled with the first tinge of dawn. They straightened up cautiously. "I think we'd better leave this trail, Jakie," Lewis said. "We'll strike right east, for the river. We can't get lost now." The sun rose, and they were still trudging fast, and no Indians had followed them. The Indians had been fooled nicely. About eleven o'clock they sighted the Ohio--they came out almost opposite the mouth of Wheeling Creek! Their father and Martin could not have beaten this, for a scout feat. "There's Zane's Island!" Lewis panted. "Hooray, Jakie! There's the smoke of Wheeling settlement. We're nearly home." He was just about worn out. For a boy of fourteen, with a big gash across his chest, and a gun to carry, and a little boy to look after, it had been a tough stunt--that fifteen-mile tramp by night and day, on an empty stomach. "Let's yell, Lewis, so somebody'll come for us." "No. Injuns might hear us. We'll have to make a raft. We'll find logs and tie 'em together." They did. They found two logs, lashed them together with grape-vine, and half swimming, half paddling, launched out. Shortly after noon they landed below Wheeling, and were safe. The people of Wheeling were much astonished to see them toil in. Long before they had reached home they were heroes. They received many compliments upon their work. And it goes without saying that there was a great ado over them in the Wetzel cabin, which had given them up for lost. Nine years later Father Wetzel was killed by the Indians. He and a companion had been down river in a canoe, hunting and fishing. Neighbors had warned him that this was risky business, but he only laughed. Now he and his partner were paddling upstream, along shore, about eight miles below Wheeling. From the brush a party of Indians hailed them and ordered them to land. "What! Surrender to you, you yaller varmints?" old man Wetzel rapped. "Not whilst we live." They turned the canoe and paddled fast, but the guns spoke and he received a ball through his body. He felt that he was wounded to death. "Lie down in the bottom," he gasped. "That'll save you. I'm gone anyway, but I can get us out o' range." He acted as target, while paddling his best. They made the opposite shore, at the mouth of Captina Creek, and he died at Baker's Bottom settlement, a short distance above. He was buried here. For some years a stone marked his grave. It said, only: "J. W., 1787." At the Wetzel home the Wetzel boys vowed relentless war against all Indians. Their hatchets should never be dropped until not a redskin roamed the woods.