Early in the spring the border settlers began to suffer from the deeds of straggling bands of Indians. {FN} Horses were stolen, one or two murders were committed, the inhabitants of the more outlying cabins fled to the forts, and the frontiersmen began to threaten fierce vengeance. * * * * * {FN} Thatcher says these robberies were all charged to Indians, "though perhaps, not justly, for it is well known that a large number of civilized adventurers were traversing the frontiers at this time, who sometimes disguised themselves as Indians and committed many depredations and even murder." On April 16 an Indian trader by the name of Butler had his store attacked and plundered by a roving band of Cherokees. Of the three men in charge at the time one was killed, another wounded, but the third made his escape and raised the alarm. Immediately after this, Connolly, who was acting as Governor Dunmore's lieutenant on the border, issued an open letter, commanding the frontiersmen to hold themselves in readiness to repel any attack of the Indians, as the Shawnees were known to be hostile. Among the backwoodsmen was one Michael Cresap, a Maryland borderer, who had moved to the banks of the Ohio to establish a home for his family. Roosevelt, in "The Winning of the West," says of Cresap: "He was of the regular pioneer type; a good woodsman, sturdy and brave, a fearless fighter, devoted to his friends and his country; but alas, when his blood was heated, and his savage instincts fairly roused, inclined to regard any red man, whether hostile or friendly as a being who should be slain on sight. Nor did he condemn the brutal deeds done by others on innocent Indians." Cresap, who had been appointed a captain of the frontier militia, was near Wheeling at the time Connolly's letter was received, with a band of hunters and scouts. These were fearless men who had adopted many of the ways of the Indians, including their method both of declaring war and fighting. Of course, they put a very liberal interpretation upon the order given them by Connolly to repel an attack and proceeded to declare war in the regular Indian style. Calling a council, they planted the war-post, and after marching around it many times, brandishing their hatchets, knives, swords or whatever weapon they carried, all at a signal from their leader struck the post, leaving their weapons sticking in it, and waited eagerly for a chance to attack their common enemy, the Indians.