But Simon Girty led many of the savage attacks, and showed himself the relentless enemy of the American cause at every chance, though more than once he used his power with the Indians to save prisoners from torture and death. He was born in Pennsylvania, and he was captured with his brothers, George and James, during Braddock’s campaign. They were all taken to Ohio, where George was adopted by the Delawares, James by the Shawnees, and Simon by the Senecas. George died a drunken savage; James became the terror of the Kentucky border, and infamous throughout the West by his cruelty to the women among the Indians’ captives; he seems to have been without one touch of pity for the fate of any of their prisoners, and his cruelties were often charged upon Simon, who had enough of his own to answer for. Yet he seems to have been the best as well as the ablest of the three brothers whose name is the blackest in Ohio history. Many of the stories about him are evidently mere romance, and they often conflict. As he was captured when very young, he never learned to read or write; and it is said that he was persuaded by worse and wiser men to take sides with the British in the Revolution. But we need not believe that he was so ignorant or so simple as this in accounting for his preference of his red brethren and their cause. In fact, several letters attributed to him exist, though he may have dictated these, and may not have known how to write after all. It is certain that he was a man of great note and power among the Indians, and one of their most trusted captains. He led the attack on Wheeling in 1777, where he demanded the surrender of the fort to the English king, whose officer he boasted himself. In 1782 he attacked Bryan’s Station in Kentucky with a strong force of Indians, but met with such a gallant resistance that he attempted to bring the garrison to terms by telling them who he was and threatening them with the reënforcements and the cannon which he said he expected hourly. He promised that all their lives should be spared if they yielded, but while he waited with the white flag in his hand on the stump where he stood to harangue them, a young man answered him from the fort: “You need not be so particular to tell us your name; we know your name and you, too. I’ve had a villainous untrustworthy cur dog this long while named Simon Girty, in compliment to you, he’s so like you, just as ugly and just as wicked. As to the cannon, let them come on; the country’s aroused, and the scalps of your red cutthroats, and your own too, will be drying in our cabins in twenty-four hours; and if, by chance, you or your allies do get into the fort, we’ve a big store of rods laid in to scourge you out again.” [Illustration: Simon Girty 079L]