The Border Watch: A Story of the Great Chief's Last StandAltsheler, Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander)
General
The Border Watch: A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand
Altsheler, Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander)
Frontier and pioneer life -- Juvenile fiction
Colonel Logan was a man of stout nerves, seldom troubled by insomnia,
but he had not slept. His scouts had told him that there were Indians in
the forest ahead. One or two incautious explorers had been wounded by
bullets fired from hidden places. He and the best men with him had felt
that they were surrounded by an invisible enemy, and just at the time
that he needed knowledge, it was hardest to achieve it. It was important
for him to move on, highly important because he wanted to effect a
junction for a great purpose with George Rogers Clark, a very famous
border leader. Yet he could learn nothing of Clark. He did not receive
any news from him, nor could he send any to him. Every scout who tried
it was driven back, and after suffering agonies of doubt through that
long and ominous night, the brave leader and skillful borderer had
concluded that the most powerful Indian force ever sent to Kentucky was
in front of him. His men had brought rumors that it was led by the
renowned Wyandot chief, Timmendiquas, with Red Eagle, Black Panther,
Moluntha, Captain Pipe and the renegade Girty as his lieutenants.
Colonel Logan, brave man that he was, was justified when he felt many
fears. His force was not great, and, surrounded, it might be overwhelmed
and cut off. For the border to lose three or four hundred of its best
men would be fatal. Either he must retreat or he must effect a junction
with Clark of whose location he knew nothing. A more terrible choice has
seldom been presented to a man. Harrod, Kenton and other famous scouts
stood with him and shared his perplexity.
"What shall we do, gentlemen?" he asked.
There was no answer save the sound of a rifle shot from the woods in
front of them.
"I don't blame you for not answering," said the Colonel moodily,
"because I don't know of anything you can say. Listen to those shots! We
may be fighting for our lives before noon, but, by all the powers, I
won't go back. We can't do it! Now in the name of all that's wonderful
what is that?"
Every pair of eyes was turned toward the muddy surface of the Licking,
where a white body floated easily. As they looked the body came to the
bank, raised itself up in the shape of a human being and stepped ashore,
leaving a trail of water on the turf. It was the figure of a youth, tall
and powerful beyond his kind and bare to the waist. He came straight
toward Logan.
"Now, who under the sun are you and what do you want!" exclaimed the
startled Colonel.
"My name is Henry Ware," replied the youth in a pleasant voice, "and
what I want is first a blanket and after that some clothes, but
meanwhile I tell you that I am a messenger from Colonel Clark whom you
wish to join."
"A messenger from Colonel Clark?" exclaimed Logan. "How do we know
this?"
"Simon Kenton there knows me well and he can vouch for me; can't you
Simon?" continued the youth in the same pleasant voice.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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