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
Logan ordered his men to spread out in a longer and thinner line,
although he kept at least fifty of his best about the cannon to prevent
any attempt at capture. The twelve-pounder may not have done much
execution upon an enemy who fought chiefly from shelter, but he knew
that its effect was terrifying, and he did not mean to lose the gun. His
precaution was taken well, as a picked band of Wyandots, Shawnees and
Miamis, springing suddenly from the undergrowth, made a determined
charge to the very muzzle of the cannon. There was close fighting, hand
to hand, the shock of white bodies against red, the flash of exploding
powder and the glitter of steel, but the red band was at last driven
back, although not without loss to the defenders. The struggle had been
so desperate that Colonel Logan drew more men about the cannon, and then
pressed on again. The firing to the north was growing louder, indicating
that Clark, too, was pushing his way through the forest. The two forces
were now not much more than a mile apart, and Simon Kenton shouted that
the battle would cease inside of five minutes.
Kenton was a prophet. Almost at the very moment predicted by him the
Indian fire stopped with a suddenness that seemed miraculous. Every
dusky flitting form vanished. No more jets of flame arose, the smoke
floated idly about as if it had been made by bush fires, and Logan's men
found that nobody was before them. There was something weird and uncanny
about it. The sudden disappearance of so strong and numerous an enemy
seemed to partake of magic. But Henry understood well. Always a shrewd
general, Timmendiquas, seeing that the battle was lost, and that he
might soon be caught in an unescapable trap, had ordered the warriors to
give up the fight, and slip away through the woods.
Pressing forward with fiery zeal and energy, Clark and Logan met in the
forest and grasped hands. The two forces fused at the same time and
raised a tremendous cheer. They had beaten the allied tribes once more,
and had formed the union which they believed would make them invincible.
A thousand foresters, skilled in every wile and strategy of Indian war
were indeed a formidable force, and they had a thorough right to
rejoice, as they stood there in the wilderness greeting one another
after a signal triumph. Save for the fallen, there was no longer a sign
of the warriors. All their wounded had been taken away with them.
"I heard your cannon shot, just when I was beginning to give up hope,"
said Colonel Clark to Colonel Logan.
"And you don't know how welcome your reply was," replied Logan, "but it
was all due to a great boy named Henry Ware."
"So he got through?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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