The Riflemen of the Ohio: A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River"Altsheler, Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander)
General
The Riflemen of the Ohio: A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River"
Altsheler, Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander)
Frontier and pioneer life -- Juvenile fiction; Ohio River -- Juvenile fiction
"Simon Girty," he called loudly, "I came here to save these people and
to defeat you, and I have succeeded. You cannot take this fort and you
cannot frighten its men to surrender it. Renegade, murderer of your
kind, wretch, liar, I know and these people know that if they were to
surrender you would not keep your word if you could. How can any one
believe a traitor? How can your Indian allies believe that the man who
murders his own people would not murder them when the time came?"
Girty's face flamed with furious red, but Henry went on rapidly:
"If Manitou told me that I should fall in fair fight with a Wyandot or a
Shawnee or a Miami I should not feel disgraced, but if I were to be
killed by the dirty hand of you, Girty, or the equally dirty hand of
Braxton Wyatt, who stands behind you, I should feel myself dishonored as
long as the world lasts."
Girty, choking with rage, drew his tomahawk from his belt and shook it
at Henry, who was more than a hundred yards away. The chiefs remained
motionless, silent and majestic as before.
"And you great chiefs," continued Henry, "listen to me. You will fail
here as you have failed before. Help, great help, is coming for these
people. I brought them the warning. I aroused them from sleep, and I
know that many men are coming. Pay heed to me, Yellow Panther, head
chief of the Miamis, and Red Eagle, head chief of the Shawnees, that you
may know who I am, and that my words are worth hearing. I am that bearer
of belts, Big Fox, who came with Brown Bear and The Bat into the council
lodge of the Miamis and sent the warriors of the Shawnees and the Miamis
astray. I was white and my comrades were white, but you did not know me,
cunning as you are."
Now Yellow Panther and Red Eagle stirred. These were true things that he
told, and curiosity and anger stirred in them.
"Who is this that taunts us?" they asked of Girty.
"It's a young fiend," replied the renegade. "Wyatt has told me all about
him. Boy as he is, he's worth a whole band of warriors to the people
behind those walls."
"There is more that you should remember, Red Eagle and Yellow Panther,"
continued Henry, wishing to impress them. "It was I and my comrades who
carried the message to the wagon train that you fought at the ford,
where you were beaten, where you lost many warriors. I see that you
remember. Tell your warriors that Manitou favors my friends and me, that
we have never yet failed. We were present when the Indians of the south
and many renegades like Girty and Wyatt here, men with black hearts who
told lies to their red friends, were beaten in a great battle. As they
failed in the south, so will you fail here. A mighty fleet is coming,
and it will scatter you as the winter wind scatters the dead leaves."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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