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
An excitable youth would have hastened on in the night at full speed,
but Henry knew better and could do better. He returned to his nest in
the thicket and fell asleep again, as if he had seen nothing alarming.
But he rose very early in the morning, and after a breakfast on the cold
deer meat, made a circle around the Indian camp, and continued his
southeastern journey at great speed.
He traveled all that day, and he saw that he was well into the enemy's
country. Indian signs multiplied about him. Here in the soft earth was
the trace of their moccasins. There they had built a camp fire and the
ashes were not yet cold. Further on they had killed and dressed a deer.
There was little effort at concealment, perhaps, none. This was their
own country, where only the roving white hunter came, and it was his
business, not theirs, to hide. Henry felt the truth of it as he advanced
toward the Ohio. He was compelled to redouble his caution, lest at any
moment he plunge into the very middle of a war band.
He passed more than a half dozen trails of large parties, and he felt
sure that, according to arrangement, they were converging on the Ohio,
at the point where the Licking emptied the waters and silt of the
Kentucky woods into the larger stream. Timmendiquas, no doubt, would be
there, and Henry's heart throbbed a little faster at the thought that he
would meet such a splendid foe.
He lay in a thicket about noonday, and saw over a hundred warriors of
the Ottawas, worshipers of the sun and stars, go by. They were all in
full war paint, and he had no doubt that they had come from the far
western shore of Lake Huron to join the great gathering of the tribes at
Tuentahahewaghta and to help destroy the fleet and all river posts if
they could.
That evening, taking the chances that the Indians would or would not
hear him, he shot a wild turkey in a tree, traveled two or three miles
further, built a small fire in the lee of a hill, where he cooked it,
then ran in a curve three or four miles further, until he came to a
thicket of pawpaw bushes, where he ate heartily by a faint moonlight. He
watched and listened two hours, and then, satisfied that no one had
heard the shot, he went to sleep with the ease and confidence of one who
reposes at home, safe in his bed.
The night was warm. Sleeping in the open was a pleasure to such as Henry
Ware, and he was not disturbed. He had willed that he should wake before
daylight, and his senses obeyed the warning. He came back from slumber
while it was yet dark. But he could feel the coming dawn, and, eating
what was left of the turkey, he sped away.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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