The Winning of the West, Volume 4: Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807Roosevelt, Theodore
History
The Winning of the West, Volume 4: Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807
Roosevelt, Theodore
Northwest, Old -- History; United States -- Territorial expansion; West (U.S.) -- History
One of Wells' fellow spies was William Miller. Miller, like Wells, had
been captured by the Indians when a boy, together with his brother
Christopher. When he grew to manhood he longed to rejoin his own people,
and finally did so, but he could not persuade his brother to come with
him, for Christopher had become an Indian at heart. In June, 1794,
Wells, Miller, and a third spy, Robert McClellan, were sent out by Wayne
with special instructions to bring in a live Indian. McClellan, who a
number of years afterwards became a famous plainsman and Rocky Mountain
man, was remarkably swift of foot. Near the Glaize River they found
three Indians roasting venison by a fire, on a high open piece of
ground, clear of brushwood. By taking advantage of the cover yielded by
a fallen treetop the three scouts crawled within seventy yards of the
camp fire; and Wells and Miller agreed to fire at the two outermost
Indians, while McClellan, as soon as they had fired, was to dash in and
run down the third. As the rifles cracked the two doomed warriors fell
dead in their tracks; while McClellan bounded forward at full speed,
tomahawk in hand. The Indian had no time to pick up his gun; fleeing for
his life he reached the bank of the river, where the bluffs were twenty
feet high, and sprang over into the stream-bed. He struck a miry place,
and while he was floundering McClellan came to the top of the bluff and
instantly sprang down full on him, and overpowered him. The others came
up and secured the prisoner, whom they found to be a white man; and to
Miller's astonishment it proved to be his brother Christopher. The
scouts brought their prisoner, and the scalps of the two slain warriors,
back to Wayne. At first Christopher was sulky and refused to join the
whites; so at Greeneville he was put in the guard house. After a few
days he grew more cheerful, and said he had changed his mind. Wayne set
him at liberty, and he not only served valiantly as a scout through the
campaign, but acted as Wayne's interpreter. Early in July he showed his
good faith by assisting McClellan in the capture of a Pottawatamie
chief.
An Unexpected Act of Mercy.
On one of Wells' scouts he and his companions came across a family of
Indians in a canoe by the river bank. The white wood rangers were as
ruthless as their red foes, sparing neither sex nor age; and the scouts
were cocking rifles when Wells recognized the Indians as being the
family into which he had been adopted, and by which he had been treated
as a son and brother. Springing forward he swore immediate death to the
first man who fired; and then told his companions who the Indians were.
The scouts at once dropped their weapons, shook hands with the Miamis,
and sent them off unharmed.
Last Scouting Trip before the Battle.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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