The Riflemen of the Miami, Edward Sylvester Ellis [buy e reader .TXT] 📗

Tecumseh's war of 1812.

It would require a volume to detail the exploits of these Riflemen. Unlike many other confederations that were formed about this period, their only object was that of self-defense, and of offering protection to the settlers who were constantly penetrating the Great West. No innocent Indians ever suffered at their hands, and many was the one they befriended and assisted in his extremity. But woe betide the offender that fell into their hands. To the cruel they were unsparing; to the merciless they showed no mercy. While their name was loved and revered by the whites, it was feared and execrated by the savages. The Shawnees were unusually active and vindictive at this time, and it was with them that the most frequent encounters took place. The incident detailed in the first chapter was but one among many that were constantly occurring, and it scarcely equaled in importance numerous exploits that they had before performed.

There was a fifth member, who joined the Riflemen only a year or two previous to the period in which we design to notice their actions more particularly. He was known as Ferdinand Sego, and became a member from a part which he performed one night on the Ohio, when the Riflemen were attacked by three times their number. He displayed such activity, skill and courage, that he was importuned to unite with them, although, up to this time, they had refused to receive any accessions to their number. He consented, and from that time forward the Riflemen of the Miami numbered five hunters.

Sego joined them, however, with the understanding that he should be obliged to absent himself from time to time. At regular intervals he left them, and was gone sometimes for over a week. As he had no rifle, the cause of these excursions remained a mystery to his friends until he chose to reveal it himself. It then turned out that it was nothing less than a female that exercised such a potent influence upon him. Sego, as he became intimately acquainted with his friends, often spoke of this girl, and of the great affection he bore her. One day he gave her name--Edith Sudbury. This excited no unusual interest, until Lewis Dernor learned, on the day that he encountered the emigrants, that he and Sego loved the same girl!

This was the cause of his unusual agitation, and the pain he felt at hearing her name pronounced. He entertained the strongest friendship for Sego, but, until he had met Edith, he had never known any thing, by experience, of the divine power of our nature. When he did love, therefore, it was with his whole soul and being. His companions, less sagacious in sentimental affairs than worldly, failed to divine the cause of the singular actions of their leader, who did his utmost to conceal it from them. Little did he dream, as he listened to the enthusiastic praises of Edith by Sego, that it was the being who constantly occupied his thoughts. But the truth had broken upon him like a peal of thunder at midday.

On the day succeeding Lewis' departure from the settlers, three of his men, O'Hara, Dernor and Allmat, stood on the banks of the Miami, several hundred yards above their rendezvous. The sky was clear and sunshiny, and they were making ready for a trial of skill with their rifles. From where they stood, the most practiced eye would have failed to discover any spot which could possibly afford shelter for one of their number, much less for them all. But beneath a cluster of bushes, projecting from the upper edge of the bank, was an orifice, barely sufficient to admit the passage of a man's body. Entering this, on his hands and knees, he was ushered into a subterranean cave, dark, but of ample dimensions to accommodate a dozen men. It was furnished with blankets and the skins of different animals, and each of the Riflemen took especial pride in decorating and fixing it up for their convenience.

Dick paced off two hundred yards, and then chipped a small piece from the trunk of a beech tree along the river-bank, as a target for their weapons. As he stepped one side, O'Hara raised his piece, and scarcely pausing to take aim, fired. Instead of striking the mark, he missed it by fully two inches. When this was announced, he turned round, and with an impatient exclamation, demanded:

"Who fired that gun last?"

"I believe I did," replied Dernor.

"You just touch it again, and you'll never touch another rifle. Do you know what you have done?"

"Know what I've done? Of course I do. I've fired it."

"_You've put a spell on it._"

"The deuce! Try it again!"

O'Hara shook his head.

"It would never miss such a mark as that unless it was bewitched. I've got to melt up that money of mine, or the thing will never be worth a half-penny again."

When a Kentuckian's gun is bewitched, or has a "spell upon it," the only way in which he can free it of its enchantment, is by firing a silver bullet from it. Unless this is done, they steadfastly believe it can never be relied upon afterward.

O'Hara, accordingly, produced his bullet-mould, kindled a fire, which required much more blowing and care to fuse the metal than it did to melt lead or pewter. But he succeeded at last, melting down all his spare change to make the small, shining bullet. This was rammed down his gun, a deliberate aim taken, and Dick announced that it had struck the mark plumb in the center. The charm was gone!

It would be uninteresting to narrate the different methods by which each of the three men demonstrated his remarkable skill with his favorite weapon. They fired at different distances, at objects in the air, and in each others' hands, and then discharged their pieces on a run, wheeling as quick as thought. Although the weapon used was the old flint-lock rifle, the dexterity exhibited by each could scarcely be excelled by that of the most famous sharp-shooters of the present day, with their improved guns. The exercise was continued for over two hours, when, as O'Hara was reloading his piece, the report of a rifle was heard upon the opposite side of the Miami, and the bullet whizzed within an inch of O'Hara's face. As all three looked across the river, they saw a faint, bluish wreath rising from the shrubbery, but no signs of the one who had fired the shot.

"I guess his gun has had a spell put on it," said O'Hara, sneeringly.

"And I guess you'll get a spell put on you, if he tries that again," remarked Dick, carefully scrutinizing the opposite bank.

"Why doesn't he show himself, the coward? Like enough there is a whole party of Shawnees----"

"Sh! Something moved over there."

"He's going to cross, I'll be shot if he isn't."

A splash was now heard, as though something had been cast upon the surface of the water, and a moment later, a small Indian canoe, in which was seated a single person, shot from beneath the shrubbery, skimming over the river like a swallow, and headed directly toward the spot where the Riflemen were standing. Dick raised his rifle, but instantly lowered it with a laugh.

"It's nobody but Lew himself. He just fired to scare us."

Propelled by a single paddle, the frail boat sped onward with great celerity, and its prow, in a few moments, grated lightly against the shingle at the feet of the hunters, and their leader stepped forth.

"Been practicing, I see," he remarked.

"A little; _you_ tried your hand, also."

Lewis smiled, as he replied:

"A little fun, of course; but we've got better business on hand."

"Let's hear it, for we are ready for any thing."

"A lot of settlers are going through the woods, down below, and they need company, for the Shawnees have scented them as sure as the world. I've promised them that we will see them through--where's Sego?" suddenly asked the leader, looking around, as if searching for the one mentioned.

"He went off yesterday."

"That's unlucky, for we shall need him, too. Will he be back to-day?"

"He said he expected to return this afternoon."

"We will wait for him, then, though they need us, most certainly."

"It's the first time Sego has been off in a good while," said Dick, "and I don't know what started him this time."

Lewis thought that he would give a good deal if he knew, although he chose to say nothing about it. An hour or more was spent in conversation, when the four sauntered carelessly toward the cave, the canoe first having been pulled high enough upon the bank to make it secure against being washed away by the current. They did not enter the cave, but passed it, and returned after it was fairly dark, when they were certain that no prying eyes had seen them.

When morning dawned, Sego had not returned, and Lewis was undetermined whether to wait longer for him, or to go on at once. The case was urgent, but the need of Sego's arm was also urgent, and he concluded to wait still further. The forenoon, the afternoon, and finally the night came and went, without bringing any signs of the absentee, and at daylight on this day, Lewis and his men made ready to start, resolved not to lose another moment. As they passed down to the river's edge, the delinquent made his appearance and joined them. They crossed the Miami in the canoe--its lightness rendering it necessary to make the passage twice--and plunging in the forest, made all haste toward the settlers.

Meanwhile, the prolonged absence of the Riflemen, was the occasion of much speculation and anxiety upon the part of the emigrants. When Lewis had named the period at which he expected to join them with his men, they all knew he had allowed himself the widest limit, and fully intended to return within the time specified.

When, therefore, this hour passed, they certainly had sufficient grounds for their anxiety and uneasiness, and some of the men did not hesitate to express their conviction that the Riflemen would not come at all. Not that they would willingly fail to keep their appointment, but it was more than probable that circumstances had arisen which prevented it.

The settlers remained encamped until thirty hours beyond the time of the expected arrival of the Riflemen, when every one had given up all hope of seeing them, and it was agreed to move on to the banks of the creek. The scouts, who had been constantly busy, reported that no signs of Indians were visible in the vicinity, and strong hopes were entertained that they would be able to cross without disturbance.

"Before venturing into that same piece of water," said Smith, "I propose that another examination of the woods be made, and that some of us wade over first to see how deep the stream is."

The latter suggestion had already been acted upon by the scouts several times, but, as all shared the feeling of Smith, the scouts, joined this time by the old man's two sons, set out to act upon his proposal. After examining the bank upon which they stood, with the greatest care, for several hundred yards both above and below, they returned with the report that no signs of danger had been discovered.

Two of them now entered the creek in front of the oxen, and commenced wading across. It would be impossible to