"Well, you see about thirty years ago, I left the blue ridge with a
party of my neighbors to come down yer in the Sciota country, to see it,
and lay plans to drive the cussed red skins clean out of it. Well, the
red skins appeared rather quiet, what few we fell in with, and monstrous
civil. But cuss the sarpints, there's no more dependence to be put in
'em than the cantankerous wolves, and roast 'em, I always sets old kit
talkin' Dutch to them varmints, the moment I claps eyes on 'em. The
wolf's my nat'ral inimy--I'd walk forty miles to git old kit a wolf
skelp. Well, we travelled all over the valley, and we gin it as our
opinion that the Sciota country was the garden spot o' the world, and if
we could only defend ourselves 'gainst the inimy we should move right
down yer at once. We went back home, and the next spring a hull
settlement on us came down yer. My neighbors thought it best for us all
to settle down together at Chillicothe, whar a few Ingin huts and cabins
war. I had a wife, and son and da'ter; now, stranger, I loved 'em as
dearer to me 'nor life or heart's blood itself. Well, the red skins soon
began to show their pranks--they stole our cre'ters (horses), shot down
our cattle, and made all manner o' trouble for the little settlement. At
last I proposed we should build a clever-sized block house, strong and
stanch, in which our wimen folks and children, with a few men to guard
'em, could hold out a few days, while a handful o' us scoured Paint
hills and the country about, and peppered a few of the cussed red
devils. We had been out some four or five days when we fell in with the
inimy; it war just about sunset, and the red skins war camped in a
hollow close by this spot. We intended to let 'em get through their
smoking and stretch themselves for the night, and then squar our
accounts with 'em. Stranger, I've lived in these woods thirty years, I
never saw such a hurricane as we had yer last night, 'cept once. The
night we lay in ambush for the _Ingins_, six-and-twenty years ago, thar
came up a hurricane, the next mornin' eleven of the bodies of my
neighbors lay crushed along the bottom yer, and for a hundred miles
along the Sciota, whar the hurricane passed, the great walnuts and
sycamore lay blasted, root and branch, just as straight as ye'd run a
bee line; no timber grow'd upon these bottoms since. Five on us escaped
the hurricane, but before day we fell in with a large party of red
skins, and we fought 'em