refused, which produced a slight murmuring on the part of the
applicants, when General Lewis cursed them, and struck them several
severe blows over their heads with his cane. Girty's associate was not
much hurt; but he himself was so badly wounded on the forehead or temple
that the blood streamed down his cheek and side to the floor. He quickly
turned to leave the apartment; but, on reaching the door, wheeled round,
planted his feet firmly upon the sill, braced an arm against either
side of the frame, fixed his keen eyes unflinchingly upon the general,
uttered the exclamation, "_By God, sir, your quarters shall swim in
blood for this_!" and instantly disappeared beyond pursuit.

General Lewis was not much pleased with the sudden and apparently
causeless change which Governor Dunmore had made in the plan of the
expedition. Nevertheless, he immediately prepared to obey the new
orders, and had given directions for the construction of rafts upon
which to cross the Ohio, when, before daylight on the morning of the
10th of October, some of the scouts suddenly entered the encampment
with the information that an immense body of Indians was just at hand,
hastening upon the Point. This was the force of the brave and skillful
chief Cornstalk, whose genius and valor were so conspicuous on that day,
throughout the whole of which raged the hardly-contested and moat bloody
_Battle of the Point_. Girty had fled from General Lewis immediately to
the chief Cornstalk, forsworn his white nature, and leagued himself with
the Redman forever; and with the Indians he was now advancing, under
the cover of night, to surprise the Virginian camp. At the distance of
only a mile from the Point, Cornstalk was met by a detachment of the
Virginians, under the command of Colonel Charles Lewis, a brother of the
general; and here, about sunrise on the 10th of October, 1774, commenced
one of the longest, severest, and bloodiest battles ever fought upon the
Western frontiers. It terminated, as we have seen, about sunset, with
the defeat of the Indians it is true, but with a loss to the whites
which carried mourning into many a mansion of the Old Dominion, and
which was keenly felt throughout the country at the time, and
remembered with sorrow long after.

Girty having thrown himself among the Indians, as has been related,
and embraced their cause, now retreated with them into the interior
of Ohio, and ever after followed their fortunes without swerving. On