cClure) and put him on a horse, tying his feet under
its belly. In order to convey to his white brother an adequate idea of
the honor intended him, the Indian got astride the log and locked his
feet together. McClure took this opportunity of shooting his amiable but
rather eccentric companion, and then ran off into the woods and escaped.

This affair the reader will bear in mind, was with southern Indians, not
with those of the north-western tribes, from whom the Kentuckians had
suffered most. The only demonstration of hostility made by these, this
year, appears to have been the pursuit of the boats mentioned before.
In March, 1785, a man of the name of Elliot, who had emigrated to the
country near the mouth of the Kentucky River, was killed by Indians,
and his house destroyed and family dispersed.

As Colonel Thomas Marshall from Virginia was descending the Ohio, in a
flat boat, he was hailed from the northern shore by a man, who announced
himself as James Girty, and said that he had been placed by his brother
Simon, to warn all boats of the danger of being attacked by the Indians.
He told them that efforts would be made to decoy them ashore by means of
renegade white men, who would represent themselves as in great distress.
He exhorted them to steel their hearts against all such appeals, and to
keep the middle of the river. He said that his brother regretted the
injuries he had inflicted upon the whites, and would gladly repair them
as much as possible, to be re-admitted to their society, having lost all
his influence among the Indians. This repentance on the part of Girty
seems to have been of short duration, as he remained among the Indians
till his death, which according to some took place at the battle of the
Thames, though others deny it.

However sincere or lasting Girty's repentance had been, he could never
have lived in safety among the whites; he had been too active, and if
common accounts are to be credited, too savage in his hostility to them,
to admit of forgiveness; and it is probable that a knowledge of this
prevented him from abandoning the Indians.

"About the same time," says McClung, "Captain James Ward, at present a
highly-respectable citizen of Mason County, Kentucky, was descending the
Ohio, under circumstances which rendered a rencontre with the Indians
peculiarly to be dreaded. He, together with half a dozen others, one of
them his nephew, embarked in a crazy boat, about forty-five feet long,