w
him lay an island so round and green that it resembled a huge lily
pad floating placidly on the water. The fresh green foliage of the
trees sparkled with glittering dewdrops. Back of him rose the high
ridges, and, in front, as far as eye could reach, extended an
unbroken forest.

Beneath him to the left and across a deep ravine he saw a wide level
clearing. The few scattered and blackened tree stumps showed the
ravages made by a forest fire in the years gone by. The field was
now overgrown with hazel and laurel bushes, and intermingling with
them were the trailing arbutus, the honeysuckle, and the wild rose.
A fragrant perfume was wafted upward to him. A rushing creek
bordered one edge of the clearing. After a long quiet reach of
water, which could be seen winding back in the hills, the stream
tumbled madly over a rocky ledge, and white with foam, it hurried
onward as if impatient of long restraint, and lost its individuality
in the broad Ohio.

This solitary hunter was Colonel Ebenezer Zane. He was one of those
daring men, who, as the tide of emigration started westward, had
left his friends and family and had struck out alone into the
wilderness. Departing from his home in Eastern Virginia he had
plunged into the woods, and after many days of hunting and
exploring, he reached the then far Western Ohio valley.

The scene so impressed Colonel Zane that he concluded to found a
settlement there. Taking "tomahawk possession" of the locality
(which consisted of blazing a few trees with his tomahawk), he built
himself a rude shack and remained that summer on the Ohio.

In the autumn he set out for Berkeley County, Virginia, to tell his
people of the magnificent country he had discovered. The following
spring he persuaded a number of settlers, of a like spirit with
himself, to accompany him to the wilderness. Believing it unsafe to
take their families with them at once, they left them at Red Stone
on the Monongahela river, while the men, including Colonel Zane, his
brothers Silas, Andrew, Jonathan and Isaac, the Wetzels, McCollochs,
Bennets, Metzars and others, pushed on ahead.

The country through which they passed was one tangled, most
impenetrable forest; the axe of the pioneer had never sounded in
this region, where every rod of the way might harbor some unknown
danger.

These reckless bordermen knew not the meaning of fear; to all,
daring adventure was welcome, and the screech of a redskin and the
ping of a b