a hunting-party of warriors camped
on the Ohio. A friendly squaw warned them to return, as the Indians,
who were carousing, had vowed vengeance for the death of their
tribesmen. But the white men had determined to destroy the band;
and by the promise of more rum they enticed a number of the Indians
to cross the river to their camp, where they put all to death, with
the exception of one child, not even sparing the kindly counsellor.
Other Indians across the river, alarmed by the sound of shooting,
sent two canoes to the rescue, but the whites drawn up on shore
fired upon their occupants, killing twelve and wounding several
more. The Indians were further incensed by the murder of Bald Eagle,
a sachem of the Delawares, who was attacked and scalped while
returning from a visit to a fort at the mouth of the Great Kanawha,
and whose body, placed in an upright position in his canoe, was
found drifting down the Ohio by his enraged followers. Even Silver
Heels, a favourite Shawnee chief, barely escaped death. While
guiding some white settlers along unfamiliar trails on their way
to safety, he was severely wounded by the bullets of other whites
waiting for him in ambush.

Such deeds as these urged on the inevitable war, for which the
Indians now openly prepared. Even the mighty Mingo chief, Logan,
who had ever extended the hand of friendship to the white man, now
appeared with uplifted tomahawk to avenge the unprovoked murder of
his friends. Some eight hundred warriors were soon assembled,
thirsting to avenge these recent murders, and eager to establish
their right to the disputed territory. Logan, Elenipsico, Red Eagle,
and Puckeshinwau were to lead the Indians, with Cornstalk, 'the
mighty sachem of the Shawnee, and king of the northern confederacy,'
in supreme command.

So it happened that in 1774, when the eastern colonies were on the
verge of revolution, the west was in the throes of an Indian war.
When Lord Dunmore learned that the Shawnees had declared war, he
at once proceeded to raise in Virginia an army of fifteen hundred
men; and he instructed General Andrew Lewis to go to Kentucky and
recruit among the borderers there an army of the same numerical
strength, and march to the mouth of the Great Kanawha, where the
two armies would meet. Meanwhile Dunmore advanced to Fort Pitt;
but here he changed his plan, marched to the Scioto, and entrenched
his force not far from the Indian town of Old Chillicothe. [Footnote:
On Pa