come off the creek. Ten pounds of lead! Seven hundred
little pills! That'll let Runner, Hacker, Scott 'n' me strike for the
Ohio, where we can catch some of them red devils as they beat back home.
They'll be keerless and we oughter nail quite a few."

"Crabtree isn't going with you?"

"Ike ain't got no stummick for a reg'lar stand-up fight. He'll hang round
the creek and kill when he catches a red along."

"He'll get no powder from my stock to use around the creek," I declared.

Hughes eyed me moodily.

"What odds where they're killed so long as they're rubbed out?" he harshly
demanded.

"Women and children are the odds," I retorted. "Crabtree kills friendly
Indians. Even young Cousin, who hates reds as much as any man alive, won't
make a kill in a settlement unless the Indians are attacking it."

"That's the one weak spot in Cousin," regretted Hughes. "He's a good
hater. But he'd have a bigger count for that little sister of his if he'd
take them wherever he finds them. It's all damn foolishness to pick and
choose your spot for killing a red skunk. And this friendly Injun talk
makes me sick! Never was a time but what half the Shawnees and other
tribes was loafing 'round the settlements, pretending to be friends, while
t'other half was using the tomahawk and scalping-knife.

"That sort of medicine won't do for me. No, siree! Injuns are a pest, just
like wolves and painters, only worse. They must be wiped out. That's my
belief and I make it my business to wipe them out. Few men that's got
more'n me."

It's a waste of time to talk with a bloody-minded man. Hughes' brother was
killed by the Indians. As for that, there was hardly a settler in Virginia
who had not lost some dear friend or relative. When the history of the
country is written, it will surprise the coming generations to read the
many names having opposite them, "Killed by the Indians."

I was sorry I had met Hughes. His company grated on me. It was impossible
to think of Patsy Dale with the fellow's cruel babble ringing in my ears.
I remained silent and he garrulously recounted some of his many exploits,
and with gusto described how he had trapped various victims. It was his
one ambition of life. He cared nothing for land.

Offer him all of Colonel Washington's thirty-odd thousand acres on the
Ohio and Great Kanawha as a gift, and he would have none of them unless
they contained red men to slaughter. He had laid down a red path and it
was his desti