concealed in a swamp near the spring of Castalia,
Ohio. There they saw great numbers of Indians passing to meet General
St. Clair, and three of the scouts hastened through the Indian country
to inform the general. They traveled only at night and hid during the
day. One night they marched forty miles. They told General St. Clair
what they had seen and again went out to watch the collecting Indians.
Three days later St. Clair was defeated. These scouts were then twelve
miles away but the retreating soldiers soon overtook them and then the
"woods were alive with Indians." The scouts turned eastward and in due
time reached Logstown, near Wheeling.

[Indian Warfare]

The next year McArthur, McGuffey and George Sutherland were again sent
out by General Wayne to spy the Indians. When only seven or eight miles
from Wheeling and west of the Ohio river, they came upon a trail which
led to a deer lick. Just at dusk McGuffey, who was leading the party,
saw in the path the gaily decorated head-dress of an Indian. It had been
placed there by the Indians who were in ambush close by and were ready
to shoot any white man who should stop to pick it up. McGuffey saw
through the stratagem instantly; without halting, he gave it a kick and
shouted "Indians!" Several Indians fired at once and one of the balls
smashed McGuffey's powder horn, and passed through his clothing, but did
not wound him. The three scouts retreated in safety, and the Indians did
not follow them.

The wars with the Indians in that region closed in 1794, and Alexander
McGuffey then married Anna Holmes, of Washington county, and became a
settler. His eldest son was William Holmes McGuffey. When this son was
but two years old the family moved to Trumbull county, Ohio. Here, in
the care of a pious mother and father, he spent the years of childhood
and of early manhood, performing the labors falling upon the eldest son
in a large family of children dwelling in a log cabin on the frontier.
From the heavy forest, fields were cleared, fenced and cultivated, roads
were made and bridges were built, and in all these labors the sturdy son
of the famous Indian scout took part.

[A Frontier School]

During the first eighteen years of W.H. McGuffey's life he had no
opportunities for education other than those afforded by the brief
winter schools supported by the voluntary subscriptions of the parents
in the neighborhood.

In 1802 Rev. Thos. Hughes, a Presbyterian clergyman, bu