d not stop to mourn. He seized the
sweat-soaked blanket from its back and ran. The horse had done well,
and he had to trust to his own legs. He was not yet safe.

John Slover, naked and carrying the blanket, ran from three in the
afternoon until ten o'clock at night. Once he had halted, to sink,
breathless, for a rest. He thought that he heard a halloo, behind him.
That was a spur. He leaped up and ran on until star-light. Then he
rested for two hours; he had not eaten since day before yesterday, and
had not slept. At midnight the moon had risen. He stiffly stood, and
ran and walked from midnight to morning.

Now he played the Indian. He tried to leave no trail. He changed his
course for the southeast, and with a stick bent the grass upright
behind him, where he had stepped. This made his progress slower, but
more sure. He was getting tired. If the Indians caught him, he would
be an easy victim. However, he had no mind to be caught.

Once he was obliged to sit down, sick. He vomited, and this eased him,
so he could go on again. His legs and feet were full of nettles and
thorns; the gnats and mosquitoes pestered him horribly, for his piece
of blanketing did not cover him. He fought them with a leafy branch,
and threshing about him, he toiled ahead, cleverly using his crooked
stick to conceal his trail.

On the third day, after a sleepless night, he ate a few wild
raspberries. He was growing very weak, and every inch of him throbbed
and smarted and stung. But he struck another river. It was the
Muskingum, in eastern Ohio. He found a place only two hundred yards
wide, and swam across. The next day he captured two small crawfish and
ate them. The next night he sighted Wheeling, on the other side of the
Ohio.

In the morning he yelled and waved from the bank. A man, opposite, saw
him, and ventured part way over in a canoe. The man was afraid.

"Who are you? Who do you aim to be?"

"I am John Slover. Take me to Fort Henry."

"You're an Injun. You're no John Slover. He's dead. I've a notion to
shoot you, myself."

"I'm Slover. I am Slover. I've escaped from the Shawnees. I'll name
you some of the officers who were with Crawford."

So he did. The man took him into the canoe. He was saved. In five
days he had eaten only a handful of raspberries and two raw crawfish;
in five nights he had not slept a wink; in four days and nights he had
traveled across country, by horse and foot, n