. Long years afterward, when she was old and wrinkled, she
placed a little grandson behind her on her horse and took him far into
the forest. She set him down beside a moss-covered log.

"Here is where I parted with your grandfather, when he rode against the
Indians," she said. And she cried and cried.

CHAPTER IX

THE BRAVE WOMEN OF BRYANT'S STATION (1782)

AND THE DEFEAT OF THE VILLAIN GIRTY

The words of John Slover, that the British army had surrendered and
that the Americans were victors in the great war, were proved to be
true. Now there arose much excitement among the Indians, in their
towns and villages beyond the Ohio. Their British father had been laid
upon his back, and they did not know exactly what to do.

In June of this year 1782, while Scout Slover was a captive, a grand
council of the Northern Confederacy and their allies had been called at
the Shawnee town of Wakatomica, to talk matters over. Delegates
arrived from the Ottawas, Chippewas, Delawares, the southern Cherokees,
Potawatomis, Wyandot Hurons, Mingo Iroquois, and from the other Shawnee
towns. They all were alarmed at the unexpected triumph of the Long
Knife people, and were fearful lest they had lost their prized
hunting-ground, Kentucky.

White men were here: Captain William Caldwell, a trader in the British
service; Alexander McKee, George and James Girty, and Simon Girty
himself, coming in with a band of the Wyandots.

He made one of the principal speeches. He said that the war between
the king and the Long Knives was not yet over; but that, anyway, the
Indians did not want a peace in which the British and the Americans
should agree to quit fighting. For if they quit fighting, then the
Long Knives would be free to turn, all of them, upon the Indians and
crush them utterly. (Ugh! Ugh! That is so!) The Indians well knew
how the white men were crowding in upon them, from Virginia--were
stealing Kentucky and threatening the Ohio country. Without the help
from the British father these lands would be swallowed up, the red man
would have no hunting-grounds, no food, no furs, no means of getting
food, rum and blankets. (Ugh! Ugh! Ugh! That is so!) A peace would
be bad for the Indians. Let them join together at once, to wipe out
the Americans and clean the hunting-grounds before too late. Now was
the time. The American soldiers were still busy, and there were many
British soldiers to keep them busy. Strike, strik