d first, shoot first!" The chief got his
powder down first, but, in hurriedly drawing out his ramrod, it slipped
through his fingers and fell in the river. Seeing that it was all over,
he instantly faced his foe, pulled open the bosom of his shirt, and the
next moment received the ball fair in his breast. Adam, alarmed for his
brother, who by this time could barely keep himself afloat, rushed into
the river to save him, not heeding Andrew's repeated cries to take the
big Indian's scalp. Meanwhile the dying chief, resolute to save the long
locks his enemies coveted--always a point of honor among the red
men,--painfully rolled himself into the stream. Before he died he
reached the deep water, and the swift current bore his body away.

Other Feats of Personal Prowess

About this time a hunter named McConnell was captured near Lexington by
five Indians. At night he wriggled out of his bonds and slew four of his
sleeping captors, while the fifth, who escaped, was so bewildered that,
on reaching the Indian town, he reported that his party had been
attacked at night by a number of whites, who had not only killed his
companions but the prisoner likewise.

A still more remarkable event had occurred a couple of summers
previously. Some keel boats, manned by a hundred men under Lieutenant
Rogers, and carrying arms and provisions procured from the Spaniards at
New Orleans, were set upon by an Indian war party under Girty and
Elliott, [Footnote: Haldimand MSS. De Peyster to Haldimand, November 1,
1779.] while drawn up on a sand beach of the Ohio. The boats were
captured and plundered, and most of the men were killed; several
escaped, two under very extraordinary circumstances. One had both his
arms, the other both his legs, broken. They lay hid till the Indians
disappeared, and then accidentally discovered each other. For weeks the
two crippled beings lived in the lonely spot where the battle had been
fought, unable to leave it, each supplementing what the other could do.
The man who could walk kicked wood to him who could not, that he might
make a fire, and making long circuits, chased the game towards him for
him to shoot it. At last they were taken off by a passing flat-boat.

The backwoodsmen, wonted to vigorous athletic pastimes, and to fierce
brawls among themselves, were generally overmatches for the Indians in
hand-to-hand struggles. One such fight, that took place some years
before this time, deserves mention. A man