m his
Indian killing, which, indeed, was accounted no wrong, but rather a
virtue by his savage white friends. In person he might well take their
rude fancy. He was tall, full-chested, and broad-shouldered; his dark
face was deeply pitted with smallpox; his hair, which he was very proud
of, fell to his knees when loose; his black eyes, when he was roused,
shone with dangerous fire. He was silent and shy with strangers, but the
life of any party of comrades. It is not certainly known how or where he
died. Some say that he went South, and ended his stormy life quietly at
Natchez; others that he went West, and remained a woodsman to the last,
hunting wild beasts and killing wild men.

[Illustration: Bearskin Cap on a Ramrod 125]

Lewis Wetzel had two brothers only less famous than himself in the
backwoods warfare, and more than once Indian fighting seems to have run
in families. Adam Poe and Andrew Poe were brothers whose names have
come down in the story of deadly combats with the savages. They are most
renowned for their heroic struggle with a party of seven Wyandots near
the mouth of Little Yellow Creek, in 1782. The Wyandots, led by a great
warrior named Big Foot, had fallen suddenly on a settlement just below
Fort Pitt, killed one old man in his cabin, and begun their retreat with
what booty they could gather. Eight borderers, the two Poes among them,
followed in hot haste across the river into the Ohio country, where the
next morning Andrew Poe came suddenly on Big Foot and a small warrior
talking together by their raft at the water's edge. They stood with
their guns cocked, and Poe aimed at Big Foot; but his piece missed fire.
The Indians turned at the click of the lock, and Poe, who was too close
to them for any chance of escape, leaped upon them both and threw them
to the ground together. The little warrior freed himself, and got his
tomahawk from the raft to brain Poe, whom he left in deadly clutch with
Big Foot. Twice he struck, but Poe managed each time, by twisting and
dodging, to keep his head away from the hatchet, and as the warrior
struck the third time, Poe, though badly hurt on the arm by one of
his blows, wrenched himself free from Big Foot, caught up one of the
Indians' guns, and shot the little warrior through the breast. Then
Big Foot seized him again, and they floundered together into the water,
where each tried to drown the other. Poe held Big Foot under the water
so long that he thought he must be