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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cf4f543 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #56094 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/56094) diff --git a/old/56094-0.txt b/old/56094-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index f528488..0000000 --- a/old/56094-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,9748 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Allegheny Episodes, by Henry Wharton Shoemaker - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: Allegheny Episodes - Folk Lore and Legends Collected in Northern and Western - Pennsylvania, Vol XI. Pennsylvania Folk Lore Series - -Author: Henry Wharton Shoemaker - -Release Date: November 30, 2017 [EBook #56094] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALLEGHENY EPISODES *** - - - - -Produced by KD Weeks, ellinora and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - Transcriber’s Note: - -This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects. -Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as _italic_. - -The illustrations have been re-positioned slightly to avoid falling -within a paragraph. - -Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please -see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for details regarding -the handling of any textual issues encountered during its preparation. - - INDEX - - --- - - Page - Foreword 3 - Introduction 5 - Tulliallan 9 - At His Bedside 31 - The Prostrate Juniper 40 - Out of the Ashes 51 - Wayside Destiny 64 - The Holly Tree 77 - The Second Run of the Sap 96 - Black Chief’s Daughter 108 - The Gorilla 122 - The Indian’s Twilight 135 - Hugh Gibson’s Captivity 147 - Girty’s Notch 161 - Poplar George 175 - Black Alice Dunbar 186 - Abram Antoine, Bad Indian 199 - Do You Believe in Ghosts? 219 - A Stone’s Throw 234 - The Turning of the Belt 247 - Riding His Pony 265 - The Little Postmistress 271 - The Silent Friend 290 - The Fountain of Youth 298 - Compensations 310 - A Misunderstanding 326 - A Haunted House 339 - -[Illustration: - - OUTPOSTS OF THE ALLEGHENIES. (Photograph by W. H. Rau.) - Frontispiece -] - - Allegheny Episodes - - Folk Lore and Legends Collected in - Northern and Western Pennsylvania - - _By_ HENRY W. SHOEMAKER - - Volume XI Pennsylvania Folk Lore Series - -[Illustration] - -“The country east of the Mississippi was inhabited by a very powerful -nation. * * * Those people called themselves Alligewi. * * * The -Allegheny River and Mountains have been named after them. * * * The -Lenni-Lenape still call the river Alligewi Sipu, the river of the -Alligewi, but it is generally known by its Iroquois name–Ohe-Yu–which -the French had literally translated into La Belle Riviere, The Beautiful -River, though a branch of it retains the ancient name Allegheny.” - - –John Heckewelder. - - ALTOONA, PENNSYLVANIA - Published by the Altoona Tribune Company - 1922 - Copyright: All Rights Reserved. - -[Illustration] - - _Foreword_ - - -The author tells me that I was his discoverer, and that without a -discoverer we cannot do anything. Very true; one American author had to -write till he was forty-eight, and then be discovered in Japan. Henry W. -Shoemaker was discovered nearer home, and by a humbler scholar. - -In my last foreword I emphasized the value of folk-lore. Its -significance grows upon me with age. I have now come to regard it as a -kind of appendix to Scripture. Outside of mere magic, an abuse of -correspondences, as Swedenborg calls it, there is in folk-lore a digest -of the spiritual insight of the plain people. It also contains actual -facts boiled to rags. For instance, in 1919 the dying Horace Traubel saw -in vision his life-long idol, Walt Whitman, and the apparition was also -seen by Colonel Cosgrave, who felt a shock when it touched him. - -The flimsy modern paper whereon the scientific account of this is -printed will soon perish, and then there will be nothing left but loose -literary references and memories to witness that it happened. Any -skeptic can challenge these, and the apparition will become folk-lore. -As it is in its scientific setting in the Journal of the American -Society for Psychical Research for 1921, it is a side light on the -Transfiguration. For if Whitman appeared to Traubel in 1919, and -Swedenborg appeared to Andrew Jackson Davis in 1844, why should not the -great predecessors of Christ appear also to him? - -Such is the value of folk-lore, and for this reason the Armenian Church -did well to attach an appendix of apocrypha to the Holy Gospel. In such -a document as the uncanonical Gospel of “Peter” (this was not one of the -Armenian selections, but it ought to have been, in spite of the fact -that the Mother Church of Syria had suppressed it) the life of Christ is -seen in a dissolving view, blending with the folk-lore of the time; and -let us hope that some day this valuable piece of ancient thought will be -printed with the New Testament instead of some of the unimportant matter -that too often accompanies it. - - ALBERT J. EDMUNDS. - THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA, - Philadelphia, March 1, 1921. - - _Introduction_ - - -It is a good thing to make resolves, but a better thing, once having -made them, to keep them. On two previous occasions the compiler of the -present volume has stated his resolve in prefaces to issue no more books -of the kind, but has gone ahead and prepared more. Probably the motive -that brought into existence the first volume can be urged in extenuation -for the eleventh, namely, the desire to preserve the folk-lore of the -Pennsylvania Mountains. - -The contents of the present volume, like its predecessors, were gathered -orally from old people and others, and written down as closely as -possible to the verbal accounts. In order to escape ill feeling, as in -the case with the earlier volumes, some names of persons and places, and -dates have been changed. This has been done with the greatest -reluctance, and only where absolutely necessary. The characters are real -persons, and most of them appear under their rightful names. Many of the -legends or incidents run counter to the accepted course of history, but -tradition is preserved for what it is worth, and the reader can draw his -own conclusions. While some of these tales end unhappily, the proportion -is not greater than in life as we know it, and the general ascendency of -right over wrong shines through the gloomiest passages. Life could not -exist, or the world go on, unless the majority of events ended -fortuitously; it is that happy preponderance which makes “hope spring -eternal,” and is so often rewarded by a realization of the heart’s -desire. - -The various phases of the supernatural in the ensuing pages depicts -probably a more normal condition of our relationship with the unseen -world than the crude and clumsy mediumship found in the big cities, and -may present a rational explanation of life “behind the dark curtain.” - -There is certainly a spiritual life, and a purely spiritual God, and all -the events of the soul are regulated by divine laws, which have only too -frequently been confused with the physical life so subject to chance and -reversion back to chaos. - -The origins of Pennsylvania folk-lore seem to the writer like a happy -blending of Indian and European elements which would have gradually, had -backwoods conditions continued, developed into a definitely -Pennsylvanian mythology. The fact that the writer had so many more -legends in form of notes, which otherwise would have been mislaid and -come to nothing, prompted him to break his resolve and prepare the -present volume. And, for good or ill, he has many more, dealing with -other parts of the State. What shall be their fate? Are they worthy of -perpetuation as folk-lore? Apart from the general idea of preserving -legendary matter for future generations, there is the added reason that -the heroic lines of some of the characters appealed to him, and, to save -them from the oblivion of the “forgotten millions,” their careers have -been herein recorded. - -Probably one-half of the stories were told to the compiler by one -lady–Mrs. W. J. Phillips, of Clinton County--who spent some of her -girlhood days, many years ago, on the Indian Reservations in -Pennsylvania and southwestern New York. - -Professor J. S. Illick, Chief of the Bureau of Research of the -Pennsylvania Department of Forestry, is due thanks for securing many of -the illustrations. Four of the chapters–Nos. IX, XV, XXI, XXII–are -reprinted from the compiler’s historical brochure, “Penn’s Grandest -Cavern,” and the first chapter, “Tulliallan,” was published in the -“Sunbury Daily”; otherwise none of the chapters of this book have -hitherto appeared in print. - -Persons interested in more intimate details concerning the origins and -characters of the various tales will be cheerfully accommodated “for -private circulation only.” Like James Macpherson of “Ossian,” it can be -said “the sources of information are open to all.” - -The compiler hopes that through this book a more general interest in the -Pennsylvania folk-lore can be created; its predecessors have missed -achieving this, but there is always that hope springing afresh to -“Godspeed” the newest volume. No pretense at style of literary -workmanship is claimed, and the stories should be read, not as romances -or short stories, but as a by-product of history–the folk-lore, the -heart of the Pennsylvania mountain people. With this constantly borne in -mind, a better understanding and appreciation of the meanings of the -book may be arrived at. - -The kindly reception accorded to the previous volumes, and also to -“North Pennsylvania Minstrelsy” by the press and by a small circle of -interested readers, if equalled by the present volume will satisfy the -compiler, if his ambitions for a wider field of usefulness are not to be -realized. - -To those of press and public who have read and commented on the earlier -volumes go the compiler’s gratitude, and to them he commends this book, -the tales of which have had their origins mostly along the main chain of -the Allegheny Mountains and on the western watershed. Sincere thanks are -due to Miss Mary E. Morrow, whose intelligence and patience in -transcribing the manuscripts of this and the majority of the earlier -volumes of the series has had much to do with whatever recognition they -may have achieved, and a pleasant memory to the author, as well. - - HENRY W. SHOEMAKER. - -Department of Forestry, - State Capitol, Harrisburg, - February 23, 1922. - -P. S.–Thanks are also due to Mrs. E. Horace Quinn, late of Bucknell -University, for her kindness in revising the proofs. - - 9-5-22. - -[Illustration] - - I - _Tulliallan_ - - -“Why, yes, you may accompany your Uncle Thomas and myself to select the -plate which we plan to present to the battleship of the line, ‘The -Admiral Penn,’ which the First Lord, His Grace, Duke of Bedford, has -graciously named in honor of your distinguished grandsire,” said Richard -Penn, pompously, answering a query addressed to him by his young son, -John. - -The youth, who was about eighteen years of age and small and slight, -seemed delighted, and waited impatiently with his father for Uncle -Thomas’ arrival. Soon a liveried footman announced the arrival of Thomas -Penn, and the brothers, after embracing, started from the imposing -mansion in New Street, Spring Gardens (near the Admiralty Arch), -accompanied by the younger scion and a retinue of secretaries, retainers -and footmen. - -It so happened that the leading silversmith in the city, James Cox, was -of the Quaker faith, to which William Penn, the famous founder of -Pennsylvania, and father of Richard and Thomas, belonged, and was -particularly pleased to be the recipient of this costly and important -order. It was an occasion of such importance to him that his wife, sons -and daughter had come to his place of business to witness the -transaction and, perhaps, meet the aristocratic customers. - -As they entered the establishment, the tradesman himself opened the -door, bowing low as the two portly gentlemen, with their plum-colored -coats, snuff boxes and walking sticks, entered arm in arm, followed by -the diminutive John, in a long, red coat, while the minions of various -degrees waited outside, clustered about the gilded chairs. - -It must be understood that these sons of William Penn were not members -of the Society of Friends, but had assumed the faith of their -grandfather, the Admiral, and founder of the family fortunes, and young -John was nominally a member of the same faith. - -The portly and self-important gentlemen were soon absorbed in studying -the various designs of silver services, while the restless and -half-interested gaze of young John wandered about the salesroom. It was -not long in falling on the slender, demure form of Maria Cox, the -silversmith’s only daughter. Clad in her Quaker garb and bonnet, she was -certainly a picture of loveliness, almost seventeen years old, with deep -blue eyes, dark brows and lashes, fair complexion, with features -exaggerately clearcut, made John Penn’s senses reel in a delirium of -enthusiasm. - -Ordinarily he would have become impatient at the delay in selecting the -silver service, for the older gentlemen were slow of decision and he was -a spoiled child, but this time he was lost in admiration and he cared -not if they remained in the shop for the balance of the day. John Penn, -himself, for a small lad was not unprepossessing; his hair was golden, -his eyes expressive and blue, his complexion like a Dresden china -doll’s, his form erect and very slim, yet few girls had fancied him, for -he was selfish and not inclined to talk. - -Seeing that he was not assisting his elders in selecting the silverware, -Mrs. Cox, the wife, and a woman of some tact and breeding, introduced -conversation with the young man, eventually drawing her daughter into -it, and it was a case of love quickly on both sides. - -When, after four hours of selecting and changing and selecting again, -the Penns finally accepted a design and placed their order, John had -arranged that he was to dine with the Cox family and see the young -beauty frequently. All went well until the day appointed for the visit -to the home of the silversmith. John Penn presented himself before his -father attired in his best red velvet coat with gold facings, white -satin knee breeches, pumps with diamond buckles, his face much powdered, -and sporting a pearl inlaid sword. The elder Penn demanded to know the -cause of the youth’s magnificence, for ordinarily his Quaker blood -showed itself in a distaste for fancy apparel. - -“To dine with Mr. and Mrs. James Cox and their charming daughter, whom I -much admire,” was the calm rejoinder. - -“What, what,” fairly shouted the father, almost having an apoplectic -attack on the spot; “dining with common tradespeople! You must be in a -frenzy, son; we’ll have you in Bedlam.” - -“I don’t see why you talk that way, father,” said John, retaining his -composure. “Are we so very different? It was only a few generations back -when the Penns were plain rural yeomen, and Madame van der Schoulen, or -Grandmother Penn, your own mother, was she not the daughter of a Dutch -tradesman?” - -“Don’t speak that way, lad; the servants may hear, and lose respect,” -said the father. - -The lad had touched a sore subject, and he preferred to let him keep his -engagement rather than to have an expose on the subject of ancestry. - -The dinner and visit were followed by others, but at home John’s romance -did not run smoothly, and he quickly realized that his father and Uncle -Thomas, whose heir he was to be, would never consent to his marriage -with the daughter of a silversmith. Consequently, a trip to Gretna Green -was executed, and John Penn, aged nineteen, and Maria Cox, seventeen, -were duly made man and wife. - -When Richard Penn and his brother Thomas were apprised of what he had -done they locked him in his room, and after night got him to the -waterfront and on a ship bound for the French coast. He was carried to -Paris and there carefully watched, but meanwhile supplied with money, -all that he could spend. Temporarily he forgot all about Maria Cox, -plunging into the gaieties of the French Capital, gambling and betting -on horse races, the “sport of kings” having been only recently -introduced in France, until he was deeply in debt. He became very ill, -and was taken to Geneva to recuperate. There he was followed by -representatives of his creditors, who threatened to have him jailed for -debt–a familiar topic in family talk to him, for his grandfather, -William Penn, despite his ownership of Pennsylvania, had been arrested -for debt many times and was out on bail on a charge of non-payment of -loans made from his steward at the time of his death. - -John wrote frantically to his father in London, who turned a deaf ear to -the prodigal; not so Uncle Thomas. He replied that he would save the boy -from jail and pay his debts, provided he would divorce his wife and go -to Pennsylvania for an indefinite period. John was ready to promise -anything; a representative of the Penn’s financial interests settled all -the claims in and out of Paris, and John Penn was free. - -While waiting at Lille for a ship to take him from Rotterdam to -Philadelphia, the young man was advised to come to London for a day to -say good-bye to his relatives. The packet was expected in the Thames on -a certain day, but got into a terrific storm and was tossed about the -North Sea and the Channel for a week, and no one was at the dock to meet -the dilapidated youth on his arrival at Fleet Street. - -As he passed up the streets in Cheapside, to his surprise he ran into -the fair figure of his bride, the deserted Maria Cox-Penn. He was again -very much in love, and she ready to forgive. They spent the balance of -the day together, enjoying a fish ordinary at a noted restaurant in -Bird-in-Hand Court. Over the meal it was arranged that Maria should -follow her husband to America; meanwhile, he would provide a home for -her over there under an assumed name, until he became of age, when he -would defy his family to again tear them asunder. - -None of John Penn’s family had the slightest suspicion of anything out -of the usual when he presented himself in their midst, and he returned -quietly to Lille, where he remained until the ship was announced as -ready to take him to America. He arrived in New York during a terrible -tornado, in November, 1752. At Philadelphia he evinced little interest -in anything except to take a trip into the interior. As he had plenty of -money, he could accomplish most anything he wanted, and was not watched. -On his way to the Susquehanna country he traveled with an armed -bodyguard, as there were even then renegade Indians and road agents -abroad. A number of less distinguished travelers and their servants -were, for safety’s sake, allowed to accompany the party. Among them was -a man of fifty-five, named Peter Allen, to whom young John took a -violent fancy. - -It was not unusual, for Peter Allen was what the Indians recognized as a -_gentleman_, although he was only a cadet, or what we would call -nowadays a “poor relation” of the proud Allen family, the head of which -was William Allen, Chief Justice of the Province, a man about Peter -Allen’s age, and for whom Northampton or Allensville, now Allentown, was -named. - -Peter Allen had built a stone house or trading post, which he called -“Tulliallan” after one of the ancestral homes of the Allen family in -Scotland, on the very outpost of civilization, twenty miles west of -Harris’ Ferry, where all manner of traders, hunters, missionaries, -explorers and sometimes Indians congregated, where balls were held with -Indian princesses as guests of honor, and the description of this place -fired John Penn’s fancy. - -The idea had flashed through his mind that Maria could harbor there -unknown until he became of age, and some day, despite the silly family -opposition, she would become the Governor’s Lady. John Penn went to -Peter Allen’s, and not only found a refuge for his bride, but liked the -frontier life so well that it was as if he had been born in the -wilderness. Mountains and forests appealed to him, and his latent -democracy found full vent among the diversified types who peopled the -wilderness. - -Peter Allen had three young daughters, Barbara, Nancy and Jessie, whom -he wished schooled, and John Penn arranged that Maria should teach them -and, perhaps, have a select school for other children of the better sort -along the Susquehanna. Peter Allen was secretly peeved at his family for -not recognizing him more, and lent himself to anything that, while not -dishonorable, would bend the proud spirit of the Proprietaries and their -favorites, one of whom was the aforementioned “Cousin Judge” William -Allen. - -John Penn returned to Philadelphia, from where he sent a special -messenger, a sort of valet, to London, who met and safely escorted Maria -to America. She landed at Province Island on the Delaware, remaining in -retirement there for a month, until John could slip away and escort her -personally to Peter Allen’s. - -The girl was bright, well-educated and sensible, and found the new life -to her liking, and her young husband loving and considerate. - -It was in the spring of 1754 when they reached the stone house at the -foot of the Fourth or Peter’s Mountain, and during the ensuing year she -taught the young Allen girls and three other well-bred children, and was -visited frequently by her husband. She assumed the name of Mary Warren, -her mother’s maiden name, which proved her undoing. All went well until -representatives of the Penns in London learned that Maria Cox-Penn was -missing, and they traced her on shipboard through the name “Mary -Warren,” eventually locating her as the young school-mistress at -“Tulliallan.” - -The next part of this story is a hard one to write, as one hates to make -accusations against dead and gone worthies who helped to found our -beloved Pennsylvania; but, at any rate, without going into whys and -wherefores, “Mary Warren” mysteriously disappeared. Simultaneously went -Joshua, the friendly Indian who lived at the running spring on the top -of Peter’s Mountain, and Arvas, or “Silver Heels,” another Indian, whose -cabin was on the slopes of Third (now called Short) Mountain, near -Clark’s Creek. - -[Illustration: VIRGIN WHITE PINES, WARREN COUNTY, 1912] - -It was in the early summer of 1755 when John Penn, accompanied only by -one retainer, John Monkton, a white-bearded veteran of Preston, rode out -of the gateway of the stockade of John Harris’ trading post, bound for -Peter Allen’s. His heart was glad and his spirits elated for, moody lad -that he was, he dearly loved his wife and her influence over him was -good. - -On the very top of the Second Mountain he drew rein, and in the clear -stillness of the Sunday morning listened to a cheewink poised on the -topmost twig of a chestnut sprout, and viewed the scenes below him. In -an ample clearing at the foot of Fourth Mountain he could see Peter -Allen’s spacious stone mansion, where his love was probably at that -minute instructing the little class in the beauties of revealed -religion. They would soon be united, and he was so wonderfully happy! - -As the cool morning breeze swayed the twig on which the cheewink -perched, it sang again and again, “Ho-ho-hee, ho-ho-hee, ho-ho-hee!” in -a high key, and with such an ecstasy of joy and youth that all the world -seemed animated with its gladness, yet Penn’s thought as he rode on was, -“I wonder where that bird will be next year; what will it have to -undergo before it can feel the warmth and sunlight of another spring?” - -He hurried his horse so that it stumbled many times going down the -mountain, and splashed the water all over old Monkton in his anxiety to -ford Clark’s Creek. He lathered his horse forcing him to trot up the -steep contrefort which leads to “Tulliallan,” though he weighed hardly -more than one hundred and twenty pounds. He drew rein before the door; -no one rushed out to greet him, even the dogs were still. He made his -escort dismount and pound the heavy brass knocker, fashioned in the form -of an Indian’s head. After some delay, Peter Allen himself appeared, -looking glum and deadly pale. - -“What is wrong?” cried Penn who was naturally as intuitive as a woman, -noting his altered demeanor. - -“Can I tell you, sir, in the presence of your bodyguard?” - -“Out, out with it, Allen,” shouted Penn, “I must know _now_.” - -“Mary Warren has been gone a fortnight, we know not whither. She had -taken the Berryhill children home after classes, and left them about -five o’clock in the evening. She did not return, and we have searched -everywhere. Strange to relate, George Smithgall, the young serving man -whom you left here to look after your apartments, and who accompanied -Mary from London is gone also; draw your own inferences.” - -John Penn’s fair face was as red as his scarlet cloak. Despite Allen’s -urging he would not dismount, but turned his horse’s head toward the -river. He rode to Queenaskawakee, now called Clark’s Ferry, where there -was a famous fording, and, accompanied by his guard, he made the -crossing and posted for the Juniata country. Near Raystown Branch he -caught up with the company of riflemen and scouts organized by “Black -Jack,” the Wild Hunter of the Juniata, who was waiting for General -Braddock’s arrival to enlist in the proposed attack on Fort Duquesne at -Shannopin’s Town, now Pittsburg. Black Jack was no stranger to him, -having often met him at social gatherings at Peter Allen’s, and the -greeting between the two men was very friendly. John Penn occupied the -same cabin as the Wild Hunter, and he told him his story. - -“It is not news to me,” said Captain Jack. “I heard it before, from -Smithgall. He went through here last week hunting for Mary.” - -Despite this reassuring information, Penn refused to believe anything -but that the lovely Quakeress had proved false and eloped with the -German-American serving man. Word came in a few days that the vanguard -of General Braddock’s army had reached the Loyalhanna, and were encamped -there. Captain Jack, with John Penn riding at his side, and followed by -his motley crew with their long rifles–Germans, Swiss, Frenchmen, -Dutchmen, Indians, half breeds, Negroes and Spaniards–approached the -luxurious quarters of General Edward Braddock, late of the Coldstream -Guards. The portly General, his breast blazing with decorations, wearing -his red coat, was seated in a carved armchair in front of a log cabin -erected for his especial use by his pioneers, who preceded him on the -march. A Sergeant-Major conveyed the news of “The Wild Hunter’s” -presence to the General’s Aide, who in turn carried it to the august -presence. - -“I cannot speak to such a fellow, let alone accept him as a brother -officer,” said Braddock, irritably. “Besides, his methods of fighting -are contrary to all discipline, and I want no Pennsylvania troops. Tell -him that if he insists I will make him top-sergeant, and place my own -officers over his company.” - -Captain Jack was half angry, half amused, when the rebuff was handed to -him via the sergeant major. - -“My father was a Spanish gentleman from the Minisink, and my mother a -woman of tolerably good Hessian blood. I see no reason for such rank -exclusiveness.” - -Quickly turning his horse’s head, the sturdy borderer ordered his troop -to proceed eastward. - -“Don’t act too rashly, Captain,” entreated Penn. “General Braddock is -ignorant of this country and Indian methods of warfare. He may have -orders not to enlist native troops, yet without your aid I fear for the -success of his expedition. Please let me intercede with him; he will do -it when he hears that I am your friend.” - -“To the devil with him and his kind, the swinish snob,” growled Captain -Jack, while his black eyes flashed a diabolical hatred; his Spanish -temper was uncontrollable. That night, when Captain Jack and John Penn -were seated at their camp fire at Laurel Run, a messenger, a Major, not -a Sergeant Major, from General Braddock was announced. - -Saluting, the officer asked to be allowed to speak with John Penn, -Esquire. Penn received the officer without rising, and was cooly civil -throughout the interview, which consisted principally of reading a -letter from Braddock, expressing deep regret “that he had not known that -the son of his dear friend, Richard Penn, had been with –-- Jack,” and -offering Penn the captaincy of _Black Jack’s_ company of scouts, “–-- -Jack to be First Lieutenant.” - -Naturally, Captain Jack was more enraged than ever, but he said: “Take -it, John, I’ll withdraw and turn my men, who, you know, are the best -shots in the Province, over to you. They would go through hell for you.” - -“Never fear,” replied Penn, and, turning to the Major, he said: “Tell -General Braddock, with my compliments, that I decline to accept a -commission which he has no authority to tender. As for my companion, -Captain Jack (laying emphasis on the Captain) the General had _his_ -decision earlier in the day. Goodnight, Major.” - -Thus terminated the “conference” which might have changed the face of -history. As the result of Braddock’s pride and folly, his defeat and -death are a part of history, known by every Pennsylvanian. - -John Penn was wretchedly unhappy, even though Captain Jack tried to -console him, when he shrewdly inferred that “Mary” had been kidnapped by -emissaries of his relatives, and had not eloped with a vile serving man. -His heart was too lacerated to remain longer with the Wild Hunter, now -that no active service was to be experienced; so, accompanied by -Monkton, the veteran of Preston, he set out the next morning for the -West Branch of the Susquehanna to the unexplored countries. - -At Waterford Narrows they passed the body of a trader recently killed -and scalped by Indians. - -“May I draw one of his teeth, sir?” said the old soldier, “and you can -carry it in your pocket, for the old people say ‘The only thing that can -break the enchantment of love is the tooth of a dead man’.” - -Penn shook his head and rode on. For a considerable time Penn and Old -Monkton visited with Dagonando (Rock Pine), a noted Indian Chief in -Brush Valley (Centre County), for the young man, like the founder of -Pennsylvania, possessed the same irresistible charm over the redmen. - -Years afterwards, in Philadelphia, speaking to General Thomas Mifflin, -Dagonando stated that had it not been for his unhappy love affairs, John -Penn would have been the equal of his grandfather as Governor, and -prevented the Revolutionary War. But his spirit was crushed; even a mild -love affair with Dagonando’s daughter ended with shocking disaster. -Reaching Fort Augusta, Penn became very ill; a “nervous breakdown” his -ailment would be diagnosed today. During his illness he was robbed of -his diary. He reached Philadelphia in the fall, and almost immediately -set sail for England. He remained abroad until 1763, when he returned as -Governor of Pennsylvania. He arrived in Philadelphia on October 30, in -the midst of the terrific earthquake of that year, and on November 5, -George Roberts in a letter to Samuel Powell, in describing the new Chief -Magistrate, says: - -“His Honor, Penn, is a little gentleman, though he may govern equal to -one seven feet high.” - -Charles P. Keith has thus summed up Penn’s career from the time of his -first arrival in Pennsylvania: “He was one of the Commissioners to the -Congress at Albany in the summer of 1754, and made several journeys to -the neighboring colonies. Nevertheless, his trouble made him again -despondent; he began to shun company; he would have joined Braddock’s -army had any Pennsylvania troops formed part of it, and perhaps have -died on the field which that officer’s imprudence made so disastrous. -Some two months after the defeat he returned to England.” - -On June 6, 1766, a brilliant marriage occurred in Philadelphia. John -Penn, Lieutenant Governor, aged thirty-seven years, married Anne, the -daughter of William Allen, Chief Justice; a strange fate had united the -relative of Peter Allen of “Tulliallan” to the husband of Maria Cox, -pronounced legally dead after an absence of eleven years in parts -unknown. Commenting on this alliance, Nevin Moyer, the gifted Historian, -remarks: “The marriage was an unpleasant one, on his (Penn’s) account, -for he was found very seldom at home.” It was during the wedding that a -fierce electrical storm occurred, unroofing houses and shattering many -old trees. - -It was not long after this marriage when a feeling of restlessness -impelled him to start another of his many trips to the interior. This -time it was given out that he wished to visit Penn’s Valley, the -“empire” discovered in the central part of the province by Captains -Potter and Thompson, and named in his honor, and Penn’s Cave, the source -of the Karoondinha, a beautiful, navigable stream, rechristened “John -Penn’s Creek.” He managed to stop over night, as everyone of any -consequence did, at “Tulliallan,” and slept in the room with the Scotch -thistles carved on the woodwork, and saw Peter Allen for the first time -in twelve years. - -A foul crime had recently been committed in the neighborhood. Indian -Joshua, who used to live at the running spring, had gone to Canada the -year of Braddock’s defeat (the year of Mary’s disappearance, Penn always -reckoned it) and had lately returned to his old abode. He had been shot, -as a trail of blood from his cabin down the mountain had been followed -clear to Clark’s Creek, where it was lost. In fact, pitiful wailing had -been heard one night all the way across the valley, but it was supposed -to be a traveling panther. Arvas, or Silver Heels, had also come back -for a time, but, after Joshua’s disappearance, had gone away. - -“Maybe he killed his friend,” whispered Allen, looking down guiltily, as -he spoke what he knew to be untruthful words. - -“It is all clear to me now, Allen,” said Penn. “I should have believed -Captain Jack, when in ’55 he told me that my late wife was carried off -to Canada by Indians; the kidnappers came back, and for fear that they -would levy hush money on those who had caused my Mary to be stolen, -murdered Joshua as a warning.” - -Allen did not answer, but Penn said: “You have kept a public house so -long that you have forgotten to be a gentleman, and I do not expect you -to tell the truth.” - -In 1840 seekers after nestlings of the vultures climbed to the top of -the King’s Stool, the dizzy pinnacle of the Third Mountain. There they -found the skeleton of an Indian. It was all that was left of Joshua, who -had climbed there in his agony and died far above the scenes which he -loved so dearly. The hunters put the bones in their hunting pouches and -climbed down the “needle,” and buried them decently at the foot of the -rocks. - -The King’s Stool is named for a similar high point near Lough Foyle, -Ireland, and there are also King’s Stools in Juniata and Perry Counties. -The North of Ireland pioneers were glad to recognize scenes similar to -the natural wonders of the Green Isle! - -A great light had come to John Penn, but he accepted his fate -philosophically, just as he had the abuse heaped upon him for his -vacillating policy towards the Indians. He followed up his vigorous -attempt to punish the Paxtang perpetrators of the massacres of the -Conestoga Indians at Christmas time, 1763, by promulgating the infamous -scalp bounty of July, 1764, which bounty, to again quote Professor -Moyer, paid “$134 for an Indian’s scalp, and $150 for a live Indian, and -$50 for an Indian female or child’s scalp.” - -There are not enough Indians to make hunting for bounties in -Pennsylvania a paying occupation today, so instead there is a bounty on -Wildcats and foxes, wiping out desirable wild life to satisfy the -politicians’ filthy greed. - -John Penn returned to Philadelphia without visiting Penn’s Valley or -Penn’s Cave or John Penn’s Creek. He had seen them previously in 1755 -when they bore their original Indian names, and his heart was still sad. -It was not long after returning that he again started on another -expedition up the Susquehanna, traveling by canoe, just as his -grandfather, William Penn, had done in his supposedly fabulous trip to -the sources of the West Branch at Cherry Tree, in 1700. A stop was made -at Fisher’s stone house, Fisher’s Ferry. A group of pioneers had heard -of his coming and gave the little Governor a rousing ovation. He felt -nearest to being happy when among the frontier people, who understood -him, and his trials had, like Byron, made him “the friend of mountains”; -he was still simple at heart. In the kitchen, seated by the inglenook, -he heard someone’s incessant coughing in an inner room. He asked the -landlord, old Peter Fisher, who was suffering so acutely. - -“Why, sir,” replied Fisher, “it’s an Englishwoman dying.” - -In those days people’s nationalities in Pennsylvania were more sharply -defined, and any English-speaking person was always called an -“Englishwoman” or an “Englishman,” as the case might be. - -“Tell me about her,” said the Governor, with ill-concealed curiosity. - -“It’s a strange story, it might give Your Worship offense,” faltered the -old innkeeper. “They tell it, sir, though it’s doubtless a lie, that -Your Excellency cared for this Englishwoman, and your enemies had her -kidnapped by two Indians and taken to Canada. The Indians were paid for -keeping her there until a few years ago, when their remittances suddenly -stopped and they came home; one, it is said, was murdered soon after. -Arvas, his companion, was accused of the crime, but he stopped here for -a night, a few weeks afterwards, and swore to me that he was guiltless. -The Englishwoman finally got away and walked all the way back from a -place called Muskoka, but she caught cold and consumption on the way, -and is on her death-bed now. I knew her in all her youth and beauty at -Peter Allen’s, where she was always the belle of the balls there; she -had been brought up a Quaker, but my, how she could dance. You would not -know her now.” - -“I want to see her,” said the Governor, rising to his feet. - -It was getting dark, so Fisher lit a rushlight, and led the way. He -opened the heavy door without rapping. His wife and daughter sat on -high-backed rush-bottomed chairs on either side of the big four-poster -bed, which had come from the Rhine country. On the bed lay a woman of -about forty years, frightfully emaciated by suffering, whose -exaggeratedly clear-cut features were accentuated in their marble look -by the pallor of oncoming dissolution. Her wavy, dark hair, parted in -the middle, made her face seem even whiter. - -“Mary, Mary,” said the little Governor, as he ran to her side, seizing -the white hands which lay on the flowered coverlet. - -“John, my darling John,” gasped the dying woman. - -“Leave us alone together,” commanded the Governor. - -The women looked at one another as they retired. The thoughts which -their glances carried indicated “well, after all the story’s true.” - -They had been alone for about ten minutes when Penn ran out of the door -calling, “Come quick, someone, I fear she’s going.” - -The household speedily assembled, but in another ten minutes “Mary -Warren,” alias Maria Cox-Penn had yielded up the ghost. She is buried on -the brushy African-looking hillside which faces the “dreamy -Susquehanna,” the Firestone Mountains and the sunset, near where -travelers across Broad Mountain pass every day. John Penn returned to -Philadelphia and took no more trips to the interior. He divided his time -between his town house, 44 Pine Street, and his country seat -“Lansdowne.” - -During the Revolution he was on parole. He died childless. February 9, -1795, and is said to be buried under the floor, near the chancel, in the -historic Christ Church, Philadelphia, which bears the inscription that -he was “One of the Late Proprietors of Pennsylvania.” Most probably his -body was later taken to England. His wife, _nee_ Allen, survived him -until 1813. - -The other night in the grand hall of the Historical Society of -Pennsylvania in the Quaker City, a notable reception was given in honor -of the grand historian-governor, William C. Sproul, fresh from his -marvelous restoration of the Colonial Court House at Chester. As he -stood there, the embodiment of mental and physical grace and strength, -the greatest Governor of a generation, receiving the long line of those -who came to pay their respects and well wishes, Albert Cook Myers, famed -historian of the Quakers, mentioned that the present Governor of the -Commonwealth was standing just beneath the portrait of John Penn, one of -the last of the Proprietaries. And what a contrast there was! Penn -looked so effete and almost feminine with his child-like blonde locks, -his pink cheeks, weak, half-closed mouth, his slender form in a red -coat, so different from the vigorous living Governor. Penn was also so -inferior to the other notable portraits which hung about him–the sturdy -Huguenot, General Henri Bouquet, the deliverer of Fort Duquesne in 1758 -and 1763; the stalwart Scot, General Arthur St. Clair, of Miami fame, -who was left to languish on a paltry pension of $180 a year at his -rough, rocky farm on Laurel Ridge; the courageous-looking Irishman, -General Edward Hand; and, above all, the bold and dashing eagle face of -General “Mad Anthony” Wayne. Such company for the last of the Penns to -keep! Though lacking the manly outlines of his fellows on canvas, who -can say that his life had one whit less interest than theirs–probably -much more so, for his spirit had felt the thrill of an undying love, -which in the end surmounted all difficulties and left his heart master -of the field. - -Though his record for statecraft can hardly be written from a favorable -light, and few of his sayings or deeds will live, he has joined an -immortal coterie led down the ages by Anthony and the beautiful Egyptian -queen, by Abelard and Heloise, Dante and Beatrice, Petrarch and Laura, -Alfieri and the Countess of Albany, and here in Pennsylvania by Hugh H. -Brackenridge and the pioneer girl, Sabina Wolfe, and Elisha Kent Kane, -and the spiritualist, Maria Fox. Love is a force that is all-compelling, -all-absorbing and never dies, and is the biggest thing in life, and the -story of John Penn and Maria Cox will be whispered about in the -backwoods cabins and wayside inns of the Pennsylvania Mountains long -after seemingly greater men and minds have passed to forgetfulness. - -But for a few lines in the writings of Charles P. Keith, H. M. Jenkins, -Nevin W. Moyer and various Penn biographers, such as Albert Cook Myers, -the verbal memories of ’Squire W. H. Garman, James Till, Mrs. H. E. -Wilvert and other old-time residents of the vicinity of “Tulliallan,” -all would be lost, and the inspiration of a story of overwhelming -affection unrecorded in the annals of those who love true lovers. - - II - _At His Bedside_ - - -When old Jacob Loy passed away at the age of eighty years, he left a pot -of gold to be divided equally among his eight children. It was a pot of -such goodly proportions that there was a nice round sum for all, and the -pity of it was after the long years of privation which had collected it, -that some of the heirs wasted it quickly on organs, fast horses, cheap -finery and stock speculations, for it was before the days of -player-pianos, victrolas and automobiles. - -Yolande, his youngest daughter, was a really attractive girl, even had -she not a share in the pot of gold, and had many suitors. Though farm -raised and inured to hardships she was naturally refined, with wonderful -dark eyes and hair, and pallid face–the perfect type of Pennsylvania -Mountain loveliness. - -Above all her admirers she liked best of all Adam Drumheller, a shrewd -young farmer of the neighborhood, and eventually married him. Three -children were born in quick succession, in the small tenant house on his -father’s farm in Chest Township, where the young couple had gone to live -immediately after their wedding. - -Shortly after the birth of the last child old Jacob Drumheller died, and -the son and his family moved into the big stone farmhouse near the banks -of the sulphurous Clearfield Creek. It was not long after this -fortuitous move that the young wife began to show signs of the favorite -Pennsylvania mountain malady–consumption. Whether it was caused by a -deep-seated cold or came about from sleeping in rooms with windows -nailed shut, no one could tell, but the beautiful young woman became -paler and more wax-like, until she realized that a speedy end was -inevitable. Many times she found comfort in her misfortune by having her -husband promise that in the event of her death he would never remarry. - -“Never, never,” he promised. “I could never find your equal again.” - -He was sincere in some respects; it would be hard to find her -counterpart, and she had made a will leaving him everything she -possessed, and he imagined that the pot of gold transformed into a bank -balance or Government bonds would be found somewhere among her effects. - -Before ill health had set in he had quizzed her many times, as openly as -he dared, on the whereabouts of her share of the pot. - -“It is all safe,” she would say. “It will be forthcoming some time when -you need it more than you do today,” and he was satisfied. - -As she grew paler and weaker Adam began to think more of Alvira Hamel, -another comely girl whom he had loved when he railroaded out of -Johnstown, at Kimmelton, and whom he planned to claim as his own should -Yolande pass away. - -[Illustration: SCENE IN SNYDER-MIDDLESWARTH PARK] - -Perhaps his thoughts dimly reflected on the dying wife’s sub-conscious -mind, for she became more insistent every day that he promise never to -remarry. - -“Think of our dear little children,” she kept saying, “sentenced to have -a stepmother; I would come back and _haunt_ you if you perpetrate such a -cruelty to me and mine.” - -Adam had little faith in a hereafter, and less in ghosts, so he readily -promised anything, vowing eternal celebacy cheerfully and profoundly. - -When Yolande did finally fade away, she died reasonably happy, and at -least died bravely. She never shed a tear, for it is against the code of -the Pennsylvania Mountain people to do so–perhaps a survival of the -Indian blood possessed by so many of them. - -Three days after the funeral Adam hied himself to Ebensburg to “settle -up the estate,” but also to look up Alvira Hamel, who was now living -there. She seemed glad to see him, and when he broached a possible union -she acted as if pleased at everything except to go on to that lonely -farm on the polluted Clearfield Creek. - -By promising to sell out when he could and move to Barnesboro or -Spangler, a light came in her dark eyes, and though he did not visit the -lawyer in charge of his late wife’s affairs, his day in town was -successful in arranging for the new alliance with his sweetheart of -other days. - -In due course of time it was discovered that the equivalent of Yolande’s -share of the pot of gold left by old Jacob Loy was not to be found. “She -may have kept it in coin and buried it in the orchard,” was some of the -very consoling advice that the lawyer gave. - -At any rate it was not located by the time that Adam and Alvira were -married, but the bridegroom was well to do and could afford to wait. -After a short trip to Pittsburg and Wheeling the newly married couple -took up housekeeping in the big brick farmstead above the creek. - -The first night that they were back from the honeymoon–it was just about -midnight and Alvira was sleeping peacefully–Adam thought that he heard -footsteps on the stairs. He could not be mistaken. Noiselessly the door -opened, and the form of Yolande glided into the room; she was in her -shroud, all white, and her face was whiter than the shroud, and her long -hair never looked blacker. - -Along the whitewashed wall by the bedside was a long row of hooks on -which hung the dead woman’s wardrobe. It had never been disturbed; -Alvira was going to cut the things up and make new garments out of them -in the Spring. Adam watched the apparition while she moved over to the -clothing, counting them, and smoothed and caressed each skirt or waist, -as if she regretted having had to abandon them for the steady raiment of -the shroud. - -Then she came over to the bed and sat on it close to Adam, eyeing him -intently and silently. Just then Alvira got awake, but apparently could -see nothing of the ghost, although the room was bright as day, bathed in -the full moon’s light. - -Yolande seemed to remain for a space of about ten minutes, then passed -through the alcove into the room where the children were sleeping and -stood by their bedside. The next night she was back again, repeating the -same performance, the next night, and the next, and still the next, each -night remaining longer, until at last she stayed until daybreak. In the -morning as the hired men were coming up the boardwalk which led to the -kitchen door, they would meet Yolande, in her shroud coming from the -house, and passing out of the back gate. On one occasion Alvira was -pumping water on the porch, but made no move as she passed, being -evidently like so many persons, spiritually blind. The hired men had -known Yolande all their lives, and were surprised to see her spooking in -daylight, but refrained from saying anything to the new wife. - -Every day for a week after that she appeared on the kitchen porch, or on -the boardwalk, in the yard, on the road, and was seen by her former -husband many times, and also her night prowling went on as of yore. The -hired men began to complain; it might make them sick if a ghost was -around too much; these spooks were supposed to exhale a poison much as -copperhead snakes do, and also draw their “life” away, and they -threatened to quit if she wasn’t “laid.” All of them had seen spooks -before, on occasion, but a daily visitation of the same ghost was more -than they cared about. - -Had it not been for the excitable hired men, Adam, whose nerves were -like iron, could have stood Yolande’s ghost indefinitely. In fact, he -thought it rather nice of her to come back and see him and the children -“for old time’s sake.” But the farm hands must be conserved at any cost, -even to the extent of laying Yolande’s unquiet spirit. - -The next night when she appeared, he made bold and spoke to her: “What -do you want, Yolande,” he said softly, so as not to wake the soundly -sleeping Alvira at his side. “Is there anything I can do for you, dear?” - -Yolande came very close beside him, and bending down whispered in his -ear: “Adam,” said she, “how can you ask me why I am here? You surely -know. Did you not, time and time again, promise never to marry again, if -I died, for the sake of our darling children? Did you not make such a -promise, and see how quickly you broke it! Where I am now I can hold no -resentments, so I forgive you for all your transgressions, but I hope -that Alvira will be good to our children. I have one request to make: -After I left you, you were keen to find what I did with my share of -daddy’s pot of gold. I had it buried in the orchard at my old home, -under the Northern Spy, but after we moved here, one time when you went -deer hunting to Centre County, I dug it up and brought it over here and -buried it in the cellar of this house. It is here now. There are just -one hundred and fifty-three twenty dollar gold pieces; that was my -share. The children and the money were on my mind, not your broken -promise and rash marriage, which you will repent, and which I tell you -again I forgive you for. I want my children to have that money, every -one of the one hundred and fifty-three twenty dollar gold pieces. I -buried it a little to the east of the spring in the cellar, about two -feet under ground, in a tin cartridge box; Dig it up tomorrow morning, -and if you find the one hundred and fifty-three coins, and give every -one to the children, I will never come again and upset your hired men. -Why I have Myron Shook about half scared to death already, but if you -don’t find every single coin I’ll have to come back until you do, or if -you hold it back from the children, you will not be able to keep a -hireling on this place, or any other place to which you move. Many live -folks can’t see ghosts; your wife is one of these; she will never worry -until the hired men quit, then she’ll up and have you make sale and move -to town. Be square and give the children the money, and I’ll not trouble -you again.” - -“Oh, Yolande,” answered Adam in gentle tones, “you are no trouble to me, -not in the least. I love to have you visit me at night, and look at the -children, but you are making the hired help terribly uneasy. That part -you must quit.” - -“That’s enough of your drivel, Adam,” spoke Yolande, in a sterner tone -of voice. “Talk less like a fool, and more like a man. Dig up that money -in the morning, count it, and give it to the children and I’ll be glad -never to see you again.” - -To be reproached by a ghost was too much for Adam, and he lapsed into -silence, while Yolande slipped out of the room, over to the bedside of -the sleeping children, where she lingered until daylight. - -Adam was soon asleep, but was up bright and early the next morning, -starting to dress just as the ghost glided out of the door. By six -o’clock he had exhumed Yolande’s share of the pot of gold which was -buried exactly as her ghostly self had described. - -It was a hard wrench to hand the money over to the children, or rather -to take it to Ebensburg and start savings accounts in their names. But -he did it without a murmur. The cashier, a horse fancier, gave him a -present of a new whip, of a special kind that he had made to order at -Pittsburg, so he came home happy and contented. - -Night was upon him, and supper over, he retired early, dozing a bit -before the “witching hour.” As the old Berks County tall clock in the -entry struck twelve, he began to watch for Yolande’s accustomed -entrance. But not a shadow appeared. The clock struck the quarter, the -half, three quarters and one o’clock. No Yolande or anything like her -came; she was true to her promise, as true as he had been false. It was -an advantage to be a ghost in some ways. They were honorable creatures. - -Adam did not know whether to feel pleased or not. His vanity had been -not a little appealed to by a dead wife visiting him nightly; now he was -sure that it wasn’t for love of him or jealousy, she had been coming -back, but to see that the children got the money that had been buried in -the cellar. And at last she had spoken rather unkindly, so the great -change called death had ended her love, and she wasn’t grieving over his -second marriage at all. However, he fell to consoling himself that she -had chided him for breaking his word and marrying again; she must have -cared for him or she would not have said those things. Then the thought -came to him that she wasn’t really peeved at anything concerning his -marriage to Alvira except that the children had gotten a stepmother. He -wondered if Alvira would continue to be kind to them. Just as he went to -sleep he had forgotten both Yolande and Alvira, chuckling over a pretty -High School girl he had seen on the street at the ’burg, and whom he had -winked at. - -[Illustration] - - III. - _The Prostrate Juniper_ - - -Weguarran was a young warrior of the Wyandots, who lived on the shores -of Lake Michigan. In the early spring of 1754 he was appointed to the -body-guard of old Mozzetuk, a leader of the tribe, on an embassy to -Bethlehem, in Pennsylvania, to prevail on the holy men there, as many -Indians termed the Moravians, to send a band of Missionaries to the -Wyandot Country, with a view of Christianizing the tribe, and acting as -advisors and emissaries between the Wyandots and allied nations with the -French and other white men, who were constantly encroaching on the -redmen’s territories. - -Weguarran the youngest and the handsomest of the escort, was very -impressionable, and across Ohio and over the Alleghenies, he made -friends with the Indian maidens of the various encampments passed en -route. - -The reception at Bethlehem was cordial, but not much hope was held out -for an immediate despatch of Missionaries as the Moravians were anxious -to avoid being drawn into the warlike aspirations of the English and -French, preferring to promote the faith in pacified regions, as very few -of them were partisans, but if they had a leaning at all, it was toward -the French. This was due to the fact that the French always understood -the Indians better than the English, were more sympathetic colonizers, -and while many French Missionaries carried forward the tenets of Rome, -there was no religious intolerance, and Missionaries of every faith -seemed to thrive under their leadership. - -While at Bethlehem and Nazareth, Weguarran was much favored by the -Indian maids of those localities, but did not wholly lose his heart -until one afternoon at the cabin of an old Christian Pequot named -Michaelmas. This old Indian, a native of Connecticut, lived in a log -cabin on a small clearing near the Lehigh River, where he cultivated a -garden of rare plants and trees, and raised tobacco. All his pastimes -were unusual; he captured wild pigeons, which he trained to carry -messages, believing that they would be more valuable in wartime than -runners. He also practiced falconry, owning several hawks of race, -goshawks, marsh hawks and duck hawks. The goshawks he used for grouse, -wood-cocks and quails; the marsh hawks for rabbits, hares and ’coons; -and the duck hawks for wild ducks and other water birds, which fairly -swarmed on the Lehigh in those days. He was a religious old man, almost -a recluse, strong in his prejudices, and was much enthused by the -Wyandot embassy, giving his waning hopes a new burst of life for an -Indian renaissance. - -He took a great fancy to the manly and handsome Weguarran, inviting him -to his cabin, and it was there that the youthful warrior met the old -man’s lovely daughter, Wulaha. She was an only child, eighteen years of -age. Her mother belonged to the Original People and was also a -Christian. - -Love progressed very rapidly between Weguarran and Wulaha, and as the -time drew near for the embassy to depart, the young girl intimated to -her lover that he must discuss the subject with old Michaelmas, and -secure his approval and consent, after the manner of white Christians. - -The old Pequot was not averse to the union, which would add another -strain of Indian blood to the family, but stated that a marriage could -only take place on certain conditions. Weguarran, in his conversations -with Michaelmas, had told him of his military affiliations with the -French, which had filled the old man’s heart with joy for the hopes of a -new order of things that it seemed to kindle. When he asked the hand of -the fair Wulaha in marriage, Michaelmas “came back” with the following -proposition: - -“Weguarran, I am getting old and feeble,” he said. “I may pass away any -time, and I could not bear the thought of my squaw being left alone, -which would be the case if you married Wulaha and took her to the -distant shores of Lake Michigan. However, there are greater things than -my death and my squaw’s loneliness, the future of the red race, now -crushed to earth by the Wunnux, as we call the white men, but some day -to be triumphant. You have told me that within this very year the French -and Indians are sure to engage the English in a mighty battle which will -decide the future history of the Continent. You can marry Wulaha right -after that battle, if you are victorious; otherwise you can do as the -Missionaries tell us the Romans did–fall on your sword. You can never -return here, as I do not want my daughter to marry and continue the race -of a beaten people. I would far rather have her die single, and have our -seed perish, for if this victory is not won, doomed is every redman on -this Continent. The only wish of the English is to encompass our -extermination. Wulaha will remain at home until after that battle, when -you can come for her and claim her as your own, and we will give her to -you with rejoicing.” - -“What you say is surely fair enough, Father Michaelmas,” replied -Weguarran, “for I would see no future for Wulaha and myself if the -English are victorious in this inevitable battle. As soon as it is -won–and it will be won, for the high resolve of every Indian warrior is -to go in to win–I will hurry back to the banks of the Lehigh, never -stopping to rest, sleep or eat, to tell you of the glad tidings, and -bear away my beloved Wulaha. I want to ask one special favor of you. I -have admired your wonderful cage of trained wild pigeons, which you say -will carry messages hundreds of miles. Lend me one of these pigeons, and -as soon as the victory is won, I will release the bird, and while I am -speeding eastward on foot, our feathered friend will fly on ahead and -end the suspense, and bring joy to yourself, your squaw and Wulaha.” - -“I will gladly let you have my best trained pigeon, or hawk, or anything -I possess, if I can learn of the victory, but in turn I will ask a favor -of you. I listened with breathless interest to your tales of the -Prostrate Junipers which grow on the shores of the great lakes, which -cover two thousand square feet, and are hundreds of years old. You -promised to bring me a scion of one of those curious trees, so that I -might plant it in my garden of rare trees and shrubs. Now, here will be -a chance to associate it with the great victory; pluck a stout but small -scion, and if the victory is won, affix it firmly to one of the pigeon’s -legs and let it go. If it comes back without the twig of Juniper I will -know that our cause has lost, and while you fall on your sword, I and my -family will jump into the Lehigh.” - -“I will gladly do as you say, Father Michaelmas,” said Weguarran, “and -will send a twig that will grow, and some day make a noble tree, and in -years to come, our people will call it Weguarran’s Victory Tree. The -fact that it is a Prostrate Tree makes it all the more appropriate, as -it will represent the English race lying prostrated, crushed by the red -race they wronged, and by our kindly and just French allies.” - -Weguarran was so inspired by the thought of the pigeon messenger, the -sprig of Prostrate Juniper, and the impending victory that it assuaged -his grief at the parting from Wulaha, sending him away determined to -give a good account of himself in all things. - -Old Michaelmas selected a handsome cock pigeon, with a dragon’s blood -red breast–his very best and most intelligent, and surest flyer, named -Wuskawhan, which he placed in a specially built, bottle shaped basket, -which had no lid, yet the top was too small for the bird to escape. In -this way it could rise up and peer out, as it was carried along, and not -bruise its wing coverts or head, as it would if it flew against the top -of a square basket with a lid. - -After a touching parting with Wulaha, her mother and father, the young -warrior went his way with his precious burden. - -The Indians, even old Mozzetuk, were rapid travellers, and in due time -they reached the country of the Prostrate Junipers on the shores of Lake -Michigan. They arrived in what seemed like an armed camp, for all the -braves had been called to arms, which plotted to drive Indians and -French to the uttermost ends of the earth. - -Weguarran was quickly mobilized, and a musket in one hand and tomahawk -in the other, while on his back he bore the sacred pigeon, he marched -toward his foes. In the excitement he had not forgotten to slip into his -pouch at his belt a sprig of the Prostrate Juniper, which would be the -emblem of the English race prostrate under the foot of French and Indian -allies. - -In due course of time the army of which the picked Wyandot warriors -formed a part, met their English foemen on Braddock’s Field, completely -routing and all but annihilating them. General Braddock himself was shot -from behind by one of his own men in the wild stampede, and the French -and Indians were completely victorious. - -Surveying the gorey scene, every wooded glade lying thick with dead -redcoats and broken accoutrements, Weguarran carefully opened the -panther skin pouch at his best, taking out the sprig of Prostrate -Juniper. Then he lifted the handsome wild pigeon from its bottle-nosed -cage of oak withes, and with a light leathern string, affixed the little -twig, on which the berries still clustered, to the bird’s leg, then -tossed the feathered messenger up into the air. - -The pigeon quickly rose above the trees, circled a few times, and then -started rapidly for the east, as fast as his broad, strong wings could -carry him. - -This done, Weguarran visited his chief, obtaining leave to proceed to -Bethlehem to claim his bride, promising to report back with her on the -banks of the Ohio as speedily as possible. The pigeon naturally had a -good start, and by the next morning was flying over the palisaded walls -of John Harris’ Trading Post on the Susquehanna. - -A love story was being enacted within those walls, in the shadow of one -of the huge sheds used in winter to store hides. Keturah Lindsay, -Harris’ niece, an attractive, curly-haired Scotch girl, was talking with -a young Missionary whom she admired very much, Reverend Charles Pyrleus, -the protege of Col. Conrad Weiser. - -Unfortunately they had to meet by stealth as his attentions were not -favored by the girl’s relatives, who considered him of inferior -antecedents. They had met in the shed this fair July morning, whether by -design or accident, no one can tell, and were enjoying one another’s -society to the utmost. - -In the midst of their mutual adoration, the dinner gong was sounded at -the trading house, and Keturah, fearful of a scolding, reluctantly broke -away. As she came out into the sunlight, she noticed a handsome wild -pigeon drop down, as if exhausted, on one of the topmost stakes of the -palisade which surrounded the trading house and sheds. - -Keturah, like many frontier girls, always carried a gun, and quickly -taking aim, fired, making the feathers fly, knocking the bird off its -perch, and it seemed to fall to the ground outside the stockade. In a -minute it rose, and started to fly off towards the east. She had -reloaded, so fired a second time, but missed. - -“How strange to see a wild pigeon travelling through here at this time -of year,” she thought, as carrying her smoking firearm, she hurried to -the mess room of the big log trading house. - -The messenger pigeon had been grievously hurt, but was determined to go -“home.” On and on it went, sometimes “dipping” like a swallow, from loss -of blood, but by sheer will power keeping on the wing. As it neared the -foothills of the South Mountains, near the village of Hockersville, with -old Derry Church down in the vale, it faltered, spun about like a pin -wheel, and fell with a thud. Gulping and blinking a few times, it spread -out its wide pinions and lay on its breastbone–stone dead–the twig of -Prostrate Juniper still affixed to one of its carmine feet. There it -lay, brave in death, until the storms and winds shivered it, and it -rotted into the ground. - -Weguarran was a rapid traveler, and in forced marches came to the shady -banks of the Lehigh in three or four days. He was so excited that he -swam the stream. He brought the first news of the great victory in the -west to the surprised Michaelmas and his friends. But where was the -prized wild pigeon, Wuskawhan? It could not have gone astray, for such a -bird’s instinct never erred. “Caught by a hawk or shot down by some -greedy fool of a Wunnux” was the way in which old Michaelmas explained -its non-appearance. - -The news spread to the white settlements and to the towns, and there was -consternation among all sympathizers with the Crown–with all except a -few Moravians who were mum for policy’s sake, and the Indians, whose -stoical natures alone kept them from disclosing the elation that was in -their hearts. - -[Illustration: A MAMMOTH SHORT-LEAF PINE] - -“The English never wanted the Indians civilized,” said Michaelmas, -boldly. “They drove the Moravians out of Schadikoke and from the -Housatonic when they saw the progress they made with our people; were it -not for the Quakers in Pennsylvania, they would have had no place to -harbor; those of us who felt the need of these kind friends followed -them in their exile, but we can never forgive that we had to leave the -Connecticut country of our birth under such circumstances. I am glad -that our enemies were beaten and annihilated.” - -Weguarran was baptized, and he and the lovely Wulaha were married by one -of the Moravian preachers, and started for the great lake country, which -was to be their permanent home. - -Michaelmas and his squaw were too old to make the long journey, but they -were happy in their garden of rare trees and plants, the wild pigeons, -the hawks of race, and the dreams of an Indian _renaissance_. They lived -many years afterwards, and are buried with the other Christian Indians -at Bethlehem. - -Out in the foothills of the South Mountains, overlooking old Derry -Church, in the fertile Lebanon Valley among the pines and oaks and tulip -trees, a strange seedling appeared in the spring of 1756, different from -anything that the mountain had known since prehistoric times. Instead of -growing upward and onward as most brave trees do, it spread out wider -and greater and vaster, until, not like the symbol of the Anglo-Saxon -prone beneath the heel of French and Indian, it was the symbol of the -all diffusing power of the English speaking race, which has grafted its -ideals and hopes and practical purposes over the entire American -Continent. Nourished by the life’s blood of the travelling pigeon that -bore it there, it had a flying start in the battle of existence, and -today, after all these years, bids fair to last many years longer, to be -the arboral marvel and wonder of the Keystone State. - -Well may the Boy Scouts of Elizabethtown feel proud to be the honorary -custodians of this unique tree with its spread of 2,000 feet, for apart -from its curious appearance and charm, it has within it memories of -history and romance, of white men and red, that make it a veritable -treasure trove for the historian and the folk-lorist, and all those who -love the great outdoors in this wonderful Pennsylvania of ours! - -[Illustration] - - IV. - _Out of the Ashes_ - - -Last Autumn we were crossing Rea’s Hill one afternoon of alternate -sunshine and shadow, and as we neared the summit, glanced through -several openings in the trees at the wide expanse of Fulton County -valleys and coves behind us, on to the interminable range upon range of -dark mountains northward. In the valleys here and there were dotted -square stone houses, built of reddish sandstone, with high roofs and -chimneys, giving a foreign or Scottish air to the scene. Some of these -isolated structures were deserted, with windows gaping and roofs gone, -pictures of desolation and bygone days. - -Just as the crest of the mountain was gained, we came upon a stone house -in process of demolition, in fact all had been torn away, and the -sandstone blocks piled neatly by the highway, all but the huge stone -chimney and a small part of one of the foundation walls. Work of the -shorers had temporarily ceased for it was a Saturday afternoon. Affixed -to the chimney was a wooden mantel, painted black, of plain, but antique -design, exposed, and already stained by the elements, and evidently to -be abandoned by those in charge of the demolition. - -The house stood on the top of a steep declivity, giving a marvelous view -on four sides, almost strategic enough to have been a miniature -fortress! - -It was the first time in a dozen years that we had passed the site; in -1907 the house was standing and tenanted, and pointed out as having been -a temporary resting place of General John Forbes on his eastern march, -after the successful conquest of Fort Duquesne, in 1758. Now all is -changed, historic memories had not kept the old house inviolate; it was -to be ruthlessly destroyed, perhaps, like the McClure Log College near -Harrisburg, to furnish the foundations for a piggery, or some other -ignoble purpose. - -As we passed, a pang of sorrow overcame us at the lowly state to which -house and fireplace had fallen, and we fell to recounting some of the -incidents of the historic highway, in military and civil history, the -most noteworthy road in the Commonwealth. The further, on we traveled, -the more we regretted not stopping and trying to salvage the old wooden -mantel, but one of our good friends suggested that if we did not are to -return for it, we should mention the matter to the excellent and -efficient Leslie Seylar at McConnellsburg, who knew everyone and -everything, and could doubtless obtain the historic relic and have it -shipped to our amateur “curio shop.” - -The genial Seylar, famed for his temperamental and physical resemblance -to the lamented “Great Heart,” was found at his eyrie and amusement -centre on top of Cove Mountain, and he gladly consented to securing the -abandoned mantel. As a result it is now in safe hands, a priceless -memento of the golden age of Pennsylvania History. - -But now for the story or the legend of the mantel, alluded to briefly -last year in the chapter called the “Star of the Glen,” in this writer’s -“South Mountain Sketches.” The story, as an old occupant of the house -told it, and he survived on until early in the Nineteenth Century was, -that General Forbes, on this victorious eastern march, was seized many -times with fainting fits. On every occasion his officers and orderlies -believed that the end had come, so closely did he simulate death. But he -had always been delicate, at least from his first appearance in -Pennsylvania, though when campaigning with the gallant Marshal Ligonier -in France, Flanders and on the Rhine, participating in the battles of -Dettingen, Fontenoy and Lauffeld, no such symptoms were noted. Although -less than fifty years of age when he started towards the west, he was -regarded, from his illnesses, as an aged person, Sherman Day in his -inimitable “Historical Collections” states that there was “much -dissatisfaction in the choice of a leader of the expedition against Fort -Duquesne, as General Forbes, the commander, was a decrepit old man.” - -What caused his ill health history has not uncovered at this late date. -It has been said that he was an epileptic, like Alexander and other -great generals, or a sufferer from heart trouble or general debility. -His military genius outweighed his physical frailties, so that he rose -superior to him, but it must not be forgotten that he was aided by two -brilliant officers, Colonel George Washington and Colonel Henry Bouquet. - -His immediate entourage was a remarkable one, even for a soldier of many -wars. Like a true Scotsman, he carried his own piper with him, Donald -MacKelvie, said to be a descendant of the mighty MacCrimmons; and his -bodyguard was also headed by a Highlander, Andrew MacCochran, who had -been a deer stalker on one of the estates owned by the General’s father. - -Forbes himself, being a younger son, was not a man of property, and -Pittencrief House, his birth-place, was already occupied by an older -brother, from whom, so Dr. Burd S. Patterson tells us, all who claim -relationship to him are descended. - -The General was carried in a hammock, with frequent stops, from Harris’ -Ferry to Fort Duquesne, and back again, borne by four stalwart -Highlanders, in their picturesque native costumes, wearing the tartan of -the Forbes clan. The deerstalker, MacCochran, was the major domo, and -even above the chief of staff and Brigade Surgeon, gave the orders to -halt when the General’s lean weazened face indicated an over-plussage of -fatigue. - -It was late in the afternoon as the returning army had neared the summit -of Rea’s Hill; the pipers were playing gaily Blaz Sron, to cheer foot -soldiers and wagoners up the steep, rocky, uneven grade, with the -General in the van. The ascent was a hard one, and the ailing -commander-in-chief was shaken about considerably, so much so that -MacCochran was glad to note the little stone house, where he might give -him his much needed rest. - -Old Andrew McCreath and his wife, a North of Ireland couple, the former -a noted hunter, occupied the house; their son was serving in the -Pennsylvania Regiment, which formed a part of General Forbes’ -expeditionary forces. The old folks were by the roadside, having heard -the bagpipes at a great distance, eager to see the visitors, and catch a -glimpse of their hero son. They were surprised and pleased when -MacCochran signalled the halt in front of their door, which meant that -the entire procession would bivouac for the night in the immediate -vicinity. There were several good springs of mountain water, so all -could await the General’s pleasure. - -Permission was asked to make the house “general headquarters” for the -night, which, of course, was quickly given, as the old couple were -honored to have such a distinguished visitor. There was a great couch, -or what we would today call a “Davenport” in front of the fire, and -there the General was laid, the room dark, save for the ruddy glow of -the roaring fire, which illuminated every nook and corner, and made it -at once as cheerful as it was warm and comfortable. - -The General’s eyes were wide open, and he gazed about the room, while -his faithful domestics watched him to anticipate every wish. When he was -ill he excluded his Staff, but kept his servants with him, and they, -with McCreath and his wife, stood in the corners of the room, back of -the couch, waiting for his commands. - -The piper asked if he could liven his master with a “wee tune or two,” -but the General shook his head; his sandy locks had become untied, and -flapped about his bony face; he made a motion with his hand that -indicated that he wanted to be alone, to try and get some sleep. -McCreath and his wife, and their stalwart son, the other bearers of the -hammock and litters, and the surgeon of the expedition, Major McLanahan, -who had slipped into the room, withdrew, leaving the piper and -MacCochran standing in the corner back of the couch, to aid the General -should he become violently ill in his sleep. - -The General dozed, and the bodyguard became very tired, for they had had -a hard march, and sank down on the floor, with their backs to the wall. -All was still, save for the tramp, tramp of the sentry outside the -window, or the crackle of some giant bonfire in the general campground, -or the barking of some camp follower’s dog. The fire had died down a -little, but threw great fitful shadows, like a pall, over the sleeping -General, and caused an exaggerated shadow of his bold profile to appear -on the wall. - -All at once, without the slightest warning, he jumped to his feet, with -the elasticity of a youth, and arms outstretched, seemed to rush towards -the fire. He might have tripped over the pile of cord wood, and fallen -in face foremost, had not the ever watchful piper and MacCochran, -springing forward, caught him simultaneously in their strong arms. They -did not find him excited, or his mind wandering, like a man suddenly -aroused from slumbers. On the contrary, he was strangely calm. He -whispered in MacCochran’s ear: - -“Andy, I have seen my lady of Dunkerck. She came out of the ashes -towards me. I rushed forward to greet her, and she went back into the -hearth and was gone.” - -The General would say nothing further, but allowed himself to be laid -out on the couch once more, and be covered with buffalo robes, and while -he lay quiet, he slept no more that night, but every minute or so kept -looking into the fire. At daybreak, at the sounding of Surachan on the -pipes, he was able to start, and the balance of the march executed -without incident. - -He reached Philadelphia in safety, but within a short time after -arriving there he passed away unexpectedly, and was buried in historic -Old Christ Church, where a tablet with the following inscription was -erected in the Chancel by the Pennsylvania Chapter of the Society of -Colonial Wars: “To the Memory of Brigadier-General John Forbes, Colonel -of the 17th Regiment of Foot, born at Pittencrief, Fifeshire, 1710, died -in Philadelphia, March 11, 1759.” - -MacCochran was released from the army, and being enamored of the wild -mountain country in the interior of Pennsylvania, returned to the -forests. Later, though nearly fifty years old, he enlisted and served -through the Revolutionary War in Captain Parr’s Riflemen. After peace -was declared he bought the little stone house on Rea’s Hill from young -McCreath, who had served with him in the Rifle Brigade, and lived there -alone until he died about 1803. He said that he liked the place for its -memories of General Forbes, and he was always fond of telling to his -mountaineer friends when they dropped in of an evening for a smoke and a -toddy, of his hero’s exploits in peace and war, and more than once -recounted the tale of the wraith which appeared to the General at the -fireplace, during his eastward journey from Fort Duquesne. - -General Forbes, he said, as noted previously, was a younger son, and had -entered the army early in life. He had been too busy campaigning to -marry, but not always too busy to fall in love. Yet he was a -serious-minded man, and his romances were always of the better sort, and -would have ended happily on one or more occasions but for the exigencies -of his strenuous campaigns, which moved him from place to place. - -Of all his love affairs, the one that hit him the hardest, and lasted -the longest, occurred after the victory of Lauffeld, won by Marshal -Ligonier, when, as Lieutenant-Colonel, he was quartered with his -regiment at Dunkerck, preparatory to embarking for England. Colonel -Forbes’ billet was with one Armand Violet, a rich shipowner, who resided -in a mediaeval chateau, which his wealth had enabled him to purchase -from some broken-down old family, on the outskirts of the town. It was -built on a bare, chalky cliff, overlooking the sea, where the waves beat -over the rocks, and sent the spray against the walls on stormy nights, -and the wind, banshee-like, moaned incessantly among the parapets. - -Violet was away a good deal, and his wife was an invalid, and peculiar, -but their one daughter, Amethyst Violet, was a ray of sunshine enough to -illuminate and radiate the gloomiest fortress-like chateau. She was -under eighteen, about the middle height, slimly and trimly built, with -chestnut brown hair, blue eyes, and a fair complexion; her hair was worn -in puffs over her ears and brushed back from her brows, just as the -girls are again wearing it today; she was vivacious and intelligent, and -detected in the Colonel, despite his thirty-seven years, a man of -superior personality and charm. - -In the long wait, due to conflicting orders, and the non-arrival of the -transport, Forbes and Amethyst became very well acquainted, in fact the -Colonel was very much in love, but would not dream of mentioning his -passion, as he deemed it folly for a man of his years and experience to -espouse a mere child. The girl was equally smitten, but more impulsive, -and less self-contained. - -Every evening the pair were together in the great hall, sitting before -the fire in the old hearth, their glances, which often met, indicating -their feelings, but the Colonel confined his talk to descriptions of -military life, Scotland, its glens and locks and wild game, old legends -and ballads which he loved to recite. He was particularly fond of -repeating the old ballad of Barbara Livingston. - -One night while the wind was howling, and the spray was lashing against -the castle walls, and the rain dashed and hissed against the panes, the -time to retire had come, and Amethyst, instead of tripping away, sprang -right into Forbes’ arms, and lay her fluffy head against his bespangled -breast. - -“You are the coldest man in the world” she sobbed, looking up with -tear-dimmed blue eyes. “What have you meant all these nights, we two -alone for hours and hours, your eyes on only the sparks as they swept -upwards through the ‘louvre,’ and your thoughts only on battles and -mountain scenery. I love you more than all the world, and yet you could -not see it, or did not care. I can restrain my feelings no longer; tell -me the truth, for I cannot bear the suspense and live.” - -Forbes revealed his love by holding her very tight, and covering her -wet, hot eyelids with kisses. “Oh, foolish, darling Amethyst,” he said, -“I love you just as much as you care for me. I have from the first -moment I saw you, and hoped that the transport would never come, but I -am twice your age, and battered by many hard campaigns, and while I -think I could make you happy now, ten years hence I would be an old man, -and you would despise me.” - -Amethyst looked up into his sad, steady eyes, saying, “I don’t care what -happens ten years from now; we might both be dead. I love you, and I -want you. I will give you a week to decide; if you do not, I will jump -off the highest parapet into the sea, and you can have yourself all to -yourself, and prosper if you will with your stern Covenanter’s -principles.” - -The Colonel, though moved, was too prudent a Scot to capitulate. He took -the case under advisement, and every night for a week, though chivalrous -and charming, neglected to set the beautiful girl’s mind at rest. Yet -when he retired to his room, he paced the floor all night, for he knew -that the exquisite girl could revive his youth. - -The fatal night arrived. Perhaps the result might have been different if -Amethyst had reminded her lover of her threat. She was too proud to do -so, and the Colonel, thinking that she had forgotten her rash words–to -some extent at least–was mum, and they parted gaily, Amethyst darting -out of the hall humming the old love song of Barbara Livingston as light -on foot, and apparently as light-hearted as any carefree child. - -She was never seen again–at least not until Forbes saw her come out of -the embers at the fireplace on Rea’s Hill, more than thirteen years -later. - -When the word came that her room in one of the turrets was empty, a -general search was made, revealing the trap-door to the parapet open. In -her haste she had omitted dropping it. From that Forbes knew that the -worst had happened. When MacCochran told it to him, standing pale and -frigid by the ancient hearth, he tried to stroke his small military -mustache, to show his sang-froid, but fell in a swoon on the stone -floor, lying unconscious for a week. - -That was the beginning of the fainting fits that plagued him for the -rest of his life, and the commencement of his distaste of life, which -caused him to ask for active service in America, in a new and wild -environment, far from scenes similar to the terrible tragedy of his love -and pride. And yet, out of the fire, in distant Pennsylvania, had -appeared the long lost Amethyst Violet, perhaps as a “warning” of his -fast approaching end, to open the portals to that better world where -they would be together, and all things be as they should. - -MacCochran, philosophic and superstitious Scot that he was, had many -reasons for lingering in the little stone house. Often he said, when he -sat smoking late at night, the shadows from the dying fire would cast -dark shapes, much like General Forbes’ bold features, on the walls, and -he felt the magnetic spell of his old Master’s presence. Perhaps out of -the ashes would emerge Amethyst Violet, or her spirit self, and the -lovers could be re-united before his eyes in a shadowland. - -But nothing ever happened so fortuitous, and the engraved likenesses of -“Bonnie Prince Charlie” and Madame d’Albany, unhappy lovers also, which -hung on either side of his Revolutionary rifle, above the mantel, looked -down on him as if in sympathy, for his fidelity which had survived the -grave. The long looked for visitations never came; perhaps among the -vaults and cornices and lofts of Old Christ Church, where the General is -resting, the reunion of the lovers has taken place, but wherever it has, -the place is known only to the spirits of Forbes and the fair Amethyst -Violet; there are no witnesses. - -And now the present owner of “General Forbes’ Fireplace,” as he calls -it, is waiting to set it up in some study or hunting lodge, beneath the -skull and antlers of the extinct Irish elk, from Ballybetag Bog, where -amid forest surroundings, in the dead of night, he can keep vigil like -MacCochran, after reading “Volumes of Quaint and Forgotten Lore,” and -maybe be rewarded by a sight of the true lovers from out of the ashes. - -[Illustration] - - V - _Wayside Destiny_ - -Like many natives of the Pennsylvania Mountains, Ammon Tatnall was a -believer in dreams and ghosts. Even in his less prosperous days, when -life was considerable of a struggle, he had time to ponder over the -limitless possibilities of the unseen world. Probably his faith in the -so-called supernatural was founded on a dream he had while clerking in a -hotel at Port Allegheny, during the active days of the lumber business -in that part of the Black Forest. - -It seemed that his mother was lying at the point of death, and wanted -him to come to her, but as she did not know his whereabouts, was -suffering much mental anguish. Just in the midst of the dream the alarm -clock went off, but he awoke and got up with the impression that his -vision had been real. In the office he informed the landlord of his -dream. Like a true mountain man, the proprietor merely asked him to come -back as soon as he could, such occurrences being not unusual in his -range of experience. - -[Illustration: AMONG THE VIRGIN HEMLOCKS, BLACK FOREST. (_Photograph by_ -W. T. Clarke.)] - -At home, in the Wyoming Valley, he found conditions exactly as -reproduced in the dream. His sudden coming proved the turning point in -his mother’s illness; she rallied and got well. During her -convalescence, for Tatnall remained longer than he had expected, she -told him of a story which her mother had told her of the straight -dreaming of some of their ancestors, pioneers of the North Branch. - -The woman in question, who lived many years before, dreamed one night -that her daughter who lived in Connecticut, and who had married just as -they left for Wyoming, appeared to her with a baby in her arms. She said -she herself was dead and she desired the baby to be given to the -grandmother. As a sign of the reality of the vision, she placed her hand -on the wrist of the grandmother, leaving a mark on it that could never -be effaced. - -The grandmother took the long journey to Connecticut and found that -everything had happened as told in the dream. The child grew up, and -became the wife of a well-known Methodist preacher, and was famed -throughout Northern Pennsylvania for her good deeds. - -Tatnall gradually advanced in life, and became agent or traveling -salesman for several wholesale lumber concerns. He had gotten his start -by being polite to the manager of one of the companies who came up from -Pittsburg every week and stopped at the hotel. He made a success as a -salesman, and it was a matter of quiet satisfaction to him that in ten -years he had sold 160,000,000 feet of lumber. But he had been too busy -to marry, too busy to have a home; was a driving, pushing machine in the -interests of his employers. Sometimes on the trains he met with -intelligent people, but generally his associates were like himself, -human dynamos, but without his interest in the supernatural. - -There was one railway journey which he took frequently, and on fast -trains. His westbound trips carried him through the most mountainous -part of the country in the late afternoon, but there was generally light -enough to show the various aspects of the wild, rugged landscape. There -was a little abandoned graveyard, all overgrown, with an uneven stone -wall around it, near where the tracks crossed the river bridge. Standing -among the lop-sided and battered tombstones, the tips of some of the -older ones of brownstone being barely visible, looking as if they were -sinking into the earth, he would always see the figure of a young woman -attired completely in grey. The train was always traveling so fast that -he counted a different number of stones every time he went by–there were -probably a “Baker’s Dozen.” - -For a long time he thought that she must be some particularly devoted -mourner, a recently bereaved widow, but it did seem a strange -coincidence that she should be there on the same days and hour that he -passed by in the fast train. Once he called his seat-mate’s attention to -the figure, but the companion could see nothing, and laughingly said: -“Why, you must be seeing a ghost.” - -The word _ghost_ sent a thrill through Tatnall, and after that he said -no more to anyone, but conceded to himself that the girl in grey was a -wraith of some kind. Though the train did not pass close to the -graveyard, and was always moving rapidly, he fancied that he could -discern the ghost’s type of feature, or imagined he did; at any rate he -had an exact mental picture of what he thought she looked like, and -would pick her out in a crowd if he ever saw her in hailing distance. - -This had kept up for five years, and he began to feel that it was -getting on his nerves; he must either abandon that particular train or -go to the graveyard and investigate. He chose the latter course, and one -afternoon arrived at the nearest station, via a local train. The -graveyard was on the opposite side of the river, and there seemed to be -very little hurry on the part of the boatman, who lived on the far -shore, to carry him across. It was late in the fall, after Thanksgiving, -and the trees were bare of leaves, and shook and rattled their bare -branches in the gusts of wind that came out of the east. - -He sat down on an old rotting shell of a dugout by the bank, watching -the cold, grey current, for the river was high after many days of fall -rains. It was a dreary, but imposing scene, the wide, swollen river, the -wooded banks and hills beyond, and back of him, high rocky mountains, -partly covered with scrubby growth and dead pines. - -Finally, in response to frequent calling, he could see the boat -launched; it looked like a black speck at first, and gradually drew -nearer to him and beached. The boatman was a tiny man, with a long -drooping mustache and goatee, wearing a Grand Army button; he was -pleasant, but inquisitive, though he “allowed” Tatnall could have no -other business than to be a “drummer” bound for the crossroads store on -the opposite bank. - -Tatnall had remembered a small, dingy store in a hamlet, about half mile -from the little cemetery; he had intended going there as he wanted -information concerning the families who were buried there. Perhaps he -could learn all he wanted to know from the riverman, and save the walk -down the track to the store, but for some reason held his tongue. - -The boatman’s final remark was that it was strange for anyone to be -willing to pay a dollar to be ferried across the river, when most people -walked the railroad bridge. It was trespassing on railroad property, and -dangerous to do it, but it was worth the risk, many travelers thought. - -Arriving safely across the roily current, Tatnall paid and thanked the -boatman, and started in the direction of the little country store. In -front of the store was a row of mature Ailanthus trees, which seemed -like sturdy guards over the old stone structure, which had once been a -tavern stand. The porch was filled with packing cases and barrels. - -As Tatnall opened the door, he could see a number of habitues seated -about on crates and barrels. One of them, a white bearded Civil War -Veteran, rose up, leaning heavily on his cane, and bid the stranger -welcome. Almost before he had a chance to engage in conversation with -the regulars, he glanced behind the counter, where he beheld a young -woman, who had just emerged from an inner apartment behind the store -room. - -In the dim half-light, the dark aquiline face and meagre figure seemed -strangely familiar. She was more Oriental than Indian in type, with that -curly hair and wonderful nose, those thin lips, and complexion, the deep -pink tone of a wild pigeon’s breast. Where had they met before? For a -moment his mind refused to correlate, then like a flash, he realized -that she was the counterpart of the girl in grey who haunted the little -disused cemetery so regularly. And the way she looked at him was as if -they had seen one another before; on her face was a look of mild -surprise. - -Addressing some pleasantries to her, they were soon engaged in -conversation, as if they had known each other for years. It was getting -late, time to light lamps and fires at home, so the long-winded -dissertations of the habitues were left off, to be continued after -supper. One by one they filed out of the store; if they had any opinion -of the stranger conversing with Elma Hacker, the store-keeper’s niece, -it was that he was probably some traveling man, “talking up” his line of -goods. - -When the last one had gone, and the acquaintance had progressed far -enough, Tatnall, leaning over the counter, confided bravely the purpose -of his visit to the remote neighborhood. For five years he had been -seeing a figure in grey, in the late afternoons, while passing by the -little graveyard in the western express. No one else could see it, yet -he was certain that his senses were not deceiving him. Did she know -anything of this, and could she help him fathom the mystery? - -The dark girl dropped her eyes and was silent for a moment. She was -hesitating as to whether to disclaim all knowledge, or to be frank and -divulge a story which concerned her soul. - -“Yes, I do know all about it, how very funny! I, too, have had the power -of seeing that figure in grey, though very few others have ever been -able to, and many’s the time I’ve been called crazy when I mentioned it. -‘The girl in grey,’ as you call her, strangely enough was an ancestress -of mine, or rather belonged to my father’s family, and while I have the -same name, Elma Hacker, I don’t know whether I was named for her or not, -as my parents died when I was a little girl. - -“It used to make me feel terrible when I was a little girl and told -about seeing the figure. I hated to be regarded as untruthful or -‘dullness,’ but at last my uncle, hearing of it, came to the rescue and -told me not to mind what anyone said, that, from the description, he was -sure I had seen the ghost. He had never had the power to see her, but -his father, my grandfather had, and other members of the family. - -“It was a sad and curious story. It all happened in the days of the very -first white settlers in these mountains, when my ancestors kept the -first stopping place for travellers, a Stone fortress-like house, in -Black Wolf Gap; the ruins of the foundations are still visible, and -folks call it ‘The Indian Fort.’ The Hackers were friendly with the -Indians, who often came for square meals, and other favors from the -genial pioneer landlord and his wife. The Elma Hacker of those days had -a sweetheart who lived alone on the other side of the Gap; his name was -Ammon Quicksall, and from all accounts, he was a fine, manly fellow, a -great hunter and fighter. - -“He would often drop in on his beloved on his way home from his hunting -trips, at all hours of the day. One one occasion four Indians appeared -at the tavern, intimating that they were hungry, as Indians generally -were. Elma carried a pewter dish containing all the viands the house -afforded to each, which they sat eating on a long bench outside the -door. - -“One of the Indians was a peculiar, half-witted young wretch who went by -the name of Chansops. He came to the public house quite often, being -suspected of having a fondness for Elma and for hard cider. She always -treated him pleasantly, but kept him at a distance, and never felt fear -of any kind in his presence. No doubt his feelings were of a volcanic -order, and under his stoical exterior burned a consuming passion. He was -munching his lunch, apparently most interested in his food, when Ammon -Quicksall and his hunting dogs hove in sight. - -“Their barking and yelping were a signal to Elma, who rushed out of the -house to greet her lover, perhaps showing her feelings a trifle too -much; though she had no reason to imagine she should restrain herself in -the presence of the Indians. All the while Chansops was eyeing her with -gathering rage and fury. When Elma took her lover’s arm–she must have -been a very impulsive girl–and rested her head against his shoulder, it -was too much for the irate Indian. - -“He jumped up, firing his pewter dish into the creek which flowed near -the house, and danced up and down in sheer fury. His companions tried -hard to calm him, as they wanted to keep on good terms with the -innkeeper’s family, but he was beyond all control. Quicksall and Elma -were walking on the path which led along the creek; their backs were -turned, and they little dreamed of the drama being enacted behind them. -The other Indians, realizing that Chansops meant trouble, lay hold of -him, but he wrenched himself free with a superhuman strength, -threatening to kill anyone who laid hands on him again. - -“Old Adam Hacker, Elma’s father, finally heard the commotion and came -out, and asked in Dutch what the trouble was all about. One of the -Indians, the oldest and most sensible, replied that it was only Chansops -having a jealous fit because he saw Elma walking off with Quicksall. -While these words were being said, Chansops was edging further away, and -looking around furtively, saw that he had a chance to get away, and -sprang after the retreating couple. Bounding like a deer, he was a few -paces behind Quicksall in a twinkling of an eye. He had a heavy old -flint-lock pistol with him, which he drew and fired point blank into the -young lover’s back at two or three paces. With a groan, Quicksall sank -down on the ground, dying before Elma could comfort him. - -“Before Adam Hacker or the friendly Indians could reach the scene of the -horrid tragedy, Chansops had escaped into the forests, followed by -Quicksall’s hounds yelping at his heels. He was seen no more. The dogs, -tired and dejected, re-appeared the next day; evidently they had been -outraced by the fleet Indian runner. - -“It was a blow from which the bereaved girl could not react. She was -brave enough at the time, but she was never the same again. She -gradually pined away, until she was about my age, she died, and was -buried not in the little graveyard, but in her father’s yard. That was -done because it was feared that the crazy Chansops might return and dig -up her body, and carry it away to his lodge in the heart of the forest. -Quicksall was buried in the pioneer cemetery, and that is the place -where Elma Hacker of those days evidently frequents, trying to be near -her sweetheart’s last resting place, and to reason out the tragedy of -her unfulfilled existence. - -“It is a very strange story, but odder still, to me, that you, a -stranger, should have seen the apparition so frequently, when others do -not, and been interested enough to have come here to unravel the -mystery.” - -“It is a strange story,” said Tatnall, after a pause. He was figuring -out just what he could say, and not say too much. “The strangest part is -that the figure I have been seeing is the image of yourself, bears the -same name, and my name, Ammon Tatnall, has a somewhat similar sound, in -fact is cousin-german to ‘Ammon Quicksall.’” - -In the gloom Elma Hacker hung her pretty head still further. She was -glad that there was no light as she did not want Tatnall to see the hot -purple flush which she felt was suffusing her dark cheeks. - -“The minute I came into the store,” Tatnall continued, “you looked -familiar; it did not take me a minute to identify you as the grey lady.” - -“And you,” broke in Elma, “appear just as I always supposed Ammon -Quicksall looked.” - -How much more intimate the talk would have become, there is no telling, -but just then the door was swung open, and in came old Mrs. Becker, a -neighbor woman, to buy some bread. - -“You must be getting moonstruck, Elma,” she said, “to be here and not -light the lamps. Why, it is as dark as Egypt in this room, and you were -always so prompt to light them.” - -Elma bestirred herself to find the matches, and soon the swinging lamps -were lit, and the store aglow. - -Again the door was thrown open, and Elma’s uncle came in. He was Adam -Hacker, namesake of the old-time landlord, and proprietor of the store. -Mrs. Becker got her bread and departed, and Elma introduced Tatnall to -the storekeeper. Soon she explained to him the stranger’s business, to -which the uncle listened sympathetically. At the conclusion he said: - -“It is really curious, after all these years, to have an Adam Hacker, an -Elma Hacker and an Ammon Tatnall–almost Quicksall–here together; if -Chansops was here it would be as if the past had risen again.” - -“Let us hope there’ll be no Chansops this time,” said Tatnall. “Let us -feel that everything that was unfulfilled and went wrong in those old -days is to be righted now.” - -It was a bold statement, but somehow it went unchallenged. - -“I believe in destiny, the destiny of wayside cemeteries, of chance and -opportunity,” he resumed. “It can be the only road to true happiness -after all.” - -“How happy we’d all be,” said Elma demurely, “if through all this we -could only lay the ghost of my poor ancestress, the grey lady.” - -“Nothing that is started is ever left unfinished,” answered Tatnall. -“And we of this generation become unconscious actors in the final scenes -of a drama that began a couple of centuries ago. In that way the cycle -of existence is carried out harmoniously, else this world could not go -on if it was merely a jumble of odds and ends, and starts without -finishes; as it is, everything that is good, that is worthwhile, -sometimes comes to a rounded out and completed fulfillment.” - -The moon, which had come out clear, was three parts full, and shed a -glowing radiance over the rugged landscape. After supper Ammon and Elma -strolled out along the white, moon-bathed road. Coming to a cornfield -the girl pointed to a great white oak with a plume-like crest which -stood on a knoll, facing the valley, the river, and the hills beyond; -they climbed the high rail fence, and slipping along quietly, seated -themselves beneath the giant tree. Of the many chapters of human life -and destiny enacted beneath the oak’s spreading branches, none was -stranger than this one. There until the flaming orb had commenced to -wane in the west, they sat, perfectly content. “Oh, how I like to rest -on the earth,” said she. “How I love to be here, and look at your -wonderful face,” he whispered, as he stroked the perfect lines of her -nose, lips, chin and throat. - -[Illustration] - - VI - _The Holly Tree_ - - -It was while on a mountain climbing trip in the French Alps, when -stormstayed at a small inn at Grenoble, that a chance acquaintance -showed The Viscount Adare a copy of “The Travels of Thomas Ashe,” a book -which had recently appeared in London and created a sensation in the -tourist world. The Viscount had already perused “Travels Beyond the -Alleghenies,” by the younger Michaux, but the volume by Ashe, so full of -human interest, more than sharpened his old desire to travel in the -United States, now that a stable peace between the young republic and -the Mother Country was a matter of some years standing. - -The mountains, as described by both Michaux and Ashe, seemed stupendous -and inspiring, wild game and mighty forests were everywhere, and a -glimpse might be caught of the vanishing redmen, without journeying as -far west as the Mississippi River. - -Thomas Ashe excelled in descriptions of the life along the mountain -highways, though nothing could be more vivid than Michaux’s pen picture -of his feast on venison cooked on the coals on the hearth at Statler’s -stone tavern on the Allegheny summits, near Buckstown. This ancient -hostelry is, by the way, still standing, though misnamed “The Shot -Factory,” by modern chroniclers, much to the disgust of the accurate -historian of Somerset County, George W. Grove. - -All during his trip among the Alps of Savoy, and Dauphiny, The Viscount -Adare was planning the excursion to Pennsylvania. His love of wild -scenery was one compelling reason, but perhaps another was Ashe’s -description of his meeting and brief romance with the beautiful Eleanor -Ancketell, daughter of the innkeeper on the Broad Mountain, above Upper -Strasburg, Franklin County. - -It was well along in August, the twenty-first to be exact, when Ashe’s -book was first shown to him, therefore it seemed impracticable to make -the journey that year, but the time would soon roll around, and be an -ideal outing for the ensuing summer. From the time of his return to -London, until almost the date set for the departure, The Viscount Adare -busied himself reading every book of American travel and adventure that -he could lay his hands on, besides accumulating a vast outfit to take -along, although the trip was to be on foot, and without even a guide. - -Needless to say, with such an interesting objective, the year passed -very rapidly, not that The Viscount had no other interests, for he had -many, being a keen sportsman and scientist, as well as a lover of books, -paintings and the drama. - -It was on the twenty-third of August, a little over a year after his -first acquaintance with the writings of Ashe, that The Viscount embarked -for Philadelphia, on the fast sailing ship “Ocean Queen.” Very few -Englishmen went to America for pleasure in those days as the sting of -the Revolution was still a thorn in their sides. Many Britishers did go, -but they were mostly of the commoner sort, immigrants, not tourists. - -The Viscount Adare, even before sailing, had his itinerary pretty well -mapped out. He would tarry a week in Philadelphia to get rid of his “sea -legs,” then proceed by carriage to Louisbourg, then beginning to be -called Harrisburg, and go from there to Carlisle, Shippensburg, and -Upper Strasburg, at which last named place he would abandon his -conveyance, and with pack on back, in true Alpine fashion, start -overland, traversing the same general direction of Michaux and Ashe -towards Pittsburg. At Pittsburg he planned to board a flat boat and -descend the Ohio, thence into the Mississippi, proceeding to New -Orleans, at which city he could set sail for England. - -It was an ambitious trip for a solitary traveler, but as he was known by -his Alpinist friends as “The Guideless Wonder,” some indication may be -divined of his resourcefulness. - -The journey across the Atlantic was interesting. A school of whales -played about the ship, coming so close as to create the fear that they -would overturn it. The Captain, a shrewd Irishman, was not to be -daunted, so he ordered a number of huge barrels or casks thrown -overboard, which immediately diverted the attention of the saurians, -with the result that a smart breeze coming up, they were left far -astern. - -A boat, said to be a pirate, was sighted against the horizon, but -fortunately made no attempt to come close, heading away towards the -Summer Islands, where, say the older generation of mountain folks, arise -all the warm south breezes that often temper wintry or early spring days -in the Pennsylvania Highlands, with blue sky and fleecy clouds. - -The Viscount Adare was pleased with these trifling adventures, and more -so with ocean travel, as it was his first long sea voyage, though he had -crossed the Channel and the Irish Sea scores of times. - -He debarked in Philadelphia after a voyage lasting nearly six weeks, -consequently the green foliage of England was replaced by the vivid -tints of Autumn on the trees which grew in front of the rows of brick -houses near the Front Street Landing Wharf. He had letters to the -British Consul, who was anxious to arrange a week or two of social -activity for the distinguished traveler, but The Viscount assured him -that he must be on his way. - -The ride in public coaches to Lancaster and Harrisburg was accomplished -without incident. His fellow travelers were anxious to point out the -various places of interest, the fine corn crops, livestock and farm -buildings, but the Englishman was so anxious to get to the wilds that -this interlude only filled him with impatience. - -[Illustration: BARK-PEELERS AT WORK. BLACK FOREST] - -He was impressed not a little by the battlefields of Paoli and -Brandywine, but most of all by the grove where the harmless Conestoga -Indians were encamped when surprised and massacred by the brutal Paxtang -Boys. The word “Indians” thrilled him, and whetted his curiosity, which -was somewhat appeased on his arrival at Harrisburg by the sight of five -Indians in full regalia, lying on the grass under John Harris’ Mulberry -Tree, waiting to be ferried across the river. - -He tarried only one night at Harrisburg, then hiring a private -conveyance, started down the Cumberland Valley, where he most admired -the many groves of tall hardwoods–resting at Carlisle and -Shippensburg–as originally planned. At Carlisle, he was waited on at his -inn by a German woman, who explained to him that she was none other than -“Molly Pitcher,” or Molly Ludwig, the intrepid heroine of the Battle of -Monmouth. - -It was on a bright autumnal morning that, with pack on back, and staff -in hand, he started for the heights of Cove Mountain, towards the west -country. On the way he passed a small roadside tavern, in front of which -a few years before had played a little yellow-haired boy, with a turkey -bell suspended around his neck so that he could not get lost. The German -drovers who lolled in front of the hostelry were fond of teasing the -lad, calling him “Jimmy mit the bells on,” much to the youngster’s -displeasure. His mother was a woman of some intellectual attainments, -and occasionally would edify the society folk of Mercersburg by reciting -the whole of Milton’s “Paradise Lost.” - -In time this boy became known as James Buchanan, the only Pennsylvanian -to occupy the Presidential chair. - -There were many taverns along the road, considering the wildness of the -country, and The Viscount thought how much history and tradition was -being made about their inglenooks and home-garths. The forests of -chestnuts, yellow pine and rock oak, the grand scenery of distant -valleys and coves, interested him more, and the occasional meetings with -the mountain people along the way, whom he enjoyed conversing with, -about the local folk-lore, game and Indians. On many of the log barns -and sheds were nailed bear paws, deer horns and wolf hides, and the -hieroglyphics and signs, to ward off witches, were keenly interesting to -his inquiring gaze. - -It was amazing how the road wound in serpentine fashion among the -mountains; the distance could have been much shortened, he thought. - -One morning a backwoodsman with a black beard that hung almost to his -feet, explained to him the “short cuts,” or paths that went down the -steep slopes of the mountains, lessening the distance of the regular -roads followed by the packers around the elbows of the mountain ravines. - -The Viscount Adare enjoyed these “short cuts” hugely. They reminded him -of his Alpining days, and they led him right through the forests, under -the giant oaks and pines where he saw many unusual looking birds, such -as Pileated Woodpeckers and Carolina Paraquets, while occasionally a -Deer or Gray Fox crossed his path. He had reached the bottom of a ravine -where a stream headed at a big spring, while taking one of these “short -cuts,” when he came in sight of a clearing which contained a corn field, -a pasture lot or commons, a log house, log barn, and a smaller log -cabin, that looked like a smoke-house. Smoke was issuing from an opening -in the roof of the tiny structure, which might have passed for a child’s -play house, modelled after the larger log dwelling. As he neared the -little hut, which reminded him of an Alpine _baracq_, and which stood -close to the path, the door opened and two most curious looking figures -emerged. In old England he had seen sweeps, but these were more -grotesque and grimier than any he could recall. As he drew nearer, he -perceived that while one appeared to be a man, the other was a young -woman. Both were entirely unclad, save that the woman’s locks were -covered by a homespun cap of the tam o’shanter pattern. Both were -literally black, from head to foot. - -When they saw the traveler, the woman ran back into the cabin, pulling -the door shut, while the “Jim Crow” man waited in the path until joined -by the surprised Viscount. - -“What is all this, my good man,” he queried, “been cleaning your chimney -and fallen through it into a barrel of tar?” - -“Oh, no,” said the grimy mountaineer, smiling, his teeth looking very -white against his swarthy visage. “My business is to make lamp black, -and my friend and I have been sweeping down the walls, collecting the -output this morning, and boxing it, and had just finished when you -appeared in sight.” - -The fellow made no attempt to apologize for his outlandish appearance, -but stood there in the sunlight like an imp of darkness, chatting with -the Englishman. - -“I don’t want to keep your lady friend penned up in there any longer,” -said The Viscount, as he started to move away. - -“Oh, don’t go,” said the maker of lamp black, “I don’t know why she acts -that way; stay and have dinner with us. We never let a stranger go by -without furnishing him with some food.” - -Ordinarily, The Viscount Adare, unconventional as he was, would have -scurried away from such grimy surroundings, but there was something that -appealed to him about the lamp black maker’s lady, even in her coat of -ebony grime, that made him decide to tarry. - -“Thanks, I will stay,” he replied, “but I’ll go to the barn so as to -give your ‘friend,’ as you call her, a chance to come out.” - -“Don’t you bother to do that,” said the black man. “She is acting -foolish today; don’t give her the satisfaction to move a step. She never -minded showing herself to anybody before.” - -These last words were secretly pleasing to the Viscount, as it showed -that the young woman recognized in him a person of superior -sensibilities, but he hurried to the barn until he knew that she had -been given time to escape to the house. But he could not help hearing -the lamp black maker loudly chiding her for modesty, a trait she had -never displayed previously. Pretty soon he saw the fellow making trips -to the spring, carrying water buckets into the house. The Viscount sat -on the doorstep of the barn, watching the juncos flying about among the -savin bushes in the clearing, or his eyes feasting on the cornelian red -foliage of the sassafras trees on the hill, inwardly speculating if with -her black disguise washed off, the young woman, whose higher nature he -had aroused, would be as good looking as he imagined her to be. He made -a mental picture of her loveliness, ranking her close beside that of -high bred beauties of his own land, of the types depicted by Romney, -Kneller and Lely. - -It was not long before he saw her emerge from the house, all washed and -scrubbed, with her hair neatly combed, clad in a spick and span -“butternut” frock. As she came towards him, he noted that she was a -trifle above the average height, and her feet, despite the rough brogans -she wore, were very small. He saw, to his amazement, that she was the -counterpart of his mental picture, only more radiantly lovely. When she -drew near, she asked him, her face lighting up very prettily, as she -spoke, if he would like to come to the house to rest, that she would -soon prepare dinner, and hoped that he would not be too critical of her -humble efforts as a cook. - -Her eyes seldom met his, but he could see that they were large and -grey-brown, with delicately penciled black brows, and black lashes. Her -face was rather long and sallow, or rather of a pinkish pallor. Her hair -was cameo brown, her nose long and straight, the lines of her mouth -delicate and refined, with lips unusually thin. He had noticed, as she -came towards him, that her slender form swayed a little forward as she -walked, reminding him of the mythical maiden Syrinx, daughter of the -River God, whom the jealous-hearted Pan changed into a reed. - -The Viscount Adare was far more disconcerted than his hostess, as he -followed her to the log house. Just as they approached the door she -whispered, “I hope that you will forgive the awful exhibition I made of -myself.” - -Indoors she sat down on one of the courting blocks by the great open -hearth, where pots of various sizes hung from the cranes. The man, who -was still trying to get the lamp black out of his curly hair and beard, -was only partially dressed, and looked all the world like pictures of -the lascivious Lupercalian Pan himself. - -The Englishman felt strangely at ease in the cabin, watching the -slender, reed-like girl prepare the meal, and enjoyed the dinner with -his humble entertainers. - -Shortly after the repast another bearded backwoodsman appeared at the -door. The lamp black maker had an appointment to go with him to some -distant parts of the Shade Mountains to examine bear pens, and asked to -be excused. He would not be back until the next day; it was nothing -unusual for him to leave his friend alone for a week at a time on -similar excursions. - -The Viscount was in no hurry to go, as never had a woman appealed to him -as did the lamp black maker’s young assistant. Perhaps it was the -unconventional character of their first meeting that shocked his love -into being; at any rate he was severely smitten; probably John Rolfe was -no more so, on his first glimpse of the humane Pocohontas. - -After the two hunters had gone, the young woman sat down on the other -courting block, on the opposite of the inglenook, and The Viscount -decided to ask her to tell him the story of her life. She colored a -trifle, saying that no one had ever been interested in her life’s -history before, therefore, she might not repeat it very well. - -She had been born at sea, of parents coming from the northern part of -Ireland. They had settled first in the Cumberland Valley, then, when she -was about a dozen years old, decided to migrate to Kentucky. They had -not gotten much further than the covered bridge across the Little -Juniata, when they were ambushed by robbers, and all the adult members -of the party, her parents and an uncle, were slain. The children were -carried off, being apportioned among the highwaymen. She fell to the lot -of the leader of the band, Conrad Jacobs, who took more than a fatherly -interest in her. - -He was a middle-aged married man, but he openly said that when the girl -was big enough, he would chase his wife away and install her in her -place. But she was kindly treated by the strange people, even more so -than at home, for her mother had been very severe and unreasonable. - -When she was fifteen she saw signs that the outlaw was going to put his -plan into effect–to drive his wife out into the forest, like an old -horse–and probably would have done so, but for Simon Supersaxo, the lamp -black man, who came to the highwayman’s shanty frequently on his hunting -trips. - -The robber became jealous of the young Nimrod and threatened to shoot -him if he came near the premises again. A threat was as good as a -promise with such people, so Supersaxo was ready to kill or be killed on -sight. - -He met the highwayman one evening in front of McCormick’s Tavern, and -drawing the bead, shot him dead. He was not arrested, but feted by all -the innkeepers for ridding the mountains of a dangerous deterrent to -travel, while she, her name was Deborah Conner, went to help keep house -for him, along with the outlaw’s widow, but in reality to help make lamp -black. - -That was four years before. Since old Mother Jacobs had died and -Deborah, now nineteen years of age, was being importuned by Supersaxo to -marry him. - -Previous to the Englishman’s coming that morning, she had never felt any -shame at working in the lamp black hut with her employer, or appearing -before passers-by unclad, but now a great light had come to her; she was -free to confess that she was changed and humiliated. - -The Viscount looked her over and over, and far into those wonderful -stone grey eyes that mirrored a refined soul lost in the wilderness. -Then he made bold to speak: - -“Deborah”, he said, “since you have been so frank with me in telling the -story of your life, I will freely confess to you that I loved you the -minute my eyes rested on you, even in your unbecoming homespun cap, and -lamp black from head to foot. I realize that your being here is but an -accident, and my coming the instrument to take you away. I will marry -you, and strive always to make you happy, if you will come away with me, -and I will take you to England where, among people of refined tastes, -you will shine and always be at peace.” - -Deborah opened her thin delicate mouth in surprise, and her eyes became -like grey stars. “Really, do you mean that”? she said. - -“I mean every word,” replied The Viscount Adare. - -“I know that I feel differently towards you than any man I have seen, so -I must love you, and I will always be happy with you,” resumed the girl. -“And while I owe Simon Supersaxo a deep debt of gratitude for saving me -from being forced into marrying that horrid old road-agent, I owe myself -more, and you more still. I will go with you whenever you are ready to -take me, no matter what my conscience will tell me later. Though I’ll -say to you honestly that I never thought there was any life for me -further than to make lamp black, until you came.” - -She explained to him that at Christmastime the lamp black man always -went with a party of companions on a great elk hunt to the distant -Sinnemahoning Country, and if The Viscount would return then, she would -arrange to meet him at a certain place at a certain day and hour, and go -away with him. “There is a little clearing or old field on the top of -the ridge, beyond this house,” and pointing her slender white hand, -showed to him through the open door. “Meet me there on the day before -Christmas, and I will be free to go away with you rejoicing.” - -The balance of the visit was passed in pleasant amity, until towards -nightfall, when The Viscount shouldered his pack and seized his staff, -and started away, not for Pittsburg, but eastward again. Deborah, her -slender reed-like figure swaying in the autumn breeze, walked with him -to the edge of the clearing. She kissed him goodbye among the savin -bushes, and he kissed her many times in return, until they parted at the -carnelian-leafed sassafras trees on the hill, and he commenced the -ascent of the steep face of Chestnut Ridge. - -The trip back to Philadelphia was taken impatiently, but with a -different kind of impatience; he wanted the entire intervening time -obliterated, until he could get back to his strange exotic mountain -love. In Philadelphia he engaged passage for England the first week in -January, and wrote letters abroad to complete the arrangements for -taking his wife-to-be to his ancestral home. He could never forget the -last afternoon in the Quaker City. Christmas was coming, and the spirit -of this glad festival was in the air, even more so than in “Merrie -England.” He was walking through Chancellor Street when he came upon two -blind Negro Christmas-singers, former sailors, who had lost their sight -in the premature explosion of a cannon on the deck of a frigate on the -Delaware River during the Revolutionary War. He stopped, elegant -gentleman that he was, listened enraptured to their songs of simple -faith: “Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow.” - -“If they had so much to be thankful for,” he mused, “how much more have -I, with lovely Deborah only a few days in the future.” - -Then he gave them each five shillings and moved on. A little further -down the street, he met an old Negro Woman selling sprigs of holly with -bright red berries. He bought a sprig. “I’ll take it to Deborah,” he -said to himself. - -He returned to Harrisburg by the stage coach, accompanied by a Negro -body-servant well recommended by the British Consul. At Harrisburg he -purchased four extra good horses. With these and the Negro he retraced -his previous journey. He left the Negro and the horses at McCormick’s -Tavern, continuing the balance of the journey on foot, his precious -sprig of holly, with the bright red berries, fastened on the top of his -staff, that had often been decked with the _edelweiss_ and the Alpine -rose. Deborah had said that she knew all the mountain paths back to -McCormick’s, so they could reach there quickly, and be mounted on fast -horses almost before her employer missed them. - -His heart was beating fast as he neared his trysting place, the little -clearing on the ridge, the morning before Christmas. Peering through the -trees, he observed that Deborah was not there, but surely she would soon -come, the sun was scarcely over the Chestnut Ridge to the east! A grey -fog hung over the valley, obscuring the little cabin in the cove. - -He waited and waited all day long, but no Deborah appeared. He walked -all over the top of the ridge to see if there were other clearings, lest -he had gotten to the wrong one. There were no others, just as she had -said. Cold beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead; he was -angry; he was jealous; the day was closing bitterly cold. “The woman -that I want, she will not come.” - -Finally as the sun was going down behind the western summits of the -Alleghenies, he untied the sprig of holly from the end of his -mountain-staff, and bending over, stuck it in the fast freezing earth, a -symbol of his faithless adventure, and started down the mountain, -straight towards Deborah Supersaxo’s cabin. - -At the foot of the hill he met her coming towards him–her face was -deadly pale, her thin lips white as death–instantly his hate changed to -tender love again. - -“Kill me if you wish,” she cried out before he had time to speak, and -held out her arms to show her non-resistance, “for I have been unworthy. -I broke my faith with you, and was not going to come; I repented at -leaving Supersaxo, who had been so good to me when I was in distress. I -was going to leave you in the lurch. Then, then,” and here tears -trickled down her ghastly cheeks, “I was sitting on the courting log by -the fire, commending myself for my loyalty, when a few minutes ago one -of his friends came in to say that the day before yesterday, while -looking at somebody’s bear pen near the Karoondinha, it fell in on him -and broke his neck. I was just coming up the hill to tell you, if you -were still waiting, how wicked I had been to you, and how I had been -punished. Kill me if you wish, I can never be happy any more.” - -The Viscount Adare did not hesitate a moment, but flinging down his -staff, he rushed to the girl and caught her in his arms. “Doubly blessed -are we this night, dear Deborah, for there is now no impediment to our -happiness; no misdirected sense of duty can cast a shadow on the joy -that lies before us. I want you now more than ever before, after this -final trial, and you must come with me!” - -“Never say must again,” said Deborah, sweetly, looking up into his eyes, -“I am your willing slave; I will go with you to the ends of the earth: I -want to redeem this day by years of devotion, years of love.” - -Picking up his staff, The Viscount Adare and the mountain girl resumed -their journey, past the now deserted log house and the lamp black shack -where they had first met, up the steep mountain, and off towards -McCormick’s Tavern, near where, in a deep pine grove, the Negro -body-servant would be waiting with the horses. - -That is all that has been recorded in the mountains concerning the lamp -black girl and The Viscount Adare. In England there is an oil painting -of a certain Viscountess of the name that bears a striking resemblance -to the one time Deborah Conner. - -Up on the ridge, in the little clearing, one or more of the seeds of the -sprig of holly took root, and grew a fine tree. In order that this story -may be localized, it is said that this is one of the points furthest -north of any specimen of the native holly in Pennsylvania. In time it -died off, but not before other scions sprang up, and there has always -been a thrifty holly tree on the hill, as if to commemorate a lover’s -tryst, whose heart when on the point of breaking from hideous despair, -found the fullness of his happiness suddenly, and whose story is an -inspiration to all aching hearts. - -[Illustration] - - VII - _The Second Run of the Sap_ - - -The selective draft, according to Dr. Jacobs, a very intelligent Seneca -Indian, residing on the Cornplanter Reservation in Warren County, was -practiced by Pennsylvania Indians in some of their earlier conflicts, -notably in the bloody warfare in the Cherokee country. - -In the war against the Cherokees, there was a popular apathy at home, as -it was not undertaken to repel an unjust invasion, but for the purpose -of aggression, after the murder of a number of Cherokees by the Lenape, -and as such did not appeal to the just and patient tribesmen in general. - -In order to increase the invading armies beyond the limits of the -volunteer quotas of warriors and chiefs, who were of patrician -antecedents, the draft was resorted to, with the result that a -formidable host departed for the Southland, ravaging the enemy’s -country, and bringing in many prisoners. - -The Cherokees were not completely vanquished, as they were victorious in -some of the conflicts, and also made numerous prisoners. Some of these -were tortured to death, others were adopted by families that had lost -their sons, while a few escaped and made their way Northward. - -[Illustration: THE FALLEN MONARCH, PORTAGE CREEK] - -The war was followed by the usual period of upheaval and reconstruction, -and the moral code of the redmen suffered as much as did modern -civilization as an aftermath of the world war. Many Cherokee prisoners -were brought to Pennsylvania and put at menial work, or bartered as -slaves while others intermarried with the northern tribes, so that -Cherokee blood become a component part of the make-up of the -Pennsylvania aboriginies. The Cherokee legends and history lingered -wherever a drop of their blood remained, so that the beginnings of some, -at least, of our Pennsylvania Indian folk-lore hark back to the golden -age of the Cherokees. - -They certainly have been the martyr-race, the Belgians of the North -American Indians, even to the time of their brutal expulsion from their -Carolina homes during the Nineteenth Century by U. S. troops at the -behest of selfish land-grabbers, and sentenced to die of exhaustion and -broken hearts along the dreary trek to the distant Indian Territory. - -Among the bravest and most enthusiastic of the Pennsylvania invaders was -the young warrior In-nan-ga-eh, chief of the draft, who led the drafted -portion of the army against the Cherokee foemen. He was of noble blood, -hence himself exempt from the draft, but he was a lover of war and -glory, and rejoiced to lead his less well-born, and less patriotic -compatriots into the thick of battle. Although noble rank automatically -exempted from the draft, the young scions of nobility enlisted -practically to a man, holding high commissions, it is true, yet at all -times bold and courageous. - -In-nan-ga-eh was always peculiarly attractive to the female sex. Tall, -lithe and sinewy, he was a noted runner and hunter, as well as famed for -his warlike prowess. At twenty-two he was already the veteran of several -wars, notably against the Ottawas and the Catawbas, and thirsted for a -chance to humble his southern rivals, the Cherokees. He wished to make -it his boast that he had fought and conquered tribes on the four sides -of the territory where he lived, making what is now the Pennsylvania -country the ruling land, the others all vassal states. - -He was indiscriminate in his love making, having no respect for birth or -caste, being different from his reserved and honorable fellow -aristocrats, consequently at his departure for the south, he was mourned -for by over a score of maidens of various types and degrees. If he cared -for any one of these admirers, it was Liddenah, a very beautiful, kindly -and talented maiden, the daughter of the noted wise man or sooth-sayer, -Wahlowah, and probably the most remarkable girl in the tribe. - -That she cared for such an unstable and shallow-minded youth to the -exclusion of others of superior mental gifts and seriousness of purpose, -amply proved the saying that opposites attract, for there could have -been no congeniality of tastes between the pair. Temperamentally they -seemed utterly unsuited, as Liddenah was artistic and musically -inclined, and a chronicler of no mean ability, yet she would have given -her life for him at any stage of the romance. She possessed ample -self-control, but when he went away her inward sorrow gnawing at her -heart almost killed her. She may have had a presentiment of what was in -store! - -During invasions of this kind, communication with home was maintained by -means of runners who carried tidings, good or bad, bringing back verbal -lists of the dead, wounded and missing, some of which they shamefully -garbled. - -In-nan-ga-eh was decorated several times for conspicuous bravery, and -was reported in the vanguard of every attack, until at length came the -shocking news of his ambush and capture. Over a score of the most -beautiful maidens along the Ohe-yu and Youghiogheny were heartbroken to -distraction, but none more so than the lovely and intellectual Liddenah. -This was the crowning blow, her lover taken by his cruel foes, being -perhaps boiled alive, or drawn and quartered. Seated alone in her lodge -house by the banks of The Beautiful River, she pictured all sorts of -horrors befalling her beloved, and of his own deep grief at being held -prisoner so far from his homeland. - -It was a humiliation to be captured, and by a band of Amazons, who -begged permission to entrap the fascinating enemy. Finding him bathing -in a deep pool, they surrounded it, flinging at him slightly poisoned -darts, which made him partially overcome by sleep, so that he was only -able to clamber out on the bank, there to be secured by his fair captors -and led in dazed triumph to their chief. - -The Chieftain was elated at the capture, and treated the handsome -prisoner with all the deference due to his rank. Instead of boiling him -in oil, or flaying him, he was feted and feasted, and the warlike bands -became demoralized by catering to his pleasure. - -It was not long before the chief’s daughter, Inewatah, fell in love with -him, and as her illustrious father, Tekineh, had lost a son in the war, -In-nan-ga-eh was given the choice of becoming the chief’s adopted son or -his son-in-law. He naturally chose the latter, as the wife-to-be was -both beautiful and winning. - -The war resulted in defeat for the Cherokees, although the old chief -escaped to fastnesses further south with his beautiful daughter and -alien son-in-law. All went well for a year and a half after the peace -when In-nan-ga-eh, began to feel restless and listless for his northern -mountains, the playground of his youth. He wanted to go on a visit, and -asked the chief’s permission, giving as his word of honor, his love for -the chieftain’s daughter, that he would properly return. - -The Cherokee bride was as heartbroken as Liddenah; she had first asked -that she might accompany him on the trip, which was refused, but she -accepted the inevitable stoically outwardly, but with secret aching -bosom. - -In-nan-ga-eh was glad to get away; being loved too much was tiresome; -life was too enervating in the warm sunshine on Soco Creek; he liked the -camp and the hunting lodge; love making, too much of it, palled on him. -He wanted to be let alone. - -Accompanied by a bodyguard of selected Cherokees, he hurriedly made his -way to the North. One morning to the surprise and delight of all, he -appeared at his tribal village by the Ohe-yu, as gay and debonair as -ever. As he entered the town almost the first person he saw was -Liddenah. She looked very beautiful, and he could see at one glance how -she loved him, yet perversely he barely nodded as he passed. - -When he was re-united with his parents, who treated him as one risen -from the dead, his sisters began telling him about the news of the -settlement, of his many friends, of Liddenah. Her grief had been very -severe, it shocked her mother that she should behave so like a European -and show her feelings to such an extent. Then the report had come that -he had been put to death by slow torture. “Better that,” Liddenah had -said openly in the market place, “than to remain the captive of -barbarians.” - -Once it was taken for granted that he was dead, Liddenah began to -receive the attentions of young braves, as they came back from the South -laden with scalps and other decorations of their victorious campaign -against the Cherokees. Liddenah gave all to understand that her heart -was dead; she was polite and tolerant, but, like the eagle, she could -love only once. - -There was one young brave named Quinnemongh who pressed his suit more -assiduously than the rest, and aided by Liddenah’s mother, was -successful. The pair were quietly married about a year after -In-nan-ga-eh’s capture, or several months before he started for the -North, leaving his Cherokee bride at her father’s home on the Soco. - -Quinnemongh was not such a showy individual as In-nan-ga-eh, but his -bravery was unquestioned, his reliability and honor above reproach. He -made Liddenah a very good husband. In turn she seemed to be happy with -him, and gradually overcoming her terrible sorrow. - -When In-nan-ga-eh had passed Liddenah on entering the village, he had -barely noticed her because he supposed that he could have her any time -for the asking. When he learned that she was the wife of another, he -suddenly realized that he wanted her very badly, that she was the cause -of his journey Northward. The old passion surged through his veins; it -was what the bark-peelers call “the second run of the sap.” - -Through his sisters, who were among Liddenah’s most intimate friends, he -sought a clandestine meeting with his former sweetheart. They met at the -“Stepping Stones,” a crossing near the headwaters of Cowanshannock, in a -mossy glade, which had formerly been his favorite trysting place with -over a score of doting maidens in the ante-bellum days. - -Liddenah, inspired by her great love, never looked more beautiful. She -was probably a trifle above the average height, gracefully, but solidly -made. Her skin was very white, her eyes dark, her hair that of a raven, -while her aquiline nose, high cheek bones and small, fine mouth made her -resemble a high-bred Jewess more than an Indian squaw, a heritage -perhaps from a remote Semitic origin beyond the Pacific. She showed -openly how happy she was to meet In-nan-ga-eh, until he told her the -story of his tragic love, how she had broken his young heart by cruelly -marrying another while he languished in a Southern prison camp. In vain -she protested that, on all sides came seemingly authentic reports of his -death; he was obdurate in the destiny he had decreed. Quinnemongh must -die by his hand, and he would then flee with the widow to the country of -the Ottawas. The hot blood surging in his veins, like a second flow of -sap in a red maple, must be appeased by her submission. - -Liddenah was horrified; she came of eminently respectable ancestry, she -admired Quinnemongh, her husband, almost to the point of loving him, but -where that affection ended, her all-pervading obsession for In-nan-ga-eh -began and knew no limitations in her being. - -“Tonight”, said In-nan-ga-eh, scowling dreadfully, “I will surprise the -vile Quinnemongh in his lodge house, and with one blow of my stone -war-hammer crush in his skull, then I will scalp him and meet you at the -stepping stones, and by the moonlight we will decamp to the far free -country of the Ottawas, his scalp dangling at my belt as proof of my -hate and my bravery”. - -Liddenah gave a reluctant assent to the fiendish program when they -parted. On her way home through the forest path her conscience smote her -with Mosaic insistence–the blood of her ancestors, of the Lost Tribe of -Israel, would not permit her to sanction the murder of a good and true -warrior. She would immolate herself for her family honor, and for her -respect for Quinnemongh. - -Arriving at the lodge-house she went straight to Quinnemongh and -confessed the story of her meeting with the perfidious In-nan-ga-eh, all -but the homicidal part. Quinnemongh was not much surprised, as he knew -of her great love for the ex-Cherokee prisoner, and In-nan-ga-eh’s -capricious pride. - -“Quinnemongh”, she said, between her sobs, for, like a white girl, she -was tearful, “I was to meet In-nan-ga-eh tonight, when the moon is over -the tops of the trees, by the stepping stones, and we were to fly -together to the country of the Ottawas. You present yourself there in my -stead, and tell the false In-nan-ga-eh that I have changed my mind, that -I am true to my noble husband”. - -Needless to say, Quinnemongh was pleased at this recital, and promised -to be at the ford at the appointed time. Like most persons under similar -circumstances, he was eager to be on his errand, and departed early, -armed with his favorite scalping knife. Liddenah kissed and embraced -him, calling him her “hero”, and once he was out of sight, she darted -into his cabin and lay down among his blankets and buffalo robes, -covering herself, all but the top of her brow, and huddling, all curled -up, for the autumnal air was chill. - -The moon slowly rose higher and higher until it reached the crowns of -the giant rock oaks along the edge of the “Indian fields”. The gaunt -form of In-nan-ga-eh could now be seen creeping steadily out of the -forest, bounding across the clearing and, stone axe in hand, entered the -cabin where he supposed that Quinnemongh was sleeping. A ray of shimmery -moonlight shone full on the upturned forehead of his victim. Animated by -a jealous hate, he struck a heavy blow with his axe of dark diorite, -crushing in the sleeper’s temples like an eggshell. Leaving the weapon -imbedded in his victim’s skull, he deftly cut off the long bushy scalp -with his sharp knife, and, springing out of the hut, started off on a -dog-trot towards the stepping stones, waving his bloody, gruesome -souvenir. - -He approached the fording with the light of the full moon shining on the -waters of the brook; he was exultant and grinding his teeth in lustful -fury. Who should he see there–not the fair and yielding goddess -Liddenah, but the stalwart form of the recently butchered and scalped -Quinnemongh. Believer in ghosts that he was, this was almost too much of -a visitation for him. Pausing a minute to make sure, he rushed forward -brandishing the scalp in one hand, his knife, which caught the moon’s -beams on its blade in the other. - -“Wretch”! he shrieked at Quinnemongh, “must I kill you a second time to -make you expiate your sin at marrying Liddenah”? - -Quinnemongh, who stood rigid as a statue at the far side of the ford, -replied, “You have not killed me once; how dare you speak of a second -time”? - -“Whose scalp have I then”? shouted In-nan-ga-eh, as he continued to rush -forward. - -“Not mine surely”, said Quinnemongh, as he felt his comparatively sparse -locks. - -Just as the men came face to face it dawned on both what had happened, -and with gleaming knives, they sprang at one another in a death -struggle. For half an hour they fought, grappling and stabbing, kicking -and biting, in the shallow waters of the ford. Neither would go down, -though Liddenah’s scalp was forced from In-nan-ga-eh’s hand, and got -between the breasts of the two combatants, who pushed it, greasy and -gory, up and down as they fought. They literally stabbed one another -full of holes, and bit and tore at their faces like wild beasts; they -carved the skin off their shoulders and backs, they kicked until their -shin bones cracked, until finally both, worn out from loss of blood, -sank into the brook and died. - -In the morning the scalped and mutilated form of Liddenah was discovered -among the gaudy blankets and decorated buffalo robes; a bloody trail was -followed to the stepping stones, where the two gruesome corpses were -found, half submerged in the red, bloody water, in an embrace so -inextricable, their arms like locked battling stags’ antlers that they -could not in the rigidity of death be separated. Foes though they were, -the just and patient Indians who found them could do nothing else but -dig a common grave in the half-frozen earth, close to the stepping -stones, and there they buried them together, with Liddenah’s soggy scalp -and their bent and broken knives, their bodies to commingle with earth -until eternity. - -[Illustration] - - VIII - _Black Chief’s Daughter_ - - -It was the occasion of the annual Strawberry Dance at the Seneca -Reservation, a lovely evening in June, when, after a warm rain, there -had been a clear sunset, and the air was sweet with the odor of the -grass, and the narrow roads were deep with soft, brown mud and many -puddles of water. - -In the long, grey frame Council House all was animation and excitement. -The grim old Chief, Twenty Canoes, decked out in his headdress of -feathers, followed by the musicians with wolf-skin drums filled with -pebbles had arrived, and taken places on the long bench that ran almost -the entire length of the great hall. Other older and distinguished -Indians, Indian guests from the Cornplanter Reservation in Pennsylvania, -and from the New York Reservations at Tonawanda, and the Geneseo, and a -few white visitors, including the Rev. Holt, the Town Missionary and -Attorney Vreeland, the agent, with their families, completely filled the -lengthy bench. - -The Indian dancers, male and female, gaily attired, had been gathering -outside, and now, with the first rattle of the drums, filed into the -room and began to dance. As the first loud tattoo was heard, the dancers -commenced shaking their shoulders, holding their arms rigid, and the -“Shimmy” of decadent New York and Philadelphia of nearly half a century -later, was rendered effectively by its originators, the rhythmic -aborigines. As they danced in single file around the visitors’ bench and -past the Chief, to the beat of the wolf skin drums, they melodiously -chanted, first the men, and then the women: “Wee-Wah, Wee-Wah, Wee-Wah, -Wanna; Wee-Wah, Wee-Wah, Wee-Wah, Wanna.” At times the women joined in -the general song, swelling the volume of the melody, until it drowned -out the drum-beats. The windows were open and the perfume of lilacs was -wafted in on the evening breeze, as the swaying files of Indian braves -and maidens shimmied around and around. Among the white visitors was one -young man who was particularly impressed, as he was there not out of -idle curiosity, but to study the manners and customs of the last of the -Senecas, in order to write his doctor’s thesis at the University, the -subject being “The Later History of the Seneca Indians in New York.” - -Christian Trubee, for that was his name, had always been interested in -the redmen, a natural heritage from pioneer and frontiersman ancestors -who had fought the Indians all along the Allegheny Mountains and in the -Ohio River basin. He had lately come to Steamburg, putting up at Pat -Smith’s “long house,” where he had quickly become acquainted with Simon -Black Chief, a handsome Indian youth who picked up a living as a -mountebank among the frequenters of the ancient hostelry. - -Simon was a wonderful runner, and if he could interest the lumber buyers -and the traveling men, would match himself against a little black mare -owned by Smith and usually ridden by the landlord’s stepson, for a half -mile or mile, and generally beat his equine rival. Other times he would -ride the horse at a gallop, without saddle or bridle, over the common -between the hotel and the Erie Railroad Station, picking up -handkerchiefs, cigars and quarter dollars off the greensward without -ever once losing his equilibrium. - -On the evening in question, he invited the young student to accompany -him to the Strawberry Dance at the Council House, and passing by the -one-roomed board shack where he lived, his sister, known as Black -Chief’s Daughter, came out and joined them, so that the trio proceeded -single file to the scene of the festivities. Neither Simon nor his -sister danced that evening, but sat near their distinguished guest, -explaining as best they could the methods and art of the performers, for -they were very proud of the Indian dancing and music. As the evening -progressed, Christian Trubee found himself admiring the Indian maid at -his side more than he did the shimmying hordes on the floor, or the -quaint picturesqueness of the unique ceremonial. - -Black Chief’s daughter was certainly the best looking girl present, -almost more like an American than an Indian in appearance, for her -profile was certainly on refined lines, and it was only when looking her -full in the face did the racial traits of breadth of the bridge of the -nose, flatness of lips and deep duskiness of complexion reveal -themselves. Her dark eyes were very clear and expressive, her teeth even -and white, her neck and throat graceful, and her form long, lithe and -elegant. - -Christian Trubee liked her very much, and was entirely absorbed by her -at the time of the last beat of the drums when, with a loud yell, the -dance concluded, and the now limp and perspiring Indian dancers crowded -out of doors into the cool moonlight. On the way back Simon Black Chief -led the way, his long hair blowing in the breeze, his sister following. -Trubee did not follow single file, but walked beside the fair damsel. -She was as tall as he was, though she wore deerskin shoes without heels. -When they parted, in the long lush grass, before the humble cabin, she -promised to show him some of the interesting spots on the -reservation–the grave of Blacksnake, the famous chief and orator, the -various tribal burial places, and a visit to King Jimmerson, who -alternated with Twenty Canoes as President of the Seneca Nation, to see -the silver war crowns of Red Jacket, Blacksnake and The Cornplanter, and -to Red House to meet Jim Jacobs, the venerable “Seneca Bear Hunter.” - -All of these excursions duly came to pass, about one a day, as the -weather turned steadily clear, day after day, when the Keewaydin blew, -and the distant mountains along The Beautiful River wore a purple green, -and fleecy white clouds tumbled about in the deep blue sky. On these -excursions Black Chief’s Daughter seemed to be the equal of her brother -and Trubee as a pedestrian, was never tired, always cheerful and anxious -to explain the various points of interest. - -At one of the graveyards she pointed out the last resting place of an -eccentric redman known as “Indian Brown,” with two deep, round holes in -the mound, made according to his last wishes, because he had been such a -bad Indian in life, that when the Devil came down one hole to get him, -he would escape by the other! - -The three young people got along famously on the trips and Trubee was -absorbing an unusual amount of aboriginal history and lore, and under -the most pleasant circumstances. While he never said a word of affection -or even compliment to Black Chief’s Daughter, he felt himself deeply -enamored, and often, in his quiet moments, pictured her as his wife. -Once or twice came the answering thought, how could he, a man of so much -education and refinement, take for life a mate who could not read, and -whose English was little better than a baby’s jargon? Where would he -take her to? Would she like his life, for surely he could not become a -squaw man on the reservation? On the other hand, she was gentle, -sympathetic and thoughtful, and the blood of regal Indian ancestors gave -her a refinement that sometimes education does not convey. But he was -happy in the moment, as are most persons of adaptability of character. -He was at home in any company, or in any circumstances, and had he been -old enough to enlist, would have made a brilliant record in the Civil -War; as it was he was but ten years of age when the conflict ended. - -[Illustration: READY FOR THE LOG DRIVE, KETTLE CREEK] - -As the days wore on, each one more delightful than its predecessor, -Simon Black Chief and his sister vied with one another to plan trips to -points of interest. One evening Simon asked his white friend if he had -ever seen a wolf-house, the local Indian method of trapping these -formidable animals. - -“What was it like, and where was there one?” was Trubee’s instant reply. - -“A wolf-house,” said Simon, "is a walled trap like a white man’s great, -big mouse-trap, with a falling door. There is still one preserved over -at the Ox Bow, at the tall, stone mansion called ‘Corydon,’ across the -Pennsylvania line." - -Trubee’s interest was aroused, not only in the wolf-house, but the “tall -stone mansion” and its possible occupants. Simon explained to him that -an English gentleman lived there, a son-in-law of one of the heads of -the Holland Land Company. He had been a great hunter in his earlier -days, following exclusively the methods taught him by the Indians. It -was a longer trip than any yet attempted, but Trubee secured Pat Smith’s -little black mare and two other horses, so that the trio departed on -horseback for the distant manor house. Black Chief’s Daughter, who rode -astride, was a skillful and graceful horsewoman, even though her mount -was a poor excuse of horseflesh. - -The trip along The Beautiful River was very enjoyable, and at length -they came in sight of “Corydon” on the hill, above the river, a great, -high, dark stone structure, ivy grown, standing in a group of original -white pines, some of these venerable monarchs being stag-topped, while -others had lost their crests in sundry tempests. There was a private -rope ferry across the river, but they rode the horses through the -stream, which was so deep in one place that the animals were forced to -swim. They rode into the grounds, past the huge stone gate posts, up the -hill, under the dark pines. As they neared the front door, the portico -designed by the famous Latrobe, several dogs which looked like Scottish -deerhounds rushed down from the porch and began to leap about the -horses’ throatlatches, barking loudly. - -Trubee checked his horse, and asked Simon, who was acquainted with the -family, to dismount and inquire if he might inspect the wolf-house, -which stood on a heathy eminence behind the garden. Once wolves had been -so plentiful and so bold that five of the monsters had been caught in -the trap in the space of three months. - -Before Simon Black Chief could dismount, two figures emerged from the -house, a young man and a young woman. Trubee’s quick glances made mental -pictures of both. The man was about thirty-five years of age, short and -thickset, with blond hair parted in the middle, a small mustache and -“Burnsides,” decidedly military in his bearing. The girl was of medium -height, possibly twenty years of age, decidedly pretty, with Sudan brown -hair, hazel eyes, clear cut features, a fair complexion and wearing a -flowing Mother Hubbard gown of prune-colored brocade. - -Trubee rode up to them, bowing, reining his horse, which he turned over -to Simon and, dismounting, apologized for his intrusion. He explained -how the Indian had told him of the curious wolf-house back of the garden -and how it would help him in his researches to see it. The girl -graciously offered to show it to him, but first invited the Indian girl -to dismount and rest. The young man remained talking to the Indian, but -the Seneca maid continued to sit on her horse, rigid and silent as a -Tanagra. On the way to the wolf-house, Christian Trubee introduced -himself, and, being able to mention several mutual acquaintances, which -put him on an easy footing with the fair chatelaine of “Corydon”. - -The charming girl told him that she was Phillis Paddingstowe, the -daughter of the lord of the manor, which made Trubee feel like saying -how natural it was to find _Phillis_ at _Corydon_! The young -military-looking man, “the little Colonel” she called him, was -Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Caslow, who had served with General -Huidekoper, “the hero of Gettysburg” in that immortal conflict, and was -at Corydon for a few days on a trout fishing trip. The old garden -through which they passed on the way to the wolf-house was full of -boxwood trees, which had been brought from Bartram’s gardens in -Philadelphia by wagon to Warren, and up the Ohe-yu in flat boats. They -gave a spicy, aromatic odor to the summer afternoon atmosphere. The -wolf-house was falling to decay, but Trubee took out his note book and -sketched it and recorded its dimensions. It was surprising that wolves -should come so close to a habitation, but Phillis stated that when she -was a baby they had actually killed and eaten three of her father’s -favorite Scotch deerhounds in one night, though they were chained to -kennels at the rear of the house. - -By the time they had returned from their inspection, Clement -Paddingstowe, Phillis’ father, had appeared, and supplemented his -daughter’s cordial invitation that they stay to tea. Trubee might have -remained, but Black Chief’s Daughter, though she was again urged by -Phillis and her father, seemed disinclined to partake of the -hospitality. They rode down the drive all a changed party. The Indian -girl had heard Trubee accept an invitation to return to “Corydon” in the -near future, and noted his admiring glances at her fair person; she felt -for the first time that she stood no chance against a white girl of -gentle blood, though her own native antecedents were of as noble -quality, for was she not Black Chief’s Daughter, and the granddaughter -of the undefeated warrior, Destroy-Town? - -She was silent and hung her head the whole way back to Steamburg. -Phillis, though delightfully courteous by nature, seemed a trifle -distant to the little Colonel that evening. Simon Black Chief was piqued -at himself for having brought unhappiness to his sister. Christian -Trubee was in love with Phillis Paddingstowe. Nevertheless, the young -collegian was too much a man of the world not to value the kindnesses -bestowed on him by Simon and his Sister, their parents and other Indians -of the reservation, to become suddenly cold and indifferent. Yet, alone, -he wondered why he had ever for a minute contemplated marrying an Indian -girl, and how slight would be their spiritual intercourse? Yet he was -here underrating Black Chief’s Daughter, who was not of the -earth-earthy, and had called herself to him “an imaginative person.” - -He tried to be polite and attentive to the Indian girl, but she noted -that on several occasions where she planned trips for certain days, he -demurred on account of engagements at “Corydon.” His manner was -different; the Indian girl, uncannily intuitive, would not be deceived. -The summer wore along, and Trubee saw that he could not keep up pleasing -Black Chief’s Daughter, a break must come somehow. And the neglected -maiden, unknown to him, was reading his every thought, and prepared to -make that break first. She had brought some late huckleberries to Pat -Smith’s wife at the long house, where she was told that Trubee had been -absent for three days at “Corydon”; that it was rumored he would marry -Clement Paddingstowe’s daughter in the Fall. - -As she walked along the path between the yellow, half-dead grasses, -swinging the little iron pot that had contained the berries, she began -planning for the dissolution of her unhappy romance. There were many May -apples or mandrakes ripening in the low places, and, stooping, she -uprooted several plants, half filling the pot with them. Then she left -the trail, and started across the meadow toward a group of ancient -hemlock trees, beneath which was the Cold Spring. Near the spring were -large, flat stones laid up like seats, and the remains of some stone -hearths where the Indians often roasted corn. She had her flints and -steel with her, and gathered enough dry twigs and punk to light a fire. -Then she sat down on one of the flat stones and, with her hands over her -face, she reviewed the story of her love for Trubee. He had cared for -her at first; that was consolation, but she was helpless beside the -white rival; red blood was as nothing beside blue. Then she nervously -tramped out the fire, as if to start on again. This life was a very -little thing, after all; if her dream had failed in this existence, -better end it, and come back again and fulfill it, even as a flower or -bird; it was impossible to prevent living again. She began to munch the -roots of the May apples which she had gathered, and then began to walk -across the fields toward the graveyard which contained the tomb of -“Indian Brown,” the bad man. - -As she came near the road which led to “Corydon” she made an effort to -run across it, but in the middle of it a dizziness seized her, then a -sharp pain, and she staggered and dropped in a heap, the dust rising -from the dry highway as she fell. The sand got in her eyes, nose and -mouth as she lay on the path, her legs twisting in convulsive spasms. -The sun was beginning to sink close to the tops of the long, rolling -summits of the western mountains as the form of a horseman came in sight -away down the long stretch of level road. It was Christian Trubee -returning from “Corydon,” flushed with the progress of his love making -with the fair and dainty Phillis Paddingstowe. He saw a black object in -the road; a wool sack fallen from some wagon, was his first conjecture. -Coming closer, he perceived it to be a human being, a woman, Black -Chief’s Daughter. - -He threw the bridle rein over the little mare’s head and sprang to the -ground. As he caught the limp form of the Indian girl in his arms, she -half opened her eyes and looked up at him. - -"Oh, Mr. Trubee, let me be, I pray of you; let me stay here and die; I -haven’t anything more to live for since we visited at ‘Corydon’." - -The young man did not know how to answer her, for he was honest always. -He lifted her on the saddle behind him, holding the long, lean arms -around his waist, while her head bobbed on his shoulder, and started the -little trappy black at a trot for the long house. It was supper time as -he neared the old hotel. In order to avoid attention, he rode up to the -kitchen door, at the back of the house. A small, ugly, very black -colored boy, with a banjo, from Jamestown, was strumming a Negro melody -to amuse the cooks. - -“Get on this horse quick, boy,” Trubee called to him, as he dismounted -with his limp burden, “and bring over Doctor Forrester; Black Chief’s -Daughter is in a bad way from poison.” - -Pat Smith’s wife and the other cooks ran out, and, taking in the -situation at a glance, carried the almost unconscious but uncomplaining -girl into the house where they laid her on a bench in the dance hall, -all unknown to the guests, munching their huckleberry pie in the nearby -dining room. The Doctor’s buggy was standing in front of his cottage, -and putting his horse to a gallop he raced the little Negro back to the -hotel. It did not take him long, as he was a noted herbalist, to -diagnose the case as poison from May apple root, very deadly, but a -drastic Indian emetic, administered just in time, preserved her life. - -It was a grisly scene in the bare, cheerless ball room; Black Chief’s -daughter, all undressed, lay on a bench, while Old Black Chief, her -father, and Taleeka, her mother, Simon, Pat Smith, his wife, his -daughter, Sally Ann, Doctors Forrester and Colegrove, and Christian -Trubee stood near her, or coming and going, most of them holding lighted -candles, which cast fretful shadows against the walls and -close-shuttered windows of this scene of much former ribald merrymaking. -All present knew why the girl had sought to take her life, yet not a -single accusing word was uttered. All wanted to save her–for what? Later -she was carried into one of the adjoining guest rooms and put to bed. - -Somewhat later Pat Smith’s wife, a motherly woman, met Trubee in the -hall, saying to him: - -“Won’t you please let me whisper to her that you are happy her life is -saved, and that you will marry her as soon as she is able?” - -The young man hesitated, then faltered: “I rather you’d not say it just -now.” - -When she was almost to the door he ran after her, saying: “Tell her what -you suggested, in my presence.” - -He followed her into the room. The landlady bent over the stricken girl -and gave her the message. Black Chief’s daughter looked up at Trubee, -and trying to smile, said: - -“I can’t do it; all I ask is that everything be as it was before you -came to the Reservation.” “ said the young man, "that I return to the -University, having everything as it was before we went to the Strawberry -dance, or before you took me to ‘Corydon’". - -“That is exactly my meaning”, the girl whispered faintly. “Then all will -be well”. - -“I think I can gather my things together and make the three o’clock -train east this morning; it is only right that I should go; I have made -everybody unhappy since I came here.” “replied Black Chief’s daughter, -"only me, and then only since the trip to ‘Corydon’." - -With a lingering hand clasp they parted, and Christian Trubee, like one -dazed by his unsuccessful tilt with Fate, moved off towards his room, -not knowing whether to be glad or sorry, but secretly eased in spirit -for accepting the only course that would extricate him from his -triangular dilemma. - -After he was gone, Black Chief’s daughter fell into a peaceful slumber -and did not wake, even when the roaring express train, with its blazing -headlight slowed down at Steamburg for its solitary eastbound passenger. - - IX - _The Gorilla_ - - -If Sir Rider Haggard was a Pennsylvanian he would doubtless lay the -scenes of his wonderful mystery stories in Snyder County. It is in that -ruggedly picturesque mountainous county where romance has taken its last -stand, where the old touches the new, and hosts, goblins and witches and -memories of panthers, wolves and Indians linger in cycle after cycle of -imaginative reminiscences. Every now and then, even in this dull, -unsympathetic age, when the world, as Artist Shearer puts it, “is -aesthetically dead”, Snyder County is thrilled by some new ghost, witch, -panther or mystery story. The latest of these in the last days of 1920 -and the first of 1921–the giant gorilla–has thrilled the entire -Commonwealth by its unique horror. - -The papers have told us how a gigantic man-ape escaped from a carnival -train near Williamsport, and seeking the South, fled over the mountains -to Snyder County, where it attacked a small boy, breaking his arm, held -up automobiles, rifled smoke houses and the like, and then appeared in -Snyder Township, Blair County, still further South, his nocturnal -ramblings in that region proving an effective curfew for the young folks -of a half-dozen rural communities. - -This story sounds thrillingly interesting, but as gorillas live on -fruit, and do not eat flesh, the animal in question would have starved -or frozen to death at the outset of his career in the Alleghenies, and -there the “X”, unknown quantity of the real story begins. The newspapers -have only printed the most popular versions of the gorilla mystery, only -a fraction of the romance and folk-lore that sprang up mushroom-like -around the presence of such an alien monster in our highlands. Already -enough has been whispered about to fill a good sized volume, most of it -absolutely untrue, yet some of the tales, if they have not hit the real -facts, have come dangerously close to it. - -Let the readers judge for themselves. Probably one of the most widely -circulated versions among the Snyder County mountaineers, the hardy -dwellers in the fastnesses of the Shade, Jack’s and White Mountains, is -the one about to be related. It is too personal to warrant promiscuous -newspapers publication, and even now all names have been changed and -localities altered, but to a Snyder County Mountaineer “all things are -plain”. This is the “authoritative”, confidential Snyder County version, -unabridged: - -To begin with, all the mountain people know Hornbostl Pfatteicher, whose -log cabin is situated near the heading of Lost Creek, on the borders of -Snyder and Juniata Counties. He has never been much of a worker, living -mostly by hunting and fishing, prospering greatly during the days when -the State raised the bounty on foxes and wild cats to an outrageously -extravagant figure–but no one cares; let the hunter’s license fund be -plundered and the taxpayers be jammed. - -He was also very noticeable during the Spring and Fall forest fires, -which never failed to burn some art of his mountain bailiwick annually. -He was opposed to Forester Bartschat, regarding him as too alert and -intuitive, and made valiant efforts through his political bosses to have -him transferred or removed. He was regular in his politics, could always -have a hearing at Harrisburg, and though an ardent fisherman, saw no -harm in the dynamiting or liming of streams, and upheld the right of -“the interests” to pollute the waterways with vile filth from paper -mills and tanneries. In other words he was, and probably is, typical of -the professional mountaineer that the politicians, through the nefarious -bounty laws, have maintained in the forests, to the detriment of -reforestation and wild life. - -Hornbostl, about 1915, was in love with a comely mountain girl, Beulah -Fuchspuhr, the belle of Lost Creek Valley, but he was away from home so -much, and so indifferent, and so much in his cups when in the -neighborhood that she found time to become enamored of a tie-jobber -named Heinie Beery, and ran away with him to Pittsburg. - -During the flu epidemic, about the time of the Armistice, she was seized -with the dreaded malady, and passed away, aged twenty-eight years. - -Hornbostl was in the last draft, but the Armistice was signed before he -was called to the colors, much to the regret of the better element, for -he was the sole pro-German in the mountains–a snake in a brood of -eaglets–and all allowed he should have been given a chance to fight his -beloved Kaiser. Though his name had a Teutonic flavor, he was only -remotely of German ancestry, and should have known better than to root -for a despotism–he, above all others, whose sole creed was personal -liberty when it came to interfering with his “vested rights” of hunting -and fishing out of season, and all other privileges of a lawless -backwoodsman. - -After attending the funeral of his wife in Pittsburg, he took the train -to Philadelphia, and while there the news of the Armistice was received, -consequently his grief was assuaged by this very satisfying information. -He boarded on one of the back streets in the southern part of the Quaker -City, in a rear room, which looked out on an alley where there were -still a number of private stables or mews, occupied for the most part by -the horses and carriages of the aristocracy. - -Hornbostl liked to sit at the window after his day’s work at Hog Island, -smoking his stogie and watching the handsome equipages coming and going, -the liveried colored coachmen, the long-tailed horses, with their showy -brass mounted harness, with jingling trappings, the animated groups of -grooms, stable boys and hangers-on. Some of the darkies kept game -roosters, and these occasionally strutted out into the alley and crowed -when there was bright sunshine and the wind came from the “Summer -Islands”. - -One afternoon he saw a strange spectacle enacted at the stable opposite -his window. A large collection of moth-eaten and dusty stuffed animals -and birds were unloaded from a dray–stuffed elks, horns and all, several -buffalo heads, four timber wolves, with a red bear like they used to -have in Snyder County, a golden eagle, with tattered flopping wings and -a great black beast that stood upright like a man were the most -conspicuous objects. A crowd of mostly Negro children congregated as the -half a hundred mangy specimens of this “silent zoo” became too much for -Hornbostl, and putting his stogie between his teeth, sallied out the -back door, hatless and in his shirt sleeves, a brawny rural giant who -towered above the puny citified crowd. - -He was greatly interested in that huge black beast which stood upright, -and could not quite classify it, though its hair was like that of a -black bear in its summer pelage. He sought out the tall Negro coachman -who was in charge of the stable, and asked why a museum was being -unloaded at that particular moment. - -“Yer see its jest dis way”, said the darkey, confidentially, “old Major -Ourry have died an’ ’is heirs dey didn’t want de stuff about, so dey -sent ’em down to de stable fer me to put in de empty box stalls”. - -As the conversation progressed the Negro intimated that the -aforementioned heirs would be glad to sell any or all of the specimens -at a reasonable figure. - -“I’ll give you ten dollars for that big animal that looks like a cross -between a Snyder County black bear and a prize fighter”, said Hornbostl. - -“The _gorilla_, you mean”, interposed the darkey. - -“Yes, I mean the gorilla”, answered the backwoodsman. - -“It’s yours”, said the Negro with a grin, for he was to get half of the -proceeds of all sales. He wondered why the uncouth stranger wanted a -stuffed gorilla, but of all the animals in the collection, he was most -pleased to get rid of that hideous effigy, the man-ape that might come -to life some dark cold night and raise ructions with the horses. - -Hornbostl offered five dollars more if the Negro would box the monster, -and they finally arranged to box it together, and keep it in the stable -until he would be let out at Hog Island. Eventually they got it to the -freight station, billed to Meiserville. - -At the time of the purchase it is doubtful if Hornbostl had any definite -idea of what he was going to do with his “find”, all that came later. -Hornbostl was glad to return to his mountain home, and sank complacently -back in his seat on the 11.30 A. M. train for Selim Grove Junction. It -was an uneventful trip, for he was an unimaginative person, taking -everything as a matter of course, though he did notice an unusually -pretty high school girl with a wonderfully refined face and carriage, -who got off the train at Dauphin, and followed her with his eyes as she -walked along the street back of the station and across the bridge that -spans Stony Creek, until the moving train shut her from view behind -Fasig’s Tavern. He thought that he had never seen anything quite so -lovely before; if his late sweetheart who had run away had been one -quarter as beautiful and elegant she would be worth worrying about. - -He reached Meiserville well after dark, for it was almost the shortest -day of the year, and put up there for the night. In the morning he -inquired at the freight office for his consignment, but hardly expected -it that soon. He had to wait three days before it arrived, but when it -did, he secured a team which hauled it to his mountain retreat, -depositing the crate in front of his door. After the teamster with his -pair of heavy horses, decked out with jingling bells, departed, -Hornbostl unpacked his treasure, and the huge, grinning man-ape stood -before him, seven feet tall. It was set up on a platform with castors, -so he ran it into the house, leaving it beside the old-fashioned open -fireplace, where he used to sit opposite his mother while they both -smoked their pipes in the old days. - -[Illustration: LAST RAFT IN THE WEST BRANCH OF SUSQUEHANNA] - -That night after supper, when the raftered room was dark, save for one -small glass kerosene lamp, and the fitful light of the embers, the -mountaineer sat and smoked, trying to conjure up the history of the -hideous monster facing him across the inglenook. Instead of evolving -anything interesting or definite, the evil genius of the man-ape, as the -evening progressed, seemed to take complete possession of him. He became -filled with vicious, revengeful thoughts; all the hate in his nature was -drawn to the surface as the firelight flashed on the glass eyes and -grinning teeth of the monstrous jungle king. All at once the maelstrom -of nasty thoughts assumed coherent form, and he realized why he had -brought the gorilla to Snyder County. - -He had heard since going to Philadelphia that the hated Heinie Beery had -taken a tie contract on the Blue Knob, the second highest mountain in -Pennsylvania, somewhere on the line between Blair and Bedford Counties. -He wanted to kill his rival, and now would be a chance to do it and -escape detection. He would dress himself up in the hide, and proceed -overland to Snyder Township, reconnoitre there, find his victim and -choke him to death, which the Negro coachman had told him was the chief -pastime of live gorillas in the African wilds. - -Suiting the action to the word, he drew his long knife and began cutting -the heavy threads which sewed the hide over the manikin. He soon had the -hide lying on the deal floor, and a huge white statue of lath and -plaster of Paris stood before him, like an archaic ghost. He did not -like the looks of the manikin, so pounded it to a pulp with an axe to -lime his kitchen garden. The hide was as stiff as a board, but between -the heat of the fire and bear’s grease he had it fairly pliable by -morning. By the next night it was in still better shape so he donned it -and sewed himself in. Physically he was not unlike the man-ape, gross -about the abdomen, sloping shouldered and long-armed, while his -prognathous jaw and retreating forehead were perfect counterparts of the -gorilla’s physiognomy. - -Arming himself with a long ironwood staff, he started on his journey -towards the Blue Knob country. He had to cross the Christunn Valley in -order to get into Jack’s Mountain, which he would follow along the -summits to Mount Union. It was a dark, starless night, and all went well -until he suddenly came upon the scene of a nocturnal wood chopping -operation. The wood-cutter, a railroader, had no other chance to lay in -his winter’s fuel supply than after dark, and by the light of a lantern -placed on a large stump had already stacked up a goodly lot of cordwood. -His son, a boy of fourteen, was ranking the wood. At the moment of the -gorilla-man’s appearance in the clearing the man had gone to the house -for a cup of hot coffee, leaving the lad alone at his work. The boy -heard the heavy footfalls on the chips, and thinking his father was -returning, looked up and beheld the most hideous thing that his eyes had -ever looked upon. He uttered a shriek of terror, but before he could -open his lips a second time the “gorilla” was upon him, slapping his -mouth until the blood flowed, with one brawny paw, while he wrenched his -arm so severely with the other that he left it limp and broken, hanging -by his side. Then the monster, looking back over his shoulder, loped off -into the deep forest at the foot of Jack’s Mountain. - -The boy, more dead than alive from fright, was found a few minutes later -by his father, to whom he described his terrible assailant. - -After that the man-ape was more careful when he traveled, although he -was seen by half a dozen persons until he got safely to the vicinity of -“the Monarch of Mountains”. - -Blue Knob is a weird and impressive eminence around which many legends -cluster, some of them dating back to Indian days. Its altitude at the -new steel forest fire tower is 3,165 feet above tide.“is a beautiful -word picture of the disappearance of two little tots on the slopes of -Blue Knob, from the gifted pen of Rev. James A. Sell, of Hollidaysburg. - -Heinie Beery was living alone in a small shack on Poplar Run, a stream -which has its heading on the slopes of Blue Knob, not far from the home -of the mighty hunter, Peter Leighty. Since the loss of his wife he was -gloomy and taciturn, and refused to live with his choppers and teamsters -in their big camp further down in the hollow. - -While searching for Beery, the man-gorilla was seen by several of the -woodsmen, and the lonely camp was almost in a panic by this savage -visitation. The man-ape was glad that his outlandish appearance struck -terror to all who saw him, else he might have been captured long before. -He watched his chance to get Beery where he wanted him, and in the -course of several days was rewarded. Meanwhile he had to live somehow, -and at dead of night broke into smoke-houses and cellars, eating raw -eggs and butter when hunger pressed him hard. In some ways it was no fun -playing gorilla on an empty stomach. - -One Sunday afternoon Beery, after eating dinner with his crew at their -camp near the mouth of the hollow, started on a solitary ramble up the -ravine which led past the small shanty where in the local vernacular, he -“bached it” towards the top of the vast and mysterious Blue Knob. Little -did he know that the man-ape was waiting behind his cabin, and followed -him to the summit, which he reached about dusk, and sat on a flat rock -on the brink of a dizzy precipice watching the lights flashing up at -Altoona and Johnstown, the long trains winding their way around Horse -Shoe Curve. He heard the brush crack behind him, and looking around -beheld the hideous monster that he had supposed his workmen had conjured -up out of brains addled by too much home-brew. - -Heinie Beery was a fighting Dutchman, but on this occasion his curly -black hair stood straight on end, and his dark florid face became as -ashen as death. He lost his self-control for an instant, and in this -fatal moment the giant “gorilla” gripped him behind the shoulders and -sent him careening over the precipice “to take a short cut to Altoona”. - -With a shout of glee the monster turned on his heel, his mission -accomplished, to return along the mountains and through the forests to -his cabin near the sources of Lost Creek. He was seen by a number of -children at Hollidaysburg and Frankstown, late at night, frightening -them almost out of their wits; he terrified several parties of -automobilists near Yellow Springs; he had all of Snyder Township in an -uproar before he had passed through it, but he eventually got to Shade -Mountain safe and sound. - -Once on his home mountains, overlooking Lewistown Narrows, a strange -remorse overcame him; he began to regret his folly, his odd caprice. He -sat on a high rock near the top of the mountain, much in the attitude of -Rodin’s famous “Penseur”, and began to sob and moan. It was a still -night, and the trackwalkers down in the valley heard him and called to -him through their megaphones. But the more they called the worse he -groaned and shrieked, as if he liked to mystify the lonely railroad men. -At length he got up and started along the mountain top, wailing and -screaming like a “Token”, until out of hearing of the trackwalkers and -the crews of waiting freight trains. He had played a silly game, made a -_monkey_ of himself and was probably now a murderer in the bargain. He -could hardly wait until he got to his cabin to rip off the hideous, -ill-smelling gorilla’s hide, and make a bonfire of it. He hoped that, if -no evil consequence befell him as a result of his mad prank, he would be -a better man in the future. - -However, as he neared his cabin, all his good resolves began to ooze out -of his finger tips. By the time he reached the miserable cabin he -decided to stick to his disguise, and continue the adventure to the end, -come what may. If he would be shot down like a vile beast, it would only -be retribution for Heinie Beery hurled off the crag of Blue Knob, -without a chance to defend himself. The night was long; he would travel -until morning and hide among the rocks until night, picking up what food -he could along the way. - -In his northward journey he had many thrilling experiences, such as -crossing the covered bridge at Northumberland at midnight, riding on the -trucks of a freight train to Jersey Shore and frightening fishermen at -Hagerman’s Run. When last seen he was near the flourishing town of -Woolrich, frightening old and young, so much so that a young local -sportsman offered a reward of “five hundred dollars dead, one thousand -dollars alive”, putting the Snyder County gorilla in the same category -with the Passenger Pigeon as a natural history curiosity. - -And in this terrible disguise Hornbostl Pfatteicher is expiating his -sins, black as the satanic form he has assumed, and when his penance is -over to be shed for the newer and better life. - - X - _The Indian’s Twilight_ - - -According to Daniel Mark, born in 1835, (died 1922), when the aged -Seneca Indian, Isaac Steel, stood beside the moss-grown stump of the -giant “Grandfather Pine” in Sugar Valley, in the early Autumn of 1892, -he was silent for a long while, then placing his hands over his eyes, -uttered these words: “This is the Indians’ Twilight; it explains many -things; I had heard from Billy Dowdy, when he returned to the -reservation in 1879, that the tree had been cut by Pardee, but as he had -not seen the stump, and was apt to be credulous, I had hoped that the -report was untrue; the worst has happened.” - -Then the venerable Redman turned away, and that same day left the -secluded valley, never to return. - -The story of the Grandfather Pine, of Sugar Valley, deserves more than -the merely passing mention already accorded it in forestry statistics -and the like. Apart from being probably the largest white or cork pine -recorded in the annals of Pennsylvania sylviculture–breast high it had -to be deeply notched on both sides, so that a seven foot cross-cut saw -could be used on it–it was the sacred tree of the Seneca Indians, and -doubtless of the earlier tribes inhabiting the country adjacent to the -Allegheny Mountains and the West Branch Valley. - -It was a familiar landmark for years, standing as it did near the mouth -of Chadwick’s Gap, and could be seen towering above its fellows, from -every point in Sugar Valley, from Schracktown, Loganton, Eastville and -Carroll. - -Professor Ziegler tells us that the maximum or heavy growth of white -pine was always on the winter side of the inland valleys; the biggest -pines of Sugar Valley, Brush Valley and Penn’s Valley were all along the -southern ridges. - -Luther Guiswhite, now a restauranteur in Harrisburg, moving like a -voracious caterpillar easterly along the Winter side of Brush Valley, -gradually destroyed grove after grove of superb original white pines, -the Gramley pines, near the mouth of Gramley’s Gap, which Professor -Henry Meyer helped to “cruise”, being the last to fall before his -relentless juggernaut. - -Ario Pardee’s principal pineries were mostly across the southern ridge -of Nittany Mountain, of Sugar Valley, on White Deer Creek, but the tract -on which the Grandfather Pine stood ran like a tongue out of Chadwick’s -Gap into Sugar Valley, almost to the bank of Fishing Creek. It is a well -known story that after the mammoth pine had been cut, Mike Courtney, the -lumberman-philanthropist’s woods boss, offered $100 to anyone who could -transport it to White Deer Creek, to be floated to the big mill at -Watsontown, where Pardee sawed 111,000,000 feet of the finest kind of -white pine between 1868 and 1878. - -The logs of this great tree proved too huge to handle, even after being -split asunder by blasting powder, crushing down a number of trucks, and -were left to rot where they lay. Measured when prone, the stem was 270 -feet in length, and considering that the stump was cut breast high, the -tree was probably close to 276 feet from root to tip. The stump is still -visible and well worthy of a visit. - -In addition to boasting of the biggest pine in the Commonwealth, one of -the biggest red hemlocks also grew in Sugar Valley, in the centre of -Kleckner’s woods, until it was destroyed by bark peelers in 1898. It -dwarfed the other original trees in the grove, mostly superb white -hemlocks, and an idea of its size can be gained when it is stated that -“breast high” it had a circumference of 30 feet. - -When Billy Dowdy, an eccentric Seneca Indian, was in Sugar Valley he -told ’Squire Mark the story of the Grandfather Pine, then recently -felled, and while the Indian did not visit the “fallen monarch” on that -occasion, he refrained from so doing because he said he could not bear -the sight. The greatest disaster that had yet befallen the Indians had -occurred, one that they might never recover from, and meant their final -elimination as factors in American history. - -Dowdy seemed unnerved when he heard the story of the demolition of the -colossal pine, and it took several visits to the famous Achenbach -distillery to steady his nerves so that he could relate its history to -his old and tried friend the ’Squire. In the evening, by the fireside, -showing emotion that rarely an Indian betrays, he dramatically recited -the story of the fallen giant. - -Long years ago, in the very earliest days of the world’s history, the -great earth spirit loved the evening star, but it was such an unusual -and unnatural attachment, and so impossible of consummation that the -despairing spirit wished to end the cycle of existence and pass into -oblivion so as to forget his hopeless love. Accordingly, with a blast of -lightning he opened his side and let his anguish flow away. The great -gaping wound is what we of today call Penn’s Cave, and the never ending -stream of anguish is the wonderful shadowy Karoondinha, now renamed John -Penn’s Creek. - -As time went on fresh hopes entered the subterranean breast of the great -earth spirit, and new aspirations towards the evening star kindled in -his heart of hearts. His thoughts and yearnings were constantly onward -and upward towards the evening star. He sought to bridge the gulf of -space and distance that separated him from the clear pure light of his -inspiration. He yearned to be near, even if he could not possess the -calm and cold constellation so much beyond him. He cried for an answer, -but none came, and thought that it was distance that caused the -coldness, and certainly such had caused the great disappointment in the -past. - -His heart was set on reaching the evening star, to have propinquity with -the heavens. Out of his strong hopes and deep desires came a tall and -noble tree, growing in eastern Sugar Valley, a king among its kindred, -off there facing the shining, beaming star. This tree would be the -symbol of earth’s loftiest and highest aspirations, the bridge between -the terrestrial and the celestial bodies. It was earth’s manliest, -noblest and cleanest aspiration, standing there erect and immobile, the -heavy plates of the bark like gilt-bronze armor, the sparse foliage dark -and like a warrior’s crest. - -The Indians, knowing full well the story of the hopeless romance of the -earth spirit and the evening star, or _Venus_, as the white men called -it, venerated the noble tree as the connecting link between two -manifestations of sublimity. They only visited its proximity on sacred -occasions because they knew that the grove over which it dominated was -the abode of spirits, like all groves of trees of exceptional size and -venerable age. - -The cutting away of most of the bodies of original pines has -circumscribed the abode of the spiritual agencies until they are now -almost without a lodgement, and must go wailing about cold and homeless -until the end of time, unless spiritual insight can touch our -materialistic age and save the few remaining patches of virgin trees -standing in the valley of the Karoondinha, the “Stream of the Never -Ending Love”, now known by the prosaic cognomen of “Penn’s Valley”. - -The Tom Motz tract is no more, the Wilkenblech, the Bowers and the Meyer -groves are all but annihilated. Where will the spirits rest when the -last original white pine has been ripped into boards at The Forks, now -called Coburn? No wonder that Artist Shearer exclaimed, “The world is -aesthetically deal!” - -The Indians were greatly dismayed at the incursion of white men into -their mountain fastnesses, so contrary to prophecy and solemn treaties, -and no power seemed to stem them as they swept like a plague from valley -to valley, mountain to mountain. The combined military strategy and -bravery of Lenni-Lenape, Seneca, Cayuga, Tuscarora and Shawnee failed -before their all-conquering advance. How to turn back this white peril -occupied the mind and heart of every Indian brave and soothsayer. - -One evening just as Venus in the east was shedding her tranquil glory -over the black outline of the pine covered ranges of the Nittanies, a -mighty council of warriors and wise men, grave and reverent, assembled -under the Grandfather Pine. Hitherto victory, while it had rested with -the white invaders, had not been conclusive; there was still hope, and -the Indians meant to battle to the end. - -It was during this epochal conclave that a message was breathed out of -the dark shaggy pigeon-haunted tops of the mighty tree. Interpreted it -meant that the Indian braves and wise men were reminded that this great -pine reached from heaven to earth, and by its means their ancestors used -to climb up and down between the two regions. In a time of doubt and -anxiety like this, the multitudes, conferring beneath the tree, were -invited to ascend to hold a council with the stars, to exchange views -and receive advice as to how the insidious white invader could be kept -in proper bounds, and to preserve the glory and historic dignity of the -Indian races. The stars, which were the spirits of undefeated warriors -and hunters and huntresses of exceptional prowess–their light was the -shimmer of their silvery targets–had always been the allies of the red -men. - -In solemn procession the pick of the assemblage of Indian warriors and -wise men ascended the mighty tree, up, up, up, until their forms became -as tiny specks, and disappeared in the dark lace-like branches which -merged with the swart hues of the evening heavens. They set no time for -their return, for they were going from the finite to the infinite, but -they would be back to their beloved hills and valleys in plenty of time, -and with added courage and skill, to end the regime of the pale faced -foes. - -Every wife and mother and sweetheart of a warrior who took this journey -was overjoyed at the privilege accorded her loved one, and none -begrudged being left behind to face the enemy under impaired leadership, -or the risk of massacre, as in due course of time the elite would return -from above and rescue them from their cruel tormentors. - -Evidently out of space, out of time, was almost the equivalent of “out -of sight, out of mind” for all who had witnessed the chosen band of -warriors and warlocks ascend the pine, even the tiny babes, reached -maturity and passed away, and yet they had not returned or sent a -message. The year that the stars fell, in 1833, brought hopes to the -anxious ones, but never a falling star was found to bring tidings from -that bourne above the clouds. - -Generation after generation came and went, and the ablest leaders still -were absent counseling with the stars. Evidently there was much to -learn, much to overcome, before they were fully fledged to return and -battle successfully. - -The succeeding generations of Indian braves fought the white foes as -best they could, yet were ever being pushed back, and they were long -since banished from Sugar Valley where grew the Grandfather Pine. -Occasionally those gifted with historic lore and prophecy journeyed to -the remote valley to view the pine, but there were no signs of a return -of the absent Chieftains. - -It was a long and weary wait. Were they really forsaken, or were there -affairs of great emergency in the realm of the evening star that made -them tarry so long? They might be surprised on their return to find -their hunting territories the farms of the white men, their descendants -banished to arid reservations on La Belle Riviere and beyond. They had -left in the twilight; they would find the Indians’ Twilight everywhere -over the face of the earth. It was a sad prospect, but they never gave -up their secret hope that the visitors to strange lands would return, -and lead a forlorn hope to victory. - -Then came upon the scene the great lumberman, Ario Pardee. The bed of -White Deer Creek was “brushed out” from Schreader Spring to Hightown, to -float the millions of logs that would pile up wealth and fame for this -modern Croesus. What was one tree, more or less–none were sacred, and -instead of being the abode of spirits, each held the almighty dollar in -its heart. - -Pardee himself was a man of dreams and an idealist, _vide_ Lafayette -College, and the portrait of his refined and spiritual face by Eastman -Johnson, in the rotunda of “Old Pardee”. Yet it was too early a day to -care for trees, or to select those to be cut, those to be spared; the -biggest tree, or the tree where the buffaloes rubbed themselves, were -alike before the axe and cross-cut; all must fall, and the -piratical-looking Blackbeard Courtney was the agent to do it. - -Perhaps trees take their revenge, like in the case of the Vicar’s Oak in -Surrey, as related by the diarest Evelyn–shortly after it was felled one -of the choppers lost an eye and the other broke a leg. Mike Courtney, it -is reported, ended his days, not in opulent ease lolling in a barouche -in Fairmount Park with Hon. Levi Mackey, as had been his wont, but by -driving an ox-team in the wilds of West Virginia! - -The Grandfather Pine was brought to earth after two days of chopping by -an experienced crew of woodsmen; when it fell they say the window lights -rattled clear across the valley in Logansville (now Loganton). It lay -there prone, abject, yet “terrible still in death”, majestic as it -sprawled in the bed that had been prepared for it, with an open swath of -forest about that it had maimed and pulled down in its fall. - -Crowds flocked from all over the adjacent valleys to see the fallen -monarch, like Arabs viewing the lifeless carcass of a mighty lion whose -roar had filled them with terror but a little while before. - -Then came the misfortune that the tree was found to be commercially -unprofitable to handle, and it was left for the mould and the moss and -the shelf-fungi to devour, for little hemlocks to sprout upon. - -Billy Dowdy was in the West Branch Valley trying to rediscover the Bald -Eagle Silver Mine–old Uriah Fisher, of the Seventh Cavalry, can tell you -all about it–when the story was told at “Uncle Dave” Cochran’s hotel at -Pine Station that Mike Courtney had conquered the Grandfather Pine. It -is said that a glass of the best Reish whiskey fell from his nerveless -fingers when he heard the news. He suddenly lost all interest in the -silver mine on the Bald Eagle Mountain, which caused him to be roundly -berated by his employers, and dropping everything, he made for Sugar -Valley to verify the terrible story. ’Squire Mark assured him that it -was only too true; he had strolled over to Chadwick’s Gap the previous -Sunday and saw the prostrate Titan with his own eyes. - -The Indians’ twilight had come, for now the picked band of warriors and -warlocks must forever linger in the star-belt, unless the earth spirit, -out of his great love, again heaved such a tree from his inmost creative -consciousness. - -[Illustration: A FENCE OF WHITE PINE STUMPS, ALLEGHENIES] - -Sometimes the Indians notice an untoward bright twinkling of the stars, -the evening star in particular, and they fancy it to be reassuring -messages from their marooned leaders not to give up the faith, that -sometimes they can return rich in wisdom, fortified in courage, ready to -drive the white men into the sea, and over it to the far Summer Islands. -When the stars fell on the thirteenth of November, 1833, it was thought -that the starry hosts were coming down en masse to fight their battles, -but not a single steller ally ever reported for duty. - -Old John Engle, mighty Nimrod of Brungard’s Church (Sugar Valley), on -the nights of the Northern Lights, or as the Indians called them, “The -Dancing Ghosts”, used to hear a strange, weird, unaccountable ringing -echo, like exultant shouting, over in the region of the horizon, beyond -the northernmost Allegheny ridges. He would climb the “summer” mountain -all alone, and sit on the highest summits, thinking that the wolves had -come back, for he wanted to hear them plainer. In the Winter of 1859 the -distant acclamation continued for four successive nights, and the Aurora -covered the entire vault of heaven with a preternatural brilliance. -Great bars of intensely bright light shot out from the northern horizon -and broke in mid-sky, and filled the southern skies with their -incandescence. The sky was so intensely red that it flared as one great -sheet of fire, and engulfed the night with an awful and dismal red -light. Reflected on the snow, it gave the earth the appearance of being -clothed in scarlet. - -The superstitious Indians, huddled, cold and half-clad, and half-starved -in the desert reservations, when they saw the fearful glow over beyond -Lake Erie, and heard the distant cadences, declared that they were the -signal fires and the cries for vengeance of the Indian braves imprisoned -up there in star-land, calling defiance to the white hosts, and -inspiration to their own depleted legions, the echo of the day of -reckoning, when the red men would come to their own again, and finding -their lost people, lead them to a new light, out of the Indians’ -twilight. - -[Illustration] - - XI - _Hugh Gibson’s Captivity_ - - -After the brutal massacre, by the Indians, of the Woolcomber family, -came fresh rumors of fresh atrocities in contemplation, consequently it -was considered advisable to gather the women and children of the -surrounding country within the stockade of Fort Robinson, under a strong -guard, while the bulk of the able-bodied men went out in companies to -reap the harvest. Some of the harvesters were on guard part of the time, -consequently all the men of the frontier community performed a share of -the guard duty. - -Among the most energetic of the guardsmen was young Hugh Gibson, son of -the Widow Gibson, a name that has later figured prominently in the -public eye in the person of the Secretary of the American Legion at -Brussels, who endured a trying experience during the period of the -over-running of the Belgian Paris by the hordes of blood-thirsty Huns, -as rapacious and merciless as the red men of Colonial Pennsylvania. - -Hugh Gibson, of Colonial Pennsylvania, was under twenty, slim and dark, -and very anxious to make a good record as guardian of so many precious -lives. As days wore on, and no Indian attacks were made, and no fresh -atrocities committed by the blood-loving monster, Cooties, the terror of -the lower Juniata Valley, even the punctilious Gibson relaxed a trifle -in the rigidity of his guardianship. - -It was near the end of the harvest when the majority of the men -announced that they would remain away over night at a large clearing on -Buffalo Creek, as it would be difficult to reach the fort by nightfall -and be back at work by daybreak the next morning. Hugh Gibson was made -captain of the guard and placed in charge of the safety of the stockade -full of refugees. - -All went well with Gibson and his fellow pickets until about midnight, -when the Indians launched a gas attack. The wind being propitious, they -built a fire, into which they stirred a large number of oak balls, and -the fumes suddenly engulfing the garrison, all became very drowsy, with -the result that the nimble redskins rushed in on the defenders, who were -gaping about, thinking that there must be a forest fire somewhere, but -too dazed and semi-conscious to think very succinctly about anything. - -When the guards saw that it was red men, and not red fire, they roused -themselves as best they could, and fought bravely to save the fort and -its inmates. By throwing firebrands into the stockade, the women and -children, and cattle, were stampeded, and by a common impulse burst open -the gates, and dashed past the defenders, headed for the creek, to -escape the threatened conflagrations. Then the Indians closed in, and in -the darkness, amid the crackling of the fire–for a forest fire was now -in progress, and part of the stockade wall was blazing, amid war whoops -and shrieks of hatred and agony, the barking of dogs, the bellowing of -cattle running amuck, rifle shots, the crack of tomahawks on defenseless -skulls, the midnight air resounded with uncouth and horrible medley. - -The fight continued all night long, until the approach of dawn, and the -danger of the forest fire cutting them off made the Indians decamp. They -did not stop until in the big beaver meadow at Wildcat Valley, they -paused long enough to take stock of prisoners, and to count wounded and -missing. They had captured an even dozen prisoners, and as the light -grew stronger they noticed that they had one male captive, his face -almost unrecognizable with soot, and mostly stripped of clothing, who -proved to be none other than the zealous Hugh Gibson himself. - -It was a strange company that moved in single file towards the -Alleghenies, eleven women and one man, all tied together with leather -thongs, like a party of Alpinists, one after another, not descending a -monarch of mountains, but descending into captivity, into the valley of -the shadow. The Indians were jubilant over the personnel of their -captives. In addition to Hugh Gibson, late captain of the guard, they -had taken Elsbeth Henry, daughter of the most influential of the -settlers, a girl of rare beauty and charm, who had enjoyed some -educational advantages among the Moravians at Nazareth, the pioneers of -women’s education in America. - -Gibson had for a year past, ever since he first appeared in the vicinity -of Fort Robinson, admired the uncommonly attractive girl, and being -ambitions in many ways, aspired to her hand. She had never treated him -with much consideration, except to be polite to him, but she was that to -everyone, and could not be otherwise, being a happy blend of Huguenot -and Bohemian ancestry. - -The minute that Gibson saw that Elsbeth was his fellow prisoner he -forgot the chagrin at being the sole male captive, and congratulated -himself in secret on the good fortune that would make him, for a year or -more, the daily companion of the object of his admiration. He would -redeem the humiliation of this capture by staging a sensational double -escape, and then, after freeing the maiden, she could not fail to love -him and agree to become his wife. He was, therefore, the most cheerful -of prisoners, and whistled and sang Irish songs as he marched along at -the tail end of the long line of captives. - -It seemed as if they were being taken on a long journey, and he surmised -that the destination was Fort Duquesne, to be delivered over to the -French, where rewards would be paid for each as hostages. He could see -by the deference paid to Elsbeth Henry that the redmen recognized that -they had a prisoner of quality, and as she walked along, away ahead of -him, whenever there was a turn in the path, he would note her youthful -beauty and charm. - -She was not very tall, but was gracefully and firmly built. Her most -noticeable features were the intense blackness of her soft wavy hair, -and the whiteness of her skin, with minute blue veins showing, gave her -complexion a blue whiteness, the color of mother of pearl almost, and -Gibson, being a somewhat poetical Ulster Scot, compared her to an -evening sky, with her red lips, like a streak of flame, across the -mother of pearl firmament, her downcast eyes, like twin stars just -appearing! - -The further on the party marched the harder it was going to be to -successfully bring her back in safety to the Juniata country, through a -hostile Indian territory, for he had not the slightest doubt that he -would outwit the clumsy-witted redmen and escape with her. It might be -best to strike north or northwest, out of the seat of hostilities, and -make a home for his bride-to-be in the wilderness along Lake Erie, and -never take her back to her parents. But then there was his mother; how -could he desert her? He must go back with Elsbeth, run all risks, once -he had escaped and freed her from her inconsiderate captors. - -After a few days he learned that the permanent camp was to be on the -Pucketa, in what is now Westmoreland County. Cooties was located there, -and since his unparalleled success in massacring whole families of -whites, he was apparently again in favor with the Indian tribal -Chieftains. He was to take charge of the prisoners, and when ready, -would lead them to Fort Duquesne, or possibly to some point further up -La Belle Riviere, to turn them over to the French, who would hold them -as hostages. - -It was in the late afternoon when the party filed into Cooties’ -encampment, at the Blue Spring, near the headwaters of the beautiful -Pucketa. Cooties had been apprised of their coming, and had painted his -face for the occasion, but meanwhile had consumed a lot of rum, and was -beastly drunk, so much so that in his efforts to drive the punkis off -his face, which seemed to have a predilection for the grease paint, he -smeared the moons and stars into an unrecognizable smudge all over his -saturnine countenance. - -As he sat there on a huge dark buffalo robe, a rifle lying before him, a -skull filled with smoking tobacco on one side, and a leather jug of rum -on the other, smoking a long pipe, his head bobbing unsteadily on its -short neck, he made a picture never to be forgotten. The slayer of the -Sheridan family was at best an ugly specimen of the Indian race. He was -short, squat–Gibson described him as “sawed off”; his complexion was -very dark, his lips small and thin, his nose was broad and flat, his -eyes full and blood-shot, and his shaven head was covered with a red -cap, almost like a Turk’s fez. - -He was too intoxicated to indicate his pleasure, if he felt any, at the -arrival of the prisoners. In front of where he sat were the embers of a -campfire, as the weather–it was early in March–was still very cold. He -had the prisoners lined up in front of him beyond the coals, while he -squatted on his rug, eyeing them as carefully as his bleared, inebriated -vision would permit. Calling to several of his henchmen, he had them -fetch fresh wood and pile it beside the embers, as if a big bonfire was -to be started later. - -Just as they were in the midst of bringing the wood, a group of six -stalwart Indians rushed on the scene, literally dragging a rather -good-looking, dark-haired white woman of about thirty years, whose face -showed every sign of intense terror. From words that he could -understand, and the gestures, Gibson made out that this woman had -belonged to another batch of prisoners, but before she could be -delivered at Shannopin’s Town had somehow made her escape. - -To deliver a body of prisoners short one of the quota had brought some -criticism on Cooties, and he was in an ugly frame of mind when she was -brought before him. There was an ash pole near the wood pile, to which -prisoners were tied while being interrogated, and Cooties ordered that -the unfortunate woman should be strapped to it. The Indian warriors, -needless to say, made a thorough job and bound her to it securely, hand -and foot. - -Though she saw twelve or more white persons, the bound woman never said -a word, and the captives from Fort Robinson and other places were too -terror-stricken to address a word to her. They stared at her with that -look of dumb helplessness that a flock of sheep assume when peering -through the bars of their fold at a farmer in the act of butchering one -of their number. Sympathy they may have felt, but to express it in words -would have availed nothing. - -Once tied to the tree, Cooties ordered that the wood be piled about her -feet. It was ranked until it came almost to her waist. Then the cruel -warrior turned to his victim, saying to her in German, “It’s going to be -a cold night; I think you can warm me up very nicely.” - -Then he grinned and looked at each of his other prisoners menacingly. -Silas Wright in his excellent “History of Perry County” thus quotes Hugh -Gibson in describing the scene then enacted: “All the prisoners in the -neighborhood were collected to be spectators of the death by torture of -a poor, unhappy woman, a fellow-prisoner who had escaped, and been -recaptured. They stripped her naked, tied her to a post and pierced her -with red hot irons, the flesh sticking to the irons at every touch. She -screamed in the most pitiful manner, and cried for mercy, but the -ruthless barbarians were deaf to her agonizing shrieks and prayers, and -continued their horrid cruelty until death came to her relief.” - -After this fiendish episode, the Fort Robinson prisoners were sick at -heart and in body for days, and most of them would have dropped in their -tracks if they had been compelled to resume the long, tedious western -journey. - -It appeared that in the foray on Fort Robinson one young Indian had been -slain; rumor among the Indians had it that he had been shot by mistake -by a member of his own party. At any rate his parents, who lived near -Cooties’ camp-ground, took his end very hard, and the squaw, who was -Cooties’ sister, demanded the adoption of Hugh Gibson to take the place -of her lost warrior son. This was a good point for Gibson, although the -warrior’s father, Busqueetam, acted very coldly towards him, and he -feared he might some day, in a fit of revenge and hate, take his life. -However, the young white man, by making every effort to help his Indian -foster parents, who were very feeble and unable to work, won their -confidence, and also that of Cooties, who requisitioned him to do all -sorts of errands and work about the encampment. - -One day Busqueetam was in a terrible state of excitement. His spotted -pony, the only equine in the camp, and the one that he expected to give -to Cooties to ride with chiefly dignity through the portals of the Fort -had strayed off in the night. - -Most of the Fort Robinson and other prisoners who had been brought in -from various directions since their arrival, to make a great caravan of -captives to impress the commanders at Shannopin’s Town, like a Roman -triumph, were allowed their liberty during the daytime. At night they -were all tied together as they lay about the campfire, not far from the -charred stump of the ash pole where the poor white woman had been burned -to death, and where the small Indian dogs were constantly sniffing. -There were about twenty-five prisoners, all told, and with these were -tied about half a dozen guards, and all lay down in a circle about the -fire, guards and prisoners sleeping at the same time. It was a different -system from that of the whites, for if a prisoner got uneasy or tried to -get up, he or she would naturally pull on the leather thongs, and rouse -the guardians and other prisoners. The thongs were around both wrists, -so a prisoner was tied to the person on either side. - -Hugh Gibson managed to have a few words with Elsbeth, when he heard of -the horse’s disappearance. Much as he would like to have talked to her, -few words passed between them during the captivity. Elsbeth was -naturally reserved, and had never known Hugh well before, and he was -playing for big stakes, and saw how the Indians resented any hobnobbing -among their prisoners. He managed to whisper to her that he would -volunteer to hunt for Busqueetam’s missing pony, but would return at -night and wait for her in the Panther Glade, a dense Rhododendron -thicket through which they had passed on their way to the campground; -that she should gnaw herself free with her teeth, and that done, with -her natural agility and moccasined feet, could nimbly spring away into -the darkness and escape to him. He thought he knew where the pony was -hiding, and she could ride on the animal to civilization. And now let -Gibson tell the adventure in his own words: - -“At last a favorable opportunity to gain my liberty. Busqueetam lost a -horse and sent me to hunt him. After hunting some time, I came home and -told him I had discovered his tracks at some considerable distance, and -that I thought I would find him; that I would take my gun and provisions -and would hunt him for three or four days, and if I could kill a deer or -a bear, I would pack home the meat on the horse.” - -Hugh Gibson, the privileged captive, strolled out of camp with a -business-like expression on his lean face, and carrying Cooties’ -favorite rifle. He took a long circle about through the deep forest, and -at dark was ensconced in the Panther Glade, to wait the fateful moment -when Elsbeth, his beloved, would come to him, and as his promised wife, -he would lead her to liberty. - -It was a cold night, and his teeth chattered as he squatted among the -rhododendrons waiting and listening. The wolves were howling, and he -wondered if the girl would feel afraid! - -At the usual time the various prisoners and their guards were lashed -together, and lay down for their rest around the embers of the campfire. -Most of them were short of coverings, so they huddled close together. -Not so Elsbeth, for Cooties looked after her and provided her with four -buffalo robes, which she would have loved dearly to share with her less -favored fellow prisoners, but they would not allow it. The Indians made -the captives work hard during the day cutting wood, dressing furs and -pounding corn. They did not feed them any too well, as game was scarce -and ammunition scarcer, so all were tired when they lay down by the -campfire’s soothing glow. - -One by one they fell asleep, all but Elsbeth, who, covering her head -with the buffalo robes, began to gnaw on the leather thongs as if they -were that much caramel, first this side, then the other. She felt like a -rodent before she was half through, and her pretty pearl-colored teeth -grew shorter and blunter before she was done. It was a gigantic task, -but she stuck to it bravely, and some time during the “wee, sma’” hours -had the delicious sensation of knowing she was free, even though she -felt horridly toothless and sore-gummed in her moment of victory. - -Like a wild cat she slipped out from under the buffalo robes, wiggled -along among the wet leaves and moss, then crawled to her feet and was -off like a deer towards the Panther Glade, regardless of the howling of -the wolves. Hugh Gibson’s quick sense of hearing told him she was -coming, and he walked out so that he stood on the path before her, and -clasped her white shapely arms in heartfelt congratulations. - -“Now that we are free,” he said, “I will take you to the pony in three -hours’ travel. I want to arrange the one final detail to make this -reunion always memorable for us both. We have shared common hardships -and perils; we have plotted and planned for freedom together. Let us -guarantee that our lives shall always be together, for I love you, and -want you to be my wife.” - -Elsbeth drew herself back out of his grasp, and a shudder went through -her supple little frame. “Why I have never heard the like of what you -say, much as I have appreciated all you have done; ours was only a -common misfortune. I could not care for you that way, even though -recognizing your bravery, your foresight and your kindliness.” - -For a moment Hugh Gibson was so angry that he felt like leading her back -to Cooties, where she would probably have been received with open arms, -and be burned at the stake, but he finally “possessed his soul” and -accepted the inevitable. - -They found the pony by morning, but it took some maneuvering to capture -the wily beast, and packed him across the Kittanning Path, where, at -Burgoon’s Run, they came upon a party of traders headed by George -McCord, who had lately come from the Juniata. - -McCord told them the details of the conflict at Fort Robinson, of the -shocking killing of Widow Gibson, Robert Miller’s daughter, James -Wilson’s wife, John Summerson, and others, on that bloody night of gas, -forest fires, smoke and surprises. - -It was the turning point in Hugh Gibson’s life; his mother gone, and not -a sign of weakening in Elsbeth Henry’s mother-of-pearl countenance; in -fact, the indistinct line of her mouth was more like a streak of crimson -flame than ever. A new light had dawned for him out of these shocking -misfortunes; his purpose would be to redeem his inactivity at Fort -Robinson, his overconfidence, his over self-esteem, by going at once to -Carlisle to secure a commission in the Royal American Regiment of -Riflemen. He left Elsbeth in charge of the McCord party who would see -her back to her distracted parents, while he tramped over the mountains -towards Reastown and Fort Littleton, by the shortest route to the -Cumberland Valley. - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration: BILL BREWER, “HICK” PREACHER] - - XII - _Girty’s Notch_ - - -The career of Simon Girty, otherwise spelled Girtee and Gerdes, has -become of sufficient interest to cause the only authoritative biography -to sell at a prohibitive figure, and outlaw or renegade as he is called, -there are postoffices, hotels, streams, caves and rocks which perpetuate -his name throughout Pennsylvania. - -Simon Gerdes was born in the Cumberland Valley on Yellow Breeches Creek, -the son of a Swiss-German father and an Irish mother. This origin -guaranteed him no high social position, for in the old days, in the -Cumberland Valley, in particular, persons of those racial beginnings -were never accepted at par by the proud descendants of Quakers, Virginia -Cavaliers, and above all, by the Ulster Scots. After the world war -similar beginnings have correspondingly lowered in the markets of -prestige, and a century or more of gradual family aggrandizement has -gone for nil, the social stratification of pre-Revolutionary days having -completely re-established itself. - -Unfortunately for Simon Gerdes, or Girty, as he was generally called, he -was possessed of lofty ambitions, he aimed to be a military hero and a -man of quality, like the dignified and exclusive gentry who rode about -the valley on their long-tailed white horses and carried swords, and -were accompanied by retainers with long rifles. There must have been -decent blood in him somewhere to have brought forth such aspirations, -but personally he was never fitted to attain them. He had no chance for -an education off there in the rude foothills of the Kittochtinnies; he -was undersized, swarthy and bushy headed; his hands were hairy, and his -face almost impossible to keep free of black beard. Analyzed his -features were not unpleasant; he had deepset, piercing black eyes, a -prominent aquiline nose, a firm mouth and jaw, and his manner was quick, -alert and decisive. - -Such was Simon Girty when his martial dreams caused him to leave home -and proceed to Virginia to enlist in the Rifle Regiment. A half century -of Quaker rule in Pennsylvania had failed to disturb the tranquility of -the relations between whites and Indians, but in the Old Dominion, there -was a constant bickering with the redskins along the western frontier. - -As Girty was a sure shot, he was eagerly accepted, and in a short time -was raised to the grade of Corporal. Accompanied by a young -Captain-lieutenant named Claypoole, he was sent to the Greenbrier River -country to convey a supply train, but owing to the indifference of the -officer, the train became strung out, and the vanguard was cut off by -Indians, and captured, and the rearguard completely routed. - -As Girty happened to be the vidette, the Captain-lieutenant, who was in -the rear and should have come up and seen that his train traveled more -compactly, had a splendid opportunity to shift the blame. An -investigation was held at Spottsylvania, presided over by a board of -officers recently arrived from England, who knew nothing of border -warfare, and were sticklers for caste above everything else. - -Someone had to be disciplined, and if a fellow could be punished and a -gentleman exculpated, why then of course, punish the fellow. This was -speedily done, and Girty was taken out before the regiment, stripped of -his chevrons, denounced by the Colonel, forced to run the gauntlet, -Indian style, and drummed out of camp. - -Girty, though humiliated and shamed, felt glad that he was not shot; he -would have been had he been actually guilty of neglect; he was punished -as badly as an innocent man dare be punished to shield a guilty -superior. After receiving his dishonorable discharge, Girty sorrowfully -wended his way back to the parental home on the Yellow Breeches, his -visions of glory shattered. He did not tell his parents what had -happened, but they knew that something had gone wrong, and pitied him, -as only poor, lowly people can pity another. - -Henry Fielding, a gentleman born and bred, has said: “Why is it that the -only really kindly people are the poor,” and again, “Why is it that -persons in high places are always so hard?” - -About this time Simon Girty found work breaking colts on the estate of -an eccentric character named Gaspar, known in the Cumberland Valley as -“French Louis,” who resided near the mouth of Dublin Gap, on the same -side of the trail, but nearer the valley than the present Sulphur -Springs Hotel. All that remains of his ambitious chateau is the chimney, -which was recently photographed by Professor J. S. Illick, head of the -research bureau of the State Department of Forestry. - -“French Louis” Gaspar was a Huguenot, a Gascon, and prided himself on a -resemblance to Henry of Navarre, and wore the same kind of fan-shaped, -carefully brushed beard. His wife was also of French origin, a member of -the well-known Le Tort family, and a woman of some education and -character. They had several daughters, all of whom married well, and at -the time of Girty’s taking employment, but one was at home–the -youngest–Eulalie. - -She was a slim, dark girl, with hair and eyes as black as Girty’s, a -perfect mate in type and disposition. It is a curious thing while -unravelling these stories of old time Pennsylvania, that in seeking -descriptions of the personal appearance (which is always the most -interesting part) of the persons figuring in them at an early day, -scarcely any blondes are recorded; the black, swarthy Indian-like -visages so noticeable to strangers traveling through Pennsylvania today, -were also prevalent, commonly met with types of our Colonial period. - -Eulalie Gaspar could see that there was something on Girty’s mind, and -tried to be kind to him and encourage him, but she asked no questions, -and he volunteered no information. If he had not received such a -complete social setback at Spottsylvania, the youth might have aspired -to the girl’s hand, but he now was keenly aware of the planes of caste, -realizing that he stood very low on the ladder of quality. - -He seemed to be improving in spirits under the warm sun of encouragement -at Chateau Gaspar, as “French Louis” liked to call his huge house of -logs and stone, for the Huguenot adventurer was much of a Don Quixote, -and lived largely in a world of his own creation. Eulalie, hot-blooded -and impulsive, often praised his prowess as a horseman, and otherwise -smiled on him. - -There was a great sale of Virginia bred horses being held in the market -place at Carlisle, and, of course, “French Louis” mounted on a superbly -caparisoned, ambling horse, and wearing a hat with a plume, and attended -by Simon Girty, were among those present. - -The animals ranged from packers and palfreys to fancy saddlers of the -high school type, and although Gaspar had every stall full at home, and -some wandering, hobbled about the old fields, he bought six more at -fancy prices, and it would be an extensive task to return them safely to -the stables at the “Chateau”. - -It was near the close of the sale when a young Virginian named Conrad -Gist or Geist, one of the sellers of horses, who had been a sergeant in -Girty’s regiment, and witnessed his degradation at Spottsylvania, came -up, and in the presence of the crowd, taunted young Simon on being -court-martialed and kicked out of camp. - -Girty, though the humiliating words were said among divers of his -friends, bit his lips and said nothing at the time. Later in the tap -room, when “French Louis” was having a final jorum before starting -homeward, the Virginian repeated his taunts, and Girty, though half his -size, slapped his face. Gist quickly drew a horse pistol from one of the -deep pockets of his long riding coat, and tried to shoot the affronted -youth. Girty was too quick for him, and in wresting the pistol from his -hand, it went off, and shot the Virginian through the stomach. He fell -to the sanded floor, and was soon dead. - -Other Virginians present raised an outcry, in which they were upheld by -those of similar social status in the fraternity of “gentlemen horse -dealers” residing at Carlisle. Threats were made to hang Girty to a tree -and fill him full of bullets. He felt that he was lucky to escape in the -melee, and make for the mountains. Public opinion was against him, and a -reward placed on his head. Armed posses searched for him for weeks, -eventually learning that he was being harbored by a band of escaped -redemptioners, slaves, and gaol breakers, who had a cabin or shack in -the wilds along Shireman’s Creek. It was vacated when the pursuers -reached it, but they burnt it to the ground, as well as every other roof -in the wilds that it could be proved he had ever slept under. - -By 1750 he became known as the most notorious outlaw in the Juniata -country, and pursuit becoming too “hot”, he decided to migrate west, -which he did, allying himself with the Wyandot Indians. He lived with -them a foe to the whites, more cruel and relentless, the Colonial -Records state, than his adopted people. - -Some of his marauding expeditions took him back to the Susquehanna -country, and he made several daring visits to his parents, on one of -which he learned to his horror and disgust, that Eulalie Gaspar, while -staying with one of her married sisters at Carlisle, had met and married -the now Captain Claypoole, the author of his degradation, who had come -there in connection with the mustering of Colonial troops. - -During these visits Girty occupied at times a cave facing the -Susquehanna River, in the Half Fall Hills, directly opposite to Fort -Halifax, which he could watch from the top of the mountain. The narrow, -deep channel of the river, at the end of the Half Fall Hills, so long -the terror of the “up river” raftsmen, became known as Girty’s Notch. -The sinister reputation of the locality was borne out in later years in -a resort for rivermen called Girty’s Notch Hotel, now a pleasant, -homelike retreat for tired and thirsty autoists who draw birch beer -through straws, and gaze at the impressive scenery of river and mountain -from the cool, breezeswept verandas. - -But the most imposing of all is the stone face on the mountain side, -looking down on the state road and the river, which shows clearly the -rugged outlines of the features of the notorious borderer. An excellent -photograph of “Girty’s Face” can be seen in the collection of -stereoscoptic views possessed by the genial “Charley Mitchell” -proprietor of the Owens House, formerly the old Susquehanna House, at -Liverpool. - -It was after General Braddock’s defeat in 1755 that Captain, now Major -Claypoole, decided to settle on one of his parental estates on the -Redstone River, (now Fayette County) in Western Pennsylvania. Being -newly wedded and immensely wealthy for his day, he caused to be erected -a manor house of the showy native red stone, elaborately stuccoed, on a -bluff overlooking this picturesque winding river. He cleared much land, -being aided by Negro slaves, and a horde of German redemptioners. - -When General Forbes’ campaign against Fort Duquesne was announced in -1757, he decided to again try for actual military laurels, though his -promotion in rank had been rapid for one of his desultory service; so he -journeyed to Carlisle, and was reassigned to the Virginia Riflemen, with -the rank of Lieutenant Colonel of Staff. - -He was undecided what to do with his young wife in his absences, but as -she had become interested in improving “Red Clay Hall,” as the new -estate was called, he decided to leave her there, well guarded by his -armed Virginia overseers. The Indians had been cleared out of the valley -for several years, and were even looked upon as curiosities when they -passed through the country, consequently all seemed safe on that score. - -However, while Lieutenant-Colonel Claypoole was at Carlisle, before the -Forbes-Bouquet Army had started westward, an Indian with face blackened -and painted, in the full regalia of a chief, appeared at the door of -“Red Clay Hall” and asked to see the lady of the manor, with whom he -said he was acquainted–that she would know him by the name of Suckaweek. - -This was considered peculiar, and he was told to wait outside, until -“her ladyship” could be informed of his presence. Eulalie Gaspar -Claypoole, clad in a gown of rose brocade, was in her living room on the -second story of the mansion, an apartment with high ceilings and large -windows, which commanded a view of the Red Stone Valley, clear to its -point of confluence with the lordly Monongahela. She was seated at an -inlaid rosewood desk, writing a letter to her husband, when the German -chief steward entered to inform her of the strange visitor waiting on -the lawn, whom she would know by the name of Suckaweek. - -Taking the quill pen from her lips, for she had been trying to think of -something to write, the dark beauty directed the steward to admit the -visitor at once, and show him into the library. Hurrying to a pier -glass, she adjusted her elaborate apparel, and taking a rose from a -vase, placed it carefully in her sable hair, before she descended the -winding stairway. - -“Suckaweek” (Black Fish), which was a pet name she used to call Girty in -the old days, was waiting in the great hall, and the greeting between -the ill-assorted pair seemed dignified, yet cordial. They spent the -balance of the afternoon between the library and strolling over the -grounds, admiring the extensive views, dined together in the state -dining room, and the last the stewards and servants saw of them, when -informed their presence would be no longer required, was the pair -sitting in easy chairs on either side of the great fireplace, both -smoking long pipes of fragrant Virginia tobacco. - -In the morning the Indian and Madame Claypoole were missing, and an -express was sent at once to Carlisle to acquaint the Colonel with this -daring abduction of a lady of quality. The news came as a great shock to -the young officer, who obtained a leave of absence and a platoon of -riflemen to engage in the search for his vanished spouse. - -The marriage had seemed a happy one, but in discussing the case with his -father-in-law, “French Louis,” indiscreetly admitted that his daughter -had once seemed a little sweet on Simon Girty, the outlaw. All was clear -now, the motive revealed. - -It was the truth, the lovely “Lady” Claypoole, as she was styled by the -mountain folks, had gone off with the seemingly uncouth renegade, Simon -Girty. - -Why she had done so, she could never tell, but doubtless it was a spark -of love lain dormant since the old days at Chateau Gaspar, when she had -seen the young outlaw breaking her father’s unmanageable colts, that -furnished the motive for the elopement. - -In the glade, where at an early hour in the morning, Girty and his fair -companion joined his entourage of Indians and white outlaws, Simon, in -the presence of all, unsheathed his formidable hunting knife, a relic of -his first campaign against the Indians when he belonged to the Virginia -“Long Knives,” and cut a notch on the stock of his trusty rifle, which -was handed to him by his favorite bodyguard, a half Jew, half Indian, -named Mamolen, a native of Heidelberg in Berks County. - -Although during the past eight years he had personally killed and -scalped over a hundred Indians and whites, Girty had never, as the other -frontiersmen always did, “nicked” his rifle stock. - -Turning to Lady Claypoole with a smile, he said: “Some day I will tell -you why I have cut this notch; it is a long and curious story.” - -In order to have her safe from capture or molestation, Girty took the -woman on a lengthy and perilous journey to Kentucky, “the dark and -bloody ground.” To the country of the mysterious Green River, in what is -now Edmonson County, land of caves, and sinks, and knobs, and -subterranean lakes and streams, amid hardwood groves and limestone, he -built a substantial log house, where he left her, protected only by the -faithful Mamolen, while he returned to fight with the French and Indians -along the banks of the Ohe-yu, “The Beautiful River.” - -The defeat of the allied forces by the British, and the abandonment of -Fort Duquesne, were sore blows to Simon Girty’s plans and hopes, but his -position and prestige among the Indians remained undimmed. - -Claypoole, though promoted to full Colonel, did not take part in any of -the battles, being intermittently off on leave, hunting for his recreant -wife, and spluttering vengeance against “that snake, that dog, Girty,” -as he alternately called him. It seemed as if the earth had swallowed up -the lovely object of the outlaw’s wiles, for though Girty himself was -heard of everywhere, being linked with the most hideous atrocities and -ambushes, no Indian prisoner, even under the most dreadful torture, -could reveal the Lady Claypoole’s whereabouts. The reason for that was -only two persons in the service knew, one was Mamolen, the other Girty, -and Mamolen remained behind with the fair runaway. - -It was not until after the final collapse of the French power in 1764, -and the western country was becoming opened for settlement, that Colonel -Claypoole received an inkling of Eulalie’s whereabouts. It did not -excite his curiosity to see her again, or bring her back, but merely -fired his determination the more to even his score with Girty. When he -was sober and in the sedate atmosphere of his correctly appointed -library on Grant’s Hill, in the new town of Pittsburg, he realized how -foolish it would be to journey to the wilds to kill “a scum of the -earth,” he a gentleman of many generations of refined ancestry, all for -a “skirt” as he contemptuously alluded to his wife. - -But when in his cups, and that was often, he vowed vengeance against the -despoiler of his home, and the things he planned to do when once he had -him in his clutches would have won the grand prize at a Spanish -Inquisition. - -If it was Girty’s destiny to notch his rifle once, Nemesis provided that -Colonel Claypoole should also have that rare privilege. At a military -muster on the Kentucky side of Big Sandy, during the Revolutionary War, -Simon Girty boldly ventured to the outskirts of the encampment, to spy -on the strength and armament of the patriot forces, as he had done a -hundred times before. Colonel Claypoole, riding on the field on his -showy, jet black charger, noticed a low-brewed face, whiskered like a -Bolshevik, peering out through a clump of bushes. Recognizing him after -a lapse of over a quarter of a century, he rode at him rashly, parrying -with the flat blade of his sabre, the well directed bullet which Girty -sent at him. Springing from his mount, which he turned loose, and which -ran snorting over the field, with pistol in one hand, sabre in the -other, he rushed into the thicket, and engaged his foe in deadly combat. -He was soon on top of the surprised Girty, and stamping on him, like -most persons do with a venomous snake, at the same time shooting and -stabbing him. - -When his frightened orderly, leading the recaptured charger, rode up, -followed by a number of excited officers and men, and drew near to the -thicket, they were just in time to see Colonel Claypoole emerging from -it, red-faced but calm, carrying a long rifle. - -“I see you have put a notch in it already,” said one of his companions, -as he eagerly wrung his hand. - -“So I perceive,” replied the Colonel, “but it was hardly necessary, for -I have only killed a snake.” - -There are some who say that Colonel Claypoole’s victim was not Simon -Girty at all, but merely a drunken settler who was coming out of the -bushes after a mid-day nap, and a coincidence that the fellow was armed -with a rifle on which there was a single nick. Yet for all intents and -purposes Colonel Claypoole had killed a good enough Simon Girty, and had -his rifle to prove it. - -Other reports have it that Simon Girty survived the Revolution, where he -played such a reprehensive part, to marry Catharine Malott, a former -captive among the Indians, in 1784, and was killed in the Battle of the -Thames, in the War of 1812. - -C. W. Butterworth in his biography of the Girty family, says that Simon, -in later life, became totally blind, dying near Amlerstburg, Canada, -February 18, 1818, was buried on his farm, and a troop of British -soldiers from Fort Malden fired a volley at his grave. - - XIII - _Poplar George_ - - -“I have been reading your legends of the old days in the ‘North -American,’” said the delegate to the Grange Convention, stroking his -long silky mustache, “and they remind me of many stories that my mother -used to tell me when I was a little shaver, while we were living on the -Pucketa, in Westmoreland County. There was one story that I used to like -best of all. It was not the one about old Pucketa the Indian warrior for -whom the run was named, but about a less notable Indian, but more -esteemed locally, known as ‘Poplar George.’ - -“It isn’t nearly as interesting an Indian story as the one that Emerson -Collins tells, of the time when his mother, as a little girl on the -Quinneshockeny, went to the spring for a jug of water, finding a lone -Indian sitting there all by himself, looking as if he was in deep -thought. As he made no move to molest her, she filled her jug, and then -scampered back to the house as fast as she could tote the jug there. - -“She was a little shy about telling of her strange experience, but -finally, when she mentioned the subject, her mother said, ‘maybe the -poor fellow was hungry.’ Quickly spreading a ‘piece,’ she hurried back -to the spring, but no Indian was to be found, only a few prints of his -mocassined feet in the soft earth by the water course. If it hadn’t been -for those footprints she would have always felt that she had not seen a -real live Indian, but a ghost. - -“It was the last Indian ever heard of on the Quinneshockeny, and he had -probably come back to revive old memories of his happy childhood. No, -Poplar George was hardly like Emerson Collins’ ‘last Indian,’ as he, my -mother averred, was part Indian, part ghost. He was also the last Indian -that ever visited the Pucketa, which had been a famous stream in its day -for redmen, from the time when old Pucketa, himself, came there to spend -his last days, after having been driven out from his former hunting -grounds at the head of Lost Creek, which runs into the ‘Blue Juniata’ -above Mifflintown. - -“The principal part of this story revolves around two large trees that -used to stand near the Pucketa, one a big tulip or ‘whitewood’ tree, -hollow at the butt, so much so that a half grown person could hide in -it, and a huge water poplar tree, or ‘cottonwood,’ a rare tree in -Pennsylvania, you know, that stood on lower ground directly in line with -it, but on the far side of the creek, which ran parallel with the road. -It wasn’t much of a road in those days, I’m told, isn’t much of one yet, -little better than a cow path, with grass and dandelions growing between -the wagon tracks, and worn foot-path on the creek side of it. Many’s the -time I’ve gone along that path to and from school, or to fetch the cows. - -[Illustration: AGED FLAX-SPINNER AT WORK, SUGAR VALLEY] - -“In my boyhood there were two big stumps which always arrested my -attention, the stumps of the ‘cottonwood’ and the tulip which I have -already mentioned. The native poplar stump, which was chopped breast -high for some reason, had been cut before my day, but the tulip tree had -stood a dead stab for many years, and was not finally cut until my -babyhood. I was too young to recall it, and its stump had been sawed off -almost level with the ground. - -“When my mother was old enough to notice things, say along six, or seven -or eight years of age, both trees was standing, and despite their -venerable age, were thrifty and green; the hollow trunk of the tulip did -not seem to lessen its vitality. Trees in those days, of all kinds, were -pretty common, and regarded as nuisances; the farmers were still having -‘burning bees’ in the spring and fall when all hands would join in and -drag with ox-spans the logs of the trees that had been cut when they -were clearing new ground, and making huge bonfires, burn them like a -modern section foreman does a pile of old railroad ties, and by the way, -the time is going to come soon when tie burners will be as severely -condemned as the instigators of the ‘burning bees’ in the olden days. - -“Trees were too plentiful to attract much attention or create affection -or veneration, but these two trees had a very special human interest. - -“Long after the Indians passed out of our country they came back as -ghosts or ‘familiars,’ just as the wolves, panthers and wild pigeons do, -so that the stories of folks seeing them after they became extinct, -while not literally true, are in a sense correct. Closely associated -with the life of the big cottonwood was an old Indian, mother said; he -wasn’t a real live Indian, yet not a ghost, was probably a half ghost, -half Indian, if there could be any such thing. - -“The tulip tree was inhabited by a very attractive spirit, an Indian -girl, an odd looking one too, for her smooth skin was only a pumpkin -color and her eyes a light blue. They all called her ‘Pale Eyes,’ and -she was described as slight, winsome and wonderfully pretty. The Indian -man, because he spent so much time under the cottonwood or water poplar, -became generally known as ‘Poplar George.’ He would appear in the -neighborhood early in the spring, in time to gather poke, milkweed, -dandelion and bracken for the farmer’s wives, and to teach the young -folks to fish, to use the bow and arrow, and snare wild pigeons and -doves. - -“It was a sure sign of spring when the young people would see him -squatting before a very small fire of twigs under the still leafless -branches of the ancient poplar tree. He would remain about all summer -long, helping with the harvest, so he must have been real flesh and -blood, in a sense, and in the fall he gathered nuts, and later cut some -cordwood for those who favored him–but in truth he never liked hard, -downright work overly much. - -“He was a creature of the forests and streams. When he went away in the -fall, after the wild pigeons had left, he always said that he wintered -south, on the Casselman River, where the weather was not so severe, in -that wonderful realm of the Pawpaw, the Persimmon and the Red Bud. - -“Often when he took the young folks of the neighborhood on fishing -trips, and his skill with the angle and fly were unerring, the pretty -Indian maiden, ‘Pale Eyes,’ would turn up, and be with the party all -day. When asked who she was, he would sometimes say that she was his -daughter, other times his niece, or grand-daughter, but when anyone -asked of ‘Pale Eyes,’ she would shake her pretty head, indicating that -she only spoke the Indian language. Poplar George could speak Dutch and -a little English. - -“No one knew where Poplar George slept, if it wasn’t in the open, under -the cottonwood tree. If he slept in barns, or under haystacks, no one -had ever seen him coming or going, but a detail like that, mattered -nothing as long as he was kindly and harmless, and took good care of the -children. - -“He was a master of woodcraft, much like that old Narragansett Indian -‘Nessmuk,’ who furnished the late George W. Sears with his inspiration -as well as ‘nom de plume.’ Poplar George could call the wild birds off -the trees, so that they would feed on the ground before him, the -squirrels and even the shy chipmunks climbed all over him, and extracted -nuts from his pockets. - -"The old Indian was an odd person to look at, so my mother said; of -medium height, meagre, wrinkled and weazened, tobacco colored, with -little black shoe-button eyes, and a sparse mustache and beard. He -dressed in rags, and was often bare-footed, yet he never complained of -the cold. He was always jolly and cheerful, had always been the same; he -had been coming to the Pucketa Valley for several generations before my -mother’s day; in fact, no one could remember when he hadn’t been there, -but that wasn’t saying much, as it was a new country, dating only from -the time when Pucketa and his tribesmen had enjoyed it as a hunting -ground for big game. - -"Once when some hunters killed a bear, they were going to nail the paws -on the end of a log barn, but Poplar George begged for them, and invited -the children to a feast of ‘bear paw cutlets’ under the cottonwood tree. -My mother sat beside ‘Pale Eyes,’ and took a great fancy to her; she was -able to talk with her in sign language, and Poplar George, seeing how -well they got on together, occasionally interpreted for them. - -"Mother managed to learn that ‘Pale Eyes’’ abode was in a huge hollow -tulip tree, but that she, too, wintered in the south, but beyond the -Maryland line. Those were all gloriously care-free, happy days, and my -mother, in later life, never tired talking about them. - -"Once in the fall when the buckwheat harvest was in progress, millions -of wild pigeons came in, and mother could never forget the sight of old -Poplar George sitting on a ‘stake and rider’ fence, with a handsome cock -pigeon resplendent with its ruddy breast, pearched on one of his wrists, -while it pecked at some buckwheat seeds in his other hand. Beside him -sat the demure ‘Pale Eyes,’ a speckled squab of the year in her lap, -stroking it, while other pigeons, usually so wild, were feeding in the -stubble about them, or perched on the stakes of the fence. - -"Some of the boys of sixteen years or thereabouts, grown lads they -seemed to my mother, wanted to be attentive to ‘Pale Eyes,’ but she was -so shy that she never let them get close to her. As it was a respectable -backwoods community, and all minded their own business, no further -efforts were made to have her mingle in society. - -"There was a rich boy, Herbert Hiltzheimer from Philadelphia, whose -father was a great land owner, and who sometimes came with his parents -to stay with their Agent while inspecting their possessions, who, at -first sight of ‘Pale Eyes,’ fell violently in love with her. On rainy -days he was not allowed out of doors, and sent word to Poplar George -that ‘Pale Eyes’ should go to the Agent’s house, and play with him. Old -Poplar George replied that he was willing if his niece would consent, -but she always ran away into the depths of the forest, and was never -once induced to play with him indoors. She did not dislike the city boy, -only was very timid, and was afraid to go inside of a house. - -"My mother was made a confidante of by Herbert,who offered her five -dollars, a collosal sum in those days, if she would induce ‘Pale Eyes’ -to at least come into the Agent’s yard, and play with him alone. He had -her name cut on everything, even on the window frames, and wrote verses -about her which he carried in his pocket, and sometimes tried to read to -her. - -"In the fall he was taken back to Philadelphia to school, but said that, -the evening before, when he walked up the lane, weeping over his -misfortune, he opportunately met the fair Indian maid alone at the tulip -tree, and actually kissed her. She broke away and ran into the hollow -trunk, and while he quickly followed her into the aperture, she had -disappeared. - -"The lands on which the cottonwood and the tulip tree stood were a part -of a farm belonging to ’Squire George Garnice, an agreeable, but easy -going old gentleman, who never learned to say ‘no’ to any one, though -not much to his detriment for he was very generally respected. - -"One fall some of the Fiedler boys suggested to him, that he let them go -on his property and cut up a lot of old half-dead good-for-nothing trees -for cordwood and of course he assented. The first tree they attacked was -Poplar George’s favorite, the mighty cottonwood. They were skilled -axemen, and cut a level stump but too high for these days of -conservation. Soon the big poplar was down, and the boys were trimming -off the sweeping branches. Before cutting into stove lengths, they -hopped across the creek and started on their next victim, the hollow -tulip tree, the home of ‘Pale Eyes.’ - -"One of the boys, the youngest, Ed, had gotten a new cross-cut saw, and -begged them to try it on the tulip. They notched, and then getting down -on their knees, started to saw a low stump, for some reason or other. -They had sawed in quite a distance on both edges of the hollow side when -they heard a piteous shrieking and wailing down the road, toward the old -’Squire’s barn. - -"Leaving saw, axes and wedges, they ran to where the cries came from, -and to their horror, found ‘Pale Eyes’ lying on the grassy bank beside -the road at the orchard, her ankles terribly lacerated, front and back, -clear in to the bones, and bleeding profusely. On this occasion she was -able to speak in an intelligible tongue. - -“‘Run quick to the ’Squire’s, and get help,’ she said, in Pennsylvania -German; ‘I am dying, but I want something to ease this dreadful pain.’ - -“The sympathetic boys, without waiting to inquire where she received her -grevious hurts, scurried down the road and through the ’Squire’s gate. -The old gentleman was in his library, drawing up a legal document, when -the long, lanky youths, hatless and breathless, burst in on him. - -“‘Oh, sir,’ they chorused, ‘the Indian girl, ‘Pale Eyes,’ you know, has -cut herself, and is dying up the road, and wants help.’ - -"The ’Squire always kept an old-fashioned remedy chest in his desk, so -seizing it, and adjusting his curly wig, so that it would not blow off, -he ran out after the nimble mountaineers. As they left the gate they saw -old Poplar George running across the orchard in the direction of the -wounded girl. Evidently he, too, had heard her cries. - -"When they reached the spot where marks on the greensward showed where -‘Pale Eyes’ had been lying, she was nowhere to be found, neither was -Poplar George. There were no signs of blood, only a lot of sawdust like -comes from the workings of a cross-cut saw. - -"The old ’Squire was nonplussed, but consented to accompany the boys to -the scene of their wood cutting operations. ‘Pale Eyes’ was not there -either, nor Poplar George. The newly formed leaves of the cottonwood–it -was in the month of May–although the tree had only been cut and sawed -into but an hour before, were scorched and withered. - -"The ’Squire showed by his face how heartbroken he was to see the two -picturesque trees so roughly treated, but he was too kindly and -forgiving to chide the boys for their sake. As he was standing there, -looking at the ruin, a number of school children, among them my mother, -came along, for it was during the noon recess, or dinner hour. They saw -the butchered trees, and learned of the events of the morning; several -of them, prosaic backwoods youngsters, though they were, shed bitter -tears. - -“‘Dry your eyes,’ the ‘’Squire urged them, ‘else your people will think -that the teacher licked you.’ Then they all chorused that it was a shame -to have ruined the retreats of Poplar George and ‘Pale Eyes.’ - -“Evidently ’Squire Garnice was wise in the lore of mysticism, for he -shook his head sadly, saying, ‘Never mind, you’ll never see Poplar -George nor ‘Pale Eyes’ again.’ - -“It was a dejected company that parted with him at his gate. The old -’Squire was right, for never more was anything seen or heard of Poplar -George and the mysterious ‘Pale Eyes.’ They must have been in some -unknowable way connected with the lives of those two trees, the -cottonwood and the tulip–their lives or spirits maybe, and when they -were cut into, their spirits went out with them. - -“I knew of a wealthy man who had a cedar tree in his yard, that when he -fell ill, the tree became brown, but retained a little life. Finally it -was cut down as an eyesore, and the gentleman died suddenly a few days -afterward. That tree must have contained a vital part of his spirit. - -“By fall the tulip tree looked as if it had been dead for years, and the -bark was peeling off. As the wood of the poplar would not burn, and set -up a fetid odor, the Fieldler boys never bothered to finish cutting down -the hollow tulip tree, of which the shy wood sprite, ‘Pale Eyes,’ had -been the essence. - -"Much of the mystery and charm of that old grass-grown way along the -gently flowing Pucketa had vanished with its Indian frequenters. But the -memory of Poplar George and ‘Pale Eyes’ will never be forgotten as long -as any of those children who were lucky enough to know them, remain in -this world." - - XIV - _Black Alice Dunbar_ - - -Down in the wilds of the Fourth Gap, latterly used as an artery of -travel between Sugar Valley and White Deer Hole Valley, commonly known -as “White Deer Valley,” a forest ranger’s cabin stands on the site of an -ancient Indian encampment, the only clearing in the now dreary drive -from the “Dutch End” to the famous Stone Church. Until a dozen years ago -much of the primeval forest remained, clumps of huge, original white -pines stood here and there, in the hollows were hemlock and rhododendron -jungles, while in the fall the flickers chased one another among the -gorgeous red foliage of the gum trees. - -Now much is changed; between “Tom” Harter and “Charley” Steele, and -other lumbermen, including some gum tree contractors, little remains but -brush and slash; forest fires have sacrificed the remaining timber, and -only among the rocks, near the mouth of the gap, can be seen a few -original yellow pines, shaggy topped in isolated grandeur. Some day the -tragic Indian history of White Deer Hole Valley will come to its own, -and present one of the most tragic pages in the narrative of the passing -of the red man. - -It was into this isolated valley, that terminates in Black Hole Valley, -and the Susquehanna River, near Montgomery, that numbers of the Monsey -Tribe of the Lenni-Lenape, called by some the Delaware Indians, -retreated after events subsequent to the Walking Purchase, made them -outcasts on the face of the earth. It was not long afterwards that -warlike parties of their cruel Nemesis, the Senecas, appeared on the -scene, informing the Monseys that they had sold the country to the -whites, and if they stayed, it was at their peril. - -Even at that early day white men were not wholly absent; they came in -great numbers after the Senecas had sold the lands of the Lenni-Lenape -to the “Wunnux,” but even coincident with the arrival of the Delawares, -a few white traders and adventurers inhabited the most inaccessible -valleys. - -Alexander Dunbar, a Scotchman, married to a Monsey woman, arrived in -White Deer Hole Valley with the first contingent of his wife’s -tribes-people, settling near the confluence of White Deer Hole Creek and -South Creek. Whether he was any relation to the Dunbar family, who have -long been so prominent in this valley is unknown, as his family moved -further west, and the last heard of them was when his widow died and was -buried in the vicinity of Dark Shade Creek, Somerset County. - -Dunbar was a dark, swarthy complexioned man, more like an Indian than a -Celt, and dressed in the tribal garb, could easily have passed off as -one of the aboriginies. At one time he evidently intended to remain in -the Fourth Gap, as in the centre of the greensward which contained the -Indian encampment, he erected a log fortress, with four bastions, the -most permanent looking structure west of Fort Augusta. In it he aimed to -live like a Scottish Laird, with his great hall, the earthen floor, -covered with the skins of panthers, wolves and bears, elk and deer -antlers hanging about, and a huge, open fireplace that burned logs of -colossal size, and would have delighted an outlaw like Rob Roy -MacGregor. - -When the Seneca Indians penetrated into the valley they were at a loss -at first to ascertain Alexander Dunbar’s true status. If he was related -to the prominent Scotch families identified with the Penn Government, he -would be let alone, but if a mere friendless adventurer, he would be -driven out the same as any one of the “Original People.” - -Dunbar was a silent man, and by his taciturnity won toleration for a -time, as he never revealed his true position. When the Senecas became -reasonably convinced that, no matter who he had been in the Highlands of -Scotland, he was a person of no importance in the mountains of -Pennsylvania, they began a series of prosecutions that finally ended -with his murder. This took its first form by capturing all members of -the Lenni-Lenape tribe who ventured into the lower end of the valley, -for those who had settled further down, and on the banks of the -Susquehanna and Monsey Creek had moved westward when they learned that -they had been “_sold out_.” However, the residents of Dunbar’s -encampment occasionally ventured down South Creek on hunting and fishing -expeditions. When the heads of half a dozen families, and several -squaws, young girls and children had been captured, over a dozen in all, -and put into a stockade near the present village of Spring Garden, and -rumor had it that they were being ill-treated, Alexander Dunbar, -carrying a flag of truce, set off to treat with the Seneca Council, at -what is now Allenwood, with a view to having them paroled. - -The unfortunate man never reached the Senecas’ headquarters, being shot -from ambush, and left to die like a dog on the trail, not far from the -Panther Spring, above the present John E. Person residence. - -While the surviving, able bodied Monseys could have risen and started a -warfare, they deemed it prudence to remain where they were, and to make -Sugar Valley, and the valleys adjacent to White Deer Creek, their -principal hunting grounds. - -While Dunbar had lived, squaw man, though he was, he was the leader of -the Indians among whom he resided, else they would never have permitted -his erecting a pretentious fortress in the midst of their humble tepees -of hides and poorly constructed log cabins. At his death the leadership -devolved on his eighteen-year-old daughter, “Black Agnes,” his widow -being a poor, inoffensive creature, a typical Indian drudge. - -“Black Agnes” was even darker complexioned than her father, but was -better looking, having fine, clear cut features, expressive dark eyes -which flashed fire, although she was much below medium height, in fact, -no bigger than a twelve-year-old child. She wore her hair in such a -tangled way that her eyes, lean cheeks and white throat were half hidden -by the masses of her sable tresses. She usually attired herself in a -blue coat and cape, a short tan skirt trimmed with grey squirrel tails, -and long Indian stockings. She was in miniature a counterpart of Miriam -Donsdebes, the beautiful heroine of one of the chapters in this writer’s -book “South Mountain Sketches.” - -While it may have given the Senecas added cause to repeat their jibe of -“old women” at the Lenni-Lenapes, for not avenging Dunbar’s death, it -was a case of living on sufferance anyway, and foolish to have attacked -superior numbers. The Senecas always had white allies to call on for -arms and ammunition, while from the first, the Delawares were a -proscribed people, slated to be run off the earth and exterminated. - -During this lull, following the Scotchman’s murder, which the Senecas -would have doubtless have disavowed, an embassy appeared at the Dunbar -stronghold to ask “Black Agnes’” hand in marriage with a young Seneca -warrior named Shingaegundin, whom the intrepid young girl had never -seen. While it would have been extremely politic for “Black Agnes” to -have accepted, and allied herself with the powerful tribe that had -wronged her people, she sent back word firmly declining. - -After the emissaries departed through the gate of the stockade, she -turned to her warriors, saying, in the metaphorical language of her -race: “The sky is overcast with dark, blustering clouds,” which means -that troublesome times were coming, that they would have war. - -The embassy returned crestfallen to Shingaegundin, who was angry enough -to have slain them all. Instead, he rallied his braves, and told them -that if he could not have “Black Agnes” willingly, he would take her by -force, and if she would not be a happy and complaisant bride, he would -tie her to a tree and starve her until she ceased to be recalcitrant. - -The bulk of the Monseys having departed from the valleys on both sides -of the Susquehanna, to join others of their tribe at the headwaters of -the Ohe-yu, left the Dunbar clan in the midst of an enemy’s country, so -that it would look like an easy victory for Shingaegundin’s punitive -expedition. - -“Black Agnes” had that splendid military quality of knowing ahead of -time what her adversaries planned to do–whether “second sight” from her -Scotch blood, or merely a highly developed sense of strategy, matters -not. At any rate, she was ready to deal a blow at her unkind enemies. -Therefore she posted her best marksmen along the rocky face of the South -Mountains, on either side of Fourth Gap. Behind these grey-yellow, -pulpit-shaped rocks, the tribesmen crouched, ready for the oncoming -Senecas. “Black Agnes” herself was in personal command inside the -stockade, where she was surrounded by a courageous bodyguard twice her -size. The women, old men and children, were sent to the top of the -mountain, to about where Zimmerman’s Run heads at the now famous -Zimmerman Mountain-top Hospice. At a signal, consisting of a shot fired -in the air by “Black Agnes” herself, the fusillade from the riflemen -concealed among the rocks was to begin, to make the Fourth Gap a -prototype of Killiecrankie. - -In turn the entrance of the Senecas into the defile was to be announced -by arrow shot into the air by a Monsey scout who was concealed behind -the Raven’s Rock, the most extensive point of vantage overlooking the -“Gap.” - -When “Black Agnes” saw the graceful arrow speed up into space, she again -spoke metaphorically, “The path is already shut up!” which meant that -hostilities had commenced, the war begun. - -The little war sprite timed her plot to a nicety. When the Senecas were -well up in the pass, and surrounded on all sides by the Monseys, whom -they imagined all crowded into the stockade, “Black Agnes” fired her -shot, and the slaughter began. The Senecas began falling on all sides, -thanks to the unerring aim of the Monsey riflemen, but they were too -inured to warfare to break and run, especially when caught in a trap. - -Shingaegundin, enraged beyond all expression at again being flouted by a -woman, and a member of the tribe of “old women,” determined to die -gamely, and within the stockade which harbored “Black Agnes.” He seemed -to bear a charmed life, for while his cohorts fell about him, he plunged -on unhurt. The gate of the stockade was open, and “Black Agnes” stood -just within it, directing her warriors, a quaint but captivating little -figure, more like a sprite or fairy than one of flesh and blood. - -[Illustration: OLD CONESTOGA WAGON, BRUSH VALLEY] - -Shingaegundin espied her, and knew at a glance that this must be the -woman who the wise men of his tribe had selected to be his bride, and -the cause of this senseless battle. His was a case of love at first -sight, the very drollness of her tiny form adding to his passion, and he -ran forward, determined to be killed holding her in his arms and -pressing kisses on her dusky cheeks. - -Such thoughts enhanced his ambition and courage, and he shouted again -and again to his braves to pick themselves up and come on as he was -doing. Dazed with love, he imagined in a blissful moment that he would -yet have the victory and carry “Black Agnes” home under his arm like a -naughty child. - -Just outside the palisade he was met by three of Agnes’ bodyguard, armed -with stone hatchets. None of his warriors were near him; shot and -bleeding, they were writhing on the grass, while some were already in -the hands of the Monsey braves, who had come down from their eyries, and -were dexterously plying the scalping knives. Few of the mutilated -Senecas uttered cries, although as the scalps were jerked off, it was -hard to suppress involuntary sobs of pain. - -“Black Agnes” saw nothing in the long, lank form of Shingaegundin to -awaken any love; she detested him as belonging to the race that had sold -her birthright and foully murdered her father, and she called to her -warriors: “Suffer no grass to grow on the war-path,” signifying to carry -on the fight with vigor. - -Shingaegundin was soon down, his skull battered and cracked in a dozen -places. Even when down, his ugly spirit failed to capitulate. Biting and -scratching and clawing with his nails like a beast, he had to have his -skull beaten like a copperhead before he stretched out a lifeless, -misshapen corpse. As he gave his last convulsive kick the Monsey -warriors began streaming through the gates, some holding aloft scalps -dripping with blood, while others waved about by the scalp locks, the -severed heads of their defeated foemen. - -Never had such a rout been inflicted on the Senecas; perhaps “Black -Agnes” would be a second Jeanne d’Arc, and lead the Lenni-Lenape back to -their former glories and possessions! - -The victorious Monseys became very hilarious, hoisting the scalps on -poles, they shimmied around “Black Agnes,” yelling and singing their -ancient war songs, the proudest moment of their bellicose lives. - -“Black Agnes” was calm in triumph, for she knew how transitory is life -or fame. Biting her thin lips, she drew her scalping knife and bent down -over the lifeless form of Shingaegundin, to remove his scalp in as -business-like a manner as if she was skinning a rabbit. Addressing the -grinning corpse, she said: “Bury it deep in the earth,” meaning that the -Seneca’s injury would be consigned to oblivion. Then, with rare -dexterity, she removed the scalp, a difficult task when the skull has -been broken in, in so many places. - -Holding aloft the ugly hirsute trophy, she almost allowed herself to -smile in her supreme moment of success. Her career was now made; she -would rally the widely scattered remnants of the Delawares, and fight -her way to some part of Pennsylvania where prestige would insure peace -and uninterrupted happiness. But in these elevated moments comes the -bolt from the blue. - -One of the panic-stricken Senecas, bolting from the ignominious ambush -of his fellows, had scrambled up the boulder-strewn side of the -mountain, taking refuge behind the Raven’s Rock, lately occupied by the -chief lookout of the Monseys–he who had shot the warning arrow into the -air. Crouching abject and trembling at first, he began to peer about him -as the fusillade ceased and smoke of battle cleared. He saw his slain -and scalped clansmen lying about the greensward, and in the creek, and -the awful ignominy meted out to his lion-hearted sachem, Shingaegundin. -At his feet lay the bow and quiver full of arrows abandoned by the scout -when he rushed down pell mell to join in the bloody scalping bee. - -The sight of “Black Agnes” holding aloft his chieftain’s scalp, the -horribly mutilated condition of Shingaegundin’s corpse, the shimmying, -singing Monseys, waving scalps and severed heads of his brothers and -friends, all drew back to his heart what red blood ran in his veins. - -“Black Agnes” stood there so erect and self-confident, like a little -robin red-breast, ready for a potpie, he would lay her low and end her -pretensions. Taking careful aim, for he was a noted archer, the Seneca -let go the arrow, which sped with the swiftness of a passenger pigeon, -finding a place in the heart of the brave girl. The tip came out near -her backbone, her slender form was pierced through and through. The -slight flush on her dark cheeks gave way to a deadly pallor, and, facing -her unseen slayer, “Black Agnes” Dunbar tumbled to the earth dead. - -The dancing, singing Monseys suddenly became a lodge of sorrow, weeping -and wailing as if their hearts would break. The Seneca archer could have -killed more of them, they were so bewildered, but he decided to run no -further risks, and made off towards his encampment to tell his news, -good and bad, to his astounded tribesmen. - -When it was seen that “Black Agnes” was no more, and could not be -revived, the sorrowful Monseys dug a grave within the stockade. It was a -double death for them, as they knew that they would be hunted to the end -like the _Wolf Tribe_ that they were, and they had lost an intrepid and -beloved leader. - -According to the custom, before the interment, “Black Agnes’” clothing -was removed, the braves deciding to take it as a present to the dead -girl’s mother, to show how bravely she died. They walled up the grave -and covered the corpse with rocks so that wolves could not dig it up, -graded a nice mound of sod over the top, and, like the white soldiers at -Fort Augusta, fired a volley over her grave. - -That night there was a sorrowing scene enacted at the campground near -the big spring at Zimmerman’s Run. The grief-stricken mother wanted to -run away into the forest, to let the wild beasts devour her, and was -restrained with great difficulty by her tribesmen, who had also lost all -in life that was worth caring for, peace and security. - -With heavy hearts they started on a long journey for the west, carrying -the heart-broken mother Karendonah in a hammock, to the asylum offered -to them by the Wyandots on the Muskingum. The bereaved woman carried the -blood-stained, heart-pierced raiment of her heroic daughter as a -priceless relic, and it was in her arms when she died suddenly on the -way, in Somerset County, and was buried beside the trail, on the old -Forbes Road. The Monseys, however, took the costume with them as a -fetich, and for years missionaries and others interested in the tragic -story of “Black Agnes” Dunbar were shown her blue jacket with the hole -in the breast where the arrow entered. - -That arrow pierced the hearts of all the Monseys, for they became a -dejected and beaten people in their Ohio sanctuary. - -While it is true that most of the very old people who lived in the -vicinity of the Fourth Gap have passed away, it may yet be possible to -learn the exact location of the cairn containing the remains of “Black -Agnes” and place a suitable marker over it. One thing seems certain, if -the tradition of the Lenni-Lenape that persons dying bravely in battle -reach a higher spiritual plane once their souls are released, her ghost -will not have to hunt the hideous, burnt-over slashings that were once -the wildly romantic Fourth Gap; it has gone to a realm beyond the -destructive commercialism of this dollar-mad age, where beauty finds a -perpetual reward and recognition. - -[Illustration] - - XV - _Abram Antoine, Bad Indian_ - - -Abram Antoine, a Cacique of the Stockbridge Tribe of Oneida Indians, had -never before while in Pennsylvania been off the watershed of the Ohe-yu, -or “The Beautiful River,” called by the white men “Allegheny,” until he -accepted the position of interpreter to a group of chiefs from the New -York and Pennsylvania Indians, to visit “The Great White Father,” -General Washington, at Mount Vernon. - -While the General had not been President for several years, and was -living in retirement at his Virginia home, the red Chieftains felt that -his influence would be such that he could secure redress for their -wrongs. Cornplanter had been on many such missions, and come home elated -by promises, few of which were ever fulfilled in any shape, and none in -their entirety, consequently he declined to accompany the mission on -what he termed a “fool’s errand.” - -Abram Antoine, through life in New England, New York and Canada, had -become much of a linguist, speaking English and French with tolerable -fluency, besides being well versed in the Seneca and other Indian -tongues. He was a tall, handsome type of redman, powerfully muscled, his -career on “The Beautiful River,” where he rafted and boated between the -Reservations and Pittsburg, and his service as a ranger for the Holland -Land Company, had developed his naturally powerful form to that of a -Hercules. Previously he had served in the American Navy, during the -Revolutionary War, which had instilled in him a lifetime respect for the -name of Washington. He was eager therefore to act as interpreter on an -occasion which would bring him into personal contact with the Father of -his Country. - -The Indians took the usual overland route, coming down the Boone Road, -to the West Branch of the Susquehanna at the mouth of Drury’s Run; from -there they intended _hiking_ across the mountains to Beech Creek, there -to get on the main trail leading down the Bald Eagle Valley to Standing -Stone (now Huntingdon), and from thence along the Juniata to Louisbourg, -then just beginning to be called Harrisburg. It had been an “open -winter” thus far. - -At the West Branch they met an ark loaded with coal, bound for -Baltimore, in charge of some Germans who had mined it in the vicinity of -Mosquito Creek, Clearfield County, near the site of the later town of -Karthaus. A friendly conversation was started between the party of -Indians on shore and the boatmen, with the result that the pilot of the -ark, Christian Arndt, invited the redmen to climb aboard. - -The invitation being accepted with alacrity, the ark was steered close -to the bank, and the Indians, running out on an uprooted snag which hung -over the water, all leaped on the deck in safety. It made a jolly party -from that moment on. The time passed happily, and many were the -adventures and experiences _en route_. No stops of any consequence were -made except at the mouth of Mianquank (Young Woman’s Creek), and -Utchowig (now Lock Haven), until the Isle of Que was reached, where -other arks and flats and batteaux were moored, and there were so many -persons of similar pursuits that a visit on dry land was in order. - -There was much conviviality at the public houses of Selin’s Grove, and -the Germans amused themselves trying to carry on conversations with the -native Pennsylvania Dutchmen, dusky, dark-featured individuals, who saw -little affinity between themselves and the fair, podgy “High Germans.” -In wrestling and boxing matches, throwing the long ball, running races, -and lifting heavy weights, the Germans were outclassed by the native -mountaineers, but they took their defeats philosophically. A shooting -match was held, at which all the Indians except Abram Antoine held -aloof, but his marksmanship was so extraordinary that he managed to tie -the score for the up-river team. This was a consolation for the Germans, -and they left the Isle of Que well satisfied with their treatment. - -Other arks left their moorings at the same time, mostly loaded with -grain or manufactured lumber from the Christunn and the Karoondinha, and -the fleet was augmented by a batteau loaded with buffalo hides, at the -mouth of the West Mahantango. This was the last consignment of -Pennsylvania bison hides ever taken to Harrisburg, the animals having -been killed at their crossing over the Firestone or Shade Mountains, the -spring previous. - -It was a picturesque sight to see the fleet of arks and other boats -coming down the noble river, the flood bank high, driving up flocks of -water birds ahead of them, while aloft like aeroplanes guarding a convoy -of transports, sailed several majestic American Eagles, ever circling, -ever drifting, and then soaring heavenward. - -Out from the Juniata came several more arks, consequently the idlers in -front of the rivermen’s resorts at “The Ferry,” as some of the -old-timers still called Harrisburg, declared that they had never seen a -flood bring in a larger flotilla at one time. All, however, were anxious -to get in before the river closed up for the winter. - -When the up-river ark with its load of Teutons and redmen made its -moorings for the night near the John Harris tree, they noticed that all -the flags were at half-mast–there were many displayed in those days–and -there was a Sunday calm among the crowds lolling along the banks in the -wintry sunshine. - -“Who’s dead?” inquired Abram Antoine, as he stepped on the dock; his -naval training had made him alert to the language of the flag. - -“_General Washington_,” was the awed reply. - -The big Stockbridge Indian’s jaw dropped, his lifetime ambition of -conversing with the “first in the hearts of his countrymen,” and the -purpose of the mission had been thwarted by a Higher Will. - -Turning to the gaudy appareled chief behind him, he conveyed the unhappy -message. The Indians shook their heads so hard that their silver -earrings rattled, and were more genuinely sorry that Washington was no -more than the failure of their quest. All ashore, they held a conclave -under the old Mulberry tree, deciding that there was no use to go any -further, but would spend a day or two in the thriving new town, -Louisbourg or Harrisburg, whichever it was proper to call it, and then -return home. There was no use going to Philadelphia again, and a new -prophet sat in the chair of the Father of his Country at the Nation’s -Capitol. - -The party then separated for the present, most of them hurrying to the -nearest tavern stands to refresh thirsts made deeper by the sharp, fine -air on the river. Abram Antoine stood undecided, one hand resting on the -trunk of the historic Mulberry, a crowd of small boys watching him -open-mouthed and wide-eyed, at a respectful distance. - -Pretty soon he was accosted by a very old, white-bearded Dutchman, with -a strip of soiled gray silk on the lapel of his coat, which indicated -that he was a veteran of the Royal American Regiment of Riflemen that -had figured at Fort Duquesne in 1758. Abram Antoine had seen many such -veterans in and about Pittsburg, and held out his hand to the aged -military man. The old soldier signalled with his cane that the Indian -come and sit with him on a nearby bench, which he did, and they passed -an hour pleasantly together. - -The conversation turned principally to soldiering, and then to firearms, -and all the ancient makes of rifles were discussed, and their merits and -demerits compared. The veteran allowed that the best rifle he had ever -owned was of Spanish make, the kind carried by the Highlanders in the -campaigns of 1758 and 1763; it was of slim barrel, light and easily -handled, and unerring if used by a person of tolerable accuracy. - -There was one gunsmith in the alley over yonder, a veteran of the -Revolution, named Adam Dunwicke, who made a rifle close to the early -Spanish pattern. It was the best firearm being turned out in the State -of Pennsylvania. The gunsmith, anyhow, was a man worth knowing, as his -shop was filled with arms of many makes and periods, and he liked to -talk with any one who was an enthusiast on guns. - -Abram Antoine was fired by what the veteran told him, and as it was -still early in the afternoon, asked if he would escort him thither. It -would be fine if he could get an extra good rifle as a souvenir of his -ill-starred trip to Mount Vernon. The old man had too much time on his -hands as it was, and was only too glad to pilot the redman to the -workshop. They made a unique looking pair together, the old soldier, -bent and hobbling along on his staff, the Indian, tall, erect, and in -the prime of life. Their high, aquiline noses, with piercing, deep-set -eyes, were their sole points of physical similarity. - -When they reached the gunshop, in the dark, narrow alley that ran out -from Front Street, the veteran banged the grimy knocker, and it was -almost instantly opened by Dunwicke himself, a sturdy man of medium -height, who wore great mustaches, had on a leather apron and his sleeves -were rolled up, revealing the brawny biceps of a smith. - -Standing by the gunmaker, in the shadowy, narrow entry, was a very -pretty girl in a dark blue dress. She was as tall as the smith, but very -trim and slight, and her chestnut brown hair was worn low over her ears, -throwing into relief her pallid face, and the rather haunted, tired look -in her fine grey eyes, the marvelous smooth lines of her chin and -throat. - -A third figure now emerged from the gloom, a small Negro boy, to whom -the girl was handing a letter, with her trembling white hands. As the -Indian, the veteran and the gunsmith withdrew into the workroom, Abram -could hear her saying to the lad, as she closed the door by way of added -emphasis: “Tell him to be sure and come.” - -He could hear the footsteps of the girl as she went upstairs, and -henceforth he lost most of his interest in the question of obtaining a -rifle of the Spanish design. All his _designs_ were elsewhere, and he -was glad when the smith suggested they visit another room on the -opposite side of the entry, to look at several sets of extra large horns -of the grey moose or elk, which had recently come down on an ark from -somewhere up Tiadaghton. - -As they crossed the hallway, Abram Antoine looked up the flight of -stairs–there were three that he could make out–wondering on which floor -the fair apparition retired to; he presumed pretty near the roof, as he -had not heard her on the loose laid floor above the workshop. - -When they returned to the gun shop, the Indian, knowing the smith well -enough by then, inquired who the lady was whom they had seen in the -entry. - -“Oh, I don’t quite know what she is,” he replied. “She stays upstairs, -under the roof; you know that the upper floors of this building are let -for lodgers.” - -Instantly a life’s story, tragic or unusual, grouped itself about his -image of the girl, and his heart was filled with yearning. He was hoping -against hope that she would come down again. He had no excuse to go up, -but several times while the smith was chatting with the veteran of the -Royal Americans, he managed to wander across the hall, looking up the -well towards the grimy skylight, and then took another perfunctory -glance at the huge antlers standing against the wall. He prolonged his -stay as long as he could, saying that he liked to watch gunmakers at -work, and having ordered and paid for a costly rifle, he felt that his -presence was justified. - -It was well into the gloaming when “knock, knock, knock” on the front -door resounded through the hollow old building. Abram Antoine’s blood -ran cold; he could have shot the visitor if he was the slender girl’s -recalcitrant lover, but fervently hoped that, whoever it was, would have -the effect of bringing her downstairs. - -True enough, before he could get to the door at the smith’s heel, he -heard the light, familiar footsteps, and the girl, trying to look -unconcerned, was the first to turn the lock. - -It was only Simon Harper, a big, lean hunter from Linglestown, over by -the Blue Mountain, who had come to take delivery of a rifle made to -order. - -“Oh, I am so disappointed,” said the girl, as she turned to run -upstairs. - -The smith was escorting his swarthy customer into the shop. Abram -Antoine’s opportunity had come, if ever. - -“Do you have the letting of the rooms upstairs?” he said, politely, hat -in hand. - -The girl looked at him; it was probably the first time during the -afternoon that she had noticed his presence, so pre-occupied she had -been. - -“No,” she said, softly; “the lady lives on the next landing, but I saw -her going out.” - -Abraham was well aware how closely she had been watching that doorway! -“Are there any vacancies?” - -The girl dropped her head as if in doubt about carrying on the -conversation further, then replied: “I think there are.” “said the -Indian. - -Whether it was loneliness or desperation at the non-arrival of the -person to whom she had sent the letter, or the tall redman’s superlative -good looks and genteel demeanor–for a handsome man can attempt what a -plain one dare never aspire–at any rate without another word, she turned -and led the way up the long, steep stairs. - -It was with no sense of surprise that she brought him to the top of the -house, into her own garret, with its two small dormer windows which gave -a view in the direction of the Narrows at Fort Hunter, and the broad, -majestic river. There was a narrow bed with a soiled coverlet, a -portmanteau, a brass candlestick, and two rush-bottomed chairs, and -nothing else in it. In those days lodgers washed at the well in the back -yard. - -Both sat down as if they had known each other all their lives; the -frigid barrier of reserve of a few minutes earlier had broken down. They -were scarcely seated when the ominous “Clank, clank, clank,” that the -girl had been listening for so intently all afternoon, resounded up the -dismal vault of the stairway. - -Casting a frightened look at the big Indian, as much as to say, “What -will _he_ say if he finds you here?” she bounded out of the room, -descending the steps two or three at a time. - -Abram Antoine did not take the hint to retire, if such was meant, and -sat stolidly in the high-backed, rush-bottomed chair, in the unlighted -room. It was only a few minutes until she returned, her face red, all -out of breath, carrying the same letter which he had seen her hand to -the colored boy earlier in the afternoon. - -[Illustration: OLD SCHELLSBURG CHURCH, LINCOLN HIGHWAY] - -“Not in town, don’t know when he will return,” she was chanting to -herself, as she came through the open door. She started back, as if -surprised to find her new champion _still_ there. Without speaking, she -dropped down on the bed, facing him, fanning her flushed cheeks with the -envelope, although the little room was quite cold. - -“I am sorry that your letter was undelivered,” said Abram Antoine, after -a considerable silence. There was another pause, and then the girl, -still clutching the fated letter, revealed her story of embarrassment. - -“It isn’t a long story,” she began. "My name is Ernestine de Kneuse. My -father is the well-known miller and land-owner at New Berlinville, in -Berks County–Solomon de Kneuse. About a year ago a young stranger, Carl -Nitschman, I think a High German, came to the town, stopping at the -‘Three Friends’ Inn, which it was rumored he was to purchase. While -negotiating, he naturally met many of the leading people. He was -handsome and engaging, and all the girls went wild over him. It gave me -a fiendish pleasure to think that he favored me above the rest, and one -afternoon I cut my classes at the Select Academy, where I was in my -third year, and went walking with him. - -"My father, who belonged to the old school, had a hatred for any one who -might even consider going into the liquor business, saw us together and -told mother. On reaching home, although I was eighteen and had not had -even a spanking for several years, and thought I had outgrown it, my -mother took me to my room and administered a good, sound ‘scotching’ -with the rod. - -"Previously they had forbidden the young man the house, and when I -informed him how I was treated, he told me if I was disciplined again, -to run away. - -"Not long afterwards I was kept in at school, and mother accused me of -meeting my lover. I told her to go to the school and find out for -herself, which she did, but nevertheless that evening my mother visited -me in my room with the strap, and walloped me until I was black and blue -from shoulders to ankles. - -"Meanwhile Carl’s negotiations for the purchase of the tavern had fallen -through, and he was preparing to leave for Reading. Through one of my -girl friends who was not so strictly raised, I communicated to him the -story of this latest indignity, begging him to take me with him. He -replied that he would be traveling about for some time before settling -down there, but as soon as he was located, he would send me his address, -and to come. - -"I recall the morning of his departure, how I crawled out of bed before -dawn, and pressed my tear-stained face against the window lights as he -climbed on the coach at the inn, which was across the street from where -we lived, and settling down among his goodly store of bags and boxes, -was driven away. - -"Weeks passed, and I eventually got a letter through one of my girl -friends whose parents were less strict, that he had gone to Harrisburg, -and I should join him there. By exercising a great amount of ingenuity, -I got out of the house, and on the night stage for Reading, during one -of the terrible Equinoctial rains, making close connections with another -stage for Harrisburg, and I came to my present abode a month before, but -have never once seen Nitschman in the interval. - -“I’ve now learned that my parents are on my track, and will reach town -tonight; I have spent my last cent, and my letters to Nitschman receive -no satisfactory answers. I am now penniless, and cannot pay my lodging, -have eaten nothing all day, and have no place to go. I would not return -for all the world and subject myself to an irate mother.” - -The Indian was much interested by the recital, and told her that he had -loved her the minute he laid eyes on her, and would marry her if she -would return with him to his home, which adjoined the Cornplanter -Reservation, in Warren County. “I will marry you right away if you will -accept.” - -Pressed and harassed on all sides, and hungry as well, Ernestine, -looking up into the handsome face of the redman, capitulated. Closing up -her scanty belongings in the shabby portmanteau, she went down to the -landlady and settled her bill in full out of a “Double Eagle” which -Abram gave her, and then the pair quickly left the building. The gunshop -was locked, and dark, the veteran of the Royal Americans and the smith -had forgotten all about their Indian friend and gone their ways -regardless. - -They soon found the leading hotel stand, where they enjoyed a good -supper and learned of a preacher who would marry them. - -Just as they were about to leave the tavern the stage from Reading and -Stitestown pulled in, horses and running gear all spattered with mud and -slush. Among the first to clamber out was old Solomon de Kneuse and his -wife, but they gave them the slip in the darkness and confusion. - -At the manse, after the ceremony, the clergyman mentioned that his -brother was to be a juryman the next day at the trial of Nitschman, the -highwayman, who had held up and robbed the aristocratic McAfee family on -the road to York Springs. “May he pay dearly for interfering with -quality,” he added, seriously. - -Ernestine hung her head; she understood now why it was she had been -unable to see her lover since she came to the town; he had been in jail, -and perhaps she was stung with some tiny feelings of remorse to have -renounced him so quickly. However, necessity knows no law, but she -thought she knew her man. - -Before daybreak the newly married couple were ensconced in the stage -bound for Northumberland and Williamsport, and in due course of time -reached their future home, just across the river from Corydon. - -None of the other Indians returned for several weeks. When they did, -they were miserable looking objects from drink, and Abram half blamed -himself for not looking after them, but love had blinded him to -everything else. He provided a comfortable home for his bride, and as an -agent for the Holland Land Company, mingled with respectable people, who -were considerate to his wife. Among these were the family of Philip -Tome, that indomitable Indian-looking Nimrod, author of “Thirty Years a -Hunter,” whose prowess in the forests of Northern Pennsylvania will -never be forgotten while memory of the big game days lasts. - -Ernestine was really happy, and did not aspire to any different lot. -Though she was fearless, she hated to be left alone when her husband was -absent on inspection trips, and he generally managed to have an Indian -boy or girl–one of the O’Bails or Logans–remain with her when he was -away. - -In due time his handsome Spanish-type rifle, with its stock inlaid with -mother-of-pearl and silver, like the gun of some Moorish Sheik, reached -him, and of it he was justly proud, partly because it was the instrument -of his meeting Ernestine. - -On the first anniversary of their wedding he killed a fine stag with it -on the Kinzua, while hunting with Philip Tome. It was in the fall of the -second year of their marriage that Abram Antoine was called away during -a heavy flood in the Ohe-yu, which flowed in front of their house. Old -Shem, the one-eyed, half-breed ferryman, had difficulty in getting him -across in the batteau, so swift was the angry current. He was to be -gone, as usual, several days. - -On the night when she was expecting him home, Ernestine heard a loud -knocking at the kitchen door. Opening it she beheld Old Shem standing -outside, the rain dripping from his hat and clothing. - -“Missus Antoine,” he wheezed, “Abram is over to the public house at -Corydon, a very sick man, and wants you to come to him at once.” - -Ernestine was horrified, but, jerking down her cloak from the nail on -which it hung, ran out into the storm, and followed the aged ferryman -down the steep bank to the landing. The wind was bellowing terribly -among the almost bear hickories and butternuts along the shore, the -current was deep, dark and eddying. - -When one-third the way over, Old Shem looked up, saying: “Missus, it -hain’t Abram that’s sick; it’s your _other_ man, Mister Nitschman, what -wants you.” “shouted Ernestine. “I never had any other man. Take me back -home at once, you treacherous old snake in the grass.” - -Just then a pile of buffalo robes in one end of the deep batteau -stirred, and the form of a man arose–Carl Nitschman, back from jail. - -“Talk sensibly, Ernestine,” he said. “I have come for you, and will -forgive everything. You know you belong to me; your going off with that -Indian was all a hasty mistake.” - -Ernestine glared at him and again ordered the ferryman to take her home. -Instead he seemed to be trying to reach the Corydon shore the faster. -Just then Nitschman stepped forward, with arms outstretched, as if to -seize her. - -The slight and supple Ernestine sprang up on the gunwale, the boat -tipped; she either fell or jumped into the dark, swirling current. She -was gone before an effort could be made to save her, and the two -frightened men, white as ghosts, pulled for the light which gleamed -through the storm, in the tavern window at Corydon, with redoubled -energy. With a thud the prow hit the muddy bank and slid on shore. - -To their surprise Abram Antoine was standing on the bank. The one-eyed -ferryman began to cry, a strange thing for any one of Indian blood. “I -was fetching your wife across to meet you and she fell in the river.” - -Just then Nitschman, who had climbed out of the boat, was passing by -Antoine, who seized him by the collar. “Who is this son of –--?” -demanded the six-foot Indian. - -It was then that the ferryman broke down completely and confessed all. - -Antoine shook his captive like a rat, and slapped his face many times, -eventually tumbling him into the mud and kicking him like a sack of -flour. Then, picking up an oar, he beat the ferryman over the head until -he yelled for mercy. The noise roused the habitues of the hotel, and as -the victims were shouting “murder,” the local Constable, who ran the -hotel, placed Abram Antoine under arrest, beginning his fatal brand as -“Bad Indian.” - -Nitschman did not appear to press the charge next day, and the ferryman -apologized for his part in the affair, so Abram was free, minus his -beautiful wife and his reputation. - -It was beginning with that terrible tragedy that he began to find solace -at the tap room of the public house at Corydon. Philip Tome and even old -Cornplanter himself tried his best to save him, but he became an Indian -sot, losing his position with the land company, his home and his -self-respect. All that he held on to, and that because being an Indian -he was sentimental, was his Spanish rifle with the inlaid stock. He -spent more and more of his time in the forests, shunning white people -and fraternizing only with his own kind. He made a protege out of young -Jim Jacobs, a Seneca hunter of unusual ability, and they spent many -weeks at a time in the forests. - -To him he confided that before he died he would literally have -Nitschman’s scalp, have the blood atonement against the destroyer of his -happiness. - -A score of years had to pass before he met the ex-highwayman face to -face. He had heard of the early exploits of this modern Claude Du Val, -who was supposed to have reformed, and his blood boiled that such a -villainous wretch could wander about scot free. - -It was in the fall of the year, about 1822 or thereabouts, when the -great county fair was in progress at Morris Hills, one of the leading -towns above the New York State line, adjacent to the Indian -reservations. All manner of persons were attracted by the horse races, -displays of cattle, Indian foot races and lacrosse games, as well as the -more questionable side shows and gambling performances. - -Abram Antoine’s Indian friends had been sobering him up for weeks, and -he presented a pretty good appearance for a man of over sixty, when he -appeared to challenge all comers in tests of marksmanship with the -rifle. Never had “The Chief,” as everybody called him, done better than -the afternoon of the first day of the fair. The wild pigeons were flying -high overhead in the clear, blue atmosphere of that fine crisp autumn -day, but whenever he turned his rifle upwards he brought one down for -the edification and applause of the crowd. - -Just as he had shot a pigeon, his keen eye noticed a medium-sized, -fair-haired man, loudly dressed, edging hurriedly through the throng, as -if trying to get away. Antoine had never seen Nitschman except that -night when he had trampled him into the mud, but this fellow’s size and -general demeanor Corresponded with his mental conception of the one that -he had ever afterwards regretted that he had not slain. - -Moving with rapid strides through the crowd, pigmies beside his giant -stature, he blocked his little enemy’s further progress. “Nitschman, I -believe you are,” he said. - -“No, no; that hain’t my name,” spluttered the short man, coloring to the -roots of his faded yellow hair. - -“Yes, it is, Chief,” yelled a young Indian who was standing close by. - -That confirmation was all that Abram Antoine, bad Indian, wanted. -Swinging his rifle above the crowd, he brought it down with terrific -force on the head of his foe, crashing right through his high, flat -brimmed beaver hat and shattering the lock. - -To use the language of Jim Jacobs, Nitschman fell to the turf like a -“white steer,” and laid there, weltering in blood, for he was dead. - -All the latent hate and jealousy in the crowd against Indians -immediately found vent, and an angry mob literally drove Abram Antoine, -bad Indian, out of the fair grounds to the town lockup. It was some time -during 1823 that he expiated his crime on the gallows. - -[Illustration] - - XVI - _Do You Believe in Ghosts?_ - - -A. D. Karstetter, painstaking local historian, tells us that there was -no more noteworthy spot in the annals of mountainous Pennsylvania than -the old Washington Inn at Logansville. Built after the fashion of an -ancient English hostelry, with its inn-yard surrounded by sheds and -horse stables, it presented a most picturesque appearance to discerning -travelers. The passage of time had obliterated it, long before the great -fire on June 24, 1918, swept the town, removing even the landmarks which -would have showed where the old-time inn was situated. - -Many are the tales, grave or gay, clustered about its memory, far more, -says Mr. Karstetter, than were connected with the Logan Hotel, run by -the Coles, which was erected at a much later day, just when the old -coaching days were passing out, and the new era coming in. All of the -history that grew up about the Washington Inn ante-dated the Civil War, -while that of the Logan Hotel was of the period of that war and later. -This gives one a good mental picture of the type of legend interwoven -with the annals of the ancient Washington Inn. - -A winter rain had set in, just at dusk, as the great lumbering -five-horse coach (three wheelers and two leaders) from Hightown entered -the straggling outkirts of Logansville. The post boy on the boot blew -his long horn vociferously, waking the echoes up Summer Creek, then back -again, clear to the “Grandfather Pine” at Chadwick’s Gap. - -A whimsical old German, who worked at Jacob Eilert’s pottery, picked up -his old tin horn that he used to blow as a boy when wolves or Indians -were about, and answered the clarion in cracked, uncertain notes. Lights -glimmered in cabin windows, and many a tallow dip, fat lamp or rushlight -was held aloft to get a good view of the coach as it swirled along -through the mud, and its crowded company. Everybody was standing up, -buttoning their coats and gathering together their luggage, as the big, -clumsy vehicle checked up under the swinging sign, on which was painted -the well-loved features of the Father of His Country. - -The old landlord, his wife and the hostlers and stable boys and -household help were outside to assist the travelers to alight and show -them into the comfortable glow of the lobby. - -“When do you start out in the morning?” all were asking of the -rosy-cheeked driver, although the hour for continuing the journey west -from Logansville was printed in big letters on the rate card at the -posting office at Hightown, as “Sharp, 6.00 A. M.” - -In the candle-lit lobby, by a blazing fire of maple logs, the travelers -surveyed one another, the landlord and their surroundings. They were an -even dozen in number, nine men and three women. Some of the men were -hunters and had their Lancaster rifles with them; the others commercial -travelers. The women were also engaged in business pursuits. - -The stage was the sole means of penetrating into the back country, and -the canals and the Pennsylvania Central Railroad (now known as the Main -Line) the only methods of crossing the Keystone State in those early -days. - -A good supper was served–hickory smoked ham and eggs, hot cakes and -native grown maple syrup, and plentiful libations of original Murray -“Sugar Valley” whiskey, which put the huntsmen and the drummers in -capital humor. After the meal they brought out their pipes and sat in -groups about the fire in the great, low-ceilinged room. The three women, -who were middle-aged and of stolid appearance, sat together, talking in -undertones. - -All at once, when the fire suddenly spluttered up, one of the drummers, -a big, black-bearded fellow, said loudly enough so that all could -hear–he was evidently trying to make the conversation general–"In the -mountains they say that it’s a sign of a storm when the fire jumps up -like that." - -“And I guess we’re having it,” said another of the travelers, a little -man with gray side whiskers, dryly. - -Then, as wide shadows fell across the floor, another of the men, a -hunter, ventured the remark: “Do you believe in ghosts?” - -There was a pause, as if no one wanted to take up such a very personal -topic before strangers. It was in the days when the Fox sisters were -electrifying all of Pennsylvania, including the celebrated Dr. Elisha -Kane, with their mediumship, so that it was as popular a topic then as -now, in the days of Sir Oliver Lodge and Mrs. Herbine. - -At length one of the men, also a hunter, from Berks County, broke the -silence by asking if any one present had heard the story of the Levan -ghost of Oley Township, in Berks; if not, he would tell it. None had -ever heard it, so he told of the young Levan girl who had lost her -father, to whom she was particularly attached. - -One evening, while milking, she was seized with a very strong feeling -that her father was near, which feeling kept up for a week, growing -stronger daily. At last one evening she went into her room–the house was -built all on one floor–and she saw her father, as natural as life, -seated on an old chest that had come from France, for the Levans were -Huguenot refugees. - -The girl did not seem to be afraid to see her father, about whom a light -seemed to radiate, and they conversed some time together, mostly on -religious topics. Her mother and sisters, who were in another room, -heard her talking, and the voice which sounded like that of the -departed, and came to the door, which was ajar. - -“Who are you talking to?” the mother inquired. - -“To father–he is here; come in and see him,” replied the girl, calmly. - -The family was afraid to enter, remaining outside until the conversation -had finished and the ghost vanished. When the girl rejoined them, the -side of her face that had been turned to her father was slightly -scorched or reddened, as if she had been close to a fire. And that -tenderness of skin remained as long as she lived. - -While other versions of the story have appeared, this is the way it was -told that stormy night in the Washington Inn in the long ago. - -The ice having been broken, one of the women spoke up, saying that the -part of the story which told of the girl’s face being burned by the -_aura_ from the ghost interested her most, that over in the Nittany -Valley there was a case in the old Carroll family of a woman who had an -only child which she loved to distraction, but which unfortunately died. -The mother took on terribly, and during the night when she was sitting -up with the little corpse, besought it to prove to her that the dead -lived, if only for just one minute. - -In the midst of her weeping and wailing, and romping about the cold, -dimly-lit room, the dead child rose up in its little pine box and -motioned its sorrowing mother to come to it. The woman ran to the coffin -and the little one touched her forehead with its finger, which burned -her like a red-hot poker. Then it sank back with a gasp and a groan, and -was dead again. Ever afterwards there was a sore, tender spot on the -woman’s forehead where the corpse had touched it. - -Then another of the women told how she had been selling Bibles in the -Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee, and one of the wheels of her -carriage became dished from the bad roads. She had tried to put up with -a mountaineer who would not take her in, and gave her the choice of -sleeping in the barn with the team and the driver, or to occupy a room -in a deserted Negro “quarters” across the road. - -All night long she had been annoyed by her candles being blown out and -the door blowing open, though she locked it time and again. - -It was a commonplace sort of a ghost story, and one of the hunters -yawned at its conclusion. The evening’s reminiscences might have ended -then and there if the third woman traveler, the youngest and sturdiest -of the lot, who thus far had been the quietest, turned to the landlord, -who sat smoking in the settle, with a couple of his guests, asking him -if he remembered the Big Calf. - -“What do you know about the Big Calf?” he said, quizzically, looking at -the woman in order to see if he could recognize her. - -“I know as much as you do, I reckon,” she said. “I lived in this town -for a year learning millinery with Emilie Knecht.” “said the landlord. - -“I surely am,” responded the woman, “and I knew you well, Jakey -Kleckner, in those days.” “said the boniface, sitting up very straight. - -[Illustration: INTERIOR OF SCHELLSBURG CHURCH] - -“Long years ago,” began the business woman, "when this public house was -first opened, the landlord’s cow gave birth to an unusual calf. At six -weeks it was as big as most heifers of six months, and it was handsome -and intelligent, a brown-gray color–‘Brown Swiss’ they called the breed. -All the drovers and cattle buyers in the mountains wanted that calf for -a show, and her fame spread all over the ‘five counties.’ - -"There were two buyers from out about Greensburg that came in all the -ways to get her, but the price was too steep. They hung around all day, -drinking with the landlord in the tap room, and though he took too much -in this drunken bout, kept enough of his wits with him to refuse to -lower the price one shilling. The next morning he had to go away on -important business, and in the afternoon the drovers returned, telling -the landlord’s wife that they had met her husband on the road, and he -had consented to accept a lower figure. - -"The woman replied that while she was sorry her ‘man’ had shown such -weakness to change his mind so quickly, when on leaving he had told her -that he had been sickened by the importunities of the two strangers the -day before, yet she claimed, the calf as hers and it would not leave the -premises for any price, and except over her dead body. She prized it -especially since she had also raised the mother, which had recently been -killed by a wandering panther. - -"The men departed in an ugly mood. When the boniface returned in the -evening he was indignant at what his wife told him; he had not met the -drovers on the road, and if he had, the calf was not for sale. - -"Shortly after his arrival a German Gypsy, one of the Einsicks, appeared -in the inn-yard with a big she-bear, a brown one, which he took about -the mountains to dance and amuse the crowds at public houses, fairs and -political meetings. The stables were full, but after some arguing the -landlord consented to let the bear occupy the box stall where he kept -the Big Calf, which he removed to the smoke house. - -"During the night, which was very dark, the covetous drovers returned, -and, not knowing of the Big Calf’s changed quarters, one of them went -into steal it. In the darkness the bear seized him and hugged him almost -to death. His companion, vexed at his slowness in fetching out the Big -Calf, called to him, and he made known his predicament. - -"There was no way to free the captive but to begin clubbing the bear, -which set up such a loud growling that it aroused the owner and the -landlord, who ran out with pistols, just in time to see the two would-be -cattle thieves decamping from the inn-yard. They both fired after them, -but the scoundrels got off scot free. They never returned. - -"The Big Calf grew into a very handsome cow, and was the pride of the -mountain community. It was always brought in from pasture at night and -milked, lest it share its mother’s fate and be pulled down by a -Pennsylvania lion. - -"One evening, while the landlord’s only daughter, a very pretty, -graceful girl, was driving the cow home, she was joined by a handsome, -dark-complexioned young man, mounted on a superb black horse. He -accompanied her to the stables, where he watched her milk, and then put -up for the night at the inn. Next day he became very sick, and several -doctors were called in, who bled him, but could not diagnose his -ailment. - -"Meanwhile he proposed marriage to the landlord’s daughter, who nursed -him, pretending that he was a young man of quality from Pittsburg, which -flattered the innkeeper and his daughter mightily. - -"All this while he was trying to learn if the landlord kept any large -sum of money in the house. It was not long until the girl confided to -him that her father had gone into debt buying a farm in Nippenose -Bottom, as he wanted to retire from the tavern business. It was there -where he was when the two dishonest drovers from Greensburg had returned -and tried to euchre his wife out of the Big Calf. - -"Satisfied that there was no booty in the house, the fellow rose one -morning before daybreak, dressed quietly, although the girl was in the -room, wrote a note to her which he left on the clothes press, and made -his escape. The wording of the letter ran about as follows: - -“‘Dearest Love:–I am sorry to have left without saying goodbye, but my -intentions were not sincere, for while I admired your beauty and good -sense, which none can deny, I was only here to find out where your -father kept his money. But since he has none, and has gone into debt, I -need remain no longer. I thank you for all the information you gave me, -and for your kind attentions. Gratefully yours, David Lewis.’ - -“The poor girl had been one of the dupes of the celebrated ‘Lewis the -Robber,’ or some one impersonating him, as he had many _alter egos_, -some more daring than himself, and understudies. If half the stories -told of his exploits were true, he would have had to be a hundred years -old to do them, and get to so many places. - -"At any rate, the pretty girl was frightfully cut up by her misfortune, -and took to the bed lately vacated by ‘Lewis.’ She had told all of her -friends that she was to marry in a fortnight, and go to live in a big -house on Grant’s Hill, Pittsburg, and it was all terrible and -humiliating. Rather than let the real story get out, the girl’s parents -connived with her to say that word had been brought that the young -gentleman, while riding near Standing Stone Town, had been thrown from -his horse and killed. Hence when the girl was able to reappear, she was -dressed in black, as if in mourning for her dashing sweetheart. - -"The first time she came out of doors she went for a walk alone just -about dusk, so that not many people would be abroad, towards the lower -part of the village. She was never seen or heard of again. There was no -stream or pool big enough for her to drown herself in; a panther could -hardly have dragged her off and not left signs of a struggle; she might -have fallen in a cave or sink, it is true. At all events, it seemed as -if the earth had swallowed her up. Perhaps Lewis, or whoever he was, -came back after her. - -"When I came to Logansville to learn millinery with Emilie Knecht, I -lived in her house over the store, just across the way from this hotel; -the building was burned down afterwards. How such a gifted milliner came -to settle off here in the mountains I could never tell, but I suppose -mountain ladies must have nice hats just like those in the valleys. - -"We became good friends, and very confidential, though at that time she -was over thirty years of age and I was at least a dozen years younger. -She would never tell where she came from, except that it was down -country, and there seemed to be something on her mind which weighed on -her terribly. Though I think she was the loveliest looking woman I have -ever seen, she cared absolutely nothing for the men. As she believed in -ghosts, and so did I, we compared experiences. - -"I told her of a ghostly episode which left a deep impression on my -childish nature, which happened when I was six years old. My father -worked in the mines, and was on ‘night shift.’ Mother locked the doors -and we all went to bed. Mother’s room adjoined mine and my sister’s. -After we were in bed for some time, but not yet asleep, a man–he seemed -to be black–came to the door which led from mother’s room to ours, and -smiled at us. He drew back, re-appeared and smiled again, or rather -grinned, showing his white teeth; it was a peculiar smile. - -"I wanted to call mother, but sister, who was eight, said I must not -speak, I must keep very still. - -"Next morning we asked father what time he came home, and he said ‘not -until morning.’ We told our experience, but father and mother seemed to -think we had only imagined it. - -"But two persons do not imagine the same thing at the same time. -Besides, we were not afraid. I have often wondered what it was. My -sister died shortly after that. Could it have been a ‘warning,’ I -wonder? - -"The pretty milliner’s story was even more startling and unusual. She -declared that her grandmother’s ghost had come to her bedside every -night since she was a small child. She said that she never feared it, -but took it as a matter of course. I think that these nightly -visitations took a whole lot out of her. I can see her yet running down -the steep, narrow stairs in the mornings to the shop where I was -working–I was always an early riser–her face looking as if it had been -whitewashed, more so perhaps because her hair and eyes were so dark. - -"She was often nervous and irritable, and I laid it all to the vital -force which the ghost must be drawing out of her to materialize, but she -said it was only her liver which made her so dauncy. I begged her to let -me sleep with her, that I did not think that the ghost would come if I -was present, and if it did it could draw on some of my vitality, as I -was a big, strong, hearty girl. She would not let me sleep with her, -saying that she had gotten used to the ghost. - -"One evening Miss Knecht and I were invited to a chicken and waffle -supper at the home of old Mrs. Eilert, wife of the potter, whose house -was the last one in town. In those days there was quite a distance not -built up between the potter’s home and the rest of the village. The -holidays were approaching, and we were getting ready for the Christmas -trade, consequently stayed later in the shop than we had expected. - -"As I said before, Mrs. Eilert lived at the extreme end of town. When we -were a few squares from home we noticed a woman dressed in mourning who -seemed to be following us, or at least going in our direction. She was -an entire stranger to us, and we wondered where she could be going; so -each house we came to I would look back to see whether she entered. When -we were half a square from where we were going, we passed a house which -stood back pretty far from the road. There was considerable ground to -the place, and a high board fence all around. After we passed the gate I -turned, as before, to see whether this woman would enter. She did not. I -watched her until she was past the gate quite a ways. I turned and told -my companion she had _not_ entered, and immediately turned to look at -her again, and she was gone! - -"Where could she have gone in those few seconds in which I was not -looking at her? Everywhere there was open space–nowhere for her to hide. -Had she jumped the fence she could not have gotten out of sight in those -few seconds. I have often wondered since what it was. - -"When we reached the Eilert home I noticed that Miss Knecht was in a -highly unstrung condition, more so than I had ever seen her before. We -told the story, and the old potter smiled grimly, saying: ‘You surely -have seen the ghost of the landlord’s daughter who disappeared, all -dressed in black, after being jilted by the robber.’ - -"Emilie shook her pretty dark curls, muttering that she feared it was -something worse. She was afraid to go home that night, and we spent the -night with our friends; yet she would not remain unless given a room by -herself. In the morning she was in a most despondent mood; she had not -seen her grandmother–what could it mean? - -"The woman in black must have been her ‘familiar’ leaving her, warning -her to that effect, and not the ghost of the landlord’s daughter after -all, she maintained. I tried to reassure her that she would see her -grandmother once she was in her own room, but next morning brought the -tidings that the faithful spirit was again absent. This continued for a -week, my friend becoming more nervous and despondent. - -"One morning she did not come downstairs, so at eight o’clock I went up -after her, to see if she were ill. The bed was empty, and had not been -slept in. I searched the house and found her lying dead on a miserable -cot in the cellar–beautiful in death–which an elderly Dutchman sometimes -occupied, when cutting wood and taking care of the garden for us. She -had drunk a potion of arsenic that she had bought some months before to -poison rats which infested the cellar, but her lovely face was not -marked. - -“I left town shortly afterwards, and have never been back until -tonight.” - -The burly commercial traveler who had started the general conversation -stroked his long black beard. - -"I guess it is time for all of us to retire. I don’t think we need to -ask this lady again, ’Do you believe in ghosts?‘" - -[Illustration] - - XVII - _A Stone’s Throw_ - - -When land warrants were allotted to Jacob Marshall and Jacob Mintges, of -the Hebrew colony at Schaefferstown, there were elaborate preparations -made by these two lifelong friends to migrate to the new country of the -Christunn. That the warrants were laid side by side made the situation -doubly pleasant, a compensation in a measure for any regrets at leaving -the banks of the beautiful Milbach. The country was becoming too closely -settled, opportunities were circumscribed, and the liberality of the -Proprietary Government should be taken advantage of. - -When the two groups of pioneers were ready to start for the new home, it -was like some scene from the patriarchal days of the Old Testament. The -long, lean, gaunt, black-bearded Jews, black-capped, cloaked to their -heels, and carrying big staffs, led the way, followed by their families -and possessions of live stock, farming and household utensils. Each head -of a family had an Indian and Negro servant or two, which added to the -picturesqueness of the caravans. Dogs, part wolf, herded the flocks of -sheep, goats and young cattle, while the women rode on mares, the foals -of which trotted along unsteadily at their sides. - -Rachel, Jacob Marshall’s handsome daughter, was mounted on a piebald -filly; on her back was slung her violin, a genuine Joseph Guarnerius, -with which she discoursed sacred music around the campfire in the -evenings, just as her ancestors may have done on some harp or cruit in -remote days in Palestine or in the Arabian highlands. - -These German Jews, who came to Pennsylvania in 1702 to re-convert the -Indians, whom they believed to be the lost tribe of Israel, back to the -ancient faith of Moses, while destined to fail as proselyters, became -one of the potent root sources of the so-called Pennsylvania Dutch, “The -Black Dutch” of the Christunn, Philadelphia, New York and the World. - -The Pennsylvania Dutch are the most adaptable race in the world, -altering the spelling of their names, their genealogies and traditions -with every generation. They find success in all callings and in all -walks of life like the true Nomads that they are. A Pennsylvania -Dutchman’s lineage is kaleidoscopic any way–possibly German, Jewish, -probably Indian, with sure admixtures of Dutch, Quaker, Swiss, -Scotch-Irish, Greek, Bohemian, Spanish or Huguenot. And there were some -propagandists shallow enough to try to line them up with Kaiserism in -the days just anterior to the World War, and call them “Pennsylvania -Germans.” - -Their very swarthiness and leanness, the intenseness of their black -eyes, gave the lie to any Teutonic affiliations, despite the jargon that -they speak. And what a race of giants they have produced–Pershing, -Hoover, Gorgas, Schwab, Replogle, Sproul, the Wanamakers, Newton Diehl -Baker, Jane Addams–a group as potent as any other in the sublime effort -of making the world “safe for democracy.” - -When the pilgrims reached the Karoondinha, they were met by the local -agents and surveyors of the Proprietors, who escorted them to their new -estates, which were bounded on the south by the Christunn, now renamed -“Middle Creek,” and on the north by the craggy heights of the -culminating pinnacle of Jack’s Mountain, the famed “High Top,” climbed -by the Pennsylvania Alpine Club, August 24, 1919. - -A large gray fox, or Colishay, having led Mintges‘ dogs away from the -camp, caused this “Father in Israel” to be absent during the critical -moments when the line between his property and that of Marshall was -being confirmed by the Proprietary surveyors. When he returned, -exultingly swinging the fox’s pelt above his head and looking all the -world like a lower Fifth Avenue fur jobber, the day was almost spent and -the surveyors were gathering up their instruments. - -Marshall, who was a kindly and just man, tried to explain to his friend, -before the sun went down, just where the line was blazed. It seemed fair -enough at the time to Mintges. Later on, when alone one day, he walked -over the line, comparing it with the warrant, and it did not seem to -satisfy him as much. He believed that the surveyors had deviated a rod -or two all along, to his disadvantage. Doubtless if such was the case, -it had been due to their haste to get through, for they had a daily -grind of similar cases, but Marshall, he thought, should have compelled -them to follow the parchment drafts, and not uncertain instruments. - -Nevertheless, he decided to say nothing to his friend; they had always -been good intimates, why should their relations be jeopardized for a -paltry rod or two. Mintges confided the mistake to his wife, and later -on to his children. It was unfortunate, but where there were so few -neighbors it was hardly worth a fight. - -As Mintges grew older the matter began to prey on his mind, to obsess -him. It worried him until his head ached, and he could not drive it -away. Marshall and his heirs were profiting at his expense; it should -not be allowed to rest that way. - -The surveyors had placed a great stone at the upper corner of the line, -at the slope of the mountain, and there Jacob Mintges repaired one -moonlight night, armed with a crowbar, and reset the stone two rods on -the alleged domain of Jacob Marshall. Mintges was an old man at the -time, rabbinical in appearance, and he chuckled and “washed his hands” -as he stood and viewed the fruits of his labor. A wrong had been quietly -righted; why hadn’t he done it twenty years ago? - -It so happened that Jacob Marshall went out for chestnuts a week or so -after Mintges’ performance, and saw the altered position of the stone. -Instead of hastening to his friend’s house and asking him for a frank -explanation, he, not being conscious of any wrong-doing, moved the stone -back to its original position, to rebuke the presumptuous Mintges. Then -he stood admiring his work, while he stroked his long black beard. - -A few weeks later Mintges and his sons went to the mountain to brush out -a road on which to haul logs with their oxteams in the winter-time. One -of the boys, named Lazarus, called his father’s attention to the stone’s -position. It made the old man “see red,” and he would not rest until, -with the aid of his sons, it was again set where he felt it should -rightfully be. - -All this produced a coolness, almost a feud, between the two families, -which kept up until Jacob Mintges died at the age of eighty years. Jacob -Marshall, friend of his youth and companion of his “trek” to the -wilderness, did not attend the obsequies. - -It was not many nights afterwards when reports were made on all sides -that Mintges’ spook was abroad, walking about the fields and lanes -adjacent to Jacob Marshall’s home, his arms holding aloft a great block -of stone. Marshall saw the apparition several times, but shunned it as -he had the living Mintges the last years of his life. - -What he wanted was very plain, for sometimes the night wind wafted the -mournful words down Marshall’s bedroom chimney (for he always kept his -windows nailed shut): “Where shall I put it; oh, where shall I put it?” - -The ghost began his hauntings in the spring, kept it up all summer, -fall, winter, then another spring and summer. He had affixed himself to -the family, Marshall thought, as he racked his brain to lay the -troublesome night prowler. - -It was during the fall of the second year that a big party of moonlight -’coon hunters went up the lane which led between the Marshall and -Mintges farms, headed for the rocky heights of Jack’s Mountain. In the -party was Otto Gleim, the half-witted drunkard of Selin’s Grove, little, -dumpy, long-armed High German, high-shouldered Otto Gleim, who was left -at the foot of the mountain to hold one of the lanterns. - -Gleim was half full on this occasion, as it was in the cider season, and -he staggered about under the aged chestnut trees, while his wits -revolved in his head with the speed of an electric fan. He felt -lonesome, sick and uncomfortable. It was a relief to see a great, tall -figure, with a long, black beard, approaching him, holding aloft a huge -stone. It looked like “Uncle Jake” Marshall at first; no, it wasn’t–it -was no one else but the late “Uncle Jake” Mintges, his neighbor. - -As the gaunt figure drew nearer, it began groaning and wailing: “Where -shall I put it; oh, where shall I put it?” in tones as melancholy as -those of the Great Horned Owl on a New Year’s Eve. - -“Put it where it belongs,” spluttered Otto Gleim, the drunkard, with a -gleam of super-human prescience, and lo and behold, the ghost set the -stone where it had been for twenty years after the surveyors had placed -it there. Then the apparition vanished, and Gleim, in a matter-of-fact -way, sat down on the cornerstone, where he waited until the ’coon -hunters returned. - -Jake Mintges’ ghost ceased to wander and lament, but instead allied -itself closely with Jake Marshall’s family as private stock banshee, -warning, token or familiar. Whenever a disaster was due to any member he -would show his grinning tusks, as much as to say: “Now, make the best of -what is coming; life is short anyway.” - -No doubt his visits of forewarning strengthened the nerves of the family -to face trouble with a greater degree of equanimity; in all events the -poor old fellow meant it that way. Old and young, rich and poor, in -cities or in the wilds, wherever the blood of Jacob Marshall flowed, the -ghost of Mintges was in evidence at the climacteric moments of their -lives. They were all used to him, and never resented his visits or tried -in any way to lay him. - -The scene shifts to one of the last to encounter this strange old ghost. -It is in a great city, in a high-ceilinged, yet gloomy room, furnished -in the plush and mahogany of the middle eighties of the last century. A -very dark girl, with full pouting lips and black eyes, half closed and -sullen, yet beautiful in the first flush of youth withal, is seated on -one of the upholstered easy chairs. Standing in the bay window facing -her is a very tall man, equally dark, his drooping black mustache and -long Prince Albert coat making him appear at least ten years older than -the twenty-eight which was his correct age. - -[Illustration: LOOKING TOWARDS SUMMER CREEK GAP FROM LOGANTON] - -On a centre table, with a top of brown onyx, on which were also several -bisque ornaments, lay an ancient violin and bow, a veritable Joseph -Guarnerius. It was made of a curious piece of spruce which, when growing -in some remote forest of Northern Italy, had been punctured by a “Gran -Pico” or large green woodpecker, and the wood stained, giving a unique -and picturesque touch to this specimen of the skill of the old master of -Cremona. - -“I have determined to go home tonight,” said the dark girl, with -decision, “and nothing can stop me. When any of our family see the face -of Jacob Mintges, it means disaster to some one near to us; my mother -and her old parents, whom I left so suddenly, may be grieving to death; -I will go to them tonight.” - -The tall man fumbled with his long fingers among the tassels on the back -of a chair in front of him, as if trying to frame up a decisive answer. -“This is what I call base ingratitude,” he faltered at length, in high, -almost feminine tones. “Just when I have had your musical talent -developed, turning you from a common fiddler to a finished artiste, and -having you almost ready to make your stage debut as a popular juvenile, -you leave me in the lurch, and all because you imagined you saw a -ghost–_imagined_, I say, for there are no such things.” - -The dark girl sat perfectly still, biting her full red lips, her immoble -face as if made of ivory. - -“What are you, anyway?” she finally responded; “nothing but what my -father called a mountebank; he hated them, an _actor_, and I owe you -nothing but contempt for having brought me here to be your plaything -while my youth and good looks last.” - -Then, as she got up and started towards a door, the tall man darted -after her. - -“I’ll not let you make a fool of yourself,” he hissed, theatrically. -Catching her by the wrists, he attempted to detain her. - -“Sit down; we must have this out.” - -She was almost as tall as he, and very muscular, and the Jewish strain -in her blood was hot. The pair struggled about the room, until the man -in his anger seized the old violin and hit her a heavy blow over the -head. She sank down on the floor in a limp mass, and the man, picking up -his brown Fedora, ran out of the room and down the long flight of stairs -and out into the street. The girl was not badly hurt, only stunned, and -came to herself in about fifteen minutes. She saw that she was alone, -and the Guarnerius was around her neck. - -Gathering herself up, her first thought was for the violin, and tying -the smallest chips in her handkerchief she went to the inner room and -began to pack a large portmanteau. Then she put on her hat, veil and -cloak and, locking the apartment door and slipping the key in her grip, -she left the house and hurried down town towards the railroad depot. - -It was dark when she reached there, and she quickly boarded a local, to -wait in the suburbs until the night sleeping car train for Derrstown -made its stop there. All went well, and by midnight she was boarding the -sleeper and was soon afterwards undressed and under the sooty-smelling -blankets in a lower berth. - -She did not know how long she had been sleeping when the train suddenly -stopped with a jerk and she was awake. Looking around, she saw a face -peering through the curtains. It was not the porter, but the leering, -open mouth, old Jacob Mintges himself, tusks and all. - -Twice now in twenty-four hours he had come to her, for the night -previous she had waked just in the gray half light before dawn, and had -seen him standing grinning by her bedside. - -An inexperienced person might have screamed, but not so Eugenie -Carlevan, the great-great-granddaughter of Jacob Marshall. When their -eyes met, Mintges quickly withdrew, and the girl, wide awake, began -thinking over the past years of her life, as the train again started to -roll on into the night. She had always been fond of music and theatres. -The violin given to her on her sixth birthday by her grandfather -Marshall had become the evil genius of her destiny. Her father had died -and her mother was too much of a drudge to control her. She had attended -every circus, burlesque, minstrel show or dramatic performance that had -come to the town where she had lived, since she was thirteen years old. - -When the young Thespian who called himself Derment Catesby had come to -Swinefordstown, where she was visiting an aunt, with the “Lights -O’London” Company, she had fallen violently in love with him, had made -his acquaintance, and he, struck by her imperious beauty and musical -predilections, had asked her to go away with him. - -She had joined him a few days later in Sunbury, bringing her precious -violin, and traveled with him to the great city. There the actor soon -signed up to play in repertoire at a stock company. She liked him well -enough, despite his vanity and selfishness, for he was very handsome. It -was before the days when actors were clean-shaven like every servant, -and looked much like other people. However much she had loved him, Jacob -Mintges’ ghost had revealed a more pressing duty twice, and she was on -her way home. - -Soon she fell asleep again, and did not wake until the porter’s face -appeared to notify her that the train was leaving Sunbury. Her mother -lived with her aged parents out near Hartley Hall, among the high -mountains; it would be a relief to see those lofty peaks and wide -expanse of vision once more, after the cramped outlook of the city. How -peculiarly sweet the air seemed, with the sun coming up behind the -fringe of old yellow pines and oaks along the river! What refreshing -zephyrs were wafted from those newly-ploughed fields. The bluebirds and -robins were singing in the maple trees about the station. On a -side-track stood the little wood-burner engine, with its bulbous stack, -puffing black smoke, ready to pull its train of tiny cars out to the -wonderful, wild mountain country, the land of Lick Run Gap, the Lost -Valley, the High Head, Big Buffalo, Winklebleck and Shreiner! - -How well she remembered the first time she had seen that wood-burner, as -a little tot, going on a visit with her father and mother. It was in the -golden hour, and deep purple shadows fell from the station roof athwart -the golden light on the platform! - -All these thoughts were crowding through her head until the bell on the -little engine reminded her that the L. & T. train was soon to depart. - -She reached home in time for dinner, was received with no enthusiasm, -for her mother and grandparents were true mountaineers, and their -swarthy faces masked their feelings, yet she was made to feel perfectly -welcome. - -Nobody had died, no one was sick, the house hadn’t burned down, -evidently the trials foretold by Jake Mintges were yet to come. - -That afternoon she showed the broken violin to her grandfather, who took -it to his workbench in an out-house to repair it, undaunted by the -seeming endlessness of the reconstruction. - -Eugenie seemed perfectly contented to be at home, She had had enough of -the _bizarre_, and reveled again in the humdrum. Five or six days after -her return the weekly county paper appeared at the house, with its -boiler plate front page and patent insides. Some instinct made her open -the wrapper as it lay on the kitchen table. On the front page she saw -the likeness of a familiar face, the well-known full eyes, oval cheeks, -rounded chin and drooping mustache, Derment Catesby. Then the headlines -caught her eyes, “Handsome Actor Shot to Death by Insanely Jealous -Husband at Stage Door.” Then she glanced at the date and the hour. It -was the night that she had taken the train–the very moment, perhaps, -that Jacob Mintges’ grinning face had looked through the curtains of her -berth. Yes, the murderer had waited a long time, as the victim had -tarried in the green-room. - -Eugenie sucked her full lips a moment, then looked hard at the picture -and the whole article again. Then she turned to her mother and -grandparents, who were seated about the stove. - -“Say, folks,” she said, coldly, “there’s the fine gent I went away with -from Swinesfordstown. I got out in time, the very night he was -murdered.” - -The mother and the old people half rose in their chairs to look at the -wood cut. - -“How did you know he was playing you false?” said the old grandfather. - -“How did I know, gran’pap?” she replied. “Why, the night before, Jake -Mintges came to me, and I knew _something_ was due to go wrong, and home -was the place for little me. You see I missed it all by a stone’s -throw.” - -"You’re right, ‘Genie’," said the old mountaineer. “Mintges never comes -to us unless he means business.” - - XVIII - _The Turning of the Belt_ - - -There are not many memories of Ole Bull in the vicinity of the ruins of -his castle today. Fifteen years ago, before the timber was all gone, -there were quite a few old people who were living in the Black Forest at -the time of his colonization venture, who remembered him well, also a -couple of his original colonists, Andriesen and Oleson, but these are no -more. One has to go to Renovo or to Austin or Germania to find any -reminiscences now, and those have suffered through passing from “hand to -mouth” and are scattered and fragmentary. They used to say that the -great violinist was, like his descendants, a believer in spiritualism, -and on the first snowy night that he occupied his unfinished mansion, -chancing to look out he saw what seemed to him a tall, white figure -standing by the ramparts. - -Fearing that it was some _skeld_ come to warn him of impending disaster -to his beloved colony, he rushed out hatless, only to find that it was -an old hemlock stab, snow encrusted. - -Disaster did come, but as far as local tradition goes Ole Bull had no -warning of it. The hemlock stab which so disturbed him has been gone -these many years, but a smaller one, when encased in snow, has -frightened many a superstitious wayfarer along the Kettle Creek road, -and gone on feeling that he had seen “the ghost of Ole Bull.” - -But unaccountable and worthy of investigation are the weird strains of -music heard on wild, stormy nights, which seem to emanate from the -castle. Belated hunters coming down the deep gorge of Ole Bull Run, back -of the castle, or travelers along the main highway from Oleona to Cross -Forks, have heard it and refused to be convinced that there is not a -musician hidden away somewhere among the crumbling ruins. The “oldest -inhabitants,” sturdy race of trappers, who antedated Ole Bull’s -colonists, declare that the ghostly musician was playing just the same -in the great virtuoso’s time, and that it is the ghost of a French -fifer, ambushed and killed by Indians when his battalion was marching -along the “Boone Road” from Fort Le Boeuf to the memorable and -ill-starred attack on Fort Augusta at Sunbury in 1757. - -At the mention of “Boone Road” another question is opened, as there is -no historic record of such a military highway between Lake Erie and the -West Branch of the Susquehanna River. The afore-mentioned very old -people used to say that the road was still visible to them in certain -places; that there could be no doubt of its existence and former -utilization. - -Daniel Boone, if he be the pioneer of that name who first “blazed it -out,” was a very young man during the “French and Indian War,” and his -presence in that part of the country is a mooted question. Perhaps it -was another “Boone,” and a Norseman, for many persons named “Bonde” or -“Boon” were among the first Swedish settlers on the Lanape-Wihittuck, or -Delaware River, unconsciously pioneering for their famous cousin-German, -Ole Borneman Bull. - -In all events, the French fifer was shot and grievously wounded, and his -comrades, in the rout which ensued, were forced to leave him behind. -After refreshing himself at the cold spring, which nearly a century -later Ole Bull named “Lyso”–the water of light–he crawled up on the -hill, on which the castle was afterwards partly erected, to reconnoitre -the country, but dropping from exhaustion and loss of blood, soon died. -The wolves carried away his physical remains, but his spirit rested on -the high knoll, to startle Ole Bull and many others, with the strains of -his weird, unearthly music. - -It seems a pity that these old legends are passing with the lives of the -aged people, but the coming of Ira Keeney, the grizzled Civil War -veteran, as caretaker for the handsome Armstrong-Quigley hunting lodge, -on the site of one of the former proposed _fogderier_ Walhalla, has -awakened anew the world of romance, of dashing exploits in the war under -Sheridan and Rosecrans, of lumbering days, wolves, panthers and wild -pigeons, all of which memories the venerable soldier loves to recount. - -Yet can these be compared with the legend that Ole Bull, seeing a Bald -Eagle rise from its nest on the top of a tall oak near the banks of -Freeman’s Run, named the village he planned to locate there Odin, after -the supreme deity of the Scandinavian mythology, who took the form of an -eagle on one period of his development. His other settlements or -_herods_ he called Walhalla, Oleona and New Bergen. Planned at first by -the French to be a purely military route for ingress to the West Branch -country, but owing to the repulse at Fort Augusta, very infrequently -traversed by them, if at all, it became principally an overland “short -cut” for trappers, traders, travelers and settlers, all of whom knew its -location well. - -Who could have laid out such an intricate road over high mountains and -through deep valleys, unless a military force, is hard to imagine, even -if for some strange reason it was never written into “history.” - -After the Revolutionary War there was naturally an unsettled state of -affairs, and many farmers and adventurers turned their thought to the -country west of the Allegheny Mountains and River, as the land of -opportunity, consequently there was much desultory travel over the Boone -Road. Unemployment prevailed everywhere, and hordes of penniless -ex-soldiers, turned adrift by their victorious new nation, traveled -backwards and forwards along all the known highways and trails, picking -up a day’s work as best they could, their precarious mode of living -giving them the name of “cider tramps.” A few more reckless and blood -thirsty than their fellows, claimed that the country which they had -freed owed them a living; if there was no work and no pensions, and they -could not get it by hook they would take it by crook. In other words, -certain ex-service men, became strong-arm men, road agents, or -highwaymen, whichever name seems most suitable. - -The Boone Road, in a remote wilderness of gloomy, untrodden forests, -made an ideal haunt for footpads, and when not robbing travelers, they -took their toll from the wild game, elks, deer, bears, grouse and wild -pigeons which infested the region. Law and order had not penetrated into -such forgotten and forbidding realms, and obscure victims could report -outrages and protest to a deaf and dumb government. How long it was -before these robbers were curbed is hard to say. - -One story which the backwoods people about Hamesley’s Fork used to tell -dates back to five years after the close of the Revolution, about 1788. -Jenkin Doane, possibly a member of the same family that produced the -Doane outlaws in the Welsh Mountains, was one of the notorious -characters along the Boone Road. Like others, he was an ex-soldier, a -hero of Brandywine and Paoli, but his plight was worse, for just before -peace was declared, when a premature rumor to that effect had reached -his company, lying at Fort Washington, he had assaulted and beaten up an -aristocratic and brutal officer who was the terror of the line. For this -he had been sentenced to death, but later his sentence was commuted, and -finally, because there were no satisfactory jails for military -prisoners, he was quietly released, _sans h. d._ and the ability to make -a livelihood. - -He finally became a wagoner and hired out with a party of emigrants -going to Lake Erie, who traveled over the Boone Road. He saw them safely -to their destination, but on his return journey tarried in the -mountains, hunting and fishing, until his supplies were gone, when he -turned “road agent.” He evidently had a low grade of morals at that -time, for he robbed old as well as young, women as readily as men. He -was fairly successful, considering the comparative lightness of travel -and the poor class of victims financially. - -In an up-and-down country, where feed and shelter were scarce, he kept -no horse, but traveled afoot. He had no opportunity to test his heels, -as he never ran away, all his attacks being followed by speedy -capitulation. If a trained force of bailiffs had been sent out to -apprehend him, doubtless he could have been caught, as he had his -favorite retreats, where he lingered, waiting for his prey. - -There were not many such places in the depths of the seemingly endless -forests of giant and gloomy hemlocks and pines, places where the sun -could shine and the air radiated dryness and warmth. One of his -best-liked haunts was known as the Indian Garden, situated in an open -glade among the mountains which divide the country of Kettle Creek from -that of Drury’s Run. - -“Art.” Vallon, one of the oldest hunters on Kettle Creek, who died -recently, once described the spot as follows: “More than sixty years ago -my father on a hunting trip showed me a clearing of perhaps half an -acre, which he told me was called ‘The Indian Garden.’ I visited it many -times afterwards on my trapping excursions. It impressed me as very -unusual, being entirely free from undergrowth, except the furze grass -one sees on poor, worked-out land. - -“It was a perfect square of about half an acre, and was surrounded by -the deep, primeval forest. There was a fine spring not very far away.” - -It was there that Jenkin Doane and two other reckless characters who had -served with Simon Girty and acted as his henchmen lolled for hours in -the sun, waiting for victims. It was there that he usually maintained -his “camp fire” and at night slept on the ground in a sleeping bag of -buffalo hides. - -One night in the late winter, when there were still patches of snow on -the ground, Doane dreamed very vividly of a girl whom he had never seen. -He could hardly realize he had been dreaming when he awoke and sat up -looking about him, to where his vision was cut off by the interminable -“aisles of the forest.” He seemed to be married to her, at least they -were together, and he had the pleasure of saving her life from drowning -in a deep torrent where she had gone, probably to bathe. - -He had never seen a person of such unusual beauty. Her hair was dark and -inclined to curl, complexion hectic, her eyes hazel, but the chief charm -lay in the line of her nose and upper lip. The nose was slightly turned -up at the end, adding, with the curve of her upper lip, a piquancy to an -expression of exceptional loveliness. - -All the day he kept wishing that this charming young woman might -materialize into his life; he could not bring himself to believe but -that such a realistic vision must have a living counterpart. - -It was during the morning of the second day, when he had about given up -hope, that he saw coming towards him, down a steep pitch in the Boone -Road–it is part of the Standard Oil Pipe Line now–a young woman on -horseback, wearing a red velvet hat and a brown cloak. She was mounted -on a flea-bitten white horse of uncertain age and gait. Close behind her -rode two elderly Indians, also indifferently mounted, who seemed to be -her bodyguard, and between them they were leading a heavily-laden -pack-horse. - -He quickly turned his belt, an Indian signal of great antiquity, which -indicated to his companions that they would make an attack. - -Just as the white horse touched fairly level ground he commenced to -stumble and run sideways, having stepped on a rusty caltrop or “crow’s -foot” which the outlaws had strewn across the trail at that point for -that very purpose. Seeing the animal’s plight, the young equestrienne -quickly stopped him and dismounted. She had been riding astride, and -Doane noticed the brown woolen stockings which covered her shapely legs, -her ankle-boots of good make, as she rolled off the horse’s back. - -As she stood before her quivering steed, patting his shoulder, Doane and -his companions drew near, covering the three with their army muskets. It -was then to his infinite surprise he noticed that the girl in brown, -with the red hat, was the heroine of his dream, though in the vision she -had been attired in black, but the gown was half off her shoulders and -back when he drew her out of the water. - -It would have been hard to tell who was most surprised, Doane or the -girl. Much as he admired her loveliness, there had been the turning of -the belt, which meant there could be no change of purpose; his comrades -were already eyeing the well-filled packsaddles. - -The frightened Indians had dismounted, being watched by one of the -outlaws, while Doane politely yet firmly demanded the whereabouts of her -money. Lifting her cloak and turning her belt, she disclosed two long -deerskin pouches, heavy with gold. Unbuckling them, she handed them to -Doane, while tears began to stream down her cheeks. - -“You may take it, sir,” she sobbed, "but you are ruining my chances in -life. I am partly Indian, Brant’s daughter, grand-daughter of the old -Brant, and my father had arranged a marriage for me with a young officer -whom I met during the war, and I love him dearly. Though I told him of -my love, he would not marry me without a dowry of $3,000, and it took my -father five long years to gather it together. I would not care if I did -not love him so much. I was on my way to his home at the forks of -Susquehanna, and now you have destroyed all my hopes." - -The brigand’s steely heart was for a moment touched. “Brant’s daughter,” -he said, “you Indian people know the turning of the belt, which means -that what is decided on at that moment must be carried out; before I saw -who you were I resolved to rob you. It must be done, for I have two -partners who will demand their shares.” - -"You said ‘before you knew who I was,’" broke in the girl, her tearful, -piquant face filled with curiosity. “You never saw _me_ before.” - -“Oh, yes, I did,” replied Doane, “in a dream a couple of nights ago.” -“she said, as a final appeal. - -“I am afraid not,” he answered, as his comrade started to open one of -the pouches. Then he paused, saying: “I will not take all. I’d not take -anything from _you_ except that I have these partners. I will retain -half for them, and let you go on your way with the rest. Your good -looks–for you are truly the prettiest thing I ever laid eyes on–will -outweigh with your lover a paltry fifteen hundred dollars in gold.” -“cried the girl weeping afresh. “He does not love me; he only wants the -gold. I am the one that loves, and am lost and discarded without the -dowry.” - -Meanwhile one of the outlaws had drawn the caltrop from the horse’s -frog, and having smeared it with bear’s grease, the animal was walking -about in a fairly comfortable manner. - -[Illustration: AN ALLEGHENY EPISODE] - -The girl stood looking at Doane. He was young, strong, and had a fairly -decent face. How could he be so cruel? Then she looked at his partners, -low-browed wretches, who were already muttering at the delay, and she -realized there was no hope. Doane gave up his share, and tossed the -other of the bags of gold to his “pals,” then ordered the girl and her -escort to proceed. He said that he would accompany her to the river, to -where the danger of meeting other highwaymen would be passed. The girl -traveled on foot the entire distance, to ease her horse over the rough, -uneven trail, walking side by side with the highwayman. - -They parted with civility, and on Doane’s side with deep regret, for the -dream had inflamed his soul, and the reality was so startlingly lovely -that he was deeply smitten. Before he had reached the river he wished -that he had shot his grasping companions, rather than endanger this -beautiful creature’s future happiness. - -“That was an unlucky turning of the belt,” he said to himself, as he -retraced his steps towards the Indian Garden. - -Brant’s daughter rode with a heavy heart the balance of the journey, for -she knew her lover’s nature. The Indian bodyguards were equally -downcast, for they had sworn to deliver her safe and sound at the forks -of the Susquehanna. - -When she reached the handsome colonial gray stone house, on a headland -overlooking the “meeting of the waters,” her lover, a handsome -upstanding youth, with a sports suit made of his old officer’s buff -uniform, and surrounded by a pack of his hunting dogs, came out to greet -her. His manner was not very cordial. With penetrating eyes he saw that -she was disturbed over something, so he quickly asked if she suffered -from fatigue after the long overland journey. - -“No, Major,” she replied, “I am not at all tired in body, but I am in -heart. I cannot postpone the evil moment. On the Boone Road we were -stopped by three highwaymen, armed, who took from me half of my dowry.” - -The Major’s handsome countenance darkened. “Why did you not tell them -you needed it to get married?” he blurted out angrily. “A pretty wench -like you could have honey-foogled them to keep it.” “replied the girl, -confidently, “and for that reason the chief of the band, a very pretty -man, let me keep the one-half, but he had to retain the rest for his -companions.” “ “I think I came off well,” she said, hanging her pretty -head, her cheeks all crimson flush. She was sitting on the horse, her -feet dangling out of the stirrups, her skirts turned up revealing those -shapely legs, and he had not asked her to dismount. - -The Major drew nearer, with an angry gesture. “I have a mind to smack -your face good and hard for your folly,” he stormed. “What do you think -I have been waiting for, a paltry _fifteen hundred dollars_?” - -Brant’s daughter turned her belt and handed him the pouch of gold, which -he threw down testily. It was quickly picked up by one of his German -redemptioner servants, who carried it into the house. - -“Aren’t you going to ask me to come in?” pleaded the now humiliated -love-sick girl. “You can slap me all you want. Punish me any way you -will,” offering him her stiff riding crop, “only don’t cast me off.” - -“Come down if you wish; I don’t care,” he mumbled in reply. “I wouldn’t -exert myself enough to whip you, but your hide _ought_ to be tanned for -your stupidity.” - -Cut to the heart, yet still loving abjectly, she slid off the horse and -meekly followed the imperious Major into the mansion. During the balance -of the afternoon, and at supper, and until she begged to be allowed to -retire, she was reviled and humbled in the presence of his -redemptioners. He declared that no one man in a thousand, in his station -of life, would consider marriage with a person of Indian blood; that it -was worth twice three thousand dollars, the figure he had originally -named. Nevertheless, he had carefully put the money bag in his strong -box, even though saying nothing about setting a date for a marriage. - -She was shown into an unfinished room. There was no bed, only a few -chairs, and two big walnut chests. Tearful and nervously unstrung, she -took off her shoes and, wrapping herself in her cloak, lay down on the -cold wooden floor. She could have called for blankets, and doubtless -gotten them, but her pride had rebelled and she resolved to make the -best of conditions. She could not sleep, and her mind was tortured with -her love for the Major, anger at his ungrateful conduct, and an -ever-recurring vision of the highwayman on the Boone Road. She heard the -great Irish clock in the hall below strike every hour until one. - -Suddenly she got up, her face brightened with a new resolve. Tying her -shoes together, she threw them them across her shoulder and tiptoed to -the door, which she opened softly, and went downstairs. Her Indian -bodyguards were sleeping on the stone floor in the vestibule, wrapped in -their blankets. - -“Exundos,” she whispered in the ear of the oldest, “get me out of this; -I am going to go away.” - -The trusty redskin, who always slept with one eye open, nudged his -comrade, Firequill, and made their way to the door. It was locked and -chained, and the key probably under the Major’s pillow. - -Exundos was determined to redeem his record. He rushed upstairs to where -a portly German was sleeping in the officer’s antechamber. He knocked -the valet senseless with the butt of his horse pistol. Then he sprang -like a panther over the prostrate body into the Major’s apartment. In a -moment he had gagged him with the caltrop extracted from the horse’s -foot, then bound him hand and foot. - -The key was under the pillow. In five minutes the fugitives were on the -front lawn, surrounded by the Major’s pack of yelping, snarling hounds. -Getting by them as best they could, the trio made for the bluffs, found -a dugout in which they crossed the river, and were soon in the shelter -of the friendly mountains. - -In the morning the Major’s other servants who slept in quarters near the -stables, found the half-dazed bodyguard with a bloody head, and their -gagged and helpless master. Once released, the Major decided not to send -a posse after the runaways; he was heavily in debt, and needed that -pouch of fifteen hundred dollars in gold. - -Brant’s daughter, after her fortuitous escape, was not completely happy. -She had longed for the Major for five years, and had almost gotten him -as the result of severe privations. It was pretty hard to lose him now. -She was going home defeated, to die unwed. Her feelings became desperate -when she reached the Boone Road, with all its haunting memories. - -As she clambered up the steep grades, and the Indian Garden came into -view, she reached down and turned her belt, the symbol of resolution. No -one was about as she passed the garden, which made her heart sink with -loneliness for some strong man’s love. - -When Kettle Creek was reached and crossed near the Cold Spring, she -decided to rest awhile. After a meal, which she barely tasted, she told -the Indians that she was going for a little walk in the woods. - -“I am safe now,” she said, bitterly; “I have no gold.” - -Past the Cold Spring she went, on and on up the wild, narrow gorge of -what is now called Ole Bull Run, where a dark and dismal hemlock forest -of colossal proportions bent over the torrent, keeping out the light of -day. - -While she was absent, who should appear at the Cold Spring but Doane, -with his colleagues in crime. - -“So he took her after all, with only half the money,” he said, almost -regretfully, to the Indians. - -“I don’t know,” replied one of the bodyguard. “He was very ugly when he -heard it, wanted to slap her, and she ran away in the night, leaving -horses, saddle-bags and gold. Oh, she felt terribly, for she truly loved -the monster.” “said Doane, in surprised tones. - -The Indian pointed up the dark gorge of the run. That moment the outlaw -thought of his dream, of his rescuing her from an angry torrent. -Motioning to her guards to follow, he made haste along the edges of the -stream, slipping often on the moss-grown rocks. Half way to the top of -the gigantic mountain, he heard the roar of a cascade. There was a -great, dark, seething pool beneath. Just as Doane came in sight of this -he beheld, to his horror, Brant’s daughter, hatless and cloakless, -plunging in. It was like a Dryad’s immolation! - -With superhuman effort he reached the brink and sprang after her. He -caught her, as she rose the first time, by her profuse brown hair, but -as he lifted her ashore a snag or branch tore her shirtwaist, so that -her shoulder and back were almost completely bare, just as in the dream. -Aided by the faithful Indians, he laid her tenderly among the moss and -ferns, and poured some rum from a buffalo horn flask down her throat. -She revived and opened her pretty hazel eyes quizzically. - -“Am I at the Indian Garden?” she said. - -“You are with the one who turned his belt there,” answered Doane; “only -this time I don’t want anything for my comrades. I only want you for -myself.” “said Brant’s daughter, having now fully recovered the power of -speech. “When I came back to the Garden and you were not there, I turned -my belt.” “said Doane, “for that last resolve has brought us together. I -should have known from the beginning my destiny was revealed in that -dream.” “said the girl. - -“Of course I will, anywhere with you, and never follow the road again, -or anything not strictly honorable. Wrongdoing, I see now, is caused by -the preponderance of the events of life going against us. Where things -come our way, and there is joy, one can never aspire to ill. Wrong is -the continued disappointment. I could never molest a soul after I saw -you, and have lived by hunting ever since. I made my partners return the -purse of gold; it shall go to your father to buy a farm.” - -Brant’s daughter now motioned to him that she felt like sitting up, and -he propped her back against an old cork pine, kissing her pretty plump -cheeks and shoulders many times as he did so. “And that scoundrel would -have smacked you,” he thought, boiling inwardly. Then taking her cold -hands in his, he said: - -“Out of evil comes good. I do not regret this one robbery, for if I had -not taken that gold for my comrades, some one would have robbed me of -you!” - -[Illustration: SHAWANA] - - XIX - _Riding His Pony_ - - -When Rev. James Martin visited the celebrated Penn’s Cave, in the Spring -of 1795, it was related that he found a small group of Indians encamped -there. That evening, around the campfire, one of the redskins related a -legend of one of the curiosities of the watery cave, the flambuoyant -“Indian Riding Pony” mural-piece which decorates one of the walls. - -Spirited as a Remington, it bursts upon the view, creates a lasting -impression, then vanishes as the power skiff, the “Nita-nee,” draws -nearer. - -According to the old Indians, there lived not far from where the -Karoondinha emerges from the cavern a body of aborigines of the -Susquehannock tribe who made this delightful lowland their permanent -abode. While most of their cabins were huddled near together on the -upper reaches of the stream, there were straggling huts clear to the -Beaver Dams. The finding of arrow points, beads and pottery along the -creek amply attests to this. - -Among the clan was a maiden named Quetajaku, not good to look upon, but -in no way ugly or deformed. In her youth she was light-hearted and -sociable, with a gentle disposition. Yet for some reason she was not -favored by the young bucks. All her contemporaries found lovers and -husbands, but poor Quetajaku was left severely alone. She knew that she -was not beautiful, though she was of good size; she was equally certain -that she was not a physical monster. She could not understand why she -could find no lover, why she was singled out to be a “chauchschisis,” or -old maid. It hurt her pride as a young girl, it broke her heart -completely when she was older. - -Gradually she withdrew from the society of her tribal friends, building -herself a lodge-house on the hill, in what is now the cave orchard. -There she led a very introspective life, grieving over the love that -might have been. To console herself she imagined that some day a -handsome warrior would appear, seek her out, load her with gifts, -overwhelm her with love and carry her away to some distant region in -triumph. He would be handsomer and braver than any youth in the whole -country of the Karoondinha. She would be the most envied of women when -he came. - -This poor little fancy saved her from going stark mad; it remedied the -horror of her lonely lot. Every time the night wind stirred the rude -hempen curtain which hung before the door of her cabin, she would -picture it was the chivalrous stranger knight come to claim her. When it -was cold she drew the folds of her buffalo robe tighter about her as if -it was his arms. - -As time went on she grew happy in her secret lover, whom no other -woman’s flame could equal, whom no one could steal away. She was ever -imagining him saying to her that her looks exactly suited him, that she -was his ideal. - -But like the seeker after Eldorado, years passed, and Quetajaku did not -come nearer to her spirit lover. But her soul kept up the conceit; every -night when she curled herself up to sleep he was the vastness of the -night. - -On one occasion an Indian artist named Naganit, an undersized old -wanderer appeared at the lonely woman’s home. For a living he decorated -pottery, shells and bones, sometimes even painted war pictures on rocks. -Quetajaku was so kind to him that he built himself a lean-to on the -slope of the hill, intending to spend the winter. - -On the long winter evenings the old woman confided to the wanderer the -story of her unhappy life, of her inward consolation. She said that she -had longed to meet an artist who could carry out a certain part of her -dream which had a right to come true. - -When she died she had arranged to be buried in a fissure of rocks which -ran horizontally into one of the walls of the “watery” cave. On the -opposite wall she would like painted in the most brilliant colors a -portrait of a handsome young warrior, with arms outstretched, coming -towards her. - -Naganit said that he understood what she meant exactly, but suggested -that the youth be mounted on a pony, a beast which was coming into use -as a mount for warriors, of which he had lately seen a number in his -travels on the Virginia coast, near Chincoteague. - -This idea was pleasing to Quetajaku, who authorized the stranger to -begin work at once. She had saved up a little property of various kinds; -she promised to bestow all of this on Naganit, except what would be -necessary to bury her, if the picture proved satisfactory. - -The artist rigged up a dog-raft with a scaffold on it, and this he poled -into the place where the fissure was located, the woman accompanying him -the first time, so there would be no mistake. All winter long by -torchlight, he labored away. He used only one color, an intensive -brick-red made from mixing sumac berries, the pollen of the Turk’s Cap -Lily, a small root and the bark of a tree, as being more permanent than -that made from ochers and other ores of stained earth. - -Marvelous and vital was the result of this early impressionist; the -painting had all the action of life. The superb youth in war dress, with -arms outstretched, on the agile war pony, rushing towards the -foreground, almost in the act of leaping from the rocky panel into life, -across the waters of the cave to the arms of his beloved. - -It would make old Quetajaku happy to see it, she who had never known -love or beauty. The youth in the mural typified what Naganit would have -been himself were he the chosen, and what the “bachelor maid” would have -possessed had nature favored her. It was the ideal for two disappointed -souls. - -Breathlessly the old artist ferried Quetajaku to the scene of his -endeavors. When they reached the proper spot he held aloft his quavering -torch. Quetajaku, in order to see more clearly, held her two hands above -her eyes. She gave a little cry of exclamation, then turned and looked -at Naganit intently. Then she dropped her eyes, beginning to cry to -herself, a rare thing for an Indian to do! - -The artist looked at her fine face, down which the tears were streaming, -and asked her the cause of her grief–was the picture _such_ a terrible -disappointment? - -The woman drew herself together, replying that it was grander than she -had anticipated, but the face of Naganit’s, and, strangely enough, the -face she had dreamed of all her life. - -“But I am not the heroic youth you pictured”, said the artist, sadly. “I -am sixty years old, stoop-shouldered, and one leg is shorter than the -other.” “ Naganit looked at the Indian woman. She was not hideous; there -was even a dignity to her large, plain features, her great, gaunt form. - -“I have never received such praise as yours. I always vowed I would love -the woman who really understood me and my art. I am yours. Let us think -no more of funeral decorations, but go to the east, to the land of war -ponies, and ride to endless joy together.” - -Quetajaku, overcome by the majesty of his words, leaned against his -massive shoulder. In that way he poled his dog-raft against the current -to the entrance of the cave. There was a glory in the reflection from -the setting sun over against the east; night would not close in for an -hour or two. And towards the darkening east that night two happy -travelers could be seen wending their way. - -[Illustration] - - XX - _The Little Postmistress_ - - -It was long past dark when Mifflin Sargeant, of the Snow Shoe Land -Company, came within sight of the welcoming lights of Stover’s. For -fourteen miles, through the foothills on the Narrows, he had not seen a -sign of human habitation, except one deserted hunter’s cabin at Yankee -Gap. There was an air of cheerfulness and life about the building he had -arrived at. Several doors opened simultaneously at the signal of his -approach, given by a faithful watchdog, throwing the rich glow of the -fat-lamps and tallow candles across the road. - -The structure, which was very long and two stories high, housed under -its accommodating roofs a tavern, a boarding house, a farmstead, a -lumber camp, a general store, and a post office. It was the last outpost -of civilization in the east end of Brush Valley; beyond were mountains -and wilderness almost to Youngmanstown. Tom Tunis had not yet erected -the substantial structure on the verge of the forest later known as “The -Forest House.” - -A dark-complexioned lad, who later proved to be Reuben Stover, the son -of the landlord, took the horse by the bridle, assisting the young -stranger to dismount. He also helped him to unstrap his saddle-bags, -carrying them into the house. Sargeant noticed, as he passed across the -porch, that the walls were closely hung with stags’ horns, which showed -the prevalence of these noble animals in the neighborhood. - -Old Daddy and Mammy Stover, who ran the quaint caravansery, quickly made -the visitor feel at home. It was after the regular supper-time, but a -fresh repast of bear’s meat and corn bread was cheerfully prepared in -the huge stone chimney. - -The young man explained to his hosts that he had ridden that day from -New Berlin; he had come from Philadelphia to Harrisburg by train, to -Liverpool by packet boat, at which last named place his horse had been -sent on to meet him. He added that he was on his way into the -Alleghenies, where he had recently purchased an interest in the Snow -Shoe development. - -After supper he strolled along the porch to the far end, to the post -office, thinking he would send a letter home. A mail had been brought in -from Rebersburg during the afternoon, consequently the post office, and -not the tavern stand, was the attraction of the crowd this night. - -The narrow room was poorly lighted by fat-lamps, which cast great, -fitful shadows, making grotesques out of the oddly-costumed, bearded -wolf hunters present, who were the principal inhabitants of the -surrounding ridges. A few women, hooded and shawled, were noticeable in -the throng. In a far corner, leaning against the water bench, was young -Reuben, the hostler, tuning up his wheezy fiddle. As many persons as -possible hung over the rude counter, across which the mail was being -delivered, and where many letters were written in reply. Above this -counter were suspended three fat-lamps, attached to grooved poles, -which, by cleverly-devised pulleys, could be lifted to any height -desired. - -[Illustration: SETH NELSON, JR., AFTER A GOOD DAY’S SPORT] - -The young Philadelphian edged his way through the good-humored concourse -to ask permission to use the ink; he had brought his favorite quill pen -and the paper with him. This brought him face to face, across the -counter, with the postmistress. He had not been able to see her before, -as her trim little figure had been wholly obscured by the ponderous -forms that lined the counter. - -Instantly he was charmed by her appearance–it was unusual–by her look of -neatness and alertness. Their eyes met–it was almost with a smile of -mutual recognition. When he asked her if he could borrow the ink, which -was kept in a large earthen pot of famous Sugar Valley make, she smiled -on him again, and he absorbed the charm of her personality anew. - -Though she was below the middle height, her figure was so lithe and -erect that it fully compensated for the lack of inches. She wore a blue -homespun dress, with a neat checked apron over it, the material for -which constituted a luxury, and must have come all the way from -Youngmanstown or Sunbury. Her profuse masses of soft, wavy, light brown -hair, on which the hanging lamps above brought out a glint of gold, was -worn low on her head. Her deepset eyes were a transparent blue, her -features well developed, and when she turned her face in profile, the -high arch of the nose showed at once mental stability and energy. Her -complexion was pink and white. There seemed to be always that kindly -smile playing about the eyes and lips. - -When she pushed the heavy inkwell towards him he noticed that her hands -were very white, the fingers tapering; they were the hands of innate -refinement. - -Almost imperceptibly the young man found himself in conversation with -the little postmistress. Doubtless she was interested to meet an -attractive stranger, one from such a distant city as Philadelphia. While -they talked, the letter was gradually written, sealed, weighed and paid -for–it was before the days of postage stamps, and the postmistress -politely waited on her customers. - -He had told her his name–Mifflin Sargeant–and she had given him -hers–Caroline Hager–and that she was eighteen years of age. He had told -her about his prospective trip into the wilds of Centre County, of the -fierce beasts which he had heard still abounded there. The girl informed -him that he would not have to go farther west to meet wild animals; that -wolf hides by the dozen were brought to Stover’s each winter, where they -were traded in; that old Stover, a justice of the peace, attested to the -bounty warrants–in fact, the wolves howled from the hill across the road -on cold nights when the dogs were particularly restless. - -Her father was a wolf hunter, and would never allow her to go home -alone; consequently, when he could not accompany her she remained over -night in the dwelling which housed the post office. Panthers, too, were -occasionally met with in the locality–in the original surveys this -region was referred to as “Catland”–also huge red bears and the somewhat -smaller black ones. - -If he was going West, she continued in her pretty way, he must not fail -to visit the great limestone cave near where the Brush Mountains ended. -She had a sister married and living not far from it, from whom she had -heard wonderful tales, though she had never been there herself. It was a -cave so vast it had not as yet been fully explored; one could travel for -miles in it in a boat; the Karoondinha, or John Penn’s Creek, had its -source in it; Indians had formerly lived in the dry parts, and wild -beasts. Then she lowered her voice to say that it was now haunted by the -Indians’ spirits. - -And so they talked until a very late hour, the crowd in the post office -melting away, until Jared Hager, the girl’s father, in his wolfskin -coat, appeared to escort her home, to the cabin beyond the waterfall -near the trail to Dolly Hope’s Valley. She was to have a holiday until -the next afternoon. - -The wolf hunter was a courageous-looking man, much darker than his -daughter, with a heavy black beard and bushy eyebrows; in fact, she was -the only brown-haired, blue-eyed one in the entire family connection. He -spoke pleasantly with the young stranger, and then they all said good -night. - -“Don’t forget to visit the great cavern,” Caroline called to the youth. - -“I surely will,” he answered, “and stop here on my way east to tell you -all about it.” - -“That’s good; we want to see you again,” said the girl, as she -disappeared into the gloomy shadows which the shaggy white pines cast -across the road. - -Young Stover was playing “Green Grows the Rushes” on his fiddle in the -tap-room, and Sargeant sat there listening to him, dreaming and musing -all the while, his consciousness singularly alert, until the closing -hour came. - -That night, in the old stained four-poster, in his tiny, cold room, he -slept not at all. “Yet he feared to dream.” Though his thoughts carried -him all over the world, the little postmistress was uppermost in every -fancy. Among the other things, he wished that he had asked her to ride -with him to the cave. They could have visited the subterranean marvels -together. He got out of bed and managed to light the fat lamp. By its -sputtering gleams he wrote her a letter, which came to an abrupt end as -the small supply of ink which he carried with him was exhausted. But as -he repented of the intense sentences penned to a person who knew him so -slightly, he arose again before morning and tore it to bits. - -There was a white frost on the buildings and ground when he came -downstairs. The autumn air was cold, the atmosphere was a hazy, -melancholy gray. There seemed to be a cessation of all the living forces -of nature, as if waiting for the summons of winter. From the chimney of -the old inn came purple smoke, charged with the pungent odor of burning -pine wood. - -With a strange sadness he saddled his horse and resumed his ride towards -the west. He thought constantly of Caroline–so much so that after he had -traveled ten miles he wanted to turn back; he felt miserable without -her. If only she were riding beside him, the two bound for Penn’s Valley -Cave, he could be supremely happy. Without her, he did not care to visit -the cavern, or anything else; so at Jacobsburg he crossed the Nittany -Mountains, leaving the southerly valleys behind. - -He rode up Nittany Valley to Bellefonte, where he met the agent of the -Snow Shoe Company. With this gentleman he visited the vast tract being -opened up to lumbering, mining and colonization. But his thoughts were -elsewhere; they were across the mountains with the little postmistress -of Stover’s. - -Satisfied that his investment would prove remunerative, he left the -development company’s cozy lodge-house, and, with a heart growing -lighter with each mile, started for the east. It was wonderful how -differently–how vastly more beautiful the country seemed on this return -journey. He fully appreciated the wistful loveliness of the fast-fading -autumn foliage, the crispness of the air, the beauty of each stray tuft -of asters, the last survivors of the wild flowers along the trail. The -world was full of joy, everything was in harmony. - -Again it was after nightfall when he reined his horse in front of -Stover’s long, rambling public house. This time two doors opened -simultaneously, sending forth golden lights and shadows. One was from -the tap-room, where the hostler emerged; the other from the post office, -bringing little Caroline. There was no mail that night, consequently the -office was practically deserted; she had time to come out and greet her -much-admired friend. And let it be said that ever since she had seen him -her heart was agog with the image of Mifflin Sargeant. She was canny -enough to appreciate such a man; besides, he was a good-looking youth -though perhaps of a less robust type than those most admired in the Red -Hills. - -After cordial greetings the young man ate supper, after which he -repaired to the post office. By that time the last straggler was gone; -he had a blissful evening with his fair Caroline. She anticipated his -coming, being somewhat of a _psychic_, and had arranged to spend the -night with the Stovers. There was no hurry to retire; when they went out -on the porch, preparatory to locking up, the hunter’s moon was sinking -behind the western knobs, which rose like the pyramids of Egypt against -the sky line. - -Sargeant lingered around the old house for three days; when he departed -it was with extreme reluctance. Seeing Caroline again in the future -appeared like something too good to be true, so down-hearted was he at -the parting. But he had arranged to come back the following autumn, -bringing an extra horse with him, and the two would ride to the -wonderful cavern in Penn’s Valley and explore to the ends its stygian -depths. Meanwhile they would make most of their separation through a -regular correspondence. - -Despite glances, pressure of hands, chance caresses, and evident -happiness in one another’s society, not a word of love had passed -between the pair. That was why the pain of parting was so intense. If -Caroline could have remembered one loving phrase, then she would have -felt that she had something tangible on which to hang her hopes. If the -young Philadelphian had unburdened his heart by telling her that he -loved her, and her alone, and heard her words of affirmation, the world -out into which he was riding would have seemed less blank. - -But underneath his love, burning like a hot branding iron, was his -consciousness of class, his fear of the consequences if he took to the -great city a bride from another sphere. As an only son, he could not -picture himself deserting his widowed mother and sisters, and living at -Snow Shoe; there he was sure that Caroline would be happy. Neither could -he see permanent peace of mind if he married her and brought her into -his exclusive circles in the Quaker City. - -As he was an honorable young man, and his love was real, making her -truly and always happy was the solitary consideration. These thoughts -marred the parting; they blistered and ravaged his spirit on the whole -dreary way back to Liverpool. There his colored servant, an antic -darkey, was waiting at the old Susquehanna House to ride the horse to -Philadelphia. - -The young man boarded the packet, riding on it to Harrisburg, where he -took the steam train for home. In one way he was happier than ever -before in his life, for he had found love; in another he was the most -dejected of men, for his beloved might never be his own. - -He seemed gayer and stronger to his family; evidently the trip into the -wilderness had done him good. He had begun his letter-writing to -Caroline promptly. It was his great solace in his heart perplexity. She -wrote a very good letter, very tender and sympathetic; the handwriting -was clear, almost masculine, denoting the bravery of her spirit. - -During the winter he was called upon through his sisters to mingle much -with the society of the city. He met many beautiful and attractive young -women, but for him the die of love had been cast. He was Caroline’s -irretrievably. Absence made his love firmer, yet the solution of it all -the more enigmatical. - -The time passed on apace. Another autumn set in, but on account of -important business matters it was not until December that Sargeant -departed for the wilds of mountainous Pennsylvania. But he could spend -Christmas with his love. - -This time he sent two horses ahead to Liverpool. When he reached the -queer old river town he dropped into an old saddlery shop, where the -canal-boat drivers had their harness mended, and purchased a neat side -saddle, all studded with brass-headed nails. This he tied on behind his -servant’s saddle. - -The two horsemen started up the beautiful West Mahantango, crossing the -Shade Mountain to Swinefordstown, thence along the edge of Jack’s -Mountain, by the gently flowing Karoondinha, to Hartley Hall and the -Narrows, through the Fox Gap and Minnick’s Gap, a slightly shorter route -to Stover’s. - -On his previous trip he had ridden along the river to Selin’s Grove, -across Chestnut Ridge to New Berlin, over Shamokin Ridge to -Youngmanstown, and from there to the Narrows; he was in no hurry; no -dearly loved girl was waiting for him in those days. - -Caroline, looking prettier than ever–she was a trifle plumper and redder -cheeked–was at the post office steps to greet him. Despite his avoidance -of words of love, she was certain of his inmost feelings, and opined -that somehow the ultimate result would be well. - -Sargeant had arranged to arrive on a Saturday evening, so that they -could begin their ride to the cave that night after the post office -closed, and be there bright and early Sunday morning. For this reason he -had traveled by very easy stages from Hartley Hall, that the horses -might be fresh for their added journey. - -Sargeant’s devoted Negro factotum was taken somewhat aback when he saw -how attentive the young man was to the girl, and marveled at the -mountain maid’s rare beauty. Upon instructions from his master, he set -about to changing the saddles, placing the brand new lady’s saddle on -the horse he had been riding. - -It was not long until the tiny post office was closed for the night, and -Caroline emerged, wearing a many-caped red riding coat, the hood of -which she threw over her head to keep the wavy, chestnut hair in place. -She climbed into the saddle gracefully–she seemed a natural -horse-woman–and soon the loving pair were cantering up the road towards -Wolfe’s Store, Rebersburg and the cave. - -It was not quite daybreak when they passed the home of old Jacob -Harshbarger, the tenant of the “cave farm;” a Creeley rooster was -crowing lustily in the barnyard, the unmilked cattle of the ancient -black breed shook their shaggy heads lazily; no one was up. - -The young couple had planned to visit the cave, breakfast, and spend the -day with Caroline’s sister, who lived not far away at Centre Hill, and -ride leisurely back to Stover’s in the late afternoon. It had been a -very cold all-night ride, but they had been so happy that it seemed -brief and free from all disagreeable physical sensations. - -In those days there was no boat in the cave, and no guides; consequently -all intending visitors had to bring their own torches. This Caroline had -seen to, and in her leisure moments for weeks before her lover’s coming, -had been arranging a supply of rich pine lights that would see them -safely through the gloomy labyrinths. - -They fed their horses and then tied them to the fence of the orchard -which surrounded the entrance to the “dry” cave, which had been recently -set out. Several big original white pines grew along the road, and would -give the horses shelter in case it turned out to be a windy day. The -young couple strolled through the orchard, and down the steep path to -the mouth of the “watery” cave, where they gazed for some minutes at the -expanse of greenish water, the high span of the arched roof, the general -impressiveness of the scene, so like the stage setting of some elfin -drama. - -They sat on the dead grass, near this entrance, eating a light breakfast -with relish. Then they wended their way up the hill to the circular -“hole in the ground” which formed the doorway to the “dry” cave. The -torches were carefully lit, the supply of fresh ones was tied in a -bundle about Sargeant’s waist. The burning pine gave forth an aromatic -odor and a mellow light. They descended through the narrow opening, the -young man going ahead and helping his sweetheart after him. Down the -spiral passageway they went, until at length they came into a larger -chamber. Here the torches cast unearthly shadows, bats flitted about; -some small animal ran past them into an aperture at a far corner. -Sargeant declared that he believed the elusive creature a fox, and he -followed in the direction in which it had gone. - -When he came to this opening he peered through it, finding that it led -to an inner chamber of impressive proportions. He went back, taking -Caroline by the hand, and led her to the narrow chamber, into which they -both entered. Once in the interior room, they were amazed by its size, -the height of its roof, the beauty of the stalactite formations. They -sat down on a fallen stalagmite, holding aloft their torches, absorbed -by the beauty of the scene. - -In the midst of their musing, a sudden gust of wind blew out their -lights. They were in utter darkness. The young lover bade his sweetheart -be unafraid, while he reached his hand in his pocket for the matches. -They were primitive affairs, the few he had, and he could not make them -light. He had not counted on the use of the matches, as he thought one -torch could be lit from another; consequently had brought so few with -him. Finally he lit a match, but the dampness extinguished it before he -could ignite his torch. - -When the last match failed, it seemed as if the couple were in a serious -predicament. They first shouted at the top of their voices but only -empty echoes answered them. They fumbled about in the chamber, stumbling -over rocks and stalagmites, their eyes refusing to become accustomed to -the profound blackness. Try as they would, they could not locate the -passage that led from the room they were in to the outer apartment. - -Caroline, little heroine that she was, made no complaint. If she had any -secret fears, her lover effectually quenched them by telling her that -the presence of the two saddle horses tied to the orchard fence would -acquaint the Harshbarger family of their presence in the cave. - -“Surely,” he went on, “we will be rescued in a few hours. There’s bound -to be some member of the household or some hunter see those horses.” - -But the hours passed, and with them came no intimations of rescue. But -the two “prisoners” loved one another, time was nothing to them. In the -outer world, both thought, but neither made bold to say, that they might -have to separate–in the cave they were one in purpose, one in love. How -gloriously happy they were! But they did get a trifle hungry, but that -was appeased at first by the remnants of the breakfast provisions, which -they luckily still had in a little bundle. - -When sufficient time had elapsed for night to set in, they fell asleep, -and in each other’s arms. Caroline’s last conscious moment was to feel -her lover’s kisses. When they awoke, many hours afterwards, they were -hungrier than ever, and thirsty. Sargeant fumbled about, locating a -small pool of water, where the two quenched their thirsts. But still -they were happy, come what may. - -They would be rescued, that was certain, unless the horses had broken -loose and run away, but there was small chance of that. They had been -securely tied. It was strange that no one had seen the steeds in so long -a time, with the farmhouse less than a quarter of a mile away–but it was -at the foot of the hill. - -Hunger grew apace with every hour. After a while drinking water could -not sate it. It throbbed and ached, it became a dull pain that only love -could triumph over. Again enough hours elapsed to bring sleep, but it -was harder to find repose, though Sargeant’s kisses were marvelous -recompense. Caroline never whimpered from lack of food. To be with her -lover was all she asked. She had prayed for over a year to be with him -again. She would be glad to die at his side, even of starvation. - -The young man was content; hunger was less a pain to him than had been -the past fourteen months’ separation. - -Again came what they supposed to be morning. They knew that there must -be some way out near at hand, as the air was so pure. They shouted, but -the dull echoes were their only reward. Strangely enough, they had never -felt another cold gust like the one which had blown out their torches. -Could the shade of one of the old-time Indians who had fought for -possession of the cave been perpetrator of the trick? suggested lovely -little Caroline. If so, she thought to herself, he had helped her, not -harmed her, for could there be in the world a sensation half so sweet as -sinking to rest in her lover’s arms? - -Meanwhile the world outside the cavern had been going its way. Shortly -after the young equestrian passed the Harshbarger dwelling, all the -family had come out, and, after attending to their farm duties, driven -off to the Seven Mountains, where the sons of the family maintained a -hunting camp on Cherry Run, on the other side of High Valley. - -The boys had killed an elk, consequently the guests remained longer than -expected, to partake of a grand Christmas feast. They tarried at the -camp all of that day, all of the next; it was not until early on the -morning of the third day that they started back to the Penn’s Creek -farm. - -They had arranged with a neighbor’s boy, Mosey Scull, who lived further -along the creek below the farm house, to do the feeding in their -absence; it was winter, there was no need to hurry home. - -When they got home they found Mosey in the act of watering two very -dejected and dirty looking horses with saddles on their backs. - -“Where did they come from?” shouted the big freight-wagon load in -unison. - -“I found them tied to the fence up at the orchard. By the way they act -I’d think they hadn’t been watered or fed for several days,” replied the -boy. - -“You dummy!” said old Harshbarger, in Dutch. “Somebody’s in that cave, -and got lost, and can’t get out.” - -He jumped from the heavy wagon and ran to a corner of the corncrib, -where he kept a stock of torches. Then he hurried up the steep hill -towards the entrance to the “dry” cave. The big man was panting when he -reached the opening, where he paused a moment to kindle a torch with his -flints. Then he lowered himself into the aperture, shouting at the top -of his voice, “Hello! Hello! Hello!” - -It was not until he had gotten into the first chamber that the captives -in the inner room could hear him. Sargeant had been sitting with his -back propped against the cavern wall, while Caroline, very pale and -white-lipped, was lying across his knees, gazing up into the darkness, -imagining that she could see his face. - -When they heard the cheery shouts of their deliverer they did not -instantly attempt to scramble to their feet. Instead the young lover -bent over; his lips touched Caroline’s, who instinctively had raised her -face to meet his. As his lips touched hers, he whispered: - -“I love you, darling, with all my heart. We will be married when we get -out of here.” - -Caroline had time to say: “You are my only love,” before their lips came -together. - -They were in that position when the flare of Farmer Harshbarger’s torch -lit up their hiding place. Pretty soon they were on their feet and, with -their rescuer, figuring out just how long they had been in their -prison–their prison of love. - -They had gone into the cave on the morning of December 24th; it was now -the morning of the 27th; in fact almost noon. Christmas had come and -gone. - -Caroline still had enough strength in reserve to enable her to climb up -the tortuous passage, though her lover did help her some, as all lovers -should. - -The farmer’s wife had some coffee and buckwheat cakes ready when they -arrived at the mansion; which the erstwhile captives of Penn’s Cave sat -down to enjoy. - -As they were eating, another of Harshbarger’s sons rode up on horseback. -He had been to the post office at Earlysburg. He handed Sargeant a tiny, -roughly typed newspaper published in Millheim. Across the front page, in -letters larger than usual, were the words, “Mexico Declares War on the -United States.” - -Sargeant scanned the headline intently, then laid the paper on the -table. - -“Our country has been drawn into a war with Mexico,” he said, his voice -trembling with emotion. “I had hoped it might be avoided. I am First -Lieutenant of the Lafayette Greys; I fear I’ll have to go.” - -[Illustration: BIG SNYDER COUNTY WILD CAT] - -Caroline lost the color which had come back to her pretty cheeks since -emerging from the underground dungeon. She reached over, grasping her -lover’s now clammy hand. Then, noticing that no one was listening, she -said, faintly: - -“It is terrible to have you leave me now; but won’t you marry me before -you go? I do love you.” “replied Sargeant, with enthusiasm. “I will have -more to fight for, with you at home bearing my name.” - -Love had broken the bonds of caste. - -[Illustration] - - XXI - _The Silent Friend_ - - -Every one who has hunted in the “Seven Brothers’”, as the Seven -Mountains are called in Central Pennsylvania, has heard of Daniel -Karstetter, the famous Nimrod. The Seven Mountains comprise the Path -Valley, Short Bald, Thick Head, Sand, Shade and Tussey Mountains. Though -three-quarters of a century has passed since he was in his hey-day as a -slayer of big game, his fame is undiminished. Anecdotes of his prowess -are related in every hunting camp; by one and all he has been acclaimed -the greatest hunter that the Seven Brothers ever produced. - -The great Nimrod, who lived to a very advanced age, was born in 1818 on -the banks of Pine Creek, a: the Blue Rock, half a mile below the present -town of Coburn. In addition to his hunting prowess, he was interested in -psychic experiences, and was as prone to discuss his adventures with -supernatural agencies as his conflicts with the wild denizens of the -forests. There was a particular ghost story which he loved dearly to -relate. - -Accompanied by his younger brother Jacob, he had been attending a dance -one night across the mountains, in the environs of the town of Milroy, -for like all the backwoods boys of his time, he was adept in the art of -terpsichore. The long journey was made on horseback, the lads being -mounted on stout Conestoga chargers. - -The homeward ride was commenced after midnight, the two brothers riding -along the dark trail in single file. In the wide flat on the top of the -“Big Mountain” Daniel fell into a doze. When he awoke, his mount having -stumbled on a stone, Jacob was nowhere to be seen. Thinking that his -brother had put his horse to trot and gone on ahead, Daniel dismissed -the matter of his absence from his mind. - -As he was riding down the steep slope of the mountain, he noticed a -horseman waiting for him on the path. When they came abreast the other -rider fell in beside him, skillfully guiding his horse so that it did -not encounter the dense foliage which lined the narrow way. Daniel -supposed the party to be his brother, although the unknown kept his -lynx-skin collar turned up, and his felt cap was pulled down level with -his eyes. It was pitchy dark, so to make sure, Daniel called out: - -“Is that you, Jacob?” - -His companion did not reply, so the young man repeated his query in -still louder tones, but all he heard was the crunching of the horses’ -hoofs on the pebbly road. - -Daniel Karstetter, master slayer of panthers, bears and wolves, was no -coward, though on this occasion he felt uneasy. Yet he disliked picking -a quarrel with the silent man at his side, who clearly was not his -brother, and he feared to put his horse to a gallop on the steep, uneven -roadway. The trip home never before seemed of such interminable length. -For the greater part of the distance Daniel made no attempt to converse -with his unsociable comrade. Finally, he heaved a sigh of relief when he -saw a light gleaming in the horse stable at the home farm. When he -reached the barnyard gate he dismounted to let down the bars, while the -stranger apparently vanished in the gloom. - -Daniel led his mount to the horse stable, where he found his brother -Jacob sitting by the old tin lantern, fast asleep. He awakened him and -asked him when he had gotten home. Jacob stated that his horse had been -feeling good, so he let him canter all the way. He had been sleeping, -but judged that he had been home at least half an hour. He had met no -horseman on the road. - -Daniel was convinced that his companion had been a ghost, or, as they -are called in the “Seven Brothers,” a _gshpook_. But he made no further -comment that night. - -A year afterwards, in coming back alone from a dance in Stone Valley, he -was again joined by the silent horseman, who followed him to his -barnyard gate. He gave up going to dances on that account. At least once -a year, or as long as he was able to go out at night, he met the ghostly -rider. Sometimes, when tramping along on foot after a hunt, or, in later -years, coming back from market at Bellefonte in his Jenny Lind, he would -find the silent horseman at his side. After the first experience, he -never attempted to speak to the night rider, but he became convinced -that it meant him no harm. - -As his prowess as a hunter became recognized, he had many jealous rivals -among the less successful Nimrods. In those old days threats of all -kinds were freely made. He heard on several occasions that certain -hunters were setting out to “fix” him. But a man who could wrestle with -panthers and bears knew no such thing as fear. - -One night, while tramping along in Green’s Valley, he was startled by -some one in the path ahead of him shouting out in Pennsylvania German, -“Hands up!” He was on the point of dropping his rifle, when he heard the -rattle of hoof beats back of him. The silent horseman in an instant was -by his side, the dark horse pawing the earth with his giant hoofs. There -was a crackling of brush in the path ahead, and no more threats of _hend -uff_. - -The ghostly rider followed Daniel to his barn yard gate, but was gone -before he could utter a word of thanks. As the result of this adventure, -he became imbued with the idea that he possessed a charmed life. It gave -him added courage in his many encounters with panthers, the fierce red -bears and lynxes. - -Apart from his love of hunting the more dangerous animals, Daniel -enjoyed the sport of deer-stalking. He maintained several licks, one of -them in a patch of low ground over the hill from the entrance to the -“dry” part of Penn’s Cave. At this spot he constructed a blind, or -platform, between the two ancient tupelo trees, about twenty feet from -the ground, and many were the huge white-faced stags which fell to his -unerring bullets during the rutting season. - -One cold night, according to an anecdote frequently related by one of -his descendants, while perched in his eyrie overlooking the natural -clearing which constituted the _lick_, and in sight of a path frequented -by the fiercer beasts, which led to the opening of the “dry” cave, he -saw, about midnight, a huge pantheress, followed by a large male of the -same species, come out into the open. - -“The pantheress strolled from the path,” so the story went, "and came -and laid herself down at the roots of the tupelo trees, while the -panther remained in the path, and seemed to be listening to some noise -as yet inaudible to the hunter. - -"Daniel soon heard a distant roaring; it seemed to come from the very -summit of the Brush Mountain, and immediately the pantheress answered -it. The the panther on the path, his jealousy aroused, commenced to roar -with a voice so loud that the frightened hunter almost let go his trusty -rifle and held tighter to the railing of his blind, lest he might tumble -to the earth. As the voice of the animal that he had heard in the -distance gradually approached, the pantheress welcomed him with renewed -roarings, and the panther, restless, went and came from the path to his -flirtatious flame, as though he wished her to keep silence, as though to -say, ‘Let him come if he dares; he will find his match’. - -"In about an hour a panther, with mouse-color, or grey coat, stepped out -of the forest, and stood in the full moonlight on the other side of the -cleared place, the moonbeams illuminating his form with a glow like -phosphorescence. The pantheress, eyeing him with admiration, raised -herself to go to him, but the panther, divining her intent, rushed -before her and marched right at his adversary. With measured step and -slow, they approached to within a dozen paces of each other, their -smooth, round heads high in the air, their bulging yellow eyes gleaming, -their long, tufted tails slowly sweeping down the brittle asters that -grew about them. They crouched to the earth–a moment’s pause–and then -they bounded with a hellish scream high in the air and rolled on the -ground, locked in their last embrace. - -"The battle was long and fearful, to the amazed and spellbound witness -of this midnight duel. Even if he had so wished, he could not have taken -steady enough aim to fire. But he preferred to watch the combat, while -the moonlight lasted. The bones of the two combatants cracked under -their powerful jaws, their talons painted the frosty ground with blood, -and their outcries, now gutteral, now sharp and loud, told their rage -and agony. - -"At the beginning of the contest the pantheress crouched herself on her -belly, with her eyes fixed upon the gladiators, and all the while the -battle raged, manifested by the slow, catlike motion of her tail, the -pleasure she felt at the spectacle. When the scene closed, and all was -quiet and silent and deathlike on the lick, and the moon had commenced -to wane, she cautiously approached the battle-ground and, sniffing the -lifeless bodies of her two lovers, walked leisurely to a nearby oak, -where she stood on her hind feet, sharpening her fore claws on the bark. - -"She glared up ferociously at the hunter in the blind, as if she meant -to vent her anger by climbing after him. In the moonlight her golden -eyes appeared so terrifying that Daniel dropped his rifle, and it fell -to the earth with a sickening thud. As he reached after it, the flimsy -railing gave way and he fell, literally into the arms of the pantheress. -At that moment the rumble of horses’ hoofs, like thunder on some distant -mountain, was heard. Just as the panther was about to rend the helpless -Nimrod to bits, the unknown rider came into view. Scowling at the -intruder, mounted on his huge black horse, the brute abandoned its prey -and ambled off up the hill in the direction of the dry cave. - -"Daniel seized his firearm and sent a bullet after her retreating form, -but it apparently went wild of its mark. Meanwhile, before he had time -to express his gratitude to the strange deliverer, he had vanished. - -"Daniel was dumbfounded. As soon as he had recovered from the -blood-curdling episodes, he built a small fire near the mammoth -carcasses, where he warmed his much benumbed hands. Then he examined the -dead panthers, but found that their hides were too badly torn to warrant -skinning. - -"Disgusted at not getting his deer, and being even cheated out of the -panther pelts, he dragged the ghastly remains of the erstwhile kings of -the forest by their tails to the edge of the entrance to the dry cave. -There he cut off the long ears in order to collect the bounty, and then -shoved the carcasses into the opening. They fell with sickening thuds -into the chamber beneath, to the evident horror of the pantheress, which -uttered a couple of piercing screams as the horrid remnants of the -recent battle royal landed in her vicinity. - -“Then Jacob shouldered his rifle and started out in search of small game -for breakfast. That night he went to another of his licks on Elk Creek, -near Fulmer’s Sink, where he killed four superb stags,” so the story -concludes. - -But to his dying day he always placed the battle of the panthers first -of all his hunting adventures. And his faith in the unknown horseman as -his deliverer and good genius became the absorbing, all-pervading -influence of his life. - - XXII - _The Fountain of Youth_ - - -Old Chief Wisamek, of the Kittochtinny Indians, had lost his spouse. He -was close to sixty years of age, which was old for a redman, especially -one who had led the hard life of a warrior, exposed to all kinds of -weather, fasts and forced marches. Though he felt terribly lonely and -depressed in his state of widowerhood, the thought of discarding the -fidelity of the eagle, which, if bereaved, never takes a second mate, -and was the noble bird he worshipped, seemed repugnant to him until he -happened to see the fair and buxom maid Annapalpeteu. - -He was rheumatic, walking with difficulty; he tired easily, was fretful, -all sure signs of increasing age; but what upset him most was the sight -of his reflection in his favorite pool, a haggard, weazened, wrinkled -face, with a nose like the beak of an eagle, and glazed eyes as -colorless as clay. When he opened his mouth the reflected image seemed -to be mostly toothless, the lips were blue and thin. He had noticed that -he did not need to pluck the hairs from his skull any more to give -prominence to his warrior’s top-knot; the proud tuft itself was growing -sparse and weak; to keep it erect he was now compelled to braid it with -hair from a buffalo’s tail. - -Brave warrior that he was, he hated to pay his court to the lovely -Annapalpeteu when on all sides he saw stalwart, six-foot youths, masses -of sinews and muscle, clear-eyed, firm-lipped, always ambitious and -high-spirited, more suited to be her companions. - -But one afternoon he saw his copper-colored love sitting by the side of -the Bohundy Creek, beating maize in a wooden trough. Her entire costume -consisted of a tight petticoat of blue cloth, hardly reaching to the -knees, and without any ruffles. Her cheeks and forehead were neatly -daubed with red. She seemed very well content with her coadjutor, a -bright young fellow, who, except for two wild cat hides appropriately -distributed, was quite as naked as the ingenuous beauty. That -Annapalpeteu had a cavalier was now certain, and immediately it rankled -what flames remained in his jaded body; he must have her at any cost. - -Down by the Conadogwinet, across the Broad Mountain, lived Mbison, a -wise man. Old Wisamek would go there and consult him, perhaps obtain -from him some potion to permanently restore at least a few of the fires -of his lost youth. Though his will power had been appreciably slackening -of late years, he acted with alacrity on the idea of visiting the -soothsayer. Before sundown he was on his way to the south, accompanied -by several faithful henchmen. Carrying a long ironwood staff, he moved -on with unwonted agility; it was very dark, and the path difficult to -follow, when he finally consented to bivouac for the night. The next -morning found him so stiff that he could hardly clamber to his feet. His -henchmen assisted him, though they begged him to rest for a day. But his -will forced him on; he wanted to be virile and win the beautiful -Annapalpeteu. - -The journey, which consumed a week, cost the aged Strephon a world of -effort. But as he had been indefatigable in his youth, he was determined -to reach the wise man’s headquarters walking like a warrior, and not -carried there on a litter like an old woman. Bravely he forged ahead, -his aching joints paining miserably, until at length he came in sight of -his Promised Land. - -The soothsayer, who had been apprised of his coming by a dream, was in -front of his substantial lodge-house to greet him. Seldom had he -received a more distinguished client than Wisamek, so he welcomed him -with marked courtesy and deference. - -After the first formalities, the old chief, who had restrained himself -with difficulty, asked how he could be restored to a youthful condition, -so that he could rightfully marry a beautiful maiden of eighteen -summers. The wise man, who had encountered similar supplicants in the -past, informed him that the task was a comparatively easy one. It would -involve, however, however, first drinking the waters of the Warm Springs -(in what is now Perry County), then another journey across mountains. - -Wisamek shouted for joy when he heard these words, and impatiently -demanded where he would have to go to be finally restored to youth. - -“Across many high mountain ranges, across many broad valleys, across -many swift streams, through a country covered with dark forests and -filled with wild beasts, to the northwest of here, is a wonderful -cavern. In it rises a deep stream of greenish color, clear as crystal, -the fountain of youth. At its heading you will find a very old man, -Gamunk, who knows the formula. Give him this talisman, and he will allow -you to bathe in the marvelous waters and be young again.” - -With the final words he handed Wisamek a red bear’s tooth, on which was -cleverly carved the form of an athletic youth. The old chief’s hands -trembled so much that he almost dropped the precious fetich. But he soon -recovered his self-control and thanked the wise man. Then he ordered his -henchmen to give the soothsayer gifts, which they did, loading him with -beads, pottery, wampum and rare furs. - -Despite the invitation to remain until he was completely rested, Wisamek -determined to depart at once for the warm springs and the fountain of -youth. He drank the warm water copiously, enjoying the beautiful -surroundings at the springs. He was so stimulated by his high hope and -the mineral waters that he climbed the steep ridges, crossed the -turbulent streams and put up with the other inconveniences of the long -march much better than might have been the case. During the entire -journey he sang Indian love songs, strains which had not passed his lips -in thirty years. - -His followers, gossiping among themselves, declared that he looked -better already. Perhaps he would not have to bathe in the fountain after -all. He might resume his youth, because he willed it so. Indians were -strong believers in the power of mind over matter. - -When he reached the vicinity of the cave he was fortunate enough to meet -the aged Indian who was its guardian. Though his hair was snow white and -he said he was so old that he had lost count of the years, Gamunk’s -carriage was erect, his complexion smooth, his eyes clear and kindly. He -walked along with a swinging stride, very different from Wisamek’s -mental picture of him. The would-be bridegroom, who handed him the -talisman, was quick to impart his mission to his new-found friend. - -“It is true,” he replied, “after a day and a night’s immersion in the -cave’s water you will emerge with all the appearance of youth. There is -absolutely no doubt of it. Thousands have been here before.” - -With these reassuring words Wisamek again leaped for joy, gyrating like -a young brave at a cantico. - -The party, accompanied by the old guardian, quickly arrived at the -cave’s main opening, where beneath them lay stretched the calm, -mirror-like expanse of greenish water. - -“Can I begin the bath now?” asked the chief, impatiently. “I am anxious -to throw off the odious appearance of age.” “replied the old watchman, -who took him by the hand, leading to the ledge where it was highest -above the water. “Jump off here,” he said quietly. Wisamek, who had been -a great swimmer in his youth and was absolutely fearless of the water, -replied that he would do so. “But remember you must remain in the water -without food until this hour tomorrow,” said the guardian. - -As he leaped into the watery depths the chief shouted he would remain -twice as long if he could be young again. Wisamek was true to his -instructions; there was too much at stake; he dared not falter. - -The next morning his henchmen were at the cave’s mouth to greet his -reappearance. They were startled to see, climbing up the ledge with -alacrity, a tall and handsome man, as young looking as themselves. There -was a smile on the full, red lips, a twinkle in the clear eye of the -re-made warrior as he stood among them, physically a prince among men. - -The homeward journey was made with rapidity. Wisamek traveled so fast -that he played out his henchmen who were half his age. - -Annapalpeteu, who was seated in front of her parents’ cabin weaving a -garment, noticed a youth of great physical beauty approaching, at the -head of Chief Wisamek’s clansmen. She wondered who he could be, as he -wore Wisamek’s headdress of feathers of the osprey or “sea eagle.” When -he drew near he saluted her, and, not giving her time to answer, -joyfully shouted: “Don’t you recognize me? I am your good friend -Wisamek, come back to win your love, after a refreshing journey through -the distant forests.” - -Annapalpeteu, who was a sensible enough girl to have admired the great -warrior for his prowess, even though she had never thought of him -seriously as a lover, was now instantly smitten by his engaging -appearance. The henchmen withdrew, leaving the couple together. They -made marked progress with their romance; words of love were mentioned -before they parted. - -It was not long before the betrothal was announced, followed shortly by -the wedding festival. At the nuptials the bridegroom’s appearance was -the marvel of all present. It was hinted that he had been somewhere and -renewed his youth, but as the henchmen were sworn to secrecy, how it had -been done was not revealed. - -The young bride seemed radiantly happy. She had every reason to be; the -other Indian maids whispered from lip to lip, was she not marrying the -greatest warrior and hunter of his generation, the handsomest man in a -hundred tribes? Secretly envied by all of her age, possessing her -stalwart prize, the fair bride started on her honeymoon, showered with -acorns and good wishes. - -So far as is known the wedding trip passed off blissfully. There were -smiles on the bright faces of both bride and groom when they returned to -their spacious new lodge-house, which the tribe had erected for them in -their absence, by the banks of the sparkling Bohundy. But the course of -life did not run smoothly for the pair. Though outwardly Wisamek was the -handsomest and most youthful-looking of men, he was still an old man at -heart. Annapalpeteu was as pleasure-loving as she was beautiful. She -wanted to dance and sing and mingle with youthful company. She wanted -her good time in life; her joy of living was at its height, her sense of -enjoyment at its zenith. - -[Illustration: BLACK BEAR, KILLED IN SUGAR VALLEY] - -On the other hand, Wisamek hated all forms of gaieties or youthful -amusements. He wanted to sit about the lodge-house in the sun, telling -of his warlike triumphs of other days; he wanted to sleep much, he hated -noise and excitement. - -Annapalpeteu, dutiful wife that she was, tried to please him, but in due -course of time both husband and wife realized that romance was dying, -that they were drifting apart. Wisamek was even more aware of it than -his wife. It worried him greatly, his dreams were of an unhappy nature. -He pictured the end of the trail, with his wife, Annapalpeteu, in love -with some one else of her own age, some one whose heart was young. He -had spells of moodiness and irritability, as well as several serious -quarrels with his wife, whom he accused of caring less for him than -formerly. - -The relations became so strained that life in the commodious lodge-house -was unbearable. At length it occurred to Wisamek that he might again -visit the fountain of youth, this time to revive his soul. Perhaps he -had not remained in the water long enough to touch the spirit within. He -informed his spouse that he was going on a long journey on invitation of -the war chief of a distant tribe, and that she must accompany him. He -was insanely jealous of her now. He could not bear her out of his sight. -He imagined she had a young lover back of every tree, though she was -honor personified. - -The trip was made pleasantly enough, as the husband was in better -spirits than usual. Annapalpeteu enjoyed the waters of the warm springs, -would liked to have tarried. He thought he saw the surcease of his -troubles ahead of him! - -When he reached the Beaver Dam Meadows, at the foot of Egg Hill, near -the site of the present town of Spring Mills, beautiful level flats -which in those days were a favorite camping ground for the red men, he -requested the beautiful Annapalpeteu to remain there for a few days, -that he was going through a hostile country, he would not jeopardize her -safety. He was going on an important mission that would make her love -him more than ever when he returned. In reality no unfriendly Indians -were about, but in order to give a look of truth to his story he left -her in charge of a strong bodyguard. - -Wisamek’s conduct of late had been so peculiar that his wife was not -sorry to see her lord and master go away. Handsome though he was, a -spiritual barrier had arisen between them which grew more insurmountable -with each succeeding day. Yet, on this occasion, when he was out of her -sight, she felt apprehensive about him. She had a strange presentiment -that she would never see him again. - -Wisamek was filled with hopes; his spirits had never been higher, as he -strode along, followed by his henchmen. When he reached the top of the -path which led to the mouth of the enchanted cave he met old Gamunk, the -guardian. The aged redman expressed surprise at seeing him again. - -“I have come for a very peculiar reason,” he said. “The bath which I -took last year outwardly made me young, but only _outwardly_. Within I -am as withered and joyless as a centenarian. I want to bathe once more, -to try to revive the old light in my soul.” - -Gamunk shook his head. “You may succeed; I hope you will. I never heard -of any one daring to take a second bath in these waters. The tradition -of the hereditary guardians, of whom I am the hundredth in direct -succession, has it that it would be fatal to take a second immersion, -especially to remain in the water for twenty-four hours.” - -Then he asked Wisamek for the talisman which gave him the right to -bathe. Wisamek drew himself up proudly, and, with a gesture of his hand -indicating disdain, said he had no talisman, that he would bathe anyhow. -He advanced to the brink and plunged in. Until the same hour the next -day he floated and paddled about the greenish depths, filled with -expectancy. For some reason it seemed longer this time than on the -previous visit. - -At last, by the light which filtered down through the treetops at the -cave’s mouth, he knew that the hour had come for him to emerge–emerge as -Chief Wisamek–young in heart as in body. Proudly he grasped the rocky -ledge and swung himself out on dry land. He arose to his feet. His head -seemed very light and giddy. He fancied he saw visions of his old -conquests, old loves. There was the sound of music in the air. Was it -the martial drums, played to welcome the conqueror, or the wind surging -through the feathery tops of the maple and linden trees at the mouth of -the cave? He started to climb the steep path. He seemed to be treading -the air. Was it the buoyant steps of youth come again? He seemed to -float rather than walk. The sunlight blinded his eyes. Suddenly he had a -flash of normal consciousness. He dropped to the ground with a thud like -an old pine falling. Then all was blackness, silence. Jaybirds -complaining in the treetops alone broke the stillness. - -His bodyguards, who were waiting for him at old Gamunk’s lodge-house, -close to where the hotel now stands, became impatient at his -non-appearance, as the hour was past. Accompanied by the venerable -watchman they started down the path. To their horror they saw the dead -body of a hideous, wrinkled old man, all skin and bones, like a -desiccated mummy, lying stretched out across it, a few steps from the -entrance to the cave. When they approached closely they noticed several -familiar tattoo marks on the forehead, which identified the body as that -of their late master, Wisamek. - -Frightened lest they would be accused of his murder, and shocked by his -altered appearance, the bodyguards turned and took to their heels. They -disappeared in the trackless forests to the north and were never seen -again. - -Old Gamunk, out of pity for the vain-glorious chieftain, buried the -remains by the path near where he fell. As for poor Annapalpeteu, the -beautiful, she waited patiently for many days by the Beaver Dam, but her -waiting was in vain. At length, concluding that he had been slain in -battle in some valorous encounter, she started for her old home on the -Bohundy. - -It is related that on the way she met and married a warrior of her own -age, living happily ever afterwards in a comfortable cabin somewhere in -the majestic Bower Mountains. In him she found the loving response, the -congeniality of pleasures which had been denied the dried, feeble soul -of Wisamek, who bathed too often in the fountain of youth. - -[Illustration] - - XXIII - _Compensations_ - - -It seemed that Andrew McMeans and Oscar Wellendorf were born to be -engaged in rivalry, although judging by their antecedents, the former -was in a class beyond, McMeans being well-born, of old Scotch-Irish -stock, a valuable asset on the Allegheny. Wellendorf, of Pennsylvania -Dutch origin, of people coming from one of the eastern counties, was -consequently rated much lower socially, had much more to overcome in the -way of life’s obstacles. The boys were almost of school age; Wellendorf, -if anything, was a month or two older. In school in Hickory Valley -neither was a brilliant scholar, but they were evenly matched, and -although not aspiring to lead their classes, felt a keen rivalry between -one another. - -When school days were over, and they took to rafting as the most obvious -occupation in the locality, their rivalries as to who could run a fleet -quickest to Pittsburg, and come back for another, was the talk of the -river. In love it was not different, and despite the talk in McMean’s -family that he should marry Anna McNamor, daughter of his father’s -life-long friend, Tabor McNamor, the girl showed an open preference for -Oscar Wellendorf. - -The old Scotch-Irish families were, as the London Times said in -commenting on some of the characteristics of the late Senator Quay -(inherited from his mother, born Stanley) “clannish to degree,” and -Anna’s “people” were equally anxious that she marry one of her own -stock, and not ally herself with the despised and socially insignificant -“Dutch”. Old Grandmother McClinton called attention to the fact that the -headstrong beauty was not without a strain of “Dutch” blood herself, for -her great, great grandmother had been none other than the winsome -Madelon Ury, a Swiss-Huguenot girl of Berks County, who, when surprised -in the field hoeing corn by a blood-thirsty Indian, had dropped her hoe -and taken to her heels. She ran so fast over the soft ground that she -would have escaped her moccasined pursuer had she not taken time to -cross a stone fence. This gave the red man the chance to throw his -tomahawk, striking her in the neck, and she fell face downward over the -wall. Just as her foe was overtaking her, Martin McClinton, a sword -maker from Lancaster, who was passing along the Shamokin trail en route -to deliver a sabre to Colonel Conrad Weiser, at Heidelberg, rushed to -her rescue and shot down the Indian, so that he fell dead across his -fair victim. - -McClinton extricated the tomahawk from her neck, bound up the wound with -his own neckerchief and carried her to her parent’s home, near the -Falling Springs. He remained until the wound healed, when he married -her. Later the pair migrated west of the Alleghenies. - -Madelon McClinton was very dark, with an oval face and aquiline -features, possibly having had a strain of Pennsylvania Jewish blood to -account for her brunette type of beauty. She always wore a red scarf -wrapped about her neck, being proud and sensitive of the ugly long white -scar left by the Indian’s weapon. - -This ancestress, so Grandmother McClinton thought, was responsible for -Anna’s affinity for the rather prosaic Dutchman Wellendorf. Although the -girl was open in her preference for Oscar, she did not make a decision -as to matrimony for some time. When Wellendorf was absent, she was nicer -to McMeans than anyone else. However, if Oscar appeared on the scene, -she had eyes and ears for no other. - -On one occasion when the two young men started down the river on their -rafts, proudly standing at the steering oars in the rear, for the -Allegheny pilots rode at the back of the rafts, whereas those on the -Susquehanna were always at the front. Anna was at the water’s edge, -under a huge buttonwood tree–or, as Wellendorf called it in the breezy -vernacular of the Pennsylvania Dutch, a “wasserpitcher”–and waved a red -kerchief impartially at both. - -McMean’s raft on this trip was of “pig iron”, that is unpeeled hemlock -logs, as heavy as lead, and became submerged when he had only gotten as -far as the mouth of French Creek. He had to run ashore to try and devise -ways and means to save it from sinking altogether, while Wellendorf -floated along serenely on his raft of white pine, and was to Pittsburg -and back home before McMeans ever reached the “Smoky City.” “John C. -French tells us, "White Pine (pinus strobus) was King, and his dusky -Queen was a beautiful Wild Cherry, lovely as Queen Alliquippa of the -redmen. Rafting lumber from Warren County began about 1800, and it -reached its maximum in the decade, 1830 to 1840. The early history of -Warren County abounds in very interesting incidents, along the larger -Allegheny River, from rafts of pine lumber assembled to couple up for -Pittsburg fleets. - -"After the purchase of Louisiana, in 1804, the hardy lumbermen decided -to extend their markets for pine beyond Pittsburg, Wheeling, Cincinnati -and Louisville–to go, in fact, to New Orleans with pine and cherry -lumber. So large boats were built in the winter of 1805 and 1806 at many -mills. Seasoned lumber of the best quality was loaded into the flat -boats and they untied on April 1, 1806, for the run of two thousand -miles, bordered by forests to the river’s edge. - -"It was in defiance to ‘All Fools’ Day’, but they went through and sold -both lumber and boats. For clear pine lumber, $40.00 was the price per -one thousand feet received at New Orleans–just double the Pittsburg -price at that date. For three years thereafter the mills of Warren -County sent boats to New Orleans loaded with lumber, and the men -returned on foot. Joseph Mead, Abraham Davis and John Watt took boats -through in 1807, coming back via Philadelphia on coastal sailing ships. - -"The pilots and men returned by river boats or on foot, as they best -could. The markets along the Ohio from Pittsburg to St. Louis soon took -all the lumber from the Allegheny mills, and the longer trips were -gladly discontinued. - -"It was in 1850 that there came the first lumber famine at Pittsburg. -Owing to the low price of lumber and an unfavorable winter for the -forest work, few rafts of lumber and board timber went down the -Allegheny on the spring freshets, but the November floods brought one -hundred rafts that sold for more favorable prices than had previously -prevailed. Clear pine lumber sold readily for $18.00 and common pine -lumber for $9.00 per one thousand feet. - -"The renown of these prices stimulated lumbering on the Allegheny -headwaters and the larger creeks. So the demand for lumber was supplied -and the railroads soon began to bring lumber from many sawmills. The -board timber was hewed on four sides, so there were only five inches of -wane on each of the four corners. These rafts of round-square timber -were sold by square feet to Pittsburg sawmills. - -"Rafts of pine boards at headwater mills were made up of platforms, 16 -feet square and from 18 to 25 courses thick, 9 pins or “grubs” holding -boards in place as rafted. Four or five platforms were coupled in tandem -with 3 feet “cribs” at each joint, making an elastic piece 73 feet or 92 -feet long for a 4 or 5 platform piece as the case might be, 10 feet -wide. - -"At Larrabee or at Millgrove four of these pieces were coupled into a -Warren fleet, 32 feet wide, 149 feet or 187 feet long. - -"Four Warren pieces or fleets were put together at Warren to make up a -Pittsburg fleet. At Pittsburg four or more Pittsburg fleets were coupled -to make an Ohio River fleet. Some became very large, often covering -nearly two acres of surface, containing about 1,500,000 feet of lumber -at Cincinnatti or at Louisville. They each had a hut for sheltering the -men and for cooking their food. They often ran all night on the Ohio. To -find where the shore was on a very dark night, the men would throw -potatoes, judging from the sound how far away the river bank was and of -their safe or dangerous position. These men were of rugged bodies and of -daring minds. - -"A small piece, in headwaters and creeks, had an oar or sweep at each -end of the piece to steer the raft with. Each oar usually had two men to -pull it. An oar-stem was from 28 to 35 feet long, 8″ by 8″, and tapered -to 4″ by 4″, shaved to round hand-hold near the end toward center of -raft. The oar blade was 12′, 14′ or 16′ long, and 18″ to 20″ wide, a -pine plank, 4″ thick at the oar-stem socket, and 1″ thick at the -out-end, tapered its whole length. - -"There were other sizes of stem and blade, but the above indicates the -power that guided a raft of lumber along the flood-tides, crooked -streams, and over a dozen mill dams to the broader river below. - -"From the Allegheny boats or scows, 30 feet long and 11 feet wide, -carried loads of baled hay, butter, eggs and other farm produce to the -oil fields of Venango County in the ’60’s, sold there and took oil in -barrels to the refinery at Pittsburg. Then sold the scows to carry coal -or goods down the Ohio. - -"Mr. Westerman built five boats at Roulette about 1870, 40 feet long and -12 feet wide, loaded them with lumber and shingles and started for -Pittsburg, but the boats were too long for the dams and broke up at -Burtville, the first dam. - -"Much of the pine timber of the west half of Potter county was cut in -sawlogs and sent to mills at Millgrove and Weston’s in log drives down -the river and Oswayo Creek into the State of New York. The lumber was -shipped via the Genesee Valley Canal to Albany and New York City and -other points on the Hudson River. - -"The first steamboat to steam up the river from Warren was in 1830. It -was built by Archibald Tanner, Warren’s first merchant, and David Dick -and others of Meadville. It was built in Pittsburg; the steamer was -called Allegheny. It went to Olean, returned and went out of commission. - -"The late Major D. W. C. James furnished the incident of the Allegheny -voyage. A story was told by James Follett regarding the trip of the -Allegheny from Warren, which illustrates the lack of speed of steamboats -on the river at that early day. - -"While the steamer was passing the Indian reservation, some twenty odd -miles above Warren, the famous chief, Cornplanter, paddled his canoe out -to the vessel and actually paddled his small craft up stream and around -the Allegheny, the old chief giving a vigorous war hoop as he -accomplished the proud feat. - -"Chief Cornplanter, alias John O’Bail, first took his young men to -Clarion County, about 1795, to learn the method of lumbering, and in -1796 he built a sawmill on Jenneseedaga Creek, later named Cornplanter -Run, in Warren County, and rafted lumber down the Allegheny to Pittsburg -for many years. - -"Many tributary streams, such as Clarion, Tionesta and Oswayo, -contributed rafts each year to make up the fleets that descended the -Allegheny River from 1796 to 1874, our rafting days. - -"We must mention the Hotel Boyer, on the Duquesne Way, on the Allegheny -River bank, near the “Point” at Pittsburg, where the raftsmen and the -lumbermen foregathered, traded, ate and drank together, after each trip. -Indians were good pilots, but must be kept sober on the rafts. -‘Bootleggers’ along the river often ran boats out to the rafts and -relieved the droughty crews by dispensing bottles of ‘red-eye’ from the -long tops of the boots they wore." - -Of the big trees in the Allegheny country, Dr. J. T. Rothrock, “Father -of Pennsylvania Forestry,” has said: "About 1860, when I was with a crew -surveying the line for the Sunbury & Erie Railroad, we had some -difficulty in getting away from a certain location. A preliminary line -came in conflict with an enormous original white pine tree, and the -transitman shouted ‘cut down that tree’. After it was felled another -nearby was found to be in the way, and was ordered out. The stump of the -first tree, four feet above the ground measured 6 feet, 3 inches in -diameter; of the second tree a trifle over 6 feet. Such was the -wastefulness of the day." - -As soon as Oscar returned he saw Anna forthwith. She was in a -particularly pliant mood, and in response to his direct question if she -would marry him, replied she would, and the couple boarded the train at -Warren for Buffalo City, where they were married. - -When Andrew McMeans came back from his protracted expedition they were -already home from their honeymoon, and residing with the elder McNamors -in the big brick house, overlooking the Bend. Andrew McMeans felt his -jilting deeply; it was the first time that any real disappointment had -come in the twenty-one years of his life; he had imagined that, despite -her predilection for Wellendorf, he would yet win her, and his pride as -well as his heart was lacerated. Outwardly he revealed little, but -inwardly a peculiar melancholy such as he had never felt before overcame -him, and like Lincoln, after the death of Ann Rutledge, he realized that -he must either “die or get better.” - -Anna seemed happy enough in her new life, and liked to flaunt her -devotion to Oscar whenever her rejected lover was about. Ordinarily this -might have wounded him still deeper, but he was absorbing fresh -anxieties, reading Herbert Spencer, whose abominable agnosticism soon -wrecked his faith, and bereft of love and the solace of immortality, he -became the most wretched of men. - -It was five years after Anna’s elopement, and when she was twenty-one -years old, that one morning she started for Endeavor to get the mail and -make some purchases at the country store. It was a cold, raw day in the -early spring, and the wild pigeons were flying. The beechwoods on both -sides of the road were alive with gunners, old and young. Some one fired -a shot which hurtled close to the nose of the old roan family horse, a -track horse in his day, and he took the bit in his teeth and ran away -madly, with the buggy careening after him. Anna, standing up in the -vehicle, was sawing on the lines until he crashed into a big ash tree -and fractured the poor girl’s skull. She was picked up by some of the -hunters and carried home unconscious the next thing was to get the news -to her husband. Oscar at that time had just finished a raft on West -Hickory Creek, while his old time rival, McMeans, was completing one on -East Hickory, which stream flowed into “The Beautiful River”, almost -directly opposite to the West Hickory Run. - -About the moment that Anna received her cruel death stroke, the two -rafts were being launched simultaneously, with much cheering on both -banks, for partisanship ran high among dwellers on either side of the -river. Members of the family hurried to the river side to watch for the -Wellendorf raft, to “head him off” before it was too late. It was -several hours after the accident when the two rival rafts, with the -stalwart young pilots at the sterns, swept around the Bend, traveling -“nip and tuck”. It promised to be an evenly matched race, barring -accidents, clear to Pittsburg. The skippers of the contending yachts for -the American Cup could not have been more enthused for their races than -were Andrew McMeans and Oscar Wellendorf. - -In front of the McNamor homestead several women were to be seen running -up and down the grassy sward, frantically waving red and green shawls. -What could they mean? They were so vehement that Oscar divined something -was wrong, and steered ashore, followed by McMeans, who, noting the -absence of Anna from the signaling party, feared that a mishap had -befallen her. - -Both young men jumped ashore almost simultaneously, leaving their rafts -to their helpers. The worst had happened–Anna was in the house with a -fractured skull, and the doctors said she could not live the night. If -anything, McMeans turned the paler of the two. The men said little as -they followed the women up the boardwalk to the house. - -That night McMeans, who asked to be allowed to remain until the outcome -of the case, for the river had lost its attractions, was sitting in the -kitchen with Grandmother McClinton. The raw air had blown itself into a -gale after sundown, and during the night the fierce wind beat about the -eaves and corners of the house like an avenging fury. The old tall -clock, made years before by John Vanderslice, of Reading, on top of -which was a stuffed Colishay, or gray fox, with an uncommonly fine -brush, was striking twelve. Amid the storm a wailing voice joined in the -din, incessantly, so that there was no mistaking it, the Warning of the -McClintons. - -[Illustration: RUINS OF FORT BARNET. BUILT IN 1740. (Photograph Taken -1895.)] - -The old grandmother watched McMeans’ face until she saw that he -understood. Then she nodded to him. "It is strange how that thing has -followed the McClinton family for hundreds of years. In Scotland it was -their ‘Caointeach’, in Ireland their ‘Banshee’, in Pennsylvania their -‘Token’ or ‘Warning’. It never fails." - -As McMeans listened to the terrible shrieks of anguish, which sometimes -drowned the storm, he shivered with pity for the lost soul out there in -the cold, giving the death message, so melancholy and sad, and perhaps -unwillingly. Anna lay upstairs in her room, facing the river, or -windward side of the house, and the Warning was evidently somewhere -below her window, where the water in waves like the sea, was -over-running the banks. - -On a kitchen chair still lay a red Paisley shawl that had been used to -signal to Wellendorf earlier in the day. It seemed ample and warm. -Picking it up, McMeans went to the kitchen door, which he opened with -some effort in the force of the gale, and, walking around the house, -laid it on one of the benches at the front door, saying, “Put on this -shawl, and come around to the leeward side of the house.” - -When he returned, he said to Grandmother McClinton, “That Token’s voice -touched me somehow tonight. Something tells me she hated her task, is -cold and miserable. I left the shawl on the front porch and told her to -come out of the wind.” - -After that they both noticed that the unhappy wailings ceased, there was -nothing that vied with the storm. - -“Perhaps you have laid her,” said Grandmother McClinton. “Anna may now -pull through.” - -But these words were barely out of her mouth, when Oscar Wellendorf, -pale as a ghost, appeared in the kitchen to say that Anna had just -passed away. Andrew felt her death keenly, but he was also satisfied -that perhaps he had by an act of kindness, removed the Warning of the -McClintons. He was more convinced when a year later Anna’s father joined -the majority, then her mother, with no visits from the mournful-voiced -Warning. - -Five years more rolled around, and Andrew McMeans, still unmarried, and -cherishing steadfastly the memory of his beloved Anna, embarked his -fleet for Pittsburg. It was a morning in the early spring, the air was -soft and warm, and the shad flies were flitting about. He arrived in -safety, but was some time collecting his money, as he was dealing with a -scamp, and meanwhile put up at a boarding house on the river front, near -the Hotel Boyer. The afternoon after his arrival he was sitting on the -porch of his lodgings, gazing out at the rushing, swirling river, which -ran bank full, on a bench similar in all ways to the one on which he had -laid the shawl to warm the freezing back of the Warning of the -McClintons. Somehow he fell to thinking about that ghost, and its -disappearance, and of Anna McNamor; how much he would give if only he -could see her again. - -He recalled how the old grandmother had told him that some families -married out of the Warning, while others married into it, much as he had -heard was the case with the Assembly Ball in Philadelphia. The McClinton -Warning had evidently clung to the female line, as it had been very much -in evidence when Anna McNamor’s time had come. - -Something made him look up the street. Coming slowly towards him was a -slender school girl, with a little green hat perched on her head, the -living image of Anna, dead for five years! He almost fell off the bench -in surprise, to note the same slim oval face, the aquiline features, and -hazel eyes that he had known and loved so well. She paused for a moment -in front of the house next door, holding her school books in her arms, -while she looked out at the raging river. The spring breezes blowing her -short skirts showed her slim legs encased in light brown worsted -stockings. Then she went indoors. - -It did not take him long to seek his landlady and learn that she was a -flesh and blood, sure enough girl, Anna Harbord by name, whose mother, -widow of Mike Harbord, an old time riverman, also ran a boarding house. -It was not many days before some errand brought the girl to the house -where McMeans was stopping, and matters fortuitously adjusted themselves -so that he met her. - -He was struck by her similarity to the dead girl, even the tones of her -voice, and it seemed strange she should have such a counterpart. She -appeared friendly disposed towards him from the start, and it was like a -compensation sent after all his years of disappointment and loneliness. -She was then sixteen years old, and must have been eleven when her -“double” passed away. - -As their acquaintance grew into love, and all seemed so serene, as if it -was to be, Andrew McMeans gradually regaining his faith, human and -divine, felt he owed his happiness to the Warning of the McClintons’, -whose misery he had appeased by taking the cloak out to her, while -engaged in her disagreeable duty of fortelling the coming dissolution of -the unfortunate girl. - -McMeans and Anna Harbord married. They decided to remain in Pittsburg, -and he became in a few years a successful and respected business man. - -If few persons had been kind to ghosts, certainly he had profited by his -interest in the welfare of the “Warning of the McClintons”. The girl’s -mother informed him that in the early spring, about five years before, -her daughter had been seized with a cataleptic attack, had laid for days -unconscious, and when she came out of it, her entire personality, even -the color of her eyes, had changed. Could it have been, the young -husband often thought, as he sat gazing at his bride with undisguised -admiration, some act of the grateful “Warning,” in sending Anna -McNamor’s soul to enter the body of this girl in Pittsburg, and -reserving her for him, safe and sound from Wellendorf and all harm, -until his travels brought her across his path! Human personality, he -reasoned, is merely a means to an end. The unfinished life of Anna -McNamor could not go on, like a flower unfolding, until her fragrance -had been spent on the one who needed it most. Then he would shudder at -the idea that if the school girl, who stopped to look at the flooded -river, had started on again, passing him by, never to see her again. He -would feel that he had been dreaming perhaps, until, touching his wife’s -soft creamy cheeks, would realize that she was actually there, and his. - -Through her his soul took on new light, and from a vigorous young -woodsman, he was slowly but surely passing into an intellectual -existence. He had been strangely favored by the mainsprings of destiny, -and why should he not give the world all that was best in him. Life, -ruthless though it seems, has always compensations, and if we live -rightly and truly, the debt will be owing us, whereas most of us through -mistakes and misdeeds, have a great volume of retribution coming in an -inevitable sequence. - - XXIV - _A Misunderstanding_ - - -It was the night before Christmas in the little mountain church near -Wolfe’s Store. The small, low-roofed, raftered chapel was illumined as -brightly as coal oil lamps in the early stage of their development could -do it; a hemlock tree, decked out with candles and tinsel stood to one -side of the altar, an almost red-hot ten-plate stove on the other, while -the chancel and rafters were twined and garlanded with ground pine and -ilex, or winter berries. In one of the rear pews sat a very good looking -young couple, a former school teacher revisiting the valley, and his -favorite pupil. Lambert Girtin and Elsie Vanneman were their names. - -The young man, who was a veteran of the Civil War, possessed the right -to wear the Congressional medal, and while teaching at the little red -school house on the pike near the road leading to Gramley’s Gap, had -noticed and admired the fair Elsie, so different from the rest of his -flock. She was the daughter of a prosperous lumberman, a jobber in -hardwoods, and her mother was above the average in intelligence and -breeding, yet Elsie in all ways transcended even her parents. - -She had seemed like a mere child when he left her at the close of the -term the previous Christmas, but he could not evict her image from his -soul. It was mainly to see her, though he would have admitted this to no -one, that induced him to revisit the remote valley during the following -holiday season. The long drive in the stage through drifted roads had -seemed nothing to him, he was so elated at the thought of reviving old -memories at the sight of this most beloved of pupils. - -In order not to arouse any one’s suspicions, he did no more than to -inquire how she was at the general store and boarding house where he -stopped. - -“You would never know her,” exclaimed old Mother Wolfe, the landlady. -“Why, she’s a regular young lady, grown a head taller,” making a gesture -with her hand to denote her increased stature. - -On Christmas Eve there was to be the usual entertainment at the Union -Church, and Lambert Girtin posted himself outside the entrance to wait -for the object of his dreams. The snow was drifted deep, and it was -bitterly cold, yet social events were so rare in the mountains that -almost every one braved the icy blasts to be present. It was not long -before he was rewarded by a sight of Elsie Vanneman. It _was_ remarkable -how tall she’d grown! As he expressed it to himself, “An opening bud -became a rose full-blown” in one short year! - -She of course recognized him, and greeted him warmly, and they entered -the church together. Inside by the lamplight he had a better chance to -study her appearance more in detail than by the cold starlight on the -church steps. She had grown until she was above the middle height, yet -had literally taken her figure and her grace with her. She was slender, -yet shapely, dainty and graceful in the extreme. Her violet eyes were -even more deeply pensive than of yore, her cheeks were pink and white, -her lips red and slightly full. Her hair was a golden or coppery brown, -and shone like those precious metals in the reflected light of the lamps -and the stove; the slight upward turn of her nose still remained. - -How demure, earnest and sincere she was! In the intervening year he had -never seen her like in Bellefonte, Altoona or Pittsburg. She seemed to -be happy to be with him again, minus the restraint existing between a -pupil and teacher. Instinctively their fingers touched, and they held -hands during most of the evening. - -Towards the end of the sermon, which was long and loud, and gave the -young couple plenty of opportunity to advance their love making -unnoticed, Girtin whispered to her: “Have you an escort home, dear -Elsie?” - -The answer was a hesitating “Yes.” - -The young man felt his heart give a jolt, then almost stop throbbing, -and an instant hatred of some unknown rival made his blood boil -furiously. How could she act that way? She had, even as his pupil, been -indifferent to all of the opposite sex except him, and during the period -of their separation her sprightly letters had borne evidence of tender -sentiments, to the utter exclusion of all others. Had he not believed in -her, he would not have taken that long journey back into the mountains, -that many might have been glad to quit for good. Her beauty and her -grace had haunted him, and he had determined to wed her, until this sign -of duplicity had been sprung on him. Of course she did not know he was -coming, and had made the fatal arrangements before; yet, if she cared -for him as he did for her, she would not be making engagements with the -boys, especially at her tender age. - -He tried to console himself by noticing a shade of regret flit over her -blushing face after she said the fateful words, but until the close of -services he was ill at ease and scarcely opened his mouth. At the -benediction he managed to stammer “Good evening,” and was out of the -church in the frosty starlight night before any one else. - -With long strides he walked up the snowy road ahead of the crowd who had -followed him. The sky was very clear, and the North Star, “The Three -Kings,” or Jacob’s Rake, Job’s Coffin, and other familiar -constellations, were glimmering on the drifted snow. Instead of -observing the stars, had he looked back he would have seen that the -“escort” she referred to was none other than a girl friend, Katie Moyer, -and both, Elsie in particular, would have been only too happy to have a -sturdy male companion to see them through the snow banks. - -As a result of his disappearance, Elsie was as unhappy and silent as -Girtin had been, as she floundered about in the drifts. Despite her -gentle, sunny nature, she was decidedly out of sorts when she reached -home at the big white house near the Salt Spring. She gave monosyllabic -answers to her parents in response to their queries as to how she had -enjoyed the long-looked for Christmas entertainment. She did not sleep -at all that night, but tossed about the bed, keeping her friend awake, -and on Christmas Day was in a rebellious mood. Her mother reminded her -how ungrateful she was to be so tearful and sullen in the face of so -many blessings and gifts. - -There was no stage or sleigh out of the valley on Christmas Day, else -Girtin would have departed. He moped about all day, telling those who -asked the matter that he was ill. Elsie, knowing that he was still in -the valley, hoped up to bedtime that he would at least come to pay her a -brief Christmas call, but supper over, and no signs of him, she was -uncivil to her mother to such a degree that her friend openly said that -she was ashamed of her. - -Though Katie and she were rooming together, it did not deter her mother, -goaded by the remarks of the younger children to visit her room while -they were undressing, saying “that she deserved a good dose of the gad,” -and, ordering her to lay face downward on the bed, administered a good, -old-fashioned spanking with the flax-paddle. After this humiliating -chastisement in the presence of her friend, the unhappy girl cried and -sobbed until morning. - -It was a wretched ending for what might have been a memorable Christmas -for Lambert Girtin and Elsie Vanneman. - -The next morning the young man managed to hire a cutter and was driven -to Bellefonte, leaving the valley with deep regrets. Through friends in -the valley he learned afterwards that Elsie had gone as a missionary to -China. - -Life ran smoothly in some ways for Lambert Girtin, for he became -uniformly successful as a business man. The oil excitement was at its -height, and he was sent by a large general supply house in Pittsburg to -open a store in Pithole City, “the Magic City,” to the success of which -he contributed so much that he was given an interest in the concern. - -At heart he was not happy. He could never focus his attentions on any -woman for long, as in the background he always saw the slender form, the -blushing face, the pansy-like eyes and the copper-brown, wavy hair of -his mountain sweetheart, Elsie Vanneman. Her loveliness haunted him, and -all others paled beside her. He was in easy circumstances to marry; -friends less opulent were taking wives and building showy homes with -Mansard roofs, along the outskirts of the muddy main thoroughfare of -Pithole City, where landscape gardening often consisted of charred, -blackened pine stumps and abandoned oil derricks. - -Sometimes, in his spiritual loneliness, he betook himself to strange -companions. One of these was a Chinese laundryman, a prototype of Bret -Harte’s then popular “Heathen Chinee,” who seemed to be a learned -individual, despite his odd appearance. Girtin, who had read of the -exploits of the Fox sisters and other exponents of early spiritualism, -was unprepared for the learning and insight possessed by this -undistinguished Celestial. - -Drawn to him at first because he could possibly tell about conditions in -China, where Elsie was supposed to be, he became gradually more and more -absorbed by the laundryman’s philosophic speculations. The fellow -confided at length that he was married, and had five children at -Tien-Tsin, to whom he was deeply attached. He would have died of a -broken heart to be so far away from them but for the power he had -developed by concentrating on the image of his native mountains, which -yearning was reciprocated, and at night he claimed that his spirit was -drawn out of his body and “hopped” half the span of the globe to the -side of his loved ones. There must be something after all in the old -Scotch quotation, “Oh, for my strength, once more to see the hills.” - -Girtin expressed a strong desire to be initiated into these compelling -mysteries. In order to cultivate his psychic sense, the Chinaman induced -him to smoke opium, which, while repellent to Girtin, he undertook in -order to reach his desired object. If he had been a man of any mental -equilibrium, he would have secured a leave of absence from business and -gone to China and claimed the fair Elsie, if she was still unmarried. He -would not do that because he was still tortured by the memory of her -preferring another at the moment when his hopes had been highest, yet he -wanted to see her, hoping that he could do so without her knowing it. - -The results attained were beyond his expectations. He quickly mastered -his soul and “hopped” to the interior of China. Elsie was there, -surrounded by her classes; at twenty-one more wondrously lovely and -beautiful than when he had parted from her that frosty night, with the -Dipper and Jacob’s Rake shining so clearly in the heavens. - -Though there were many missionaries and foreign officials who would have -courted her, her dignity and quiet reserve were impenetrable. Was she so -because of the love for the youth who was to escort her home from church -that night, or did she cherish the memory of her whilom schoolmaster -admirer? These were the thoughts that annoyed him by day, the “hang -over” of his spiritual adventures at night. - -The opium and the intense mental concentration were taking a lot out of -him. He became sallow and irritable, and neglected many business -opportunities. One of the head partners of the firm in Pittsburg was -going to Pithole City “to have it out with him,” as the mountain folks -would say. Before he could reach the scene word was telegraphed that -Lambert Girtin, frightfully altered in appearance, was found dead one -morning in a bunk back of the Charley Wah Laundry at Pithole. - -He had no relatives in the town, and his sisters, who could not come on, -telegraphed to bury him in the new Mount Moriah Cemetery, now all -overgrown and abandoned, like Pithole itself! There could be no doubt as -to his death, as Bill Brewer, just coming into fame as the “Hick -Preacher,” officiated at the obsequies. So Lambert Girtin was quickly -forgotten in most all quarters. If he was remembered for a time, it was -in the remote valley in which he had taught school, and where news of -his early demise occasioned profound regret. - -Years passed, and Elsie Vanneman, after giving some of the best years of -her life to missionary activities in various parts of China, resigned -her position, in consequence of a shattered nervous system, caused by -overwork during a great earthquake, where she ministered to thousands of -refugees, and started for home. Her parents had died while she was in -the “Celestial Kingdom,” but she had a number of brothers and sisters -who were glad to welcome her, and with whom she planned a round of -visits. - -She was only thirty when she returned, a trifle paler and a few small -lines around her mouth, but otherwise a picture of saintliness and -loveliness. One of the first bits of news she heard on reaching the -valley was of the ignominious end of Lambert Girtin in a Chinese -laundryman’s shack–"a promising career cut short," all allowed. - -It was shocking to Elsie, as she had dreamed of this young man nearly -every night from a certain period of her stay in China. She was on the -street during the great quake, and as the earth cracked and swallowed -countless victims, she fancied she saw a European, the counterpart of -Girtin, plunged into the deadly abyss. She had come home with the -intention of learning definite news of him, and if he was not the -earthquake victim, and still lived, perhaps to renew their old-time -interests. - -She had been so upset by his failure to call, or even to write, after -the Christmas eve at the little country church, that she had never -communicated with him again. Her dreams had been most vividly realistic, -as if he had been really near to her in China, and she could not make -herself believe that he was dead in Pithole City, Pennsylvania. - -Owing to this piece of bad news, she did not remain as long in the -valley as she had planned, and almost from the day of her arrival had -pined to be back in the Far East. The valley seemed dull, anyway; -saw-mills were making it as treeless as China; she hated to see Luther -Guisewhite destroy those giant original white pines, which reared their -black-topped spiral heads along the foot of the mountains on the winter -side; the wild pigeons no longer darkened the sky with their impressive -flights, the flying squirrels were being shot out in Fulmer’s Sink, near -her old home; her parents were gone–everything was different. - -Unsettled and dissatisfied, especially after a visit to the girl who had -accompanied her home on the eventful Christmas Eve, now the mother of -eight handsome children, she decided to return to China. The vast herds -of buffaloes that had impeded the progress of her train on her first -journey westward were gone. The Indians who occasionally furnished a -touch of color to the prairie landscape, likewise had disappeared. -Civilization was spreading through the Great West. - -She timed her arrival in San Francisco so as to be there shortly after -the arrival of a ship from China, so as to go back on its return -journey. She would have several days to wait in the City of the Golden -Gate but it was quaint and picturesque, the time would pass quickly. - -One evening–she was not afraid, as she knew the language and customs of -the Celestials–she decided to take a stroll through the famous Chinese -Quarter. As she was walking along, her head down, her mind abstracted -and noticing little, some one touched her on the arm. Looking around, as -if to resent a familiarity, to her bewilderment she beheld her long-lost -friend, Lambert Girtin. - -“Lambert Girtin!” she said, in amazed tones. - -“Elsie Vanneman–it is surely you?” he replied. - -“Of all people, after all these years! I had been hearing that you died -five years ago in the oil regions somewhere; what _are_ you doing?” - -The ex-schoolmaster took hold of both of her hands, there in the -crowded, moving throngs of Chinatown, saying: “I came in from China -today, after what I thought was a hopeless search for you. Years ago, -after our separation, a Chinaman showed me how to visit China in my -dreams, and be close to you. It took a whole lot of mental -concentration, was pulling me down physically. I kept it up too long, -for one night I dreamed I was in a terrible earthquake. It was so vivid -that my physical as well as my spiritual being was translated to China, -and I found myself there penniless. But, search as I may, I could not -find you. If I died in the oil regions, it must have been another -physical self, shed as a snake does his skin, for the Lambert Girtin who -stands before you is fully alive, and resolved never to part from you -again.” - -[Illustration: - - JESSE LOGAN, PENNSYLVANIA INDIAN CHIEF - (Photograph Taken 1915 by P. C. Hockenberry) -] - -Old memories came to Elsie Vanneman, conquering her fears, and her face -flushed as in schoolgirl days: "You speak of our ‘separation’–pray, tell -me more about it; why did you leave me so abruptly and run away that -Christmas Eve after meeting? I could never understand why you did not -even come to wish me a ‘Merry Christmas’ the next day. Why didn’t you -ever write me a line? What did I do to merit such neglect?" - -“What did _you_ do?” replied Girtin, drawing her aside from the passing -stream of pig-tailed humanity into a shadowy doorway. “It doesn’t seem -very serious now, but it hurt me a whole lot at the time. You told me -you had an engagement with some one to see you in from church, and I was -angry and jealous, for I had been imagining that your thoughts had only -been of me, that you cared for no one else.” “replied the girl with -alacrity. - -Girtin turned as pale as death; his sufferings, mental and physical, his -wanderings, physical and actual, his wasted years, all had been caused -by a misunderstanding. He was at a loss for words for some time, but he -held on to Elsie’s hands, looking into her beautiful, ethereal face, the -vari-colored light of a Chinese lantern shining down on her coppery-gold -hair. - -“Do you care for me at all, _now_?” he said, at length. - -“Yes, I think I do; I must, or I would not have came back all the way -from China to hunt _you_,” she answered. - -“Then we have both suffered,” he said, sadly. “What shall we do now?” -“she said. - -“That’s where I want to go,” he replied, “if I can ever live down that -dying story in Pithole City.” “said Elsie. "There was a case in our -valley of a soldier reported as killed at Gettysburg; they sent his body -home, began paying his widow a pension; she married a former sweetheart, -and then, worse than ‘Enoch Arden,’ he appeared as if from the grave. He -had no explanations to make, and our mountain people asked no questions, -all having faith in supernatural things. Neither will I ask any of you. -I have seen too much in the east to make me disbelieve anything, or that -we can die two or three times under stress of circumstances, shedding -our physical selves–to use your words–as snakes do their skins. I am -only happy I did not marry some one else, as I was tempted to do when I -imagined you were engulfed in the earthquake." - -That night in Chinatown for once a misunderstanding ended happily. - - XXV - _A Haunted House_ - - -When Billy Cloyd prospered in the lumber and milling business, he -determined to erect a mansion overlooking the arrowy waters of the -Sinnemahoning that would reflect not only his success, but the social -status of his family as well. Accordingly Williamsport architects who -made a specialty of erecting houses for the wealthy lumbermen of that -community were commissioned to prepare plans for what was to be the -grandest private dwelling on the outposts of civilization, a structure -which would outdo the already famous club house built for the use of the -stockholders of the Philadelphia Land Company at Snow Shoe, or the -offices of the agents of the Queen of Spain at Reveltown and Scootac. - -The result was a large, square house, along Colonial lines, with a -spacious doorway, above which was a transom of antique colored glass -brought all the way from the home of one of his ancestors at Old -Carlisle. Windows were numerous, commanding views up and down the -beautiful, billowy stream, then teeming with fish and aquatic bird life. - -The surrounding mountains were covered with virgin pine forests, while -the great hemlocks, oaks and birches hung over the water’s edge. There -was a clearing in which the mansion stood, the chief feature of which -was an old-fashioned garden of carefully laid design, with plenty of -columbine, called by the mountain folks “church bells,” and eglantine, -with boxwoods from the “Quaker City,” purchased from the heirs of -“Eaglesfield.” - -The dark forest came to the back of the garden, and stood black in the -gorge of Mill Creek near the projected flouring and fulling mills, to -the east of the mansion; the ever-busy saw-mill, the chief symbol of the -prosperity of Castlecloyd, as the domain was called, was situated near -the mouth of the creek. There was barely a distance of two hundred yards -from the sloping banks of the Sinnemahoning to where the forest and the -steep mountains began, consequently the mansion, mills, workshops, -stables and mill hands’ and woodsmen’s houses were all close together. - -Along the water’s edge carpenters were steadily at work building arks -and flats which carried the products of the mills to the terminus of the -railroad at Lock Haven, or to Sunbury or Harrisburg. - -Now all is changed. The view from the portico and the lawn of -Castlecloyd is upon a stream flowing with a liquid the color and texture -of ink, frowning with fine yellow bubbles; not, a living fish has been -seen, according to the present occupant of the premises, the venerable -Seth Nelson, Jr., since 1899, when the paper mill at Austin sent down -its first installment of vile pollution. Then the fish leaped on the -shore in frightful agony, dying out of water, but away from the -insidious poisoning of the acids. - -The water birds are gone; they cannot drink the polluted water, and give -the region a wide berth. Instead of cooling zephyrs, when the wind blows -off the creek towards the house, there comes a stench worse than a -week-old battlefield in Flanders. - -No forests of virgin timber are to be seen, if you strain your eyes -looking up or down stream, nothing but charred, brown wastes, the -aftermath of killing forest fires which followed the lumbering -operations. Here and there on some inaccessible cliff a lone original -white pine or hemlock has its eyrie, but even there the fires are -finding them, and they are all scorched and shaky at the butts, and go -down easily in sharp gales. Altar Rock, famed in song and story, still -has one pine standing on its top, but it is dead, and will soon share -the fate of its mate, which was blown down over twenty years ago. - -The entire scene is one of loneliness and desolation, yet a quiet, -peaceful home for the octogenarian hunter Nelson and his devoted and -equally aged sister. How different all this from what it was in the -hey-day of prosperous Billy Cloyd! The hum of the mills, the busy teams -of horses and ox-spans bringing in the logs, the carpenters and boatmen, -the large family of the successful woodsman, their guests, and the -hunters and surveyors who often made the house their headquarters. - -It was at the time that the line of the Sunbury and Erie Railroad was -being surveyed from Rattlesnake, now Whetham, to Erie, and one surveying -crew was quartered at Castlecloyd. A few weeks earlier Dr. J. T. -Rothrock had stopped there, but was now further west, camping with Mike -Long, the wolf hunter, in the midst of a great deer and pigeon country -in Elk County. - -Those were days of reckless waste of our natural resources, according to -the good Doctor. One of the surveyors, so as not to have to curve his -line, ordered that three giant original white pines be cut. All the -stumps were measured by Dr. Rothrock and averaged considerably over six -feet in diameter. They were, of course, left to rot in the woods, -thousands of feet of lumber of priceless value today! - -Philip L. Webster, who died a few years ago in Littletown, now Bradford, -was also a member of one of these surveying parties on Elk Creek, a -branch of the Clarion River; on one occasion he saw four elks together, -in a swale. - -As “Buffalo Bill” had been the professional hunter for the Northern -Pacific engineering crews, Jim Jacobs, “The Seneca Bear Hunter,” was -attached to Mr. Webster’s organization in the same capacity. Instead of -bison roasts, Jacobs was to furnish fresh elk steaks, and he kept the -surveyors, axmen and chain-carriers supplied with plenty of it all -summer long. - -The members of the party billeted at Castlecloyd were composed of young -Philadelphia gentlemen, sons of prospective stockholders in the new -railroad, finely educated, traveled youths, whose love of adventure had -been fired by the deeds of their colleagues, the Brothers Kane. One of -them stood out more brilliantly than the rest for his scholarly -attainments and poetic nature. He was young Wayne Stewardson, scion of a -distinguished Quaker house of that name, and probably connected with the -family who owned the lands on Kettle Creek, once occupied by Ole Bull. - -The young man had been educated at the university in his native city, -and in Europe. His early upbringing had been in great cities, and his -sentimental tastes came out in a peculiar admiration of spires, -chimneys, towers, stacks, vanes, arched roofs, corbels and crockets. He -would wander for hours just at evening watching the skyline in the -changing light, peopling the growing shadows with all manner of -grotesque shapes and chimeras. His love of shadowland was so great that -he fell naturally to cutting charming silhouettes of his friends, his -likeness of the lovelorn and ill-fated Dr. E. K. Kane being highly -prized. - -His visit to the Sinnemahoning Country was his first induction into the -heart of nature, and his admiration of man’s handicraft as exemplified -in minarets and high gables softened to a deep reverence for the spiral, -columnar forms of the giant pines as they serrated the skyline of the -Allegheny summits. - -There was a bench between two red maple trees, on the bank of the -Sinnemahoning, just in front of Castlecloyd, where he would sit after -supper, watching the crimson sunset reflected in the stream, with the -dusky shapes of the ancient trees athwart, and the sky gradually -becoming less of rose and more of mother-of-pearl, behind the sentinel -pines on the comb of the mountains beyond Birch Island. It was more -beautiful than anything he had ever seen in cities, in its sheer -ferocious wildness. - -One evening, on hearing a woman’s voice humming an old tune, he looked -around, beholding Cloyd’s pretty daughter sitting, watching the -afterglow from the portal of the classic doorway. Her knees were -crossed, revealing pretty, plump little legs, encased in blue cotton -stockings. His first thought at seeing her was to recall Poe’s youthful -lines, “Helen Thy Beauty is to Me.” Previously he had not noticed her -much, except that she seemed more than ordinarily good-looking and -refined, for the drudge’s life she was living. Now that, like himself, -she was a person who took notice of her surroundings, she must be -different, he thought, and have a soul more in keeping with her lovely -appearance. - -When she saw that he had observed her, instead of jumping up and running -into the house and slamming the door, like some crude backwoods girl -might have done, she came forward and stood leaning against one of the -red maples, and chatted pleasantly about the wonderful scenery. - -It was a blissful experience for Stewardson, and as he had hardly spoken -to a girl for a month, was in a particularly susceptible mood. He -studied her appearance minutely. She was probably a trifle under the -middle height, very delicately made, with chestnut hair and eyes of -wondrous golden amber. Her skin was transparently white, and the -delicate peach-blow color in her cheeks was too hectic to betoken good -health. But the outstanding feature was the nose, the most beautiful -nose he had ever seen, the bridge slightly aquiline, yet a sudden -shortness at the tip that transcended the retrousse. She was modest and -simple, reticence being her chief trait, as she told about the deer -which often took harbor in the stream, in front of where they were, when -pursued by dogs. - -She said that she had been christened Marie Asterie, but was generally -called by her second name, though the first was shorter and easier to -pronounce. - -Just as they were becoming nicely acquainted, a young woodsman, whom she -introduced as Oscar Garis, put in an appearance, and the two walked away -together, leaving Stewardson still meditating on the bench. Evidently -they were lovers, thought the young surveyor, and when he looked out on -Sinnemahoning, the light was gone–the water ran dark and menacing. - -Though he had noticed the girl’s unusual nose the first time he saw her, -he had been too busy to become well acquainted, but he recalled that she -occupied a small interior room, just off where he slept, in the -second-floor lobby. He had seen her go upstairs to retire every night, -but proximity had meant nothing to him, so deeply had he been imbued -with ideas of class. Tonight it would be different. - -He walked around a while longer, watching the bats flit hither and -thither, and listening to the plaintive calling of the whippoorwills, -then he went indoors and joined his fellow surveyors in the lobby. He -kept watching the clock and watching the door for Asterie to return, -amusing himself trying to cut her marvellous profile, the like of which -King Henry VIII or King Arthur may have admired, for she was evidently a -“throw back” to some archaic type. It was always the rule for the men to -remain downstairs until the women had retired, and on this occasion they -were all yawning but Stewardson, waiting for Asterie, who was the last -to come in, close to ten o’clock. - -Garis seemed indifferent to her, but it was the negligence of bad -manners rather than lack of interest. This gave Stewardson a chance to -light her fat lamp for her, and she closed the door and went upstairs. -When the young surveyor and his companion ascended the stairs, he noted -the rays of light from her room, streaming from the crack beneath her -door. The night after the lights were out, and his friends asleep, he -drew his mattress nearly to her door, repeating to himself the lines of -Horace’s Ode X, in Book III: - - “O Lyce, didst thou like Tanais, - Wed to some savage, what a pity ’tis - For me to lie on such a night as this - Before your door, - My feet exposed where haunting north winds hiss, - And angry roar.” - -The concluding lines of which were: - - “O thou as hard as oak no storm can break, - As pitiless as Mauritanian snake, - Not thus forever can I lie and quake, - Nor thus remain - Before thy threshold, for thy love’s sweet sake, - Soaked by the rain.” - -But it wasn’t a terrible night, only a fairly chilly one in early June, -with all the stars out, and Asterie’s worst offense was that she was -“keeping company” with another! - -The young man could not sleep all night and wondered if the girl was -similarly afflicted, as the light continued to burn; or maybe she was -only like many mountain people, and slept with a night-light, for no -sound came from her tiny apartment. After that night his pleasures at -Castlecloyd were ended. He loved the fair and fragile girl, whom he -hated to see working so hard, so patient and so misunderstood. He -dreaded the thought of her inevitable marriage to Garis, a rough, common -fellow of no refinement. He could not think of courting her himself as -his family had never in ten generations been declasse. There was nothing -to do but to sigh in vain, and watch that light coming from beneath her -door. And on nights when the wind howled, and the rain beat about the -roof, or some particularly hard gust sent a few cold drops pattering -through a crack in the shingles, on his face, he found consolation by -reciting to himself the lament of Horace in his Ode X. But he did -present her with her silhouette, which she blushingly accepted, and on -several occasions when she sang at the organ, complimented her on her -sweet contralto voice. - -In the autumn when the red maples had cast the last of their leaves, and -the pines and hemlocks looked the blacker in contrast, Stewardson’s -particular work was done, and he prepared to return to Philadelphia. -John Smoke, aged Seneca, professional hunter of the outfit, agreed to -take him and one of his chums to Rattlesnake in a birchbark canoe. Seth -Iredell Nelson, another hunter, would take two more of the young men in -another canoe. Asterie was on the leaf-strewn bank to see them depart, -dressed in her best pink denham frock, and cherry colored peach-basket -straw bonnet. It made him resentful to watch Garis put his arm on her -shoulder as the canoes shoved away, to the tune of old Smoke’s Seneca -chant. - -Billy Cloyd himself was not present; he excused himself as not feeling -well, and Went upstairs shortly after breakfast. On the journey old -Smoke confided to his passengers the cause of the landlord’s backward -conduct. A black calf had been born the night before; whenever one -appeared in the family it brought bad luck; that had been a belief with -Cloyd’s people even in the remote days when they lived in the “old -country.” - -Then the aged Indian told the legend of how the redmen came to the -American continent. They had been driven eastward by famines until they -came to a great sea, across which they found a narrow strip of land, -which they crossed. They came to a country teeming with game, and made -themselves at home, wandering great distances to enjoy the chase and -visit the natural wonders. - -Later they decided to revisit their old home, but the sea had washed -over the strip of land, and their canoes were not stout enough to breast -the angry waves. - -Stewardson listened to this and other old tales in a half-abstracted -way; his thoughts were back with Asterie Cloyd; she with that wonderful, -impossible-to-silhouette nose, her sweet voice, and quiet, restful -manner. He did not marry any of the stately Junoesque beauties whom he -knew, upon returning to Philadelphia, but became critical of the fair -sex, and shunned their company whenever possible. About two years later -the Civil War broke out, and being intimately acquainted with the Kane -family, he hurried to Harrisburg, and the genial “Colonel Tom” gave him -a commission in his 1st Rifle Regiment, soon to win deathless fame under -the name of “Bucktails.” - -One evening in camp Colonel Kane and Captain Stewardson were sitting -before their tents, stroking their long fair beards, for it was the aim -of every young soldier to be the most shaggily hirsute. The Colonel was -telling of his memorable trip on rafts from McKean County to Harrisburg -with his recruits and how he spent a night with a man named Garis, who -had acted like a copperhead, and though an expert rifleman, declined to -enlist. “Yet he had ample cause to be out of sorts” continued the -Colonel. “He had lately buried his wife, who, from all accounts, was an -exceptionally pretty girl, one of Billy Cloyd’s daughters.” - -If he had watched Stewardson’s face carefully, he would have seen it -growing paler, even in the camp fire’s ruddy glow, beneath that mighty -beard. - -“Cloyd, who before the girl’s marriage, had lost his wife,” continued -Colonel Kane, "went up Bennett’s Branch, to take out spars, and started -to clear a farm on the mountain top, and build an even more ambitious -mansion. Garis told me that the old man had recently sold the whole -property, including the timber, to William E. Dodge of New York, who -intends naming it after the President, the ‘Lincoln Farm’, and using it -for a private summer resort." - -Captain Stewardson did not care to hear more; as soon as he could -consistently excuse himself from his commanding officer, he did so, and -wandered off among the pines, inwardly moaning. - -In the early part of 1864, as the result of wounds, he was given an -indefinite sick leave, but instead of going home, he resolved to visit -Asterie’s grave. - -The railroad was completed to Renovo, and the ties were down, ready for -the rails, almost to Erie. A mail carrier on horseback travelled from -Renovo to the backwoods settlements of Sinnemahoning and Driftwood, and -hiring an extra horse, the now Major Stewardson arranged to accompany -him. They had not ridden far through the snowy road when the mail man, -Wallis Gakle, began telling about the Haunted House, Billy Cloyd’s old -place that they would pass. “Nobody’s lived there,” he said, “since -Oscar Garis moved out in the summer of ’61, after burying that pretty -wife of his. They say he worked her to death, making her do all the -cooking for all the lumber and mill crews, and was always after her to -do more; he literally hounded the poor little child to death.” - -Then he went on to tell how towards nightfall people were afraid to go -past the deserted house for the awful screaming and yelling, like a -woman in torment, that came from the upper rooms. Travellers never went -on that side of the creek, unless in parties of four or five together, -preferring to follow the right-of-way of the railroad across the creek, -but even there they could hear the shrieks and moaning. Some were even -hinting that Garis, who had gone to live with his late father-in-law on -the Clarion, had in a fit of temper murdered his wife. At the time it -was said that she had died of lung trouble. - -All this was interesting to the young soldier, and he next inquired -where the poor girl was buried. - -“She’s lying on the hillside, overlooking the meeting of the First Fork -and the Driftwood Branch, a beautiful spot, but it’s cold and bleak -under the pines when the country is covered with snow.” - -Just beyond the present town of Westport, Gakle and Stewardson fell in -with two hunters tramping along on snowshoes with their dogs, headed for -the panther country. They were the veteran Nimrod Jake Hamersley and a -young hunter named Art Vallon. - -“Glad to meet you, gentlemen,” said old Jake, half joking; “we wanted a -little bolstering up before passing the haunted house.” “said Gakle, “I -am never afraid, but my horse rears like one of the deil’s own buckies -when he hears those dreadful screams. I always try to get by before -dark, for they say the racket is a lot worse after sundown.” - -As the party wended its way along the narrow trail by the river’s edge, -all manner of hunting and ghost stories were recounted. All were in an -eerie frame of mind, as with the rays of the setting sun shining in -their faces, they neared the deserted Castlecloyd. The deep woods -screened the clearings and gardens, but long before they came in view a -melancholy wailing, like a woman tortured by fiends, echoed through the -aisles of the primeval forest. - -“I guess we’ll have to face it,” said the mail carrier, "but four man -sized men, and a like number of varmint hounds ought to be able to -‘rassle’ any spook." - -As they neared the house, the setting sun tinted to the brilliancy of -the stained glass of some mediaeval cathedral the vari-coloured lights -above the classic portal. They noticed that the door stood open. From an -upper room came the doleful groans and lamentations. - -“What’s those tracks?” said the keen-eyed young Vallon, who had run on -ahead with the dogs. - -Coming up the bank from the ice-bound Sinnemahoning, crossing the trail, -and entering the mansion by the front door, were huge round footmarks -like those of some mammoth cat. “Painter, painter” they all cried, as -they looked at them, while the dogs, knowing well the ferocity of the -Pennsylvania Lion, slunk about their master’s feet. - -All wanted to go indoors, and no one cared to mind the horses. They tied -the jaded beasts to the red maple trees, on either side of Major -Stewardson’s one-time favorite resting place. Gakle had an old-time, -flint-lock horse pistol that had been carried by David Lewis, the -Robber, when he was wounded on the First Fork; Stewardson had his army -pistol, while the two hunters had their flint-lock Lancaster rifles. - -They followed the tracks into the lobby, and by the snow and mud left on -the floor, to the staircase, which they ascended. Stewardson’s eyes fell -on the green-painted door of the little room once occupied by his -beloved, which was ajar. He rushed forward, pistol in hand, and pushed -it wide open. - -On the bed, a small affair of the four poster type which he had never -viewed before, the scene of the fair Asterie’s vigils, stood a great -lithe, lean pantheress, clawing the counterpane and mattress with all -four feet, and beating her fluffy tail with a regular rhythm against the -headboard. In her mouth was a huge rat, bleeding, which she had lately -captured. - -Before he could recover from his amazement and shoot, the greycoated -monster sprang over the foot-board, and through the window, carrying the -sash with her. The other men appeared just in time to see the brute’s -long tail disappearing through the casement. - -Quickly turning, they seized the dogs by their collars and pushed them -down the narrow winding stairs. Outside, in the fading light, the spoor -could be seen at the side of the house where the lioness bounded over -the lawn, and down the bank, and crossed the stream on the ice. - -The dogs took up the scent, and were away, the hunters following gamely. -The baying of the hounds echoed and re-echoed through the narrow valley; -by their volume the quarry was not far ahead. The snow was deep and very -soft in the woods, and it was getting very dark. Perhaps the chase would -have to be abandoned, and the panther or spook, whichever it was, got -away after all. - -Soon the barking of the dogs indicated that the beast had been run to -cover. It was just at dark when the hunters saw the pantheress crouched -in a rock oak at the forks, on the steep, stony face of the Keating -Mountain, with the dogs leaping up frantically, the monster feline -hissing and growling savagely. - -Jake Hamersley was selected to give the death shot, “taking” the brute -between the eyes. She fell with a thud, and with a few convulsive kicks, -expired on the snow. Major Stewardson built a military campfire while -Hamersley and Vallon carefully skinned the carcass, and fed the flesh to -the dogs. The Nimrods offered the hide to the young Major as a trophy, -but he declined with thanks. He could not bear to have such a -remembrance of a creature that had disported itself so recently on his -loved one’s little four poster bed. Perhaps it had partaken of her -spirit, from absorbing the environment where she had pined away to -death. - -He only wanted to visit her grave, above the meeting of the waters, to -drop there a few tears, a part of the boundless water of life. His heart -would always be a Haunted House. - -It was verging on the “witching hour,” and an ugly winter drizzle had -begun to fall, as the triumphant hunters ascended the soggy bank, and -stood before the portals of Castlecloyd, undecided as to whether they -should bivouac there until morning. Major Stewardson was muttering to -himself the concluding lines of that Ode of Horace, - - “Not thus forever can I lie and quake, - Nor thus remain, - Before thy threshold for thy love’s sweet sake, - Soaked by the rain.” - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration] - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - Transcriber’s Note - -Compound words that are hyphenated on a line or page break retain the -hyphen if warranted by the preponderance of mid-line instances of the -same word elsewhere. Where hyphenation is inconsistent in mid-line -occurrences, the text is given here as printed. - -There are numerous instances of commas appearing as full stops, which we -attribute to the printing process (vi.6, vii.31, 16.5, 26.1, 30.25, -46.2, 108.4, 114.30, 115.23, 121.18, 292.11, 350.27). - -Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and -are noted below. Where the apparent error occurs in quoted text, we -defer to the text as printed. - -The references are to the page and line in the original. - - v.5 to issue no [no ]more books Removed. - - vii.28 the meanings of the book may be arrived at[.] Added. - - 34.7 but the brid[g]egroom was well to do Removed. - - 37.29 [“]That’s enough of your drivel, Adam,” Added. - - 40.11 betwe[e]n the Wyandots and allied nations Inserted. - - 40.15 the handsomest of the es[oc/co]rt Transposed. - - 44.22 The [The ]fact that it is a Prostrate Tree Removed. - - 46.7 Surveying the [gorey] scene _sic_ - - 47.19 fall to the ground outside the st[a/o]ckade. Replaced. - - 47.27 had been gr[i]eviously hurt Inserted. - - 49.7 I am glad that our enemies were beaten and Added. - annihilated.[”] - - 52.19 we sh[a/o]uld mention Replaced. - - 53.22 was a decrepit old man.[”] Added. - - 55.18 make the house “general hea[r/d]quarters” Replaced. - - 58.20 the exigencies of his strenuous c[o/a]mpaigns Replaced. - - 58.28 which his wea[l]th had enabled him to purchase Inserted. - - 65.6 [s/S] said she herself was dead Replaced. - - 65.23 that in ten years he [r/h]ad sold Replaced. - - 71.7 The Elma Hacker of those days had a Replaced. - swee[a/t]heart - - 72.14 to keep on good terms with the in[n]keeper’s Inserted. - family - - 82.9 about their inglenooks and home-garths[,/.] Replaced. - - 83.22 by a homespun cap of the tam o’shant[t/e]r Replaced. - pattern - - 83.27 until joined by the surp[r]ised Viscount. Inserted. - - 91.25 a few days in the future.[”] Added. - - 105.19 the sleeper’s temples like an eg[g]shell Inserted. - - 106.22 was forced from In-nan-[ag/ga]-eh’s Transposed. - In-nan-ga-eh’s hand - - 107.13 their bodies to com[m]ingle> with earth until Inserted. - eternity. - - 110.8 losing his equilibr[i]um Inserted. - - 114.10 to leap about th[t/e] horses’ throatlatches Replaced. - - 116.10 she was again urged by Phillis and her father, Inserted. - se[e]med disinclined - - 117.16 prepared to make that break first[.] Added. - - 124.15 have maintained in the fore[t]sts Removed. - - 131.31 Meanwhile he had to live some[w]how Removed. - - 135.10 I had heard from[ from] Billy Dowdy Redundant. - - 140.3 “The world is aesthetically dead[”!/”] Transposed. - - 145.1 Som[e]times the Indians notice Inserted. - - 149.24 into the valley of the shadow[,/.] Replaced. - - 153.6 a big bonfire was to be started later[,/.] Replaced. - - 153.11 whose face showed every sign[s] of intense Removed. - terror. - - 153.12 From words that he could understand, and the Removed. - g[r]estures - - 161.6 there are postoff[i]ces, hotels, streams, Inserted. - caves and rocks - - 161.22 Unfortun[at]ely for Simon Gerdes Inserted. - - 165.17 mounted on a superbly c[om/a]parisoned, Replaced. - ambling horse - - 173.4 he realized how foolish it would be to[ to] Redundant. - journey - - 175.3 in the ‘North American[’]” Added. - - 177.30 are in a sense correct[,]. Removed. - - 179.8 other times his n[ei/ie]ce Transposed. - - 180.30 [pearched] on one of his wrists _sic_ - - 181.28a made a confidante of by Herbert [( /,] who Replaced. - offered her five dollars - - 181.28b a [collosal] sum in those days _sic_ - - 182.24 too high for these days of conservation[.] Added. - - 183.19 she received her [grevious] hurts _sic_ - - 188.1 the centre of the greensw[o/a]rd Replaced. - - 191.9 he would take[ take] her by force Redundant - - 194.29 with rare dex[i]terity Removed. - - 195.18 his lion-hear[t]ed sachem Inserted. - - 199.22 with tolerable fluen[e/c]y Replaced. - - 200.26 invited the redmen to climb ab[r]oard Removed. - - 213.19 was called away[ away] during a heavy flood Redundant. - - 219.10 The passage of time had obli[t]erated it Inserted. - - 237.7 but where there[ there] were so few neighbors Redundant. - - 238.1 while [t]he stroked his long black beard Removed. - - 239.22 in tones as melanc[oh/ho]ly Transposed. - - 245.28 Some instinct mad[e] her open the wrapper Added. - - 246.15 “Say, folks,” she said, coldly,[,] Removed. - - 250.2 the supreme d[ie/ei]ty of the Scandinavian Transposed. - mythology - - 253.4 “It> was a perfect square Added. - - 256.6 her tearful, piqua[i]nt face Removed. - - 257.22 for they had sworn to de[il/li]ver her Transposed. - - 259.6 “only don’t cast me off[.]” Added. - - 269.10 the face of N[i/a]ganit’s Replaced. - - 269.18 N[i/a]ganit looked at the Indian woman. Replaced. - - 287.15 when he r[e]ached the opening Inserted. - - 291.15 it did not en[c]ounter the dense foliage Inserted. - - 295.26 now [gutteral], now sharp and loud _sic_ - - 296.5 approached the battle-g[r]ound Inserted. - - 296.28 As soon as he had recovered from the Added. - blood-curdling episodes, [he ]built - - 298.23 the proud tuft[s] itself was growing sparse Removed. - and weak - - 299.14 That Annapalpete[a]u had a cavalier Removed. - - 300.2 he wanted to be v[e/i]rile and win Replaced. - - 300.3 the beautiful Annapalp[a/e]teu. Replaced. - - 307.3 [“]I have come Added. - - 310.4 to be engaged in riva[rl/lr]y Transposed. - - 312.13 On one occa[is/si]on when the two young men Transposed. - started - - 312.20 vernacular of the Pennsl[y]vania Dutch Inserted. - - 315.6 [Cincinnatti] or at Louisville _sic_ - - 317.8 rafted lumber down the Alle[hg/gh]eny Transposed. - - 335.30 after the ar[r]ival of a ship from China Inserted. - - 319.17 and carried home [unconscious the] next thing _sic_ - was - - 320.2 with the stalwart young pilots a[t] the sterns Added. - - 320.11 franti[c]ally waving red and green shawls. Inserted. - - 320.15 the absence of Anna from the signaling part[y] Added. - - 320.20 and the do[c]tors said she could not live Inserted. - - 320.25 until the out[c]ome of the case Inserted. - - 321.7 The old grandmother watched McMeans[’] face Added. - - 331.21 in his spir[i]tual loneliness Inserted. - - 334.4 Years pass[s]ed Removed. - - 338.21 to use [y]our words Added. - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Allegheny Episodes, by Henry Wharton Shoemaker - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALLEGHENY EPISODES *** - -***** This file should be named 56094-0.txt or 56094-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/6/0/9/56094/ - -Produced by KD Weeks, ellinora and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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vertical-align: top; width:49%; - } - .sigleft { display: inline-block; text-align: left; vertical-align: bottom; - width:34%; } - .sigright { display: inline-block; text-align: right; vertical-align: bottom; - width:64%; } - ins.correction { text-decoration:none; border-bottom: thin dotted gray; } - div.box { text-align:center; border:3px double black; width:80%; padding:0.5em; - margin:auto; } - div.innerbox { text-align:center; border:3px solid black; width:98%; } - .quote { font-size: 95%; margin-top: 1.0em; margin-bottom: 1.0em; } - .linegroup .group { margin: 0em auto; } - </style> - </head> - <body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Allegheny Episodes, by Henry Wharton Shoemaker - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: Allegheny Episodes - Folk Lore and Legends Collected in Northern and Western - Pennsylvania, Vol XI. Pennsylvania Folk Lore Series - -Author: Henry Wharton Shoemaker - -Release Date: November 30, 2017 [EBook #56094] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALLEGHENY EPISODES *** - - - - -Produced by KD Weeks, ellinora and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c000' /> -</div> -<div class='tnotes'> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div>Transcriber’s Note:</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c001'>The illustrations have been re-positioned slightly to avoid falling -within a paragraph.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please -see the transcriber’s <a href='#endnote'>note</a> at the end of this text -for details regarding the handling of any textual issues encountered -during its preparation.</p> - -<div class='htmlonly'> - -<p class='c001'>Any corrections are indicated using an <ins class='correction' title='original'>underline</ins> -highlight. Placing the cursor over the correction will produce the -original text in a small popup.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/cover.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -</div> -<div class='epubonly'> - -<p class='c001'>Any corrections are indicated as hyperlinks, which will navigate the -reader to the corresponding entry in the corrections table in the -note at the end of the text.</p> - -</div> - -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 class='c002'>INDEX</h2> -</div> -<hr class='c003' /> - -<table class='table0' summary=''> -<colgroup> -<col width='88%' /> -<col width='11%' /> -</colgroup> - <tr> - <td class='c004'> </td> - <td class='c005'><span class='small'>Page</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'>Foreword</td> - <td class='c005'><a href='#Page_3'>3</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'>Introduction</td> - <td class='c005'><a href='#Page_5'>5</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'>Tulliallan</td> - <td class='c005'><a href='#Page_9'>9</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'>At His Bedside</td> - <td class='c005'><a href='#Page_31'>31</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'>The Prostrate Juniper</td> - <td class='c005'><a href='#Page_40'>40</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'>Out of the Ashes</td> - <td class='c005'><a href='#Page_51'>51</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'>Wayside Destiny</td> - <td class='c005'><a href='#Page_64'>64</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'>The Holly Tree</td> - <td class='c005'><a href='#Page_77'>77</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'>The Second Run of the Sap</td> - <td class='c005'><a href='#Page_96'>96</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'>Black Chief’s Daughter</td> - <td class='c005'><a href='#Page_108'>108</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'>The Gorilla</td> - <td class='c005'><a href='#Page_122'>122</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'>The Indian’s Twilight</td> - <td class='c005'><a href='#Page_135'>135</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'>Hugh Gibson’s Captivity</td> - <td class='c005'><a href='#Page_147'>147</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'>Girty’s Notch</td> - <td class='c005'><a href='#Page_161'>161</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'>Poplar George</td> - <td class='c005'><a href='#Page_175'>175</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'>Black Alice Dunbar</td> - <td class='c005'><a href='#Page_186'>186</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'>Abram Antoine, Bad Indian</td> - <td class='c005'><a href='#Page_199'>199</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'>Do You Believe in Ghosts?</td> - <td class='c005'><a href='#Page_219'>219</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'>A Stone’s Throw</td> - <td class='c005'><a href='#Page_234'>234</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'>The Turning of the Belt</td> - <td class='c005'><a href='#Page_247'>247</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'>Riding His Pony</td> - <td class='c005'><a href='#Page_265'>265</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'>The Little Postmistress</td> - <td class='c005'><a href='#Page_271'>271</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'>The Silent Friend</td> - <td class='c005'><a href='#Page_290'>290</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'>The Fountain of Youth</td> - <td class='c005'><a href='#Page_298'>298</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'>Compensations</td> - <td class='c005'><a href='#Page_310'>310</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'>A Misunderstanding</td> - <td class='c005'><a href='#Page_326'>326</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'>A Haunted House</td> - <td class='c005'><a href='#Page_339'>339</a></td> - </tr> -</table> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i_002.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>OUTPOSTS OF THE ALLEGHENIES. (Photograph by W. H. Rau.)<br />Frontispiece</p> -</div> -</div> - -<div class='box'> - -<div> - <h1 class='c006'>Allegheny Episodes</h1> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c000'> - <div>Folk Lore and Legends Collected in</div> - <div>Northern and Western Pennsylvania</div> - <div class='c000'><i>By</i> HENRY W. SHOEMAKER</div> - <div class='c000'>Volume XI Pennsylvania Folk Lore Series</div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i_title.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<p class='c001'><span class='small'>“The country east of the Mississippi was inhabited by a very -powerful nation. * * * Those people called themselves Alligewi. -* * * The Allegheny River and Mountains have been -named after them. * * * The Lenni-Lenape still call the -river Alligewi Sipu, the river of the Alligewi, but it is generally -known by its Iroquois name–Ohe-Yu–which the French had literally -translated into La Belle Riviere, The Beautiful River, -though a branch of it retains the ancient name Allegheny.”</span></p> -<div class='c007'><span class='small'>–John Heckewelder.</span></div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div>ALTOONA, PENNSYLVANIA</div> - <div>Published by the Altoona Tribune Company</div> - <div>1922</div> - <div>Copyright: All Rights Reserved.</div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='figcenter id003'> -<img src='images/unionlabel.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_3'>3</span> - <h2 class='c002'><i>Foreword</i></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>The author tells me that I was his discoverer, -and that without a discoverer we cannot do anything. -Very true; one American author had to -write till he was forty-eight, and then be discovered in -Japan. Henry W. Shoemaker was discovered nearer -home, and by a humbler scholar.</p> - -<p class='c001'>In my last foreword I emphasized the value of -folk-lore. Its significance grows upon me with age. -I have now come to regard it as a kind of appendix -to Scripture. Outside of mere magic, an abuse of -correspondences, as Swedenborg calls it, there is in -folk-lore a digest of the spiritual insight of the plain -people. It also contains actual facts boiled to rags. -For instance, in 1919 the dying Horace Traubel saw -in vision his life-long idol, Walt Whitman, and the -apparition was also seen by Colonel Cosgrave, who felt -a shock when it touched him.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The flimsy modern paper whereon the scientific -account of this is printed will soon perish, and then -there will be nothing left but loose literary references -and memories to witness that it happened. Any skeptic -can challenge these, and the apparition will become -folk-lore. As it is in its scientific setting in the Journal -of the American Society for Psychical Research for -1921, it is a side light on the Transfiguration. For -if Whitman appeared to Traubel in 1919, and Swedenborg -appeared to Andrew Jackson Davis in 1844, why -should not the great predecessors of Christ appear also -to him?</p> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_4'>4</span>Such is the value of folk-lore, and for this reason -the Armenian Church did well to attach an appendix of -apocrypha to the Holy Gospel. In such a document as -the uncanonical Gospel of “Peter” (this was not one -of the Armenian selections, but it ought to have been, -in spite of the fact that the Mother Church of Syria -had suppressed it) the life of Christ is seen in a dissolving -view, blending with the folk-lore of the time; -and let us hope that some day this valuable piece of -ancient thought will be printed with the New Testament -instead of some of the unimportant matter that -too often accompanies it.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in16'><span class='sc'>Albert J. Edmunds.</span></div> - <div class='line'><span class='sc'>The Historical Society of Pennsylvania</span>,</div> - <div class='line in11'>Philadelphia, March 1, 1921.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_5'>5</span> - <h2 class='c002'><i>Introduction</i></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>It is a good thing to make resolves, but a better -thing, once having made them, to keep them. On -two previous occasions the compiler of the present -volume has stated his resolve in prefaces to issue <a id='corrv.5'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='no no'>no</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_v.5'><ins class='correction' title='no no'>no</ins></a></span> -more books of the kind, but has gone ahead and -prepared more. Probably the motive that brought into -existence the first volume can be urged in extenuation -for the eleventh, namely, the desire to preserve the -folk-lore of the Pennsylvania Mountains.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The contents of the present volume, like its predecessors, -were gathered orally from old people and -others, and written down as closely as possible to the -verbal accounts. In order to escape ill feeling, as in -the case with the earlier volumes, some names of persons -and places, and dates have been changed. This -has been done with the greatest reluctance, and only -where absolutely necessary. The characters are real -persons, and most of them appear under their rightful -names. Many of the legends or incidents run counter -to the accepted course of history, but tradition is preserved -for what it is worth, and the reader can draw -his own conclusions. While some of these tales end -unhappily, the proportion is not greater than in life -as we know it, and the general ascendency of right -over wrong shines through the gloomiest passages. -Life could not exist, or the world go on, unless the -majority of events ended fortuitously; it is that happy -preponderance which makes “hope spring eternal,” and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_6'>6</span>is so often rewarded by a realization of the heart’s -desire.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The various phases of the supernatural in the -ensuing pages depicts probably a more normal condition -of our relationship with the unseen world than the -crude and clumsy mediumship found in the big cities, -and may present a rational explanation of life “behind -the dark curtain.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>There is certainly a spiritual life, and a purely -spiritual God, and all the events of the soul are regulated -by divine laws, which have only too frequently -been confused with the physical life so subject to -chance and reversion back to chaos.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The origins of Pennsylvania folk-lore seem to the -writer like a happy blending of Indian and European -elements which would have gradually, had backwoods -conditions continued, developed into a definitely Pennsylvanian -mythology. The fact that the writer had so -many more legends in form of notes, which otherwise -would have been mislaid and come to nothing, prompted -him to break his resolve and prepare the present volume. -And, for good or ill, he has many more, dealing -with other parts of the State. What shall be their -fate? Are they worthy of perpetuation as folk-lore? -Apart from the general idea of preserving legendary -matter for future generations, there is the added reason -that the heroic lines of some of the characters appealed -to him, and, to save them from the oblivion of the -“forgotten millions,” their careers have been herein -recorded.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Probably one-half of the stories were told to the -compiler by one lady–Mrs. W. J. Phillips, of Clinton -County--who spent some of her girlhood days, many -<span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span>years ago, on the Indian Reservations in Pennsylvania -and southwestern New York.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Professor J. S. Illick, Chief of the Bureau of -Research of the Pennsylvania Department of Forestry, -is due thanks for securing many of the illustrations. -Four of the chapters–Nos. IX, XV, XXI, -XXII–are reprinted from the compiler’s historical -brochure, “Penn’s Grandest Cavern,” and the first -chapter, “Tulliallan,” was published in the “Sunbury -Daily”; otherwise none of the chapters of this book -have hitherto appeared in print.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Persons interested in more intimate details concerning -the origins and characters of the various tales -will be cheerfully accommodated “for private circulation -only.” Like James Macpherson of “Ossian,” -it can be said “the sources of information are open -to all.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>The compiler hopes that through this book a more -general interest in the Pennsylvania folk-lore can be -created; its predecessors have missed achieving this, -but there is always that hope springing afresh to “Godspeed” -the newest volume. No pretense at style of -literary workmanship is claimed, and the stories should -be read, not as romances or short stories, but as a -by-product of history–the folk-lore, the heart of the -Pennsylvania mountain people. With this constantly -borne in mind, a better understanding and appreciation -of the meanings of the book may be arrived <a id='corrvii.28'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='at'>at.</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_vii.28'><ins class='correction' title='at'>at.</ins></a></span></p> - -<p class='c001'>The kindly reception accorded to the previous volumes, -and also to “North Pennsylvania Minstrelsy” -by the press and by a small circle of interested readers, -if equalled by the present volume will satisfy the compiler, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span>if his ambitions for a wider field of usefulness -are not to be realized.</p> - -<p class='c001'>To those of press and public who have read and -commented on the earlier volumes go the compiler’s -gratitude, and to them he commends this book, the -tales of which have had their origins mostly along -the main chain of the Allegheny Mountains and on -the western watershed. Sincere thanks are due -to Miss Mary E. Morrow, whose intelligence and -patience in transcribing the manuscripts of this and -the majority of the earlier volumes of the series has -had much to do with whatever recognition they may -have achieved, and a pleasant memory to the author, -as well.</p> - -<div class='c007'><span class='sc'>Henry W. Shoemaker.</span></div> -<div class='lg-container-l'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Department of Forestry,</div> - <div class='line in2'>State Capitol, Harrisburg,</div> - <div class='line in4'>February 23, 1922.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c001'>P. S.–Thanks are also due to Mrs. E. Horace -Quinn, late of Bucknell University, for her kindness -in revising the proofs.</p> -<div class='c010'>9-5-22.</div> - -<div class='figcenter id004'> -<img src='images/i_011.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span> - <h2 class='c002'><span class='fss'>I</span> <br /><i>Tulliallan</i></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>“Why, yes, you may accompany your Uncle -Thomas and myself to select the plate which -we plan to present to the battleship of the -line, ‘The Admiral Penn,’ which the First Lord, His -Grace, Duke of Bedford, has graciously named in -honor of your distinguished grandsire,” said Richard -Penn, pompously, answering a query addressed to him -by his young son, John.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The youth, who was about eighteen years of age -and small and slight, seemed delighted, and waited -impatiently with his father for Uncle Thomas’ arrival. -Soon a liveried footman announced the arrival of -Thomas Penn, and the brothers, after embracing, -started from the imposing mansion in New Street, -Spring Gardens (near the Admiralty Arch), accompanied -by the younger scion and a retinue of secretaries, -retainers and footmen.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It so happened that the leading silversmith in -the city, James Cox, was of the Quaker faith, to which -William Penn, the famous founder of Pennsylvania, -and father of Richard and Thomas, belonged, and was -particularly pleased to be the recipient of this costly -and important order. It was an occasion of such importance -to him that his wife, sons and daughter had -come to his place of business to witness the transaction -and, perhaps, meet the aristocratic customers.</p> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>As they entered the establishment, the tradesman -himself opened the door, bowing low as the two portly -gentlemen, with their plum-colored coats, snuff boxes -and walking sticks, entered arm in arm, followed by -the diminutive John, in a long, red coat, while the -minions of various degrees waited outside, clustered -about the gilded chairs.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It must be understood that these sons of William -Penn were not members of the Society of Friends, but -had assumed the faith of their grandfather, the Admiral, -and founder of the family fortunes, and young -John was nominally a member of the same faith.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The portly and self-important gentlemen were -soon absorbed in studying the various designs of silver -services, while the restless and half-interested gaze -of young John wandered about the salesroom. It was -not long in falling on the slender, demure form of -Maria Cox, the silversmith’s only daughter. Clad in -her Quaker garb and bonnet, she was certainly a -picture of loveliness, almost seventeen years old, with -deep blue eyes, dark brows and lashes, fair complexion, -with features exaggerately clearcut, made John -Penn’s senses reel in a delirium of enthusiasm.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Ordinarily he would have become impatient at -the delay in selecting the silver service, for the older -gentlemen were slow of decision and he was a spoiled -child, but this time he was lost in admiration and he -cared not if they remained in the shop for the balance -of the day. John Penn, himself, for a small lad was -not unprepossessing; his hair was golden, his eyes -<span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>expressive and blue, his complexion like a Dresden -china doll’s, his form erect and very slim, yet few -girls had fancied him, for he was selfish and not -inclined to talk.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Seeing that he was not assisting his elders in -selecting the silverware, Mrs. Cox, the wife, and a -woman of some tact and breeding, introduced conversation -with the young man, eventually drawing her -daughter into it, and it was a case of love quickly on -both sides.</p> - -<p class='c001'>When, after four hours of selecting and changing -and selecting again, the Penns finally accepted a design -and placed their order, John had arranged that he -was to dine with the Cox family and see the young -beauty frequently. All went well until the day appointed -for the visit to the home of the silversmith. -John Penn presented himself before his father attired -in his best red velvet coat with gold facings, white satin -knee breeches, pumps with diamond buckles, his face -much powdered, and sporting a pearl inlaid sword. -The elder Penn demanded to know the cause of the -youth’s magnificence, for ordinarily his Quaker blood -showed itself in a distaste for fancy apparel.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“To dine with Mr. and Mrs. James Cox and their -charming daughter, whom I much admire,” was the -calm rejoinder.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“What, what,” fairly shouted the father, almost -having an apoplectic attack on the spot; “dining with -common tradespeople! You must be in a frenzy, son; -we’ll have you in Bedlam.”</p> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span>“I don’t see why you talk that way, father,” said -John, retaining his composure. “Are we so very different? -It was only a few generations back when the -Penns were plain rural yeomen, and Madame van der -Schoulen, or Grandmother Penn, your own mother, -was she not the daughter of a Dutch tradesman?”</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Don’t speak that way, lad; the servants may -hear, and lose respect,” said the father.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The lad had touched a sore subject, and he preferred -to let him keep his engagement rather than -to have an expose on the subject of ancestry.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The dinner and visit were followed by others, but -at home John’s romance did not run smoothly, and -he quickly realized that his father and Uncle Thomas, -whose heir he was to be, would never consent to his -marriage with the daughter of a silversmith. Consequently, -a trip to Gretna Green was executed, and -John Penn, aged nineteen, and Maria Cox, seventeen, -were duly made man and wife.</p> - -<p class='c001'>When Richard Penn and his brother Thomas were -apprised of what he had done they locked him in his -room, and after night got him to the waterfront and -on a ship bound for the French coast. He was carried -to Paris and there carefully watched, but meanwhile -supplied with money, all that he could spend. Temporarily -he forgot all about Maria Cox, plunging into -the gaieties of the French Capital, gambling and betting -on horse races, the “sport of kings” having been only -recently introduced in France, until he was deeply in -debt. He became very ill, and was taken to Geneva -<span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>to recuperate. There he was followed by representatives -of his creditors, who threatened to have him -jailed for debt–a familiar topic in family talk to him, -for his grandfather, William Penn, despite his ownership -of Pennsylvania, had been arrested for debt -many times and was out on bail on a charge of non-payment -of loans made from his steward at the time -of his death.</p> - -<p class='c001'>John wrote frantically to his father in London, -who turned a deaf ear to the prodigal; not so Uncle -Thomas. He replied that he would save the boy from -jail and pay his debts, provided he would divorce his -wife and go to Pennsylvania for an indefinite period. -John was ready to promise anything; a representative -of the Penn’s financial interests settled all the claims -in and out of Paris, and John Penn was free.</p> - -<p class='c001'>While waiting at Lille for a ship to take him from -Rotterdam to Philadelphia, the young man was advised -to come to London for a day to say good-bye to his -relatives. The packet was expected in the Thames -on a certain day, but got into a terrific storm and was -tossed about the North Sea and the Channel for a -week, and no one was at the dock to meet the dilapidated -youth on his arrival at Fleet Street.</p> - -<p class='c001'>As he passed up the streets in Cheapside, to his -surprise he ran into the fair figure of his bride, the -deserted Maria Cox-Penn. He was again very much -in love, and she ready to forgive. They spent the -balance of the day together, enjoying a fish ordinary -at a noted restaurant in Bird-in-Hand Court. Over -<span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>the meal it was arranged that Maria should follow -her husband to America; meanwhile, he would provide -a home for her over there under an assumed name, -until he became of age, when he would defy his family -to again tear them asunder.</p> - -<p class='c001'>None of John Penn’s family had the slightest -suspicion of anything out of the usual when he -presented himself in their midst, and he returned -quietly to Lille, where he remained until the ship was -announced as ready to take him to America. He arrived -in New York during a terrible tornado, in November, -1752. At Philadelphia he evinced little interest -in anything except to take a trip into the interior. -As he had plenty of money, he could accomplish most -anything he wanted, and was not watched. On his -way to the Susquehanna country he traveled with an -armed bodyguard, as there were even then renegade -Indians and road agents abroad. A number of less -distinguished travelers and their servants were, for -safety’s sake, allowed to accompany the party. Among -them was a man of fifty-five, named Peter Allen, to -whom young John took a violent fancy.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was not unusual, for Peter Allen was what the -Indians recognized as a <em>gentleman</em>, although he was -only a cadet, or what we would call nowadays a “poor -relation” of the proud Allen family, the head of which -was William Allen, Chief Justice of the Province, a -man about Peter Allen’s age, and for whom Northampton -or Allensville, now Allentown, was named.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Peter Allen had built a stone house or trading -<span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>post, which he called “Tulliallan” after one of the -ancestral homes of the Allen family in Scotland, on -the very outpost of civilization, twenty miles west of -Harris’ Ferry, where all manner of traders, hunters, -missionaries, explorers and sometimes Indians congregated, -where balls were held with Indian princesses -as guests of honor, and the description of this place -fired John Penn’s fancy.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The idea had flashed through his mind that Maria -could harbor there unknown until he became of age, -and some day, despite the silly family opposition, she -would become the Governor’s Lady. John Penn went -to Peter Allen’s, and not only found a refuge for -his bride, but liked the frontier life so well that it -was as if he had been born in the wilderness. Mountains -and forests appealed to him, and his latent -democracy found full vent among the diversified types -who peopled the wilderness.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Peter Allen had three young daughters, Barbara, -Nancy and Jessie, whom he wished schooled, and John -Penn arranged that Maria should teach them and, perhaps, -have a select school for other children of the -better sort along the Susquehanna. Peter Allen was -secretly peeved at his family for not recognizing him -more, and lent himself to anything that, while not -dishonorable, would bend the proud spirit of the Proprietaries -and their favorites, one of whom was the -aforementioned “Cousin Judge” William Allen.</p> - -<p class='c001'>John Penn returned to Philadelphia, from where -he sent a special messenger, a sort of valet, to London, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span>who met and safely escorted Maria to America. She -landed at Province Island on the Delaware, remaining -in retirement there for a month, until John could slip -away and escort her personally to Peter Allen’s.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The girl was bright, well-educated and sensible, -and found the new life to her liking, and her young -husband loving and considerate.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was in the spring of 1754 when they reached -the stone house at the foot of the Fourth or Peter’s -Mountain, and during the ensuing year she taught -the young Allen girls and three other well-bred children, -and was visited frequently by her husband. She -assumed the name of Mary Warren, her mother’s -maiden name, which proved her undoing. All went -well until representatives of the Penns in London -learned that Maria Cox-Penn was missing, and they -traced her on shipboard through the name “Mary -Warren,” eventually locating her as the young school-mistress -at “Tulliallan.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>The next part of this story is a hard one to -write, as one hates to make accusations against dead -and gone worthies who helped to found our beloved -Pennsylvania; but, at any rate, without going into -whys and wherefores, “Mary Warren” mysteriously -disappeared. Simultaneously went Joshua, the friendly -Indian who lived at the running spring on the top of -Peter’s Mountain, and Arvas, or “Silver Heels,” another -Indian, whose cabin was on the slopes of Third -(now called Short) Mountain, near Clark’s Creek.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id005'> -<img src='images/i_020.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>VIRGIN WHITE PINES, WARREN COUNTY, 1912</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c001'>It was in the early summer of 1755 when John -<span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>Penn, accompanied only by one retainer, John Monkton, -a white-bearded veteran of Preston, rode out of -the gateway of the stockade of John Harris’ trading -post, bound for Peter Allen’s. His heart was glad -and his spirits elated for, moody lad that he was, -he dearly loved his wife and her influence over him -was good.</p> - -<p class='c001'>On the very top of the Second Mountain he drew -rein, and in the clear stillness of the Sunday morning -listened to a cheewink poised on the topmost twig of -a chestnut sprout, and viewed the scenes below him. -In an ample clearing at the foot of Fourth Mountain -he could see Peter Allen’s spacious stone mansion, -where his love was probably at that minute instructing -the little class in the beauties of revealed religion. -They would soon be united, and he was so wonderfully -happy!</p> - -<p class='c001'>As the cool morning breeze swayed the twig on -which the cheewink perched, it sang again and again, -“Ho-ho-hee, ho-ho-hee, ho-ho-hee!” in a high key, and -with such an ecstasy of joy and youth that all the -world seemed animated with its gladness, yet Penn’s -thought as he rode on was, “I wonder where that bird -will be next year; what will it have to undergo before -it can feel the warmth and sunlight of another spring?”</p> - -<p class='c001'>He hurried his horse so that it stumbled many -times going down the mountain, and splashed the -water all over old Monkton in his anxiety to ford -Clark’s Creek. He lathered his horse forcing him to -trot up the steep contrefort which leads to “Tulliallan,” -<span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>though he weighed hardly more than one hundred and -twenty pounds. He drew rein before the door; no one -rushed out to greet him, even the dogs were still. He -made his escort dismount and pound the heavy brass -knocker, fashioned in the form of an Indian’s head. -After some delay, Peter Allen himself appeared, looking -glum and deadly pale.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“What is wrong?” cried Penn who was naturally -as intuitive as a woman, noting his altered demeanor.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Can I tell you, sir, in the presence of your bodyguard?”</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Out, out with it, Allen,” shouted Penn, “I must -know <em>now</em>.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Mary Warren has been gone a fortnight, we -know not whither. She had taken the Berryhill children -home after classes, and left them about five o’clock -in the evening. She did not return, and we have -searched everywhere. Strange to relate, George -Smithgall, the young serving man whom you left here -to look after your apartments, and who accompanied -Mary from London is gone also; draw your own inferences.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>John Penn’s fair face was as red as his scarlet -cloak. Despite Allen’s urging he would not dismount, -but turned his horse’s head toward the river. He rode -to Queenaskawakee, now called Clark’s Ferry, where -there was a famous fording, and, accompanied by his -guard, he made the crossing and posted for the Juniata -country. Near Raystown Branch he caught up with -the company of riflemen and scouts organized by -<span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>“Black Jack,” the Wild Hunter of the Juniata, who -was waiting for General Braddock’s arrival to enlist -in the proposed attack on Fort Duquesne at Shannopin’s -Town, now Pittsburg. Black Jack was no -stranger to him, having often met him at social gatherings -at Peter Allen’s, and the greeting between the -two men was very friendly. John Penn occupied the -same cabin as the Wild Hunter, and he told him his -story.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“It is not news to me,” said Captain Jack. “I -heard it before, from Smithgall. He went through -here last week hunting for Mary.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Despite this reassuring information, Penn refused -to believe anything but that the lovely Quakeress had -proved false and eloped with the German-American -serving man. Word came in a few days that the -vanguard of General Braddock’s army had reached the -Loyalhanna, and were encamped there. Captain Jack, -with John Penn riding at his side, and followed by his -motley crew with their long rifles–Germans, Swiss, -Frenchmen, Dutchmen, Indians, half breeds, Negroes -and Spaniards–approached the luxurious quarters of -General Edward Braddock, late of the Coldstream -Guards. The portly General, his breast blazing with -decorations, wearing his red coat, was seated in a -carved armchair in front of a log cabin erected for -his especial use by his pioneers, who preceded him on -the march. A Sergeant-Major conveyed the news of -“The Wild Hunter’s” presence to the General’s Aide, -who in turn carried it to the august presence.</p> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>“I cannot speak to such a fellow, let alone accept -him as a brother officer,” said Braddock, irritably. -“Besides, his methods of fighting are contrary to all -discipline, and I want no Pennsylvania troops. Tell -him that if he insists I will make him top-sergeant, -and place my own officers over his company.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Captain Jack was half angry, half amused, when -the rebuff was handed to him via the sergeant major.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“My father was a Spanish gentleman from the -Minisink, and my mother a woman of tolerably good -Hessian blood. I see no reason for such rank exclusiveness.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Quickly turning his horse’s head, the sturdy borderer -ordered his troop to proceed eastward.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Don’t act too rashly, Captain,” entreated Penn. -“General Braddock is ignorant of this country and -Indian methods of warfare. He may have orders not -to enlist native troops, yet without your aid I fear for -the success of his expedition. Please let me intercede -with him; he will do it when he hears that I am your -friend.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>“To the devil with him and his kind, the swinish -snob,” growled Captain Jack, while his black eyes -flashed a diabolical hatred; his Spanish temper was -uncontrollable. That night, when Captain Jack and -John Penn were seated at their camp fire at Laurel -Run, a messenger, a Major, not a Sergeant Major, -from General Braddock was announced.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Saluting, the officer asked to be allowed to speak -with John Penn, Esquire. Penn received the officer -<span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>without rising, and was cooly civil throughout the interview, -which consisted principally of reading a letter -from Braddock, expressing deep regret “that he had -not known that the son of his dear friend, Richard -Penn, had been with –-- Jack,” and offering Penn -the captaincy of <em>Black Jack’s</em> company of scouts, -“–-- Jack to be First Lieutenant.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Naturally, Captain Jack was more enraged than -ever, but he said: “Take it, John, I’ll withdraw and -turn my men, who, you know, are the best shots in the -Province, over to you. They would go through hell -for you.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Never fear,” replied Penn, and, turning to the -Major, he said: “Tell General Braddock, with my -compliments, that I decline to accept a commission -which he has no authority to tender. As for my companion, -Captain Jack (laying emphasis on the Captain) -the General had <em>his</em> decision earlier in the day. Goodnight, -Major.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Thus terminated the “conference” which might -have changed the face of history. As the result of -Braddock’s pride and folly, his defeat and death are -a part of history, known by every Pennsylvanian.</p> - -<p class='c001'>John Penn was wretchedly unhappy, even though -Captain Jack tried to console him, when he shrewdly -inferred that “Mary” had been kidnapped by emissaries -of his relatives, and had not eloped with a vile serving -man. His heart was too lacerated to remain longer -with the Wild Hunter, now that no active service was -to be experienced; so, accompanied by Monkton, the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>veteran of Preston, he set out the next morning for -the West Branch of the Susquehanna to the unexplored -countries.</p> - -<p class='c001'>At Waterford Narrows they passed the body of -a trader recently killed and scalped by Indians.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“May I draw one of his teeth, sir?” said the old -soldier, “and you can carry it in your pocket, for the -old people say ‘The only thing that can break the enchantment -of love is the tooth of a dead man’.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Penn shook his head and rode on. For a considerable -time Penn and Old Monkton visited with -Dagonando (Rock Pine), a noted Indian Chief in -Brush Valley (Centre County), for the young man, -like the founder of Pennsylvania, possessed the same -irresistible charm over the redmen.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Years afterwards, in Philadelphia, speaking to -General Thomas Mifflin, Dagonando stated that had it -not been for his unhappy love affairs, John Penn -would have been the equal of his grandfather as Governor, -and prevented the Revolutionary War. But his -spirit was crushed; even a mild love affair with Dagonando’s -daughter ended with shocking disaster. Reaching -Fort Augusta, Penn became very ill; a “nervous -breakdown” his ailment would be diagnosed today. -During his illness he was robbed of his diary. He -reached Philadelphia in the fall, and almost immediately -set sail for England. He remained abroad until -1763, when he returned as Governor of Pennsylvania. -He arrived in Philadelphia on October 30, in the midst -of the terrific earthquake of that year, and on November -<span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>5, George Roberts in a letter to Samuel Powell, in -describing the new Chief Magistrate, says:</p> - -<p class='c001'>“His Honor, Penn, is a little gentleman, though -he may govern equal to one seven feet high.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Charles P. Keith has thus summed up Penn’s -career from the time of his first arrival in Pennsylvania: -“He was one of the Commissioners to the -Congress at Albany in the summer of 1754, and made -several journeys to the neighboring colonies. Nevertheless, -his trouble made him again despondent; he -began to shun company; he would have joined Braddock’s -army had any Pennsylvania troops formed part -of it, and perhaps have died on the field which that -officer’s imprudence made so disastrous. Some two -months after the defeat he returned to England.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>On June 6, 1766, a brilliant marriage occurred in -Philadelphia. John Penn, Lieutenant Governor, aged -thirty-seven years, married Anne, the daughter of William -Allen, Chief Justice; a strange fate had united the -relative of Peter Allen of “Tulliallan” to the husband -of Maria Cox, pronounced legally dead after an absence -of eleven years in parts unknown. Commenting -on this alliance, Nevin Moyer, the gifted Historian, -remarks: “The marriage was an unpleasant one, on -his (Penn’s) account, for he was found very seldom -at home.” It was during the wedding that a fierce -electrical storm occurred, unroofing houses and shattering -many old trees.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was not long after this marriage when a feeling -of restlessness impelled him to start another of his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span>many trips to the interior. This time it was given out -that he wished to visit Penn’s Valley, the “empire” -discovered in the central part of the province by -Captains Potter and Thompson, and named in his -honor, and Penn’s Cave, the source of the Karoondinha, -a beautiful, navigable stream, rechristened “John -Penn’s Creek.” He managed to stop over night, as -everyone of any consequence did, at “Tulliallan,” and -slept in the room with the Scotch thistles carved on -the woodwork, and saw Peter Allen for the first time -in twelve years.</p> - -<p class='c001'>A foul crime had recently been committed in the -neighborhood. Indian Joshua, who used to live at the -running spring, had gone to Canada the year of Braddock’s -defeat (the year of Mary’s disappearance, Penn -always reckoned it) and had lately returned to his old -abode. He had been shot, as a trail of blood from -his cabin down the mountain had been followed clear -to Clark’s Creek, where it was lost. In fact, pitiful -wailing had been heard one night all the way across -the valley, but it was supposed to be a traveling -panther. Arvas, or Silver Heels, had also come back -for a time, but, after Joshua’s disappearance, had gone -away.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Maybe he killed his friend,” whispered Allen, -looking down guiltily, as he spoke what he knew to be -untruthful words.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“It is all clear to me now, Allen,” said Penn. “I -should have believed Captain Jack, when in ’55 he told -me that my late wife was carried off to Canada by -<span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>Indians; the kidnappers came back, and for fear that -they would levy hush money on those who had caused -my Mary to be stolen, murdered Joshua as a warning.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Allen did not answer, but Penn said: “You have -kept a public house so long that you have forgotten to -be a gentleman, and I do not expect you to tell the -truth.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>In 1840 seekers after nestlings of the vultures -climbed to the top of the King’s Stool, the dizzy pinnacle -of the Third Mountain. There they found the -skeleton of an Indian. It was all that was left of -Joshua, who had climbed there in his agony and died -far above the scenes which he loved so dearly. The -hunters put the bones in their hunting pouches and -climbed down the “needle,” and buried them decently -at the foot of the rocks.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The King’s Stool is named for a similar high point -near Lough Foyle, Ireland, and there are also King’s -Stools in Juniata and Perry Counties. The North of -Ireland pioneers were glad to recognize scenes similar -to the natural wonders of the Green Isle!</p> - -<p class='c001'>A great light had come to John Penn, but he accepted -his fate philosophically, just as he had the abuse -heaped upon him for his vacillating policy towards the -Indians. He followed up his vigorous attempt to -punish the Paxtang perpetrators of the massacres of -the Conestoga Indians at Christmas time, 1763, by promulgating -the infamous scalp bounty of July, 1764, -which bounty, to again quote Professor Moyer, paid -<span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>“$134 for an Indian’s scalp, and $150 for a live Indian, -and $50 for an Indian female or child’s scalp.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>There are not enough Indians to make hunting for -bounties in Pennsylvania a paying occupation today, so -instead there is a bounty on Wildcats and foxes, wiping -out desirable wild life to satisfy the politicians’ filthy -greed.</p> - -<p class='c001'>John Penn returned to Philadelphia without visiting -Penn’s Valley or Penn’s Cave or John Penn’s -Creek. He had seen them previously in 1755 when -they bore their original Indian names, and his heart -was still sad. It was not long after returning that he -again started on another expedition up the Susquehanna, -traveling by canoe, just as his grandfather, William -Penn, had done in his supposedly fabulous trip -to the sources of the West Branch at Cherry Tree, in -1700. A stop was made at Fisher’s stone house, -Fisher’s Ferry. A group of pioneers had heard of his -coming and gave the little Governor a rousing ovation. -He felt nearest to being happy when among the frontier -people, who understood him, and his trials had, -like Byron, made him “the friend of mountains”; he -was still simple at heart. In the kitchen, seated by the -inglenook, he heard someone’s incessant coughing in an -inner room. He asked the landlord, old Peter Fisher, -who was suffering so acutely.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Why, sir,” replied Fisher, “it’s an Englishwoman -dying.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>In those days people’s nationalities in Pennsylvania -were more sharply defined, and any English-speaking -<span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>person was always called an “Englishwoman” -or an “Englishman,” as the case might be.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Tell me about her,” said the Governor, with ill-concealed -curiosity.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“It’s a strange story, it might give Your Worship -offense,” faltered the old innkeeper. “They tell it, sir, -though it’s doubtless a lie, that Your Excellency cared -for this Englishwoman, and your enemies had her kidnapped -by two Indians and taken to Canada. The -Indians were paid for keeping her there until a few -years ago, when their remittances suddenly stopped -and they came home; one, it is said, was murdered -soon after. Arvas, his companion, was accused of the -crime, but he stopped here for a night, a few weeks -afterwards, and swore to me that he was guiltless. The -Englishwoman finally got away and walked all the -way back from a place called Muskoka, but she caught -cold and consumption on the way, and is on her death-bed -now. I knew her in all her youth and beauty at -Peter Allen’s, where she was always the belle of the -balls there; she had been brought up a Quaker, but my, -how she could dance. You would not know her now.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>“I want to see her,” said the Governor, rising to -his feet.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was getting dark, so Fisher lit a rushlight, and -led the way. He opened the heavy door without rapping. -His wife and daughter sat on high-backed rush-bottomed -chairs on either side of the big four-poster -bed, which had come from the Rhine country. On the -bed lay a woman of about forty years, frightfully -<span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span>emaciated by suffering, whose exaggeratedly clear-cut -features were accentuated in their marble look by the -pallor of oncoming dissolution. Her wavy, dark hair, -parted in the middle, made her face seem even whiter.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Mary, Mary,” said the little Governor, as he ran -to her side, seizing the white hands which lay on the -flowered coverlet.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“John, my darling John,” gasped the dying woman.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Leave us alone together,” commanded the Governor.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The women looked at one another as they retired. -The thoughts which their glances carried indicated -“well, after all the story’s true.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>They had been alone for about ten minutes when -Penn ran out of the door calling, “Come quick, someone, -I fear she’s going.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>The household speedily assembled, but in another -ten minutes “Mary Warren,” alias Maria Cox-Penn -had yielded up the ghost. She is buried on the brushy -African-looking hillside which faces the “dreamy Susquehanna,” -the Firestone Mountains and the sunset, -near where travelers across Broad Mountain pass every -day. John Penn returned to Philadelphia and took no -more trips to the interior. He divided his time between -his town house, 44 Pine Street, and his country seat -“Lansdowne.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>During the Revolution he was on parole. He died -childless. February 9, 1795, and is said to be buried -under the floor, near the chancel, in the historic Christ -Church, Philadelphia, which bears the inscription that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span>he was “One of the Late Proprietors of Pennsylvania.” -Most probably his body was later taken to England. -His wife, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><em>nee</em></span> Allen, survived him until 1813.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The other night in the grand hall of the Historical -Society of Pennsylvania in the Quaker City, a notable -reception was given in honor of the grand historian-governor, -William C. Sproul, fresh from his marvelous -restoration of the Colonial Court House at Chester. -As he stood there, the embodiment of mental and -physical grace and strength, the greatest Governor of -a generation, receiving the long line of those who came -to pay their respects and well wishes, Albert Cook -Myers, famed historian of the Quakers, mentioned that -the present Governor of the Commonwealth was standing -just beneath the portrait of John Penn, one of the -last of the Proprietaries. And what a contrast there -was! Penn looked so effete and almost feminine with -his child-like blonde locks, his pink cheeks, weak, half-closed -mouth, his slender form in a red coat, so different -from the vigorous living Governor. Penn was also -so inferior to the other notable portraits which hung -about him–the sturdy Huguenot, General Henri -Bouquet, the deliverer of Fort Duquesne in 1758 and -1763; the stalwart Scot, General Arthur St. Clair, of -Miami fame, who was left to languish on a paltry pension -of $180 a year at his rough, rocky farm on Laurel -Ridge; the courageous-looking Irishman, General Edward -Hand; and, above all, the bold and dashing eagle -face of General “Mad Anthony” Wayne. Such company -for the last of the Penns to keep! Though lacking -<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>the manly outlines of his fellows on canvas, who -can say that his life had one whit less interest than -theirs–probably much more so, for his spirit had felt -the thrill of an undying love, which in the end surmounted -all difficulties and left his heart master of -the field.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Though his record for statecraft can hardly be -written from a favorable light, and few of his sayings -or deeds will live, he has joined an immortal coterie -led down the ages by Anthony and the beautiful -Egyptian queen, by Abelard and Heloise, Dante and -Beatrice, Petrarch and Laura, Alfieri and the Countess -of Albany, and here in Pennsylvania by Hugh H. -Brackenridge and the pioneer girl, Sabina Wolfe, and -Elisha Kent Kane, and the spiritualist, Maria Fox. -Love is a force that is all-compelling, all-absorbing and -never dies, and is the biggest thing in life, and the story -of John Penn and Maria Cox will be whispered about -in the backwoods cabins and wayside inns of the Pennsylvania -Mountains long after seemingly greater men -and minds have passed to forgetfulness.</p> - -<p class='c001'>But for a few lines in the writings of Charles P. -Keith, H. M. Jenkins, Nevin W. Moyer and various -Penn biographers, such as Albert Cook Myers, the -verbal memories of ’Squire W. H. Garman, James Till, -Mrs. H. E. Wilvert and other old-time residents of the -vicinity of “Tulliallan,” all would be lost, and the inspiration -of a story of overwhelming affection unrecorded -in the annals of those who love true lovers.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span> - <h2 class='c002'><span class='fss'>II</span> <br /> <i>At His Bedside</i></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>When old Jacob Loy passed away at the age of -eighty years, he left a pot of gold to be divided -equally among his eight children. It was a -pot of such goodly proportions that there was a nice -round sum for all, and the pity of it was after the -long years of privation which had collected it, that -some of the heirs wasted it quickly on organs, fast -horses, cheap finery and stock speculations, for it was -before the days of player-pianos, victrolas and automobiles.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Yolande, his youngest daughter, was a really attractive -girl, even had she not a share in the pot of gold, -and had many suitors. Though farm raised and -inured to hardships she was naturally refined, with -wonderful dark eyes and hair, and pallid face–the -perfect type of Pennsylvania Mountain loveliness.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Above all her admirers she liked best of all -Adam Drumheller, a shrewd young farmer of the -neighborhood, and eventually married him. Three -children were born in quick succession, in the small -tenant house on his father’s farm in Chest Township, -where the young couple had gone to live immediately -after their wedding.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Shortly after the birth of the last child old Jacob -Drumheller died, and the son and his family moved -into the big stone farmhouse near the banks of the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span>sulphurous Clearfield Creek. It was not long after -this fortuitous move that the young wife began to -show signs of the favorite Pennsylvania mountain -malady–consumption. Whether it was caused by a -deep-seated cold or came about from sleeping in rooms -with windows nailed shut, no one could tell, but the -beautiful young woman became paler and more wax-like, -until she realized that a speedy end was inevitable. -Many times she found comfort in her misfortune -by having her husband promise that in the event -of her death he would never remarry.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Never, never,” he promised. “I could never find -your equal again.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>He was sincere in some respects; it would be -hard to find her counterpart, and she had made a will -leaving him everything she possessed, and he imagined -that the pot of gold transformed into a bank balance -or Government bonds would be found somewhere -among her effects.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Before ill health had set in he had quizzed her -many times, as openly as he dared, on the whereabouts -of her share of the pot.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“It is all safe,” she would say. “It will be -forthcoming some time when you need it more than -you do today,” and he was satisfied.</p> - -<p class='c001'>As she grew paler and weaker Adam began to -think more of Alvira Hamel, another comely girl -whom he had loved when he railroaded out of Johnstown, -at Kimmelton, and whom he planned to claim -as his own should Yolande pass away.</p> -<div class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/i_038.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>SCENE IN SNYDER-MIDDLESWARTH PARK</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span>Perhaps his thoughts dimly reflected on the dying -wife’s sub-conscious mind, for she became more insistent -every day that he promise never to remarry.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Think of our dear little children,” she kept saying, -“sentenced to have a stepmother; I would come -back and <em>haunt</em> you if you perpetrate such a cruelty -to me and mine.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Adam had little faith in a hereafter, and less in -ghosts, so he readily promised anything, vowing -eternal celebacy cheerfully and profoundly.</p> - -<p class='c001'>When Yolande did finally fade away, she died -reasonably happy, and at least died bravely. She -never shed a tear, for it is against the code of the -Pennsylvania Mountain people to do so–perhaps a -survival of the Indian blood possessed by so many of -them.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Three days after the funeral Adam hied himself -to Ebensburg to “settle up the estate,” but also to look -up Alvira Hamel, who was now living there. She -seemed glad to see him, and when he broached a possible -union she acted as if pleased at everything except -to go on to that lonely farm on the polluted Clearfield -Creek.</p> - -<p class='c001'>By promising to sell out when he could and move -to Barnesboro or Spangler, a light came in her dark -eyes, and though he did not visit the lawyer in charge -of his late wife’s affairs, his day in town was successful -in arranging for the new alliance with his -sweetheart of other days.</p> - -<p class='c001'>In due course of time it was discovered that the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>equivalent of Yolande’s share of the pot of gold left -by old Jacob Loy was not to be found. “She may -have kept it in coin and buried it in the orchard,” was -some of the very consoling advice that the lawyer -gave.</p> - -<p class='c001'>At any rate it was not located by the time that -Adam and Alvira were married, but the <a id='corr34.7'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='bridgegroom'>bridegroom</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_34.7'><ins class='correction' title='bridgegroom'>bridegroom</ins></a></span> -was well to do and could afford to wait. After a -short trip to Pittsburg and Wheeling the newly married -couple took up housekeeping in the big brick -farmstead above the creek.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The first night that they were back from the -honeymoon–it was just about midnight and Alvira -was sleeping peacefully–Adam thought that he heard -footsteps on the stairs. He could not be mistaken. -Noiselessly the door opened, and the form of Yolande -glided into the room; she was in her shroud, all white, -and her face was whiter than the shroud, and her -long hair never looked blacker.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Along the whitewashed wall by the bedside was -a long row of hooks on which hung the dead woman’s -wardrobe. It had never been disturbed; Alvira was -going to cut the things up and make new garments -out of them in the Spring. Adam watched the apparition -while she moved over to the clothing, counting -them, and smoothed and caressed each skirt or waist, -as if she regretted having had to abandon them for -the steady raiment of the shroud.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Then she came over to the bed and sat on it close -to Adam, eyeing him intently and silently. Just then -<span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span>Alvira got awake, but apparently could see nothing -of the ghost, although the room was bright as day, -bathed in the full moon’s light.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Yolande seemed to remain for a space of about ten -minutes, then passed through the alcove into the room -where the children were sleeping and stood by their -bedside. The next night she was back again, repeating -the same performance, the next night, and the -next, and still the next, each night remaining longer, -until at last she stayed until daybreak. In the morning -as the hired men were coming up the boardwalk -which led to the kitchen door, they would meet -Yolande, in her shroud coming from the house, and -passing out of the back gate. On one occasion -Alvira was pumping water on the porch, but made -no move as she passed, being evidently like so many -persons, spiritually blind. The hired men had known -Yolande all their lives, and were surprised to see her -spooking in daylight, but refrained from saying anything -to the new wife.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Every day for a week after that she appeared on -the kitchen porch, or on the boardwalk, in the yard, -on the road, and was seen by her former husband -many times, and also her night prowling went on as -of yore. The hired men began to complain; it might -make them sick if a ghost was around too much; -these spooks were supposed to exhale a poison much -as copperhead snakes do, and also draw their “life” -away, and they threatened to quit if she wasn’t “laid.” -All of them had seen spooks before, on occasion, but -<span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>a daily visitation of the same ghost was more than -they cared about.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Had it not been for the excitable hired men, -Adam, whose nerves were like iron, could have stood -Yolande’s ghost indefinitely. In fact, he thought it -rather nice of her to come back and see him and the -children “for old time’s sake.” But the farm hands -must be conserved at any cost, even to the extent of -laying Yolande’s unquiet spirit.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The next night when she appeared, he made bold -and spoke to her: “What do you want, Yolande,” he -said softly, so as not to wake the soundly sleeping -Alvira at his side. “Is there anything I can do for -you, dear?”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Yolande came very close beside him, and bending -down whispered in his ear: “Adam,” said she, -“how can you ask me why I am here? You surely -know. Did you not, time and time again, promise never -to marry again, if I died, for the sake of our darling -children? Did you not make such a promise, and see -how quickly you broke it! Where I am now I can -hold no resentments, so I forgive you for all your -transgressions, but I hope that Alvira will be good to -our children. I have one request to make: After I -left you, you were keen to find what I did with my -share of daddy’s pot of gold. I had it buried in the -orchard at my old home, under the Northern Spy, but -after we moved here, one time when you went deer -hunting to Centre County, I dug it up and brought it -over here and buried it in the cellar of this house. It -<span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>is here now. There are just one hundred and fifty-three -twenty dollar gold pieces; that was my share. -The children and the money were on my mind, not -your broken promise and rash marriage, which you -will repent, and which I tell you again I forgive you -for. I want my children to have that money, every -one of the one hundred and fifty-three twenty dollar -gold pieces. I buried it a little to the east of the -spring in the cellar, about two feet under ground, in a -tin cartridge box; Dig it up tomorrow morning, and -if you find the one hundred and fifty-three coins, and -give every one to the children, I will never come again -and upset your hired men. Why I have Myron Shook -about half scared to death already, but if you don’t -find every single coin I’ll have to come back until you -do, or if you hold it back from the children, you will -not be able to keep a hireling on this place, or any -other place to which you move. Many live folks can’t -see ghosts; your wife is one of these; she will never -worry until the hired men quit, then she’ll up and -have you make sale and move to town. Be square -and give the children the money, and I’ll not trouble -you again.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Oh, Yolande,” answered Adam in gentle tones, -“you are no trouble to me, not in the least. I love to -have you visit me at night, and look at the children, -but you are making the hired help terribly uneasy. -That part you must quit.”</p> - -<p class='c001'><a id='corr37.29'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='That’s'>“That’s</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_37.29'><ins class='correction' title='That’s'>“That’s</ins></a></span> enough of your drivel, Adam,” spoke -Yolande, in a sterner tone of voice. “Talk less like a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>fool, and more like a man. Dig up that money in the -morning, count it, and give it to the children and I’ll -be glad never to see you again.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>To be reproached by a ghost was too much for -Adam, and he lapsed into silence, while Yolande slipped -out of the room, over to the bedside of the sleeping -children, where she lingered until daylight.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Adam was soon asleep, but was up bright and -early the next morning, starting to dress just as the -ghost glided out of the door. By six o’clock he had -exhumed Yolande’s share of the pot of gold which -was buried exactly as her ghostly self had described.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was a hard wrench to hand the money over to -the children, or rather to take it to Ebensburg and -start savings accounts in their names. But he did -it without a murmur. The cashier, a horse fancier, -gave him a present of a new whip, of a special kind -that he had made to order at Pittsburg, so he came -home happy and contented.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Night was upon him, and supper over, he retired -early, dozing a bit before the “witching hour.” As -the old Berks County tall clock in the entry struck -twelve, he began to watch for Yolande’s accustomed -entrance. But not a shadow appeared. The clock -struck the quarter, the half, three quarters and one -o’clock. No Yolande or anything like her came; she -was true to her promise, as true as he had been false. -It was an advantage to be a ghost in some ways. They -were honorable creatures.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Adam did not know whether to feel pleased or -<span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>not. His vanity had been not a little appealed to by a -dead wife visiting him nightly; now he was sure that -it wasn’t for love of him or jealousy, she had been -coming back, but to see that the children got the money -that had been buried in the cellar. And at last she had -spoken rather unkindly, so the great change called -death had ended her love, and she wasn’t grieving over -his second marriage at all. However, he fell to consoling -himself that she had chided him for breaking -his word and marrying again; she must have cared -for him or she would not have said those things. -Then the thought came to him that she wasn’t really -peeved at anything concerning his marriage to Alvira -except that the children had gotten a stepmother. He -wondered if Alvira would continue to be kind to them. -Just as he went to sleep he had forgotten both Yolande -and Alvira, chuckling over a pretty High School girl -he had seen on the street at the ’burg, and whom he -had winked at.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id006'> -<img src='images/i_046.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span> - <h2 class='c002'><span class='fss'>III.</span> <br /> <i>The Prostrate Juniper</i></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Weguarran was a young warrior of the Wyandots, -who lived on the shores of Lake -Michigan. In the early spring of 1754 he was -appointed to the body-guard of old Mozzetuk, a leader -of the tribe, on an embassy to Bethlehem, in Pennsylvania, -to prevail on the holy men there, as many Indians -termed the Moravians, to send a band of Missionaries -to the Wyandot Country, with a view of -Christianizing the tribe, and acting as advisors and -emissaries <a id='corr40.11'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='betwen'>between</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_40.11'><ins class='correction' title='betwen'>between</ins></a></span> the Wyandots and allied nations -with the French and other white men, who were constantly -encroaching on the redmen’s territories.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Weguarran the youngest and the handsomest of -the <a id='corr40.15'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='esocrt'>escort</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_40.15'><ins class='correction' title='esocrt'>escort</ins></a></span>, was very impressionable, and across Ohio -and over the Alleghenies, he made friends with the -Indian maidens of the various encampments passed -en route.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The reception at Bethlehem was cordial, but -not much hope was held out for an immediate despatch -of Missionaries as the Moravians were anxious to -avoid being drawn into the warlike aspirations of the -English and French, preferring to promote the faith -in pacified regions, as very few of them were partisans, -but if they had a leaning at all, it was toward the -French. This was due to the fact that the French always -understood the Indians better than the English, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>were more sympathetic colonizers, and while many -French Missionaries carried forward the tenets of -Rome, there was no religious intolerance, and Missionaries -of every faith seemed to thrive under their leadership.</p> - -<p class='c001'>While at Bethlehem and Nazareth, Weguarran -was much favored by the Indian maids of those localities, -but did not wholly lose his heart until one -afternoon at the cabin of an old Christian Pequot -named Michaelmas. This old Indian, a native of Connecticut, -lived in a log cabin on a small clearing near -the Lehigh River, where he cultivated a garden of -rare plants and trees, and raised tobacco. All his -pastimes were unusual; he captured wild pigeons, -which he trained to carry messages, believing that -they would be more valuable in wartime than runners. -He also practiced falconry, owning several -hawks of race, goshawks, marsh hawks and duck -hawks. The goshawks he used for grouse, wood-cocks -and quails; the marsh hawks for rabbits, hares -and ’coons; and the duck hawks for wild ducks and -other water birds, which fairly swarmed on the Lehigh -in those days. He was a religious old man, almost -a recluse, strong in his prejudices, and was much -enthused by the Wyandot embassy, giving his waning -hopes a new burst of life for an Indian renaissance.</p> - -<p class='c001'>He took a great fancy to the manly and handsome -Weguarran, inviting him to his cabin, and it -was there that the youthful warrior met the old man’s -<span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>lovely daughter, Wulaha. She was an only child, -eighteen years of age. Her mother belonged to the -Original People and was also a Christian.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Love progressed very rapidly between Weguarran -and Wulaha, and as the time drew near for the embassy -to depart, the young girl intimated to her lover -that he must discuss the subject with old Michaelmas, -and secure his approval and consent, after the manner -of white Christians.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The old Pequot was not averse to the union, -which would add another strain of Indian blood to the -family, but stated that a marriage could only take -place on certain conditions. Weguarran, in his conversations -with Michaelmas, had told him of his military -affiliations with the French, which had filled -the old man’s heart with joy for the hopes of a new -order of things that it seemed to kindle. When he -asked the hand of the fair Wulaha in marriage, -Michaelmas “came back” with the following proposition:</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Weguarran, I am getting old and feeble,” he -said. “I may pass away any time, and I could not -bear the thought of my squaw being left alone, which -would be the case if you married Wulaha and took -her to the distant shores of Lake Michigan. However, -there are greater things than my death and my -squaw’s loneliness, the future of the red race, now -crushed to earth by the Wunnux, as we call the white -men, but some day to be triumphant. You have told -me that within this very year the French and Indians -<span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span>are sure to engage the English in a mighty battle -which will decide the future history of the Continent. -You can marry Wulaha right after that battle, if you -are victorious; otherwise you can do as the Missionaries -tell us the Romans did–fall on your sword. -You can never return here, as I do not want my -daughter to marry and continue the race of a beaten -people. I would far rather have her die single, and -have our seed perish, for if this victory is not won, -doomed is every redman on this Continent. The only -wish of the English is to encompass our extermination. -Wulaha will remain at home until after that -battle, when you can come for her and claim her as -your own, and we will give her to you with rejoicing.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>“What you say is surely fair enough, Father -Michaelmas,” replied Weguarran, “for I would see -no future for Wulaha and myself if the English are -victorious in this inevitable battle. As soon as it is -won–and it will be won, for the high resolve of -every Indian warrior is to go in to win–I will hurry -back to the banks of the Lehigh, never stopping to -rest, sleep or eat, to tell you of the glad tidings, and -bear away my beloved Wulaha. I want to ask one -special favor of you. I have admired your wonderful -cage of trained wild pigeons, which you say will -carry messages hundreds of miles. Lend me one of -these pigeons, and as soon as the victory is won, I -will release the bird, and while I am speeding eastward -on foot, our feathered friend will fly on ahead -<span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span>and end the suspense, and bring joy to yourself, your -squaw and Wulaha.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>“I will gladly let you have my best trained pigeon, -or hawk, or anything I possess, if I can learn of -the victory, but in turn I will ask a favor of you. -I listened with breathless interest to your tales of the -Prostrate Junipers which grow on the shores of the -great lakes, which cover two thousand square feet, -and are hundreds of years old. You promised to -bring me a scion of one of those curious trees, so that -I might plant it in my garden of rare trees and shrubs. -Now, here will be a chance to associate it with the -great victory; pluck a stout but small scion, and if -the victory is won, affix it firmly to one of the pigeon’s -legs and let it go. If it comes back without the -twig of Juniper I will know that our cause has lost, -and while you fall on your sword, I and my family -will jump into the Lehigh.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>“I will gladly do as you say, Father Michaelmas,” -said Weguarran, “and will send a twig that will grow, -and some day make a noble tree, and in years to come, -our people will call it Weguarran’s Victory Tree. <a id='corr44.22'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='The The'>The</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_44.22'><ins class='correction' title='The The'>The</ins></a></span> -fact that it is a Prostrate Tree makes it all the -more appropriate, as it will represent the English -race lying prostrated, crushed by the red race they -wronged, and by our kindly and just French allies.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Weguarran was so inspired by the thought of -the pigeon messenger, the sprig of Prostrate Juniper, -and the impending victory that it assuaged his -grief at the parting from Wulaha, sending him away -<span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span>determined to give a good account of himself in all -things.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Old Michaelmas selected a handsome cock pigeon, -with a dragon’s blood red breast–his very best -and most intelligent, and surest flyer, named Wuskawhan, -which he placed in a specially built, bottle -shaped basket, which had no lid, yet the top was too -small for the bird to escape. In this way it could -rise up and peer out, as it was carried along, and not -bruise its wing coverts or head, as it would if it flew -against the top of a square basket with a lid.</p> - -<p class='c001'>After a touching parting with Wulaha, her -mother and father, the young warrior went his way -with his precious burden.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The Indians, even old Mozzetuk, were rapid travellers, -and in due time they reached the country of -the Prostrate Junipers on the shores of Lake Michigan. -They arrived in what seemed like an armed -camp, for all the braves had been called to arms, -which plotted to drive Indians and French to the -uttermost ends of the earth.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Weguarran was quickly mobilized, and a musket -in one hand and tomahawk in the other, while on his -back he bore the sacred pigeon, he marched toward -his foes. In the excitement he had not forgotten to -slip into his pouch at his belt a sprig of the Prostrate -Juniper, which would be the emblem of the English -race prostrate under the foot of French and Indian -allies.</p> - -<p class='c001'>In due course of time the army of which the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span>picked Wyandot warriors formed a part, met their -English foemen on Braddock’s Field, completely routing -and all but annihilating them. General Braddock -himself was shot from behind by one of his own men -in the wild stampede, and the French and Indians were -completely victorious.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Surveying the <a id='corr46.7'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='sic'>gorey</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_46.7'><ins class='correction' title='sic'>gorey</ins></a></span> scene, every wooded glade -lying thick with dead redcoats and broken accoutrements, -Weguarran carefully opened the panther skin -pouch at his best, taking out the sprig of Prostrate -Juniper. Then he lifted the handsome wild pigeon -from its bottle-nosed cage of oak withes, and with a -light leathern string, affixed the little twig, on which -the berries still clustered, to the bird’s leg, then tossed -the feathered messenger up into the air.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The pigeon quickly rose above the trees, circled -a few times, and then started rapidly for the east, as -fast as his broad, strong wings could carry him.</p> - -<p class='c001'>This done, Weguarran visited his chief, obtaining -leave to proceed to Bethlehem to claim his bride, -promising to report back with her on the banks of the -Ohio as speedily as possible. The pigeon naturally -had a good start, and by the next morning was flying -over the palisaded walls of John Harris’ Trading Post -on the Susquehanna.</p> - -<p class='c001'>A love story was being enacted within those walls, -in the shadow of one of the huge sheds used in winter -to store hides. Keturah Lindsay, Harris’ niece, -an attractive, curly-haired Scotch girl, was talking -with a young Missionary whom she admired very -<span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>much, Reverend Charles Pyrleus, the protege of Col. -Conrad Weiser.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Unfortunately they had to meet by stealth as his -attentions were not favored by the girl’s relatives, -who considered him of inferior antecedents. They -had met in the shed this fair July morning, whether -by design or accident, no one can tell, and were enjoying -one another’s society to the utmost.</p> - -<p class='c001'>In the midst of their mutual adoration, the dinner -gong was sounded at the trading house, and Keturah, -fearful of a scolding, reluctantly broke away. -As she came out into the sunlight, she noticed a handsome -wild pigeon drop down, as if exhausted, on one -of the topmost stakes of the palisade which surrounded -the trading house and sheds.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Keturah, like many frontier girls, always carried -a gun, and quickly taking aim, fired, making the -feathers fly, knocking the bird off its perch, and it -seemed to fall to the ground outside the <a id='corr47.19'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='stackade'>stockade</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_47.19'><ins class='correction' title='stackade'>stockade</ins></a></span>. In -a minute it rose, and started to fly off towards the -east. She had reloaded, so fired a second time, but -missed.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“How strange to see a wild pigeon travelling -through here at this time of year,” she thought, as carrying -her smoking firearm, she hurried to the mess -room of the big log trading house.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The messenger pigeon had been <a id='corr47.27'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='greviously'>grievously</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_47.27'><ins class='correction' title='greviously'>grievously</ins></a></span> hurt, -but was determined to go “home.” On and on it went, -sometimes “dipping” like a swallow, from loss of -blood, but by sheer will power keeping on the wing. As -<span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span>it neared the foothills of the South Mountains, near -the village of Hockersville, with old Derry Church -down in the vale, it faltered, spun about like a pin -wheel, and fell with a thud. Gulping and blinking a -few times, it spread out its wide pinions and lay on -its breastbone–stone dead–the twig of Prostrate -Juniper still affixed to one of its carmine feet. There -it lay, brave in death, until the storms and winds -shivered it, and it rotted into the ground.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Weguarran was a rapid traveler, and in forced -marches came to the shady banks of the Lehigh in -three or four days. He was so excited that he swam -the stream. He brought the first news of the great -victory in the west to the surprised Michaelmas and -his friends. But where was the prized wild pigeon, -Wuskawhan? It could not have gone astray, for such -a bird’s instinct never erred. “Caught by a hawk or -shot down by some greedy fool of a Wunnux” was the -way in which old Michaelmas explained its non-appearance.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The news spread to the white settlements and to -the towns, and there was consternation among all -sympathizers with the Crown–with all except a few -Moravians who were mum for policy’s sake, and the -Indians, whose stoical natures alone kept them from -disclosing the elation that was in their hearts.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id007'> -<img src='images/i_056.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>A MAMMOTH SHORT-LEAF PINE</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c001'>“The English never wanted the Indians civilized,” -said Michaelmas, boldly. “They drove the Moravians -out of Schadikoke and from the Housatonic when -they saw the progress they made with our people; -<span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span>were it not for the Quakers in Pennsylvania, they -would have had no place to harbor; those of us who -felt the need of these kind friends followed them in -their exile, but we can never forgive that we had to -leave the Connecticut country of our birth under such -circumstances. I am glad that our enemies were -beaten and <a id='corr49.7'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='annihilated.'>annihilated.”</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_49.7'><ins class='correction' title='annihilated.'>annihilated.”</ins></a></span></p> - -<p class='c001'>Weguarran was baptized, and he and the lovely -Wulaha were married by one of the Moravian preachers, -and started for the great lake country, which was -to be their permanent home.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Michaelmas and his squaw were too old to make -the long journey, but they were happy in their garden -of rare trees and plants, the wild pigeons, the -hawks of race, and the dreams of an Indian <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><em>renaissance</em></span>. -They lived many years afterwards, and are -buried with the other Christian Indians at Bethlehem.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Out in the foothills of the South Mountains, -overlooking old Derry Church, in the fertile Lebanon -Valley among the pines and oaks and tulip trees, a -strange seedling appeared in the spring of 1756, different -from anything that the mountain had known -since prehistoric times. Instead of growing upward -and onward as most brave trees do, it spread out wider -and greater and vaster, until, not like the symbol of -the Anglo-Saxon prone beneath the heel of French -and Indian, it was the symbol of the all diffusing -power of the English speaking race, which has grafted -its ideals and hopes and practical purposes over the -entire American Continent. Nourished by the life’s -<span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span>blood of the travelling pigeon that bore it there, it -had a flying start in the battle of existence, and today, -after all these years, bids fair to last many years -longer, to be the arboral marvel and wonder of the -Keystone State.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Well may the Boy Scouts of Elizabethtown feel -proud to be the honorary custodians of this unique tree -with its spread of 2,000 feet, for apart from its curious -appearance and charm, it has within it memories -of history and romance, of white men and red, -that make it a veritable treasure trove for the historian -and the folk-lorist, and all those who love the -great outdoors in this wonderful Pennsylvania of -ours!</p> - -<div class='figcenter id004'> -<img src='images/i_059.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span> - <h2 class='c002'><span class='fss'>IV.</span> <br /> <i>Out of the Ashes</i></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Last Autumn we were crossing Rea’s Hill one afternoon -of alternate sunshine and shadow, and -as we neared the summit, glanced through several -openings in the trees at the wide expanse of Fulton -County valleys and coves behind us, on to the interminable -range upon range of dark mountains northward. -In the valleys here and there were dotted square stone -houses, built of reddish sandstone, with high roofs -and chimneys, giving a foreign or Scottish air to -the scene. Some of these isolated structures were deserted, -with windows gaping and roofs gone, pictures -of desolation and bygone days.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Just as the crest of the mountain was gained, we -came upon a stone house in process of demolition, -in fact all had been torn away, and the sandstone -blocks piled neatly by the highway, all but the huge -stone chimney and a small part of one of the foundation -walls. Work of the shorers had temporarily -ceased for it was a Saturday afternoon. Affixed to -the chimney was a wooden mantel, painted black, of -plain, but antique design, exposed, and already -stained by the elements, and evidently to be abandoned -by those in charge of the demolition.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The house stood on the top of a steep declivity, -giving a marvelous view on four sides, almost strategic -enough to have been a miniature fortress!</p> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span>It was the first time in a dozen years that we -had passed the site; in 1907 the house was standing -and tenanted, and pointed out as having been a temporary -resting place of General John Forbes on his -eastern march, after the successful conquest of Fort -Duquesne, in 1758. Now all is changed, historic memories -had not kept the old house inviolate; it was to -be ruthlessly destroyed, perhaps, like the McClure -Log College near Harrisburg, to furnish the foundations -for a piggery, or some other ignoble purpose.</p> - -<p class='c001'>As we passed, a pang of sorrow overcame us at -the lowly state to which house and fireplace had fallen, -and we fell to recounting some of the incidents -of the historic highway, in military and civil history, -the most noteworthy road in the Commonwealth. The -further, on we traveled, the more we regretted not -stopping and trying to salvage the old wooden mantel, -but one of our good friends suggested that if we -did not are to return for it, we <a id='corr52.19'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='shauld'>should</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_52.19'><ins class='correction' title='shauld'>should</ins></a></span> mention the -matter to the excellent and efficient Leslie Seylar at -McConnellsburg, who knew everyone and everything, -and could doubtless obtain the historic relic and have -it shipped to our amateur “curio shop.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>The genial Seylar, famed for his temperamental -and physical resemblance to the lamented “Great -Heart,” was found at his eyrie and amusement centre -on top of Cove Mountain, and he gladly consented -to securing the abandoned mantel. As a result it is -now in safe hands, a priceless memento of the golden -age of Pennsylvania History.</p> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span>But now for the story or the legend of the mantel, -alluded to briefly last year in the chapter called -the “Star of the Glen,” in this writer’s “South Mountain -Sketches.” The story, as an old occupant of the -house told it, and he survived on until early in the -Nineteenth Century was, that General Forbes, on -this victorious eastern march, was seized many times -with fainting fits. On every occasion his officers and -orderlies believed that the end had come, so closely -did he simulate death. But he had always been delicate, -at least from his first appearance in Pennsylvania, -though when campaigning with the gallant Marshal -Ligonier in France, Flanders and on the Rhine, -participating in the battles of Dettingen, Fontenoy -and Lauffeld, no such symptoms were noted. Although -less than fifty years of age when he started -towards the west, he was regarded, from his illnesses, -as an aged person, Sherman Day in his inimitable -“Historical Collections” states that there was “much -dissatisfaction in the choice of a leader of the expedition -against Fort Duquesne, as General Forbes, -the commander, was a decrepit old <a id='corr53.22'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='man.'>man.”</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_53.22'><ins class='correction' title='man.'>man.”</ins></a></span></p> - -<p class='c001'>What caused his ill health history has not uncovered -at this late date. It has been said that he was an -epileptic, like Alexander and other great generals, or -a sufferer from heart trouble or general debility. His -military genius outweighed his physical frailties, so -that he rose superior to him, but it must not be forgotten -that he was aided by two brilliant officers, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span>Colonel George Washington and Colonel Henry Bouquet.</p> - -<p class='c001'>His immediate entourage was a remarkable one, -even for a soldier of many wars. Like a true Scotsman, -he carried his own piper with him, Donald MacKelvie, -said to be a descendant of the mighty MacCrimmons; -and his bodyguard was also headed by a -Highlander, Andrew MacCochran, who had been a -deer stalker on one of the estates owned by the General’s -father.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Forbes himself, being a younger son, was not a -man of property, and Pittencrief House, his birth-place, -was already occupied by an older brother, from -whom, so Dr. Burd S. Patterson tells us, all who -claim relationship to him are descended.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The General was carried in a hammock, with frequent -stops, from Harris’ Ferry to Fort Duquesne, -and back again, borne by four stalwart Highlanders, -in their picturesque native costumes, wearing the tartan -of the Forbes clan. The deerstalker, MacCochran, -was the major domo, and even above the chief of -staff and Brigade Surgeon, gave the orders to halt -when the General’s lean weazened face indicated an -over-plussage of fatigue.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was late in the afternoon as the returning army -had neared the summit of Rea’s Hill; the pipers were -playing gaily Blaz Sron, to cheer foot soldiers and -wagoners up the steep, rocky, uneven grade, with the -General in the van. The ascent was a hard one, and -the ailing commander-in-chief was shaken about considerably, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span>so much so that MacCochran was glad to -note the little stone house, where he might give him -his much needed rest.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Old Andrew McCreath and his wife, a North of -Ireland couple, the former a noted hunter, occupied -the house; their son was serving in the Pennsylvania -Regiment, which formed a part of General Forbes’ -expeditionary forces. The old folks were by the roadside, -having heard the bagpipes at a great distance, -eager to see the visitors, and catch a glimpse of their -hero son. They were surprised and pleased when -MacCochran signalled the halt in front of their door, -which meant that the entire procession would bivouac -for the night in the immediate vicinity. There were -several good springs of mountain water, so all could -await the General’s pleasure.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Permission was asked to make the house “general -<a id='corr55.18'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='hearquarters'>headquarters</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_55.18'><ins class='correction' title='hearquarters'>headquarters</ins></a></span>” for the night, which, of course, was -quickly given, as the old couple were honored to have -such a distinguished visitor. There was a great couch, -or what we would today call a “Davenport” in front -of the fire, and there the General was laid, the room -dark, save for the ruddy glow of the roaring fire, -which illuminated every nook and corner, and made -it at once as cheerful as it was warm and comfortable.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The General’s eyes were wide open, and he gazed -about the room, while his faithful domestics watched -him to anticipate every wish. When he was ill he excluded -his Staff, but kept his servants with him, and -they, with McCreath and his wife, stood in the corners -<span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span>of the room, back of the couch, waiting for his -commands.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The piper asked if he could liven his master with -a “wee tune or two,” but the General shook his head; -his sandy locks had become untied, and flapped about -his bony face; he made a motion with his hand that -indicated that he wanted to be alone, to try and get -some sleep. McCreath and his wife, and their stalwart -son, the other bearers of the hammock and litters, -and the surgeon of the expedition, Major McLanahan, -who had slipped into the room, withdrew, -leaving the piper and MacCochran standing in the -corner back of the couch, to aid the General should he -become violently ill in his sleep.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The General dozed, and the bodyguard became -very tired, for they had had a hard march, and sank -down on the floor, with their backs to the wall. All -was still, save for the tramp, tramp of the sentry outside -the window, or the crackle of some giant bonfire -in the general campground, or the barking of some -camp follower’s dog. The fire had died down a little, -but threw great fitful shadows, like a pall, over the -sleeping General, and caused an exaggerated shadow -of his bold profile to appear on the wall.</p> - -<p class='c001'>All at once, without the slightest warning, he -jumped to his feet, with the elasticity of a youth, -and arms outstretched, seemed to rush towards the -fire. He might have tripped over the pile of cord -wood, and fallen in face foremost, had not the ever -watchful piper and MacCochran, springing forward, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span>caught him simultaneously in their strong arms. They -did not find him excited, or his mind wandering, like -a man suddenly aroused from slumbers. On the contrary, -he was strangely calm. He whispered in MacCochran’s -ear:</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Andy, I have seen my lady of Dunkerck. She -came out of the ashes towards me. I rushed forward -to greet her, and she went back into the hearth and -was gone.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>The General would say nothing further, but allowed -himself to be laid out on the couch once more, -and be covered with buffalo robes, and while he lay -quiet, he slept no more that night, but every minute -or so kept looking into the fire. At daybreak, at the -sounding of Surachan on the pipes, he was able to -start, and the balance of the march executed without -incident.</p> - -<p class='c001'>He reached Philadelphia in safety, but within a -short time after arriving there he passed away unexpectedly, -and was buried in historic Old Christ -Church, where a tablet with the following inscription -was erected in the Chancel by the Pennsylvania Chapter -of the Society of Colonial Wars: “To the Memory -of Brigadier-General John Forbes, Colonel of the -17th Regiment of Foot, born at Pittencrief, Fifeshire, -1710, died in Philadelphia, March 11, 1759.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>MacCochran was released from the army, and being -enamored of the wild mountain country in the interior -of Pennsylvania, returned to the forests. Later, -though nearly fifty years old, he enlisted and served -<span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span>through the Revolutionary War in Captain Parr’s Riflemen. -After peace was declared he bought the little -stone house on Rea’s Hill from young McCreath, who -had served with him in the Rifle Brigade, and lived -there alone until he died about 1803. He said that he -liked the place for its memories of General Forbes, -and he was always fond of telling to his mountaineer -friends when they dropped in of an evening for a -smoke and a toddy, of his hero’s exploits in peace -and war, and more than once recounted the tale of -the wraith which appeared to the General at the fireplace, -during his eastward journey from Fort Duquesne.</p> - -<p class='c001'>General Forbes, he said, as noted previously, was -a younger son, and had entered the army early in life. -He had been too busy campaigning to marry, but not -always too busy to fall in love. Yet he was a serious-minded -man, and his romances were always of the -better sort, and would have ended happily on one or -more occasions but for the exigencies of his strenuous -<a id='corr58.20'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='compaigns'>campaigns</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_58.20'><ins class='correction' title='compaigns'>campaigns</ins></a></span>, which moved him from place to place.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Of all his love affairs, the one that hit him the -hardest, and lasted the longest, occurred after the -victory of Lauffeld, won by Marshal Ligonier, when, -as Lieutenant-Colonel, he was quartered with his regiment -at Dunkerck, preparatory to embarking for England. -Colonel Forbes’ billet was with one Armand -Violet, a rich shipowner, who resided in a mediaeval -chateau, which his <a id='corr58.28'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='weath'>wealth</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_58.28'><ins class='correction' title='weath'>wealth</ins></a></span> had enabled him to purchase -from some broken-down old family, on the outskirts -<span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span>of the town. It was built on a bare, chalky -cliff, overlooking the sea, where the waves beat over -the rocks, and sent the spray against the walls on -stormy nights, and the wind, banshee-like, moaned incessantly -among the parapets.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Violet was away a good deal, and his wife was -an invalid, and peculiar, but their one daughter, Amethyst -Violet, was a ray of sunshine enough to illuminate -and radiate the gloomiest fortress-like chateau. -She was under eighteen, about the middle height, slimly -and trimly built, with chestnut brown hair, blue -eyes, and a fair complexion; her hair was worn in puffs -over her ears and brushed back from her brows, just -as the girls are again wearing it today; she was vivacious -and intelligent, and detected in the Colonel, despite -his thirty-seven years, a man of superior personality -and charm.</p> - -<p class='c001'>In the long wait, due to conflicting orders, and -the non-arrival of the transport, Forbes and Amethyst -became very well acquainted, in fact the Colonel was -very much in love, but would not dream of mentioning -his passion, as he deemed it folly for a man of -his years and experience to espouse a mere child. The -girl was equally smitten, but more impulsive, and less -self-contained.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Every evening the pair were together in the great -hall, sitting before the fire in the old hearth, their -glances, which often met, indicating their feelings, but -the Colonel confined his talk to descriptions of military -life, Scotland, its glens and locks and wild game, old -<span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>legends and ballads which he loved to recite. He was -particularly fond of repeating the old ballad of Barbara -Livingston.</p> - -<p class='c001'>One night while the wind was howling, and the -spray was lashing against the castle walls, and the -rain dashed and hissed against the panes, the time to -retire had come, and Amethyst, instead of tripping -away, sprang right into Forbes’ arms, and lay her -fluffy head against his bespangled breast.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“You are the coldest man in the world” she sobbed, -looking up with tear-dimmed blue eyes. “What -have you meant all these nights, we two alone for -hours and hours, your eyes on only the sparks as they -swept upwards through the ‘louvre,’ and your thoughts -only on battles and mountain scenery. I love you more -than all the world, and yet you could not see it, or did -not care. I can restrain my feelings no longer; tell me -the truth, for I cannot bear the suspense and live.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Forbes revealed his love by holding her very tight, -and covering her wet, hot eyelids with kisses. “Oh, -foolish, darling Amethyst,” he said, “I love you just -as much as you care for me. I have from the first -moment I saw you, and hoped that the transport would -never come, but I am twice your age, and battered -by many hard campaigns, and while I think I could -make you happy now, ten years hence I would be an -old man, and you would despise me.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Amethyst looked up into his sad, steady eyes, -saying, “I don’t care what happens ten years from -now; we might both be dead. I love you, and I want -<span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>you. I will give you a week to decide; if you do not, -I will jump off the highest parapet into the sea, and -you can have yourself all to yourself, and prosper if -you will with your stern Covenanter’s principles.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>The Colonel, though moved, was too prudent a -Scot to capitulate. He took the case under advisement, -and every night for a week, though chivalrous -and charming, neglected to set the beautiful girl’s -mind at rest. Yet when he retired to his room, he -paced the floor all night, for he knew that the exquisite -girl could revive his youth.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The fatal night arrived. Perhaps the result -might have been different if Amethyst had reminded -her lover of her threat. She was too proud to do so, -and the Colonel, thinking that she had forgotten her -rash words–to some extent at least–was mum, and -they parted gaily, Amethyst darting out of the hall -humming the old love song of Barbara Livingston -as light on foot, and apparently as light-hearted as any -carefree child.</p> - -<p class='c001'>She was never seen again–at least not until -Forbes saw her come out of the embers at the fireplace -on Rea’s Hill, more than thirteen years later.</p> - -<p class='c001'>When the word came that her room in one of -the turrets was empty, a general search was made, revealing -the trap-door to the parapet open. In her -haste she had omitted dropping it. From that Forbes -knew that the worst had happened. When MacCochran -told it to him, standing pale and frigid by the -ancient hearth, he tried to stroke his small military -<span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span>mustache, to show his sang-froid, but fell in a swoon -on the stone floor, lying unconscious for a week.</p> - -<p class='c001'>That was the beginning of the fainting fits that -plagued him for the rest of his life, and the commencement -of his distaste of life, which caused him -to ask for active service in America, in a new and wild -environment, far from scenes similar to the terrible -tragedy of his love and pride. And yet, out of the -fire, in distant Pennsylvania, had appeared the long lost -Amethyst Violet, perhaps as a “warning” of his fast -approaching end, to open the portals to that better -world where they would be together, and all things -be as they should.</p> - -<p class='c001'>MacCochran, philosophic and superstitious Scot -that he was, had many reasons for lingering in the -little stone house. Often he said, when he sat smoking -late at night, the shadows from the dying fire -would cast dark shapes, much like General Forbes’ -bold features, on the walls, and he felt the magnetic -spell of his old Master’s presence. Perhaps out of -the ashes would emerge Amethyst Violet, or her spirit -self, and the lovers could be re-united before his eyes -in a shadowland.</p> - -<p class='c001'>But nothing ever happened so fortuitous, and the -engraved likenesses of “Bonnie Prince Charlie” and -Madame d’Albany, unhappy lovers also, which hung -on either side of his Revolutionary rifle, above the -mantel, looked down on him as if in sympathy, for -his fidelity which had survived the grave. The long -looked for visitations never came; perhaps among -<span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>the vaults and cornices and lofts of Old Christ Church, -where the General is resting, the reunion of the lovers -has taken place, but wherever it has, the place is known -only to the spirits of Forbes and the fair Amethyst -Violet; there are no witnesses.</p> - -<p class='c001'>And now the present owner of “General Forbes’ -Fireplace,” as he calls it, is waiting to set it up in some -study or hunting lodge, beneath the skull and antlers -of the extinct Irish elk, from Ballybetag Bog, where -amid forest surroundings, in the dead of night, he can -keep vigil like MacCochran, after reading “Volumes -of Quaint and Forgotten Lore,” and maybe be rewarded -by a sight of the true lovers from out of the -ashes.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i_072.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span> - <h2 class='c002'><span class='fss'>V</span> <br /> <i>Wayside Destiny</i></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Like many natives of the Pennsylvania Mountains, -Ammon Tatnall was a believer in dreams -and ghosts. Even in his less prosperous days, -when life was considerable of a struggle, he had time -to ponder over the limitless possibilities of the unseen -world. Probably his faith in the so-called supernatural -was founded on a dream he had while clerking -in a hotel at Port Allegheny, during the active days -of the lumber business in that part of the Black Forest.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It seemed that his mother was lying at the point -of death, and wanted him to come to her, but as she -did not know his whereabouts, was suffering much -mental anguish. Just in the midst of the dream the -alarm clock went off, but he awoke and got up with -the impression that his vision had been real. In the -office he informed the landlord of his dream. Like a -true mountain man, the proprietor merely asked him -to come back as soon as he could, such occurrences -being not unusual in his range of experience.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i_074.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>AMONG THE VIRGIN HEMLOCKS, BLACK FOREST. (<em>Photograph by</em> W. T. Clarke.)</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c001'>At home, in the Wyoming Valley, he found conditions -exactly as reproduced in the dream. His sudden -coming proved the turning point in his mother’s -illness; she rallied and got well. During her convalescence, -for Tatnall remained longer than he had expected, -she told him of a story which her mother had -<span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span>told her of the straight dreaming of some of their ancestors, -pioneers of the North Branch.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The woman in question, who lived many years -before, dreamed one night that her daughter who lived -in Connecticut, and who had married just as they left -for Wyoming, appeared to her with a baby in her arms. -<a id='corr65.6'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='she'>She</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_65.6'><ins class='correction' title='she'>She</ins></a></span> said she herself was dead and she desired the baby -to be given to the grandmother. As a sign of the reality -of the vision, she placed her hand on the wrist of -the grandmother, leaving a mark on it that could never -be effaced.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The grandmother took the long journey to Connecticut -and found that everything had happened as -told in the dream. The child grew up, and became -the wife of a well-known Methodist preacher, and was -famed throughout Northern Pennsylvania for her good -deeds.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Tatnall gradually advanced in life, and became -agent or traveling salesman for several wholesale lumber -concerns. He had gotten his start by being polite -to the manager of one of the companies who came -up from Pittsburg every week and stopped at the hotel. -He made a success as a salesman, and it was a matter -of quiet satisfaction to him that in ten years he <a id='corr65.23'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='rad'>had</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_65.23'><ins class='correction' title='rad'>had</ins></a></span> -sold 160,000,000 feet of lumber. But he had been too -busy to marry, too busy to have a home; was a driving, -pushing machine in the interests of his employers. -Sometimes on the trains he met with intelligent people, -but generally his associates were like himself, human -<span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>dynamos, but without his interest in the supernatural.</p> - -<p class='c001'>There was one railway journey which he took -frequently, and on fast trains. His westbound trips -carried him through the most mountainous part of -the country in the late afternoon, but there was generally -light enough to show the various aspects of -the wild, rugged landscape. There was a little abandoned -graveyard, all overgrown, with an uneven stone -wall around it, near where the tracks crossed the river -bridge. Standing among the lop-sided and battered -tombstones, the tips of some of the older ones of -brownstone being barely visible, looking as if they -were sinking into the earth, he would always see the -figure of a young woman attired completely in grey. -The train was always traveling so fast that he counted -a different number of stones every time he went by–there -were probably a “Baker’s Dozen.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>For a long time he thought that she must be some -particularly devoted mourner, a recently bereaved widow, -but it did seem a strange coincidence that she -should be there on the same days and hour that he -passed by in the fast train. Once he called his seat-mate’s -attention to the figure, but the companion could -see nothing, and laughingly said: “Why, you must be -seeing a ghost.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>The word <em>ghost</em> sent a thrill through Tatnall, and -after that he said no more to anyone, but conceded to -himself that the girl in grey was a wraith of some -kind. Though the train did not pass close to the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span>graveyard, and was always moving rapidly, he fancied -that he could discern the ghost’s type of feature, -or imagined he did; at any rate he had an exact mental -picture of what he thought she looked like, and would -pick her out in a crowd if he ever saw her in hailing -distance.</p> - -<p class='c001'>This had kept up for five years, and he began to -feel that it was getting on his nerves; he must either -abandon that particular train or go to the graveyard -and investigate. He chose the latter course, and one -afternoon arrived at the nearest station, via a local -train. The graveyard was on the opposite side of the -river, and there seemed to be very little hurry on the -part of the boatman, who lived on the far shore, to -carry him across. It was late in the fall, after Thanksgiving, -and the trees were bare of leaves, and shook -and rattled their bare branches in the gusts of wind -that came out of the east.</p> - -<p class='c001'>He sat down on an old rotting shell of a dugout -by the bank, watching the cold, grey current, for the -river was high after many days of fall rains. It was -a dreary, but imposing scene, the wide, swollen river, -the wooded banks and hills beyond, and back of him, -high rocky mountains, partly covered with scrubby -growth and dead pines.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Finally, in response to frequent calling, he could -see the boat launched; it looked like a black speck -at first, and gradually drew nearer to him and beached. -The boatman was a tiny man, with a long drooping -mustache and goatee, wearing a Grand Army button; -<span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span>he was pleasant, but inquisitive, though he “allowed” -Tatnall could have no other business than to be a -“drummer” bound for the crossroads store on the opposite -bank.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Tatnall had remembered a small, dingy store in -a hamlet, about half mile from the little cemetery; he -had intended going there as he wanted information -concerning the families who were buried there. Perhaps -he could learn all he wanted to know from the -riverman, and save the walk down the track to the -store, but for some reason held his tongue.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The boatman’s final remark was that it was strange -for anyone to be willing to pay a dollar to be ferried -across the river, when most people walked the railroad -bridge. It was trespassing on railroad property, -and dangerous to do it, but it was worth the risk, -many travelers thought.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Arriving safely across the roily current, Tatnall -paid and thanked the boatman, and started in the direction -of the little country store. In front of the store -was a row of mature Ailanthus trees, which seemed -like sturdy guards over the old stone structure, -which had once been a tavern stand. The porch was -filled with packing cases and barrels.</p> - -<p class='c001'>As Tatnall opened the door, he could see a number -of habitues seated about on crates and barrels. -One of them, a white bearded Civil War Veteran, -rose up, leaning heavily on his cane, and bid the -stranger welcome. Almost before he had a chance -to engage in conversation with the regulars, he glanced -<span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span>behind the counter, where he beheld a young woman, -who had just emerged from an inner apartment behind -the store room.</p> - -<p class='c001'>In the dim half-light, the dark aquiline face and -meagre figure seemed strangely familiar. She was -more Oriental than Indian in type, with that curly -hair and wonderful nose, those thin lips, and complexion, -the deep pink tone of a wild pigeon’s breast. -Where had they met before? For a moment his mind -refused to correlate, then like a flash, he realized that -she was the counterpart of the girl in grey who -haunted the little disused cemetery so regularly. And -the way she looked at him was as if they had seen -one another before; on her face was a look of mild -surprise.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Addressing some pleasantries to her, they were -soon engaged in conversation, as if they had known -each other for years. It was getting late, time to light -lamps and fires at home, so the long-winded dissertations -of the habitues were left off, to be continued -after supper. One by one they filed out of the store; -if they had any opinion of the stranger conversing -with Elma Hacker, the store-keeper’s niece, it was -that he was probably some traveling man, “talking -up” his line of goods.</p> - -<p class='c001'>When the last one had gone, and the acquaintance -had progressed far enough, Tatnall, leaning over -the counter, confided bravely the purpose of his visit -to the remote neighborhood. For five years he had -been seeing a figure in grey, in the late afternoons, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>while passing by the little graveyard in the western -express. No one else could see it, yet he was certain -that his senses were not deceiving him. Did she -know anything of this, and could she help him fathom -the mystery?</p> - -<p class='c001'>The dark girl dropped her eyes and was silent -for a moment. She was hesitating as to whether to -disclaim all knowledge, or to be frank and divulge a -story which concerned her soul.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Yes, I do know all about it, how very funny! -I, too, have had the power of seeing that figure in -grey, though very few others have ever been able to, -and many’s the time I’ve been called crazy when I -mentioned it. ‘The girl in grey,’ as you call her, -strangely enough was an ancestress of mine, or rather -belonged to my father’s family, and while I have the -same name, Elma Hacker, I don’t know whether I -was named for her or not, as my parents died when -I was a little girl.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“It used to make me feel terrible when I was a -little girl and told about seeing the figure. I hated -to be regarded as untruthful or ‘dullness,’ but at last -my uncle, hearing of it, came to the rescue and told -me not to mind what anyone said, that, from the description, -he was sure I had seen the ghost. He had -never had the power to see her, but his father, my -grandfather had, and other members of the family.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“It was a sad and curious story. It all happened -in the days of the very first white settlers in these -mountains, when my ancestors kept the first stopping -<span class='pageno' id='Page_71'>71</span>place for travellers, a Stone fortress-like house, in -Black Wolf Gap; the ruins of the foundations are -still visible, and folks call it ‘The Indian Fort.’ The -Hackers were friendly with the Indians, who often -came for square meals, and other favors from the -genial pioneer landlord and his wife. The Elma -Hacker of those days had a <a id='corr71.7'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='sweeaheart'>sweetheart</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_71.7'><ins class='correction' title='sweeaheart'>sweetheart</ins></a></span> who lived -alone on the other side of the Gap; his name was -Ammon Quicksall, and from all accounts, he was a -fine, manly fellow, a great hunter and fighter.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“He would often drop in on his beloved on his -way home from his hunting trips, at all hours of the -day. One one occasion four Indians appeared at -the tavern, intimating that they were hungry, as Indians -generally were. Elma carried a pewter dish -containing all the viands the house afforded to each, -which they sat eating on a long bench outside the -door.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“One of the Indians was a peculiar, half-witted -young wretch who went by the name of Chansops. -He came to the public house quite often, being suspected -of having a fondness for Elma and for hard -cider. She always treated him pleasantly, but kept -him at a distance, and never felt fear of any kind in -his presence. No doubt his feelings were of a volcanic -order, and under his stoical exterior burned a -consuming passion. He was munching his lunch, apparently -most interested in his food, when Ammon -Quicksall and his hunting dogs hove in sight.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Their barking and yelping were a signal to Elma, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span>who rushed out of the house to greet her lover, perhaps -showing her feelings a trifle too much; though -she had no reason to imagine she should restrain -herself in the presence of the Indians. All the while -Chansops was eyeing her with gathering rage and -fury. When Elma took her lover’s arm–she must -have been a very impulsive girl–and rested her head -against his shoulder, it was too much for the irate -Indian.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“He jumped up, firing his pewter dish into the -creek which flowed near the house, and danced up -and down in sheer fury. His companions tried hard -to calm him, as they wanted to keep on good terms -with the <a id='corr72.14'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='inkeeper’s'>innkeeper’s</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_72.14'><ins class='correction' title='inkeeper’s'>innkeeper’s</ins></a></span> family, but he was beyond all -control. Quicksall and Elma were walking on the -path which led along the creek; their backs were -turned, and they little dreamed of the drama being -enacted behind them. The other Indians, realizing -that Chansops meant trouble, lay hold of him, but -he wrenched himself free with a superhuman strength, -threatening to kill anyone who laid hands on him -again.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Old Adam Hacker, Elma’s father, finally heard -the commotion and came out, and asked in Dutch -what the trouble was all about. One of the Indians, -the oldest and most sensible, replied that it was only -Chansops having a jealous fit because he saw Elma -walking off with Quicksall. While these words were -being said, Chansops was edging further away, and -looking around furtively, saw that he had a chance to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span>get away, and sprang after the retreating couple. -Bounding like a deer, he was a few paces behind -Quicksall in a twinkling of an eye. He had a heavy -old flint-lock pistol with him, which he drew and fired -point blank into the young lover’s back at two or three -paces. With a groan, Quicksall sank down on the -ground, dying before Elma could comfort him.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Before Adam Hacker or the friendly Indians -could reach the scene of the horrid tragedy, Chansops -had escaped into the forests, followed by Quicksall’s -hounds yelping at his heels. He was seen no more. -The dogs, tired and dejected, re-appeared the next -day; evidently they had been outraced by the fleet -Indian runner.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“It was a blow from which the bereaved girl -could not react. She was brave enough at the time, -but she was never the same again. She gradually -pined away, until she was about my age, she died, -and was buried not in the little graveyard, but in her -father’s yard. That was done because it was feared -that the crazy Chansops might return and dig up her -body, and carry it away to his lodge in the heart of -the forest. Quicksall was buried in the pioneer cemetery, -and that is the place where Elma Hacker of -those days evidently frequents, trying to be near her -sweetheart’s last resting place, and to reason out the -tragedy of her unfulfilled existence.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“It is a very strange story, but odder still, to me, -that you, a stranger, should have seen the apparition -<span class='pageno' id='Page_74'>74</span>so frequently, when others do not, and been interested -enough to have come here to unravel the mystery.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>“It is a strange story,” said Tatnall, after a pause. -He was figuring out just what he could say, and not -say too much. “The strangest part is that the figure -I have been seeing is the image of yourself, bears -the same name, and my name, Ammon Tatnall, has -a somewhat similar sound, in fact is cousin-german -to ‘Ammon Quicksall.’”</p> - -<p class='c001'>In the gloom Elma Hacker hung her pretty head -still further. She was glad that there was no light -as she did not want Tatnall to see the hot purple -flush which she felt was suffusing her dark cheeks.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“The minute I came into the store,” Tatnall continued, -“you looked familiar; it did not take me a -minute to identify you as the grey lady.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>“And you,” broke in Elma, “appear just as I always -supposed Ammon Quicksall looked.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>How much more intimate the talk would have become, -there is no telling, but just then the door was -swung open, and in came old Mrs. Becker, a neighbor -woman, to buy some bread.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“You must be getting moonstruck, Elma,” she -said, “to be here and not light the lamps. Why, it is -as dark as Egypt in this room, and you were always -so prompt to light them.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Elma bestirred herself to find the matches, and -soon the swinging lamps were lit, and the store aglow.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Again the door was thrown open, and Elma’s -<span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span>uncle came in. He was Adam Hacker, namesake of -the old-time landlord, and proprietor of the store. -Mrs. Becker got her bread and departed, and Elma -introduced Tatnall to the storekeeper. Soon she explained -to him the stranger’s business, to which the -uncle listened sympathetically. At the conclusion he -said:</p> - -<p class='c001'>“It is really curious, after all these years, to have -an Adam Hacker, an Elma Hacker and an Ammon -Tatnall–almost Quicksall–here together; if Chansops -was here it would be as if the past had risen -again.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Let us hope there’ll be no Chansops this time,” -said Tatnall. “Let us feel that everything that was -unfulfilled and went wrong in those old days is to be -righted now.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was a bold statement, but somehow it went -unchallenged.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“I believe in destiny, the destiny of wayside cemeteries, -of chance and opportunity,” he resumed. “It -can be the only road to true happiness after all.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>“How happy we’d all be,” said Elma demurely, -“if through all this we could only lay the ghost of my -poor ancestress, the grey lady.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Nothing that is started is ever left unfinished,” -answered Tatnall. “And we of this generation become -unconscious actors in the final scenes of a drama -that began a couple of centuries ago. In that way -the cycle of existence is carried out harmoniously, -else this world could not go on if it was merely a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span>jumble of odds and ends, and starts without finishes; -as it is, everything that is good, that is worthwhile, -sometimes comes to a rounded out and completed fulfillment.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>The moon, which had come out clear, was three -parts full, and shed a glowing radiance over the rugged -landscape. After supper Ammon and Elma strolled -out along the white, moon-bathed road. Coming -to a cornfield the girl pointed to a great white oak -with a plume-like crest which stood on a knoll, facing -the valley, the river, and the hills beyond; they -climbed the high rail fence, and slipping along quietly, -seated themselves beneath the giant tree. Of the -many chapters of human life and destiny enacted beneath -the oak’s spreading branches, none was stranger -than this one. There until the flaming orb had -commenced to wane in the west, they sat, perfectly -content. “Oh, how I like to rest on the earth,” said -she. “How I love to be here, and look at your wonderful -face,” he whispered, as he stroked the perfect -lines of her nose, lips, chin and throat.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id004'> -<img src='images/i_087.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_77'>77</span> - <h2 class='c002'><span class='fss'>VI</span> <br /> <i>The Holly Tree</i></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>It was while on a mountain climbing trip in the -French Alps, when stormstayed at a small inn -at Grenoble, that a chance acquaintance showed -The Viscount Adare a copy of “The Travels of Thomas -Ashe,” a book which had recently appeared in -London and created a sensation in the tourist world. -The Viscount had already perused “Travels Beyond -the Alleghenies,” by the younger Michaux, but the -volume by Ashe, so full of human interest, more than -sharpened his old desire to travel in the United -States, now that a stable peace between the young -republic and the Mother Country was a matter of -some years standing.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The mountains, as described by both Michaux -and Ashe, seemed stupendous and inspiring, wild -game and mighty forests were everywhere, and a -glimpse might be caught of the vanishing redmen, -without journeying as far west as the Mississippi -River.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Thomas Ashe excelled in descriptions of the life -along the mountain highways, though nothing could -be more vivid than Michaux’s pen picture of his feast -on venison cooked on the coals on the hearth at Statler’s -stone tavern on the Allegheny summits, near -Buckstown. This ancient hostelry is, by the way, still -<span class='pageno' id='Page_78'>78</span>standing, though misnamed “The Shot Factory,” by -modern chroniclers, much to the disgust of the accurate -historian of Somerset County, George W. -Grove.</p> - -<p class='c001'>All during his trip among the Alps of Savoy, and -Dauphiny, The Viscount Adare was planning the excursion -to Pennsylvania. His love of wild scenery -was one compelling reason, but perhaps another was -Ashe’s description of his meeting and brief romance -with the beautiful Eleanor Ancketell, daughter of the -innkeeper on the Broad Mountain, above Upper -Strasburg, Franklin County.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was well along in August, the twenty-first to -be exact, when Ashe’s book was first shown to him, -therefore it seemed impracticable to make the journey -that year, but the time would soon roll around, -and be an ideal outing for the ensuing summer. From -the time of his return to London, until almost the date -set for the departure, The Viscount Adare busied -himself reading every book of American travel and -adventure that he could lay his hands on, besides accumulating -a vast outfit to take along, although the -trip was to be on foot, and without even a guide.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Needless to say, with such an interesting objective, -the year passed very rapidly, not that The Viscount -had no other interests, for he had many, being -a keen sportsman and scientist, as well as a lover of -books, paintings and the drama.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was on the twenty-third of August, a little -over a year after his first acquaintance with the writings -<span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span>of Ashe, that The Viscount embarked for Philadelphia, -on the fast sailing ship “Ocean Queen.” -Very few Englishmen went to America for pleasure -in those days as the sting of the Revolution was still -a thorn in their sides. Many Britishers did go, but -they were mostly of the commoner sort, immigrants, -not tourists.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The Viscount Adare, even before sailing, had his -itinerary pretty well mapped out. He would tarry a -week in Philadelphia to get rid of his “sea legs,” then -proceed by carriage to Louisbourg, then beginning to -be called Harrisburg, and go from there to Carlisle, -Shippensburg, and Upper Strasburg, at which last -named place he would abandon his conveyance, and -with pack on back, in true Alpine fashion, start overland, -traversing the same general direction of Michaux -and Ashe towards Pittsburg. At Pittsburg he -planned to board a flat boat and descend the Ohio, -thence into the Mississippi, proceeding to New Orleans, -at which city he could set sail for England.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was an ambitious trip for a solitary traveler, -but as he was known by his Alpinist friends as “The -Guideless Wonder,” some indication may be divined -of his resourcefulness.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The journey across the Atlantic was interesting. -A school of whales played about the ship, coming so -close as to create the fear that they would overturn it. -The Captain, a shrewd Irishman, was not to be daunted, -so he ordered a number of huge barrels or casks -thrown overboard, which immediately diverted the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_80'>80</span>attention of the saurians, with the result that a smart -breeze coming up, they were left far astern.</p> - -<p class='c001'>A boat, said to be a pirate, was sighted against -the horizon, but fortunately made no attempt to come -close, heading away towards the Summer Islands, -where, say the older generation of mountain folks, -arise all the warm south breezes that often temper -wintry or early spring days in the Pennsylvania Highlands, -with blue sky and fleecy clouds.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The Viscount Adare was pleased with these trifling -adventures, and more so with ocean travel, as -it was his first long sea voyage, though he had crossed -the Channel and the Irish Sea scores of times.</p> - -<p class='c001'>He debarked in Philadelphia after a voyage lasting -nearly six weeks, consequently the green foliage -of England was replaced by the vivid tints of Autumn -on the trees which grew in front of the rows -of brick houses near the Front Street Landing Wharf. -He had letters to the British Consul, who was anxious -to arrange a week or two of social activity for the -distinguished traveler, but The Viscount assured him -that he must be on his way.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The ride in public coaches to Lancaster and Harrisburg -was accomplished without incident. His fellow -travelers were anxious to point out the various -places of interest, the fine corn crops, livestock and -farm buildings, but the Englishman was so anxious to -get to the wilds that this interlude only filled him with -impatience.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i_092.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>BARK-PEELERS AT WORK. BLACK FOREST</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c001'>He was impressed not a little by the battlefields -<span class='pageno' id='Page_81'>81</span>of Paoli and Brandywine, but most of all by the grove -where the harmless Conestoga Indians were encamped -when surprised and massacred by the brutal Paxtang -Boys. The word “Indians” thrilled him, and -whetted his curiosity, which was somewhat appeased -on his arrival at Harrisburg by the sight of five Indians -in full regalia, lying on the grass under John -Harris’ Mulberry Tree, waiting to be ferried across -the river.</p> - -<p class='c001'>He tarried only one night at Harrisburg, then -hiring a private conveyance, started down the Cumberland -Valley, where he most admired the many -groves of tall hardwoods–resting at Carlisle and -Shippensburg–as originally planned. At Carlisle, he -was waited on at his inn by a German woman, who -explained to him that she was none other than “Molly -Pitcher,” or Molly Ludwig, the intrepid heroine of the -Battle of Monmouth.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was on a bright autumnal morning that, with -pack on back, and staff in hand, he started for the -heights of Cove Mountain, towards the west country. -On the way he passed a small roadside tavern, in -front of which a few years before had played a little -yellow-haired boy, with a turkey bell suspended -around his neck so that he could not get lost. The -German drovers who lolled in front of the hostelry -were fond of teasing the lad, calling him “Jimmy mit -the bells on,” much to the youngster’s displeasure. -His mother was a woman of some intellectual attainments, -and occasionally would edify the society -<span class='pageno' id='Page_82'>82</span>folk of Mercersburg by reciting the whole of Milton’s -“Paradise Lost.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>In time this boy became known as James Buchanan, -the only Pennsylvanian to occupy the Presidential -chair.</p> - -<p class='c001'>There were many taverns along the road, considering -the wildness of the country, and The Viscount -thought how much history and tradition was -being made about their inglenooks and <a id='corr82.9'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='home-garths,'>home-garths.</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_82.9'><ins class='correction' title='home-garths,'>home-garths.</ins></a></span> -The forests of chestnuts, yellow pine and rock oak, -the grand scenery of distant valleys and coves, interested -him more, and the occasional meetings with -the mountain people along the way, whom he enjoyed -conversing with, about the local folk-lore, game and -Indians. On many of the log barns and sheds were -nailed bear paws, deer horns and wolf hides, and the -hieroglyphics and signs, to ward off witches, were -keenly interesting to his inquiring gaze.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was amazing how the road wound in serpentine -fashion among the mountains; the distance could -have been much shortened, he thought.</p> - -<p class='c001'>One morning a backwoodsman with a black beard -that hung almost to his feet, explained to him the -“short cuts,” or paths that went down the steep slopes -of the mountains, lessening the distance of the regular -roads followed by the packers around the elbows -of the mountain ravines.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The Viscount Adare enjoyed these “short cuts” -hugely. They reminded him of his Alpining days, -and they led him right through the forests, under the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span>giant oaks and pines where he saw many unusual -looking birds, such as Pileated Woodpeckers and Carolina -Paraquets, while occasionally a Deer or Gray -Fox crossed his path. He had reached the bottom of -a ravine where a stream headed at a big spring, while -taking one of these “short cuts,” when he came in -sight of a clearing which contained a corn field, a -pasture lot or commons, a log house, log barn, and -a smaller log cabin, that looked like a smoke-house. -Smoke was issuing from an opening in the roof of -the tiny structure, which might have passed for a -child’s play house, modelled after the larger log -dwelling. As he neared the little hut, which reminded -him of an Alpine <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><em>baracq</em></span>, and which stood close to -the path, the door opened and two most curious looking -figures emerged. In old England he had seen -sweeps, but these were more grotesque and grimier -than any he could recall. As he drew nearer, he perceived -that while one appeared to be a man, the other -was a young woman. Both were entirely unclad, save -that the woman’s locks were covered by a homespun -cap of the tam <a id='corr83.22'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='o’shanttr'>o’shanter</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_83.22'><ins class='correction' title='o’shanttr'>o’shanter</ins></a></span> pattern. Both were literally -black, from head to foot.</p> - -<p class='c001'>When they saw the traveler, the woman ran back -into the cabin, pulling the door shut, while the “Jim -Crow” man waited in the path until joined by the -<a id='corr83.27'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='surpised'>surprised</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_83.27'><ins class='correction' title='surpised'>surprised</ins></a></span> Viscount.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“What is all this, my good man,” he queried, -“been cleaning your chimney and fallen through it -into a barrel of tar?”</p> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>“Oh, no,” said the grimy mountaineer, smiling, -his teeth looking very white against his swarthy visage. -“My business is to make lamp black, and my -friend and I have been sweeping down the walls, collecting -the output this morning, and boxing it, and -had just finished when you appeared in sight.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>The fellow made no attempt to apologize for his -outlandish appearance, but stood there in the sunlight -like an imp of darkness, chatting with the Englishman.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“I don’t want to keep your lady friend penned -up in there any longer,” said The Viscount, as he -started to move away.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Oh, don’t go,” said the maker of lamp black, -“I don’t know why she acts that way; stay and have -dinner with us. We never let a stranger go by without -furnishing him with some food.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Ordinarily, The Viscount Adare, unconventional -as he was, would have scurried away from such -grimy surroundings, but there was something that -appealed to him about the lamp black maker’s lady, -even in her coat of ebony grime, that made him decide -to tarry.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Thanks, I will stay,” he replied, “but I’ll go to -the barn so as to give your ‘friend,’ as you call her, -a chance to come out.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Don’t you bother to do that,” said the black man. -“She is acting foolish today; don’t give her the satisfaction -to move a step. She never minded showing -herself to anybody before.”</p> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span>These last words were secretly pleasing to the -Viscount, as it showed that the young woman recognized -in him a person of superior sensibilities, but -he hurried to the barn until he knew that she had -been given time to escape to the house. But he could -not help hearing the lamp black maker loudly chiding -her for modesty, a trait she had never displayed -previously. Pretty soon he saw the fellow making -trips to the spring, carrying water buckets into the -house. The Viscount sat on the doorstep of the barn, -watching the juncos flying about among the savin -bushes in the clearing, or his eyes feasting on the cornelian -red foliage of the sassafras trees on the hill, -inwardly speculating if with her black disguise washed -off, the young woman, whose higher nature he -had aroused, would be as good looking as he imagined -her to be. He made a mental picture of her loveliness, -ranking her close beside that of high bred beauties -of his own land, of the types depicted by Romney, -Kneller and Lely.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was not long before he saw her emerge from -the house, all washed and scrubbed, with her hair -neatly combed, clad in a spick and span “butternut” -frock. As she came towards him, he noted that she -was a trifle above the average height, and her feet, -despite the rough brogans she wore, were very small. -He saw, to his amazement, that she was the counterpart -of his mental picture, only more radiantly lovely. -When she drew near, she asked him, her face -lighting up very prettily, as she spoke, if he would -<span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span>like to come to the house to rest, that she would soon -prepare dinner, and hoped that he would not be too -critical of her humble efforts as a cook.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Her eyes seldom met his, but he could see that -they were large and grey-brown, with delicately penciled -black brows, and black lashes. Her face was -rather long and sallow, or rather of a pinkish pallor. -Her hair was cameo brown, her nose long and -straight, the lines of her mouth delicate and refined, -with lips unusually thin. He had noticed, as she came -towards him, that her slender form swayed a little -forward as she walked, reminding him of the mythical -maiden Syrinx, daughter of the River God, whom -the jealous-hearted Pan changed into a reed.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The Viscount Adare was far more disconcerted -than his hostess, as he followed her to the log house. -Just as they approached the door she whispered, “I -hope that you will forgive the awful exhibition I made -of myself.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Indoors she sat down on one of the courting -blocks by the great open hearth, where pots of various -sizes hung from the cranes. The man, who was still -trying to get the lamp black out of his curly hair and -beard, was only partially dressed, and looked all the -world like pictures of the lascivious Lupercalian Pan -himself.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The Englishman felt strangely at ease in the -cabin, watching the slender, reed-like girl prepare the -meal, and enjoyed the dinner with his humble entertainers.</p> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>Shortly after the repast another bearded backwoodsman -appeared at the door. The lamp black -maker had an appointment to go with him to some -distant parts of the Shade Mountains to examine -bear pens, and asked to be excused. He would not be -back until the next day; it was nothing unusual for -him to leave his friend alone for a week at a time on -similar excursions.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The Viscount was in no hurry to go, as never -had a woman appealed to him as did the lamp black -maker’s young assistant. Perhaps it was the unconventional -character of their first meeting that shocked -his love into being; at any rate he was severely smitten; -probably John Rolfe was no more so, on his first -glimpse of the humane Pocohontas.</p> - -<p class='c001'>After the two hunters had gone, the young woman -sat down on the other courting block, on the opposite -of the inglenook, and The Viscount decided -to ask her to tell him the story of her life. She colored -a trifle, saying that no one had ever been interested -in her life’s history before, therefore, she might -not repeat it very well.</p> - -<p class='c001'>She had been born at sea, of parents coming from -the northern part of Ireland. They had settled first -in the Cumberland Valley, then, when she was about -a dozen years old, decided to migrate to Kentucky. -They had not gotten much further than the covered -bridge across the Little Juniata, when they were ambushed -by robbers, and all the adult members of the -party, her parents and an uncle, were slain. The -<span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>children were carried off, being apportioned among -the highwaymen. She fell to the lot of the leader -of the band, Conrad Jacobs, who took more than a -fatherly interest in her.</p> - -<p class='c001'>He was a middle-aged married man, but he openly -said that when the girl was big enough, he would -chase his wife away and install her in her place. But -she was kindly treated by the strange people, even -more so than at home, for her mother had been very -severe and unreasonable.</p> - -<p class='c001'>When she was fifteen she saw signs that the outlaw -was going to put his plan into effect–to drive -his wife out into the forest, like an old horse–and -probably would have done so, but for Simon Supersaxo, -the lamp black man, who came to the highwayman’s -shanty frequently on his hunting trips.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The robber became jealous of the young Nimrod -and threatened to shoot him if he came near the -premises again. A threat was as good as a promise -with such people, so Supersaxo was ready to kill or -be killed on sight.</p> - -<p class='c001'>He met the highwayman one evening in front of -McCormick’s Tavern, and drawing the bead, shot -him dead. He was not arrested, but feted by all the -innkeepers for ridding the mountains of a dangerous -deterrent to travel, while she, her name was Deborah -Conner, went to help keep house for him, along with -the outlaw’s widow, but in reality to help make lamp -black.</p> - -<p class='c001'>That was four years before. Since old Mother -<span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>Jacobs had died and Deborah, now nineteen years -of age, was being importuned by Supersaxo to marry -him.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Previous to the Englishman’s coming that morning, -she had never felt any shame at working in the -lamp black hut with her employer, or appearing before -passers-by unclad, but now a great light had -come to her; she was free to confess that she was -changed and humiliated.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The Viscount looked her over and over, and far -into those wonderful stone grey eyes that mirrored -a refined soul lost in the wilderness. Then he made -bold to speak:</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Deborah”, he said, “since you have been so frank -with me in telling the story of your life, I will freely -confess to you that I loved you the minute my -eyes rested on you, even in your unbecoming homespun -cap, and lamp black from head to foot. I -realize that your being here is but an accident, and -my coming the instrument to take you away. I will -marry you, and strive always to make you happy, -if you will come away with me, and I will take you -to England where, among people of refined tastes, -you will shine and always be at peace.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Deborah opened her thin delicate mouth in surprise, -and her eyes became like grey stars. “Really, -do you mean that”? she said.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“I mean every word,” replied The Viscount -Adare.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“I know that I feel differently towards you than -<span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>any man I have seen, so I must love you, and I will -always be happy with you,” resumed the girl. “And -while I owe Simon Supersaxo a deep debt of gratitude -for saving me from being forced into marrying -that horrid old road-agent, I owe myself more, and -you more still. I will go with you whenever you are -ready to take me, no matter what my conscience will -tell me later. Though I’ll say to you honestly that I -never thought there was any life for me further than -to make lamp black, until you came.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>She explained to him that at Christmastime the -lamp black man always went with a party of companions -on a great elk hunt to the distant Sinnemahoning -Country, and if The Viscount would return then, she -would arrange to meet him at a certain place at a -certain day and hour, and go away with him. “There -is a little clearing or old field on the top of the ridge, -beyond this house,” and pointing her slender white -hand, showed to him through the open door. “Meet -me there on the day before Christmas, and I will be -free to go away with you rejoicing.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>The balance of the visit was passed in pleasant -amity, until towards nightfall, when The Viscount -shouldered his pack and seized his staff, and started -away, not for Pittsburg, but eastward again. Deborah, -her slender reed-like figure swaying in the -autumn breeze, walked with him to the edge of the -clearing. She kissed him goodbye among the savin -bushes, and he kissed her many times in return, until -they parted at the carnelian-leafed sassafras trees -<span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span>on the hill, and he commenced the ascent of the -steep face of Chestnut Ridge.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The trip back to Philadelphia was taken impatiently, -but with a different kind of impatience; he -wanted the entire intervening time obliterated, until -he could get back to his strange exotic mountain love. -In Philadelphia he engaged passage for England the -first week in January, and wrote letters abroad to -complete the arrangements for taking his wife-to-be -to his ancestral home. He could never forget the last -afternoon in the Quaker City. Christmas was coming, -and the spirit of this glad festival was in the air, -even more so than in “Merrie England.” He was -walking through Chancellor Street when he came upon -two blind Negro Christmas-singers, former sailors, -who had lost their sight in the premature explosion -of a cannon on the deck of a frigate on the Delaware -River during the Revolutionary War. He -stopped, elegant gentleman that he was, listened enraptured -to their songs of simple faith: “Praise God -From Whom All Blessings Flow.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>“If they had so much to be thankful for,” he -mused, “how much more have I, with lovely Deborah -only a few days in the <a id='corr91.25'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='future.'>future.”</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_91.25'><ins class='correction' title='future.'>future.”</ins></a></span></p> - -<p class='c001'>Then he gave them each five shillings and moved -on. A little further down the street, he met an old -Negro Woman selling sprigs of holly with bright -red berries. He bought a sprig. “I’ll take it to Deborah,” -he said to himself.</p> - -<p class='c001'>He returned to Harrisburg by the stage coach, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span>accompanied by a Negro body-servant well recommended -by the British Consul. At Harrisburg he -purchased four extra good horses. With these and -the Negro he retraced his previous journey. He -left the Negro and the horses at McCormick’s Tavern, -continuing the balance of the journey on foot, -his precious sprig of holly, with the bright red berries, -fastened on the top of his staff, that had often -been decked with the <em>edelweiss</em> and the Alpine rose. -Deborah had said that she knew all the mountain -paths back to McCormick’s, so they could reach there -quickly, and be mounted on fast horses almost before -her employer missed them.</p> - -<p class='c001'>His heart was beating fast as he neared his -trysting place, the little clearing on the ridge, the -morning before Christmas. Peering through the -trees, he observed that Deborah was not there, but -surely she would soon come, the sun was scarcely -over the Chestnut Ridge to the east! A grey fog -hung over the valley, obscuring the little cabin in -the cove.</p> - -<p class='c001'>He waited and waited all day long, but no Deborah -appeared. He walked all over the top of the -ridge to see if there were other clearings, lest he had -gotten to the wrong one. There were no others, just -as she had said. Cold beads of perspiration stood -out on his forehead; he was angry; he was jealous; -the day was closing bitterly cold. “The woman that -I want, she will not come.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Finally as the sun was going down behind the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_93'>93</span>western summits of the Alleghenies, he untied the -sprig of holly from the end of his mountain-staff, -and bending over, stuck it in the fast freezing earth, -a symbol of his faithless adventure, and started down -the mountain, straight towards Deborah Supersaxo’s -cabin.</p> - -<p class='c001'>At the foot of the hill he met her coming towards -him–her face was deadly pale, her thin lips white -as death–instantly his hate changed to tender love -again.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Kill me if you wish,” she cried out before he -had time to speak, and held out her arms to show her -non-resistance, “for I have been unworthy. I broke -my faith with you, and was not going to come; I repented -at leaving Supersaxo, who had been so good -to me when I was in distress. I was going to leave -you in the lurch. Then, then,” and here tears trickled -down her ghastly cheeks, “I was sitting on the courting -log by the fire, commending myself for my loyalty, -when a few minutes ago one of his friends came -in to say that the day before yesterday, while looking -at somebody’s bear pen near the Karoondinha, it -fell in on him and broke his neck. I was just coming -up the hill to tell you, if you were still waiting, how -wicked I had been to you, and how I had been punished. -Kill me if you wish, I can never be happy -any more.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>The Viscount Adare did not hesitate a moment, -but flinging down his staff, he rushed to the girl and -caught her in his arms. “Doubly blessed are we this -<span class='pageno' id='Page_94'>94</span>night, dear Deborah, for there is now no impediment -to our happiness; no misdirected sense of duty can -cast a shadow on the joy that lies before us. I want -you now more than ever before, after this final trial, -and you must come with me!”</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Never say must again,” said Deborah, sweetly, -looking up into his eyes, “I am your willing slave; I -will go with you to the ends of the earth: I want to -redeem this day by years of devotion, years of love.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Picking up his staff, The Viscount Adare and -the mountain girl resumed their journey, past the -now deserted log house and the lamp black shack -where they had first met, up the steep mountain, and -off towards McCormick’s Tavern, near where, in a -deep pine grove, the Negro body-servant would be -waiting with the horses.</p> - -<p class='c001'>That is all that has been recorded in the mountains -concerning the lamp black girl and The Viscount -Adare. In England there is an oil painting of a -certain Viscountess of the name that bears a striking -resemblance to the one time Deborah Conner.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Up on the ridge, in the little clearing, one or -more of the seeds of the sprig of holly took root, and -grew a fine tree. In order that this story may be -localized, it is said that this is one of the points -furthest north of any specimen of the native holly in -Pennsylvania. In time it died off, but not before -other scions sprang up, and there has always been a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_95'>95</span>thrifty holly tree on the hill, as if to commemorate a -lover’s tryst, whose heart when on the point of breaking -from hideous despair, found the fullness of his -happiness suddenly, and whose story is an inspiration -to all aching hearts.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id004'> -<img src='images/i_108.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_96'>96</span> - <h2 class='c002'><span class='fss'>VII</span> <br /> <i>The Second Run of the Sap</i></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>The selective draft, according to Dr. Jacobs, a -very intelligent Seneca Indian, residing on the -Cornplanter Reservation in Warren County, -was practiced by Pennsylvania Indians in some of -their earlier conflicts, notably in the bloody warfare -in the Cherokee country.</p> - -<p class='c001'>In the war against the Cherokees, there was a -popular apathy at home, as it was not undertaken to -repel an unjust invasion, but for the purpose of aggression, -after the murder of a number of Cherokees -by the Lenape, and as such did not appeal to -the just and patient tribesmen in general.</p> - -<p class='c001'>In order to increase the invading armies beyond -the limits of the volunteer quotas of warriors and -chiefs, who were of patrician antecedents, the draft -was resorted to, with the result that a formidable -host departed for the Southland, ravaging the enemy’s -country, and bringing in many prisoners.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The Cherokees were not completely vanquished, -as they were victorious in some of the conflicts, and -also made numerous prisoners. Some of these were -tortured to death, others were adopted by families -that had lost their sons, while a few escaped and -made their way Northward.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i_110.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>THE FALLEN MONARCH, PORTAGE CREEK</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c001'>The war was followed by the usual period of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_97'>97</span>upheaval and reconstruction, and the moral code of -the redmen suffered as much as did modern civilization -as an aftermath of the world war. Many Cherokee -prisoners were brought to Pennsylvania and put -at menial work, or bartered as slaves while others -intermarried with the northern tribes, so that Cherokee -blood become a component part of the make-up -of the Pennsylvania aboriginies. The Cherokee legends -and history lingered wherever a drop of their -blood remained, so that the beginnings of some, at -least, of our Pennsylvania Indian folk-lore hark back -to the golden age of the Cherokees.</p> - -<p class='c001'>They certainly have been the martyr-race, the -Belgians of the North American Indians, even to the -time of their brutal expulsion from their Carolina -homes during the Nineteenth Century by U. S. troops -at the behest of selfish land-grabbers, and sentenced -to die of exhaustion and broken hearts along the -dreary trek to the distant Indian Territory.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Among the bravest and most enthusiastic of the -Pennsylvania invaders was the young warrior In-nan-ga-eh, -chief of the draft, who led the drafted portion -of the army against the Cherokee foemen. He -was of noble blood, hence himself exempt from the -draft, but he was a lover of war and glory, and rejoiced -to lead his less well-born, and less patriotic -compatriots into the thick of battle. Although noble -rank automatically exempted from the draft, the -young scions of nobility enlisted practically to a man, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_98'>98</span>holding high commissions, it is true, yet at all times -bold and courageous.</p> - -<p class='c001'>In-nan-ga-eh was always peculiarly attractive to -the female sex. Tall, lithe and sinewy, he was a -noted runner and hunter, as well as famed for his -warlike prowess. At twenty-two he was already the -veteran of several wars, notably against the Ottawas -and the Catawbas, and thirsted for a chance to humble -his southern rivals, the Cherokees. He wished -to make it his boast that he had fought and conquered -tribes on the four sides of the territory where he -lived, making what is now the Pennsylvania country -the ruling land, the others all vassal states.</p> - -<p class='c001'>He was indiscriminate in his love making, having -no respect for birth or caste, being different from -his reserved and honorable fellow aristocrats, consequently -at his departure for the south, he was -mourned for by over a score of maidens of various -types and degrees. If he cared for any one of these -admirers, it was Liddenah, a very beautiful, kindly -and talented maiden, the daughter of the noted wise -man or sooth-sayer, Wahlowah, and probably the most -remarkable girl in the tribe.</p> - -<p class='c001'>That she cared for such an unstable and shallow-minded -youth to the exclusion of others of superior -mental gifts and seriousness of purpose, amply -proved the saying that opposites attract, for there -could have been no congeniality of tastes between the -pair. Temperamentally they seemed utterly unsuited, -as Liddenah was artistic and musically inclined, and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_99'>99</span>a chronicler of no mean ability, yet she would have -given her life for him at any stage of the romance. -She possessed ample self-control, but when he went -away her inward sorrow gnawing at her heart almost -killed her. She may have had a presentiment of what -was in store!</p> - -<p class='c001'>During invasions of this kind, communication -with home was maintained by means of runners who -carried tidings, good or bad, bringing back verbal -lists of the dead, wounded and missing, some of which -they shamefully garbled.</p> - -<p class='c001'>In-nan-ga-eh was decorated several times for -conspicuous bravery, and was reported in the vanguard -of every attack, until at length came the shocking -news of his ambush and capture. Over a score -of the most beautiful maidens along the Ohe-yu and -Youghiogheny were heartbroken to distraction, but -none more so than the lovely and intellectual Liddenah. -This was the crowning blow, her lover taken by -his cruel foes, being perhaps boiled alive, or drawn -and quartered. Seated alone in her lodge house by -the banks of The Beautiful River, she pictured all -sorts of horrors befalling her beloved, and of his own -deep grief at being held prisoner so far from his -homeland.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was a humiliation to be captured, and by a -band of Amazons, who begged permission to entrap -the fascinating enemy. Finding him bathing in a -deep pool, they surrounded it, flinging at him slightly -poisoned darts, which made him partially overcome -<span class='pageno' id='Page_100'>100</span>by sleep, so that he was only able to clamber out on -the bank, there to be secured by his fair captors and -led in dazed triumph to their chief.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The Chieftain was elated at the capture, and -treated the handsome prisoner with all the deference -due to his rank. Instead of boiling him in oil, or -flaying him, he was feted and feasted, and the warlike -bands became demoralized by catering to his -pleasure.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was not long before the chief’s daughter, Inewatah, -fell in love with him, and as her illustrious -father, Tekineh, had lost a son in the war, In-nan-ga-eh -was given the choice of becoming the chief’s adopted -son or his son-in-law. He naturally chose the latter, -as the wife-to-be was both beautiful and winning.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The war resulted in defeat for the Cherokees, -although the old chief escaped to fastnesses further -south with his beautiful daughter and alien son-in-law. -All went well for a year and a half after the -peace when In-nan-ga-eh, began to feel restless and -listless for his northern mountains, the playground of -his youth. He wanted to go on a visit, and asked -the chief’s permission, giving as his word of honor, -his love for the chieftain’s daughter, that he would -properly return.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The Cherokee bride was as heartbroken as Liddenah; -she had first asked that she might accompany -him on the trip, which was refused, but she accepted -the inevitable stoically outwardly, but with secret -aching bosom.</p> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_101'>101</span>In-nan-ga-eh was glad to get away; being loved -too much was tiresome; life was too enervating in -the warm sunshine on Soco Creek; he liked the camp -and the hunting lodge; love making, too much of it, -palled on him. He wanted to be let alone.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Accompanied by a bodyguard of selected -Cherokees, he hurriedly made his way to the North. -One morning to the surprise and delight of all, he -appeared at his tribal village by the Ohe-yu, as gay -and debonair as ever. As he entered the town almost -the first person he saw was Liddenah. She looked -very beautiful, and he could see at one glance how -she loved him, yet perversely he barely nodded as he -passed.</p> - -<p class='c001'>When he was re-united with his parents, who -treated him as one risen from the dead, his sisters began -telling him about the news of the settlement, of -his many friends, of Liddenah. Her grief had been -very severe, it shocked her mother that she should -behave so like a European and show her feelings to -such an extent. Then the report had come that he -had been put to death by slow torture. “Better that,” -Liddenah had said openly in the market place, “than -to remain the captive of barbarians.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Once it was taken for granted that he was dead, -Liddenah began to receive the attentions of young -braves, as they came back from the South laden with -scalps and other decorations of their victorious campaign -against the Cherokees. Liddenah gave all to -understand that her heart was dead; she was polite -<span class='pageno' id='Page_102'>102</span>and tolerant, but, like the eagle, she could love only -once.</p> - -<p class='c001'>There was one young brave named Quinnemongh -who pressed his suit more assiduously than the rest, -and aided by Liddenah’s mother, was successful. -The pair were quietly married about a year after -In-nan-ga-eh’s capture, or several months before he -started for the North, leaving his Cherokee bride at -her father’s home on the Soco.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Quinnemongh was not such a showy individual -as In-nan-ga-eh, but his bravery was unquestioned, -his reliability and honor above reproach. He made -Liddenah a very good husband. In turn she seemed -to be happy with him, and gradually overcoming her -terrible sorrow.</p> - -<p class='c001'>When In-nan-ga-eh had passed Liddenah on entering -the village, he had barely noticed her because -he supposed that he could have her any time for the -asking. When he learned that she was the wife of -another, he suddenly realized that he wanted her very -badly, that she was the cause of his journey Northward. -The old passion surged through his veins; -it was what the bark-peelers call “the second run of -the sap.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Through his sisters, who were among Liddenah’s -most intimate friends, he sought a clandestine meeting -with his former sweetheart. They met at the -“Stepping Stones,” a crossing near the headwaters -of Cowanshannock, in a mossy glade, which had formerly -<span class='pageno' id='Page_103'>103</span>been his favorite trysting place with over a -score of doting maidens in the ante-bellum days.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Liddenah, inspired by her great love, never looked -more beautiful. She was probably a trifle above -the average height, gracefully, but solidly made. Her -skin was very white, her eyes dark, her hair that of -a raven, while her aquiline nose, high cheek bones and -small, fine mouth made her resemble a high-bred -Jewess more than an Indian squaw, a heritage perhaps -from a remote Semitic origin beyond the Pacific. -She showed openly how happy she was to meet In-nan-ga-eh, -until he told her the story of his tragic love, -how she had broken his young heart by cruelly marrying -another while he languished in a Southern prison -camp. In vain she protested that, on all sides came -seemingly authentic reports of his death; he was -obdurate in the destiny he had decreed. Quinnemongh -must die by his hand, and he would then flee -with the widow to the country of the Ottawas. The -hot blood surging in his veins, like a second flow of -sap in a red maple, must be appeased by her submission.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Liddenah was horrified; she came of eminently respectable -ancestry, she admired Quinnemongh, her -husband, almost to the point of loving him, but where -that affection ended, her all-pervading obsession for -In-nan-ga-eh began and knew no limitations in her -being.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Tonight”, said In-nan-ga-eh, scowling dreadfully, -“I will surprise the vile Quinnemongh in his lodge -<span class='pageno' id='Page_104'>104</span>house, and with one blow of my stone war-hammer -crush in his skull, then I will scalp him and meet you -at the stepping stones, and by the moonlight we will -decamp to the far free country of the Ottawas, his -scalp dangling at my belt as proof of my hate and my -bravery”.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Liddenah gave a reluctant assent to the fiendish program -when they parted. On her way home through -the forest path her conscience smote her with Mosaic -insistence–the blood of her ancestors, of the Lost -Tribe of Israel, would not permit her to sanction the -murder of a good and true warrior. She would -immolate herself for her family honor, and for her -respect for Quinnemongh.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Arriving at the lodge-house she went straight to -Quinnemongh and confessed the story of her meeting -with the perfidious In-nan-ga-eh, all but the homicidal -part. Quinnemongh was not much surprised, as he -knew of her great love for the ex-Cherokee prisoner, -and In-nan-ga-eh’s capricious pride.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Quinnemongh”, she said, between her sobs, for, like -a white girl, she was tearful, “I was to meet In-nan-ga-eh -tonight, when the moon is over the tops of the -trees, by the stepping stones, and we were to fly together -to the country of the Ottawas. You present -yourself there in my stead, and tell the false In-nan-ga-eh -that I have changed my mind, that I am true to -my noble husband”.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Needless to say, Quinnemongh was pleased at this -recital, and promised to be at the ford at the appointed -<span class='pageno' id='Page_105'>105</span>time. Like most persons under similar circumstances, -he was eager to be on his errand, and departed early, -armed with his favorite scalping knife. Liddenah -kissed and embraced him, calling him her “hero”, and -once he was out of sight, she darted into his cabin -and lay down among his blankets and buffalo robes, -covering herself, all but the top of her brow, and -huddling, all curled up, for the autumnal air was chill.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The moon slowly rose higher and higher until it -reached the crowns of the giant rock oaks along the -edge of the “Indian fields”. The gaunt form of In-nan-ga-eh -could now be seen creeping steadily out of -the forest, bounding across the clearing and, stone axe -in hand, entered the cabin where he supposed that -Quinnemongh was sleeping. A ray of shimmery -moonlight shone full on the upturned forehead of his -victim. Animated by a jealous hate, he struck a -heavy blow with his axe of dark diorite, crushing in -the sleeper’s temples like an <a id='corr105.19'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='egshell'>eggshell</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_105.19'><ins class='correction' title='egshell'>eggshell</ins></a></span>. Leaving the -weapon imbedded in his victim’s skull, he deftly cut -off the long bushy scalp with his sharp knife, and, -springing out of the hut, started off on a dog-trot towards -the stepping stones, waving his bloody, gruesome -souvenir.</p> - -<p class='c001'>He approached the fording with the light of the -full moon shining on the waters of the brook; he was -exultant and grinding his teeth in lustful fury. Who -should he see there–not the fair and yielding goddess -Liddenah, but the stalwart form of the recently -butchered and scalped Quinnemongh. Believer in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_106'>106</span>ghosts that he was, this was almost too much of a visitation -for him. Pausing a minute to make sure, he -rushed forward brandishing the scalp in one hand, his -knife, which caught the moon’s beams on its blade in -the other.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Wretch”! he shrieked at Quinnemongh, “must I -kill you a second time to make you expiate your sin -at marrying Liddenah”?</p> - -<p class='c001'>Quinnemongh, who stood rigid as a statue at the -far side of the ford, replied, “You have not killed me -once; how dare you speak of a second time”?</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Whose scalp have I then”? shouted In-nan-ga-eh, -as he continued to rush forward.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Not mine surely”, said Quinnemongh, as he felt -his comparatively sparse locks.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Just as the men came face to face it dawned on both -what had happened, and with gleaming knives, they -sprang at one another in a death struggle. For half -an hour they fought, grappling and stabbing, kicking -and biting, in the shallow waters of the ford. Neither -would go down, though Liddenah’s scalp was forced -from <a id='corr106.22'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='In-nan-ag-eh’s'>In-nan-ga-eh’s</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_106.22'><ins class='correction' title='In-nan-ag-eh’s'>In-nan-ga-eh’s</ins></a></span> hand, and got between the breasts -of the two combatants, who pushed it, greasy and -gory, up and down as they fought. They literally -stabbed one another full of holes, and bit and tore at -their faces like wild beasts; they carved the skin off -their shoulders and backs, they kicked until their shin -bones cracked, until finally both, worn out from loss -of blood, sank into the brook and died.</p> - -<p class='c001'>In the morning the scalped and mutilated form of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_107'>107</span>Liddenah was discovered among the gaudy blankets -and decorated buffalo robes; a bloody trail was -followed to the stepping stones, where the two gruesome -corpses were found, half submerged in the red, -bloody water, in an embrace so inextricable, their -arms like locked battling stags’ antlers that they could -not in the rigidity of death be separated. Foes though -they were, the just and patient Indians who found -them could do nothing else but dig a common grave in -the half-frozen earth, close to the stepping stones, and -there they buried them together, with Liddenah’s soggy -scalp and their bent and broken knives, their bodies to -<a id='corr107.13'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='comingle'>commingle</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_107.13'><ins class='correction' title='comingle'>commingle</ins></a></span> with earth until eternity.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id004'> -<img src='images/i_122.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_108'>108</span> - <h2 class='c002'><span class='fss'>VIII</span> <br /> <i>Black Chief’s Daughter</i></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>It was the occasion of the annual Strawberry Dance -at the Seneca Reservation, a lovely evening in June, -when, after a warm rain, there had been a clear -sunset, and the air was sweet with the odor of the grass, -and the narrow roads were deep with soft, brown mud -and many puddles of water.</p> - -<p class='c001'>In the long, grey frame Council House all was -animation and excitement. The grim old Chief, -Twenty Canoes, decked out in his headdress of feathers, -followed by the musicians with wolf-skin drums -filled with pebbles had arrived, and taken places on -the long bench that ran almost the entire length of -the great hall. Other older and distinguished Indians, -Indian guests from the Cornplanter Reservation in -Pennsylvania, and from the New York Reservations -at Tonawanda, and the Geneseo, and a few white visitors, -including the Rev. Holt, the Town Missionary -and Attorney Vreeland, the agent, with their families, -completely filled the lengthy bench.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The Indian dancers, male and female, gaily attired, -had been gathering outside, and now, with the first -rattle of the drums, filed into the room and began to -dance. As the first loud tattoo was heard, the dancers -commenced shaking their shoulders, holding their arms -rigid, and the “Shimmy” of decadent New York and -Philadelphia of nearly half a century later, was rendered -<span class='pageno' id='Page_109'>109</span>effectively by its originators, the rhythmic aborigines. -As they danced in single file around the visitors’ -bench and past the Chief, to the beat of the wolf skin -drums, they melodiously chanted, first the men, and -then the women: “Wee-Wah, Wee-Wah, Wee-Wah, -Wanna; Wee-Wah, Wee-Wah, Wee-Wah, Wanna.” -At times the women joined in the general song, -swelling the volume of the melody, until it drowned -out the drum-beats. The windows were open and -the perfume of lilacs was wafted in on the evening -breeze, as the swaying files of Indian braves and -maidens shimmied around and around. Among the -white visitors was one young man who was particularly -impressed, as he was there not out of idle curiosity, -but to study the manners and customs of the last of the -Senecas, in order to write his doctor’s thesis at the -University, the subject being “The Later History of -the Seneca Indians in New York.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Christian Trubee, for that was his name, had -always been interested in the redmen, a natural -heritage from pioneer and frontiersman ancestors who -had fought the Indians all along the Allegheny Mountains -and in the Ohio River basin. He had lately -come to Steamburg, putting up at Pat Smith’s “long -house,” where he had quickly become acquainted with -Simon Black Chief, a handsome Indian youth who -picked up a living as a mountebank among the frequenters -of the ancient hostelry.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Simon was a wonderful runner, and if he could -interest the lumber buyers and the traveling men, would -<span class='pageno' id='Page_110'>110</span>match himself against a little black mare owned by -Smith and usually ridden by the landlord’s stepson, -for a half mile or mile, and generally beat his equine -rival. Other times he would ride the horse at a gallop, -without saddle or bridle, over the common between the -hotel and the Erie Railroad Station, picking up handkerchiefs, -cigars and quarter dollars off the greensward -without ever once losing his <a id='corr110.8'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='equilibrum'>equilibrium</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_110.8'><ins class='correction' title='equilibrum'>equilibrium</ins></a></span>.</p> - -<p class='c001'>On the evening in question, he invited the young -student to accompany him to the Strawberry Dance at -the Council House, and passing by the one-roomed -board shack where he lived, his sister, known as Black -Chief’s Daughter, came out and joined them, so that -the trio proceeded single file to the scene of the festivities. -Neither Simon nor his sister danced that evening, -but sat near their distinguished guest, explaining as -best they could the methods and art of the performers, -for they were very proud of the Indian dancing and -music. As the evening progressed, Christian Trubee -found himself admiring the Indian maid at his side -more than he did the shimmying hordes on the floor, -or the quaint picturesqueness of the unique ceremonial.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Black Chief’s daughter was certainly the best -looking girl present, almost more like an American than -an Indian in appearance, for her profile was certainly -on refined lines, and it was only when looking her full -in the face did the racial traits of breadth of the bridge -of the nose, flatness of lips and deep duskiness of complexion -reveal themselves. Her dark eyes were very -clear and expressive, her teeth even and white, her -<span class='pageno' id='Page_111'>111</span>neck and throat graceful, and her form long, lithe and -elegant.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Christian Trubee liked her very much, and was -entirely absorbed by her at the time of the last beat -of the drums when, with a loud yell, the dance concluded, -and the now limp and perspiring Indian dancers -crowded out of doors into the cool moonlight. On the -way back Simon Black Chief led the way, his long hair -blowing in the breeze, his sister following. Trubee did -not follow single file, but walked beside the fair damsel. -She was as tall as he was, though she wore deerskin -shoes without heels. When they parted, in the long -lush grass, before the humble cabin, she promised to -show him some of the interesting spots on the reservation–the -grave of Blacksnake, the famous chief -and orator, the various tribal burial places, and a visit -to King Jimmerson, who alternated with Twenty -Canoes as President of the Seneca Nation, to see the -silver war crowns of Red Jacket, Blacksnake and The -Cornplanter, and to Red House to meet Jim Jacobs, -the venerable “Seneca Bear Hunter.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>All of these excursions duly came to pass, about -one a day, as the weather turned steadily clear, day -after day, when the Keewaydin blew, and the distant -mountains along The Beautiful River wore a purple -green, and fleecy white clouds tumbled about in the -deep blue sky. On these excursions Black Chief’s -Daughter seemed to be the equal of her brother and -Trubee as a pedestrian, was never tired, always cheerful -and anxious to explain the various points of interest.</p> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_112'>112</span>At one of the graveyards she pointed out the last -resting place of an eccentric redman known as “Indian -Brown,” with two deep, round holes in the mound, -made according to his last wishes, because he had been -such a bad Indian in life, that when the Devil came -down one hole to get him, he would escape by the -other!</p> - -<p class='c001'>The three young people got along famously on the -trips and Trubee was absorbing an unusual amount of -aboriginal history and lore, and under the most pleasant -circumstances. While he never said a word of affection -or even compliment to Black Chief’s Daughter, he felt -himself deeply enamored, and often, in his quiet moments, -pictured her as his wife. Once or twice came -the answering thought, how could he, a man of so much -education and refinement, take for life a mate who -could not read, and whose English was little better -than a baby’s jargon? Where would he take her -to? Would she like his life, for surely he could -not become a squaw man on the reservation? On -the other hand, she was gentle, sympathetic and -thoughtful, and the blood of regal Indian ancestors -gave her a refinement that sometimes education does -not convey. But he was happy in the moment, as are -most persons of adaptability of character. He was at -home in any company, or in any circumstances, and had -he been old enough to enlist, would have made a brilliant -record in the Civil War; as it was he was but ten -years of age when the conflict ended.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i_128.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>READY FOR THE LOG DRIVE, KETTLE CREEK</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c001'>As the days wore on, each one more delightful -<span class='pageno' id='Page_113'>113</span>than its predecessor, Simon Black Chief and his sister -vied with one another to plan trips to points of interest. -One evening Simon asked his white friend if he had -ever seen a wolf-house, the local Indian method of -trapping these formidable animals.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“What was it like, and where was there one?” was -Trubee’s instant reply.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“A wolf-house,” said Simon, "is a walled trap like -a white man’s great, big mouse-trap, with a falling -door. There is still one preserved over at the Ox -Bow, at the tall, stone mansion called ‘Corydon,’ -across the Pennsylvania line."</p> - -<p class='c001'>Trubee’s interest was aroused, not only in the -wolf-house, but the “tall stone mansion” and its possible -occupants. Simon explained to him that an -English gentleman lived there, a son-in-law of one of -the heads of the Holland Land Company. He had -been a great hunter in his earlier days, following -exclusively the methods taught him by the Indians. -It was a longer trip than any yet attempted, but Trubee -secured Pat Smith’s little black mare and two other -horses, so that the trio departed on horseback for the -distant manor house. Black Chief’s Daughter, who -rode astride, was a skillful and graceful horsewoman, -even though her mount was a poor excuse of horseflesh.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The trip along The Beautiful River was very enjoyable, -and at length they came in sight of “Corydon” -on the hill, above the river, a great, high, dark stone -structure, ivy grown, standing in a group of original -white pines, some of these venerable monarchs being -<span class='pageno' id='Page_114'>114</span>stag-topped, while others had lost their crests in sundry -tempests. There was a private rope ferry across the -river, but they rode the horses through the stream, -which was so deep in one place that the animals were -forced to swim. They rode into the grounds, past the -huge stone gate posts, up the hill, under the dark pines. -As they neared the front door, the portico designed -by the famous Latrobe, several dogs which looked like -Scottish deerhounds rushed down from the porch and -began to leap about <a id='corr114.10'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='tht'>the</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_114.10'><ins class='correction' title='tht'>the</ins></a></span> horses’ throatlatches, barking -loudly.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Trubee checked his horse, and asked Simon, who -was acquainted with the family, to dismount and inquire -if he might inspect the wolf-house, which stood on a -heathy eminence behind the garden. Once wolves had -been so plentiful and so bold that five of the monsters -had been caught in the trap in the space of three -months.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Before Simon Black Chief could dismount, two -figures emerged from the house, a young man and a -young woman. Trubee’s quick glances made mental -pictures of both. The man was about thirty-five years -of age, short and thickset, with blond hair parted in -the middle, a small mustache and “Burnsides,” decidedly -military in his bearing. The girl was of -medium height, possibly twenty years of age, decidedly -pretty, with Sudan brown hair, hazel eyes, clear cut -features, a fair complexion and wearing a flowing -Mother Hubbard gown of prune-colored brocade.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Trubee rode up to them, bowing, reining his horse, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_115'>115</span>which he turned over to Simon and, dismounting, apologized -for his intrusion. He explained how the Indian -had told him of the curious wolf-house back of the garden -and how it would help him in his researches to see -it. The girl graciously offered to show it to him, but -first invited the Indian girl to dismount and rest. The -young man remained talking to the Indian, but the -Seneca maid continued to sit on her horse, rigid and -silent as a Tanagra. On the way to the wolf-house, -Christian Trubee introduced himself, and, being able -to mention several mutual acquaintances, which put -him on an easy footing with the fair chatelaine of -“Corydon”.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The charming girl told him that she was Phillis -Paddingstowe, the daughter of the lord of the manor, -which made Trubee feel like saying how natural it was -to find <em>Phillis</em> at <em>Corydon</em>! The young military-looking -man, “the little Colonel” she called him, was Lieutenant -Colonel Thomas Caslow, who had served with General -Huidekoper, “the hero of Gettysburg” in that immortal -conflict, and was at Corydon for a few days on a trout -fishing trip. The old garden through which they passed -on the way to the wolf-house was full of boxwood trees, -which had been brought from Bartram’s gardens in -Philadelphia by wagon to Warren, and up the Ohe-yu -in flat boats. They gave a spicy, aromatic odor to the -summer afternoon atmosphere. The wolf-house was -falling to decay, but Trubee took out his note book and -sketched it and recorded its dimensions. It was surprising -that wolves should come so close to a habitation, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_116'>116</span>but Phillis stated that when she was a baby they -had actually killed and eaten three of her father’s -favorite Scotch deerhounds in one night, though they -were chained to kennels at the rear of the house.</p> - -<p class='c001'>By the time they had returned from their inspection, -Clement Paddingstowe, Phillis’ father, had appeared, -and supplemented his daughter’s cordial invitation -that they stay to tea. Trubee might have remained, -but Black Chief’s Daughter, though she was -again urged by Phillis and her father, <a id='corr116.10'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='semed'>seemed</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_116.10'><ins class='correction' title='semed'>seemed</ins></a></span> disinclined -to partake of the hospitality. They rode down -the drive all a changed party. The Indian girl had -heard Trubee accept an invitation to return to “Corydon” -in the near future, and noted his admiring glances -at her fair person; she felt for the first time that she -stood no chance against a white girl of gentle blood, -though her own native antecedents were of as noble -quality, for was she not Black Chief’s Daughter, and -the granddaughter of the undefeated warrior, Destroy-Town?</p> - -<p class='c001'>She was silent and hung her head the whole way -back to Steamburg. Phillis, though delightfully courteous -by nature, seemed a trifle distant to the little -Colonel that evening. Simon Black Chief was piqued -at himself for having brought unhappiness to his sister. -Christian Trubee was in love with Phillis Paddingstowe. -Nevertheless, the young collegian was too much -a man of the world not to value the kindnesses bestowed -on him by Simon and his Sister, their parents -and other Indians of the reservation, to become suddenly -<span class='pageno' id='Page_117'>117</span>cold and indifferent. Yet, alone, he wondered -why he had ever for a minute contemplated marrying -an Indian girl, and how slight would be their spiritual -intercourse? Yet he was here underrating Black -Chief’s Daughter, who was not of the earth-earthy, -and had called herself to him “an imaginative person.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>He tried to be polite and attentive to the Indian -girl, but she noted that on several occasions where she -planned trips for certain days, he demurred on account -of engagements at “Corydon.” His manner was different; -the Indian girl, uncannily intuitive, would not -be deceived. The summer wore along, and Trubee saw -that he could not keep up pleasing Black Chief’s -Daughter, a break must come somehow. And the -neglected maiden, unknown to him, was reading his -every thought, and prepared to make that break <a id='corr117.16'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='first'>first.</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_117.16'><ins class='correction' title='first'>first.</ins></a></span> -She had brought some late huckleberries to Pat Smith’s -wife at the long house, where she was told that Trubee -had been absent for three days at “Corydon”; that it -was rumored he would marry Clement Paddingstowe’s -daughter in the Fall.</p> - -<p class='c001'>As she walked along the path between the yellow, -half-dead grasses, swinging the little iron pot that had -contained the berries, she began planning for the dissolution -of her unhappy romance. There were many -May apples or mandrakes ripening in the low places, -and, stooping, she uprooted several plants, half filling -the pot with them. Then she left the trail, and started -across the meadow toward a group of ancient hemlock -trees, beneath which was the Cold Spring. Near the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_118'>118</span>spring were large, flat stones laid up like seats, and the -remains of some stone hearths where the Indians often -roasted corn. She had her flints and steel with her, -and gathered enough dry twigs and punk to light a -fire. Then she sat down on one of the flat stones -and, with her hands over her face, she reviewed the -story of her love for Trubee. He had cared for her -at first; that was consolation, but she was helpless -beside the white rival; red blood was as nothing beside -blue. Then she nervously tramped out the fire, as if -to start on again. This life was a very little thing, -after all; if her dream had failed in this existence, -better end it, and come back again and fulfill it, even -as a flower or bird; it was impossible to prevent living -again. She began to munch the roots of the May apples -which she had gathered, and then began to walk across -the fields toward the graveyard which contained the -tomb of “Indian Brown,” the bad man.</p> - -<p class='c001'>As she came near the road which led to “Corydon” -she made an effort to run across it, but in the middle -of it a dizziness seized her, then a sharp pain, and she -staggered and dropped in a heap, the dust rising from -the dry highway as she fell. The sand got in her eyes, -nose and mouth as she lay on the path, her legs twisting -in convulsive spasms. The sun was beginning to sink -close to the tops of the long, rolling summits of the -western mountains as the form of a horseman came in -sight away down the long stretch of level road. It was -Christian Trubee returning from “Corydon,” flushed -with the progress of his love making with the fair and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span>dainty Phillis Paddingstowe. He saw a black object -in the road; a wool sack fallen from some wagon, was -his first conjecture. Coming closer, he perceived it to -be a human being, a woman, Black Chief’s Daughter.</p> - -<p class='c001'>He threw the bridle rein over the little mare’s head -and sprang to the ground. As he caught the limp form -of the Indian girl in his arms, she half opened her eyes -and looked up at him.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"Oh, Mr. Trubee, let me be, I pray of you; let me -stay here and die; I haven’t anything more to live for -since we visited at ‘Corydon’."</p> - -<p class='c001'>The young man did not know how to answer her, -for he was honest always. He lifted her on the saddle -behind him, holding the long, lean arms around his -waist, while her head bobbed on his shoulder, and -started the little trappy black at a trot for the long -house. It was supper time as he neared the old hotel. -In order to avoid attention, he rode up to the kitchen -door, at the back of the house. A small, ugly, very -black colored boy, with a banjo, from Jamestown, was -strumming a Negro melody to amuse the cooks.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Get on this horse quick, boy,” Trubee called to -him, as he dismounted with his limp burden, “and bring -over Doctor Forrester; Black Chief’s Daughter is in a -bad way from poison.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Pat Smith’s wife and the other cooks ran out, and, -taking in the situation at a glance, carried the almost -unconscious but uncomplaining girl into the house -where they laid her on a bench in the dance hall, all -unknown to the guests, munching their huckleberry -<span class='pageno' id='Page_120'>120</span>pie in the nearby dining room. The Doctor’s buggy -was standing in front of his cottage, and putting his -horse to a gallop he raced the little Negro back to the -hotel. It did not take him long, as he was a noted -herbalist, to diagnose the case as poison from May -apple root, very deadly, but a drastic Indian emetic, -administered just in time, preserved her life.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was a grisly scene in the bare, cheerless ball -room; Black Chief’s daughter, all undressed, lay on -a bench, while Old Black Chief, her father, and Taleeka, -her mother, Simon, Pat Smith, his wife, his daughter, -Sally Ann, Doctors Forrester and Colegrove, and -Christian Trubee stood near her, or coming and going, -most of them holding lighted candles, which cast fretful -shadows against the walls and close-shuttered windows -of this scene of much former ribald merrymaking. All -present knew why the girl had sought to take her life, -yet not a single accusing word was uttered. All wanted -to save her–for what? Later she was carried into one -of the adjoining guest rooms and put to bed.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Somewhat later Pat Smith’s wife, a motherly -woman, met Trubee in the hall, saying to him:</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Won’t you please let me whisper to her that you -are happy her life is saved, and that you will marry her -as soon as she is able?”</p> - -<p class='c001'>The young man hesitated, then faltered: “I rather -you’d not say it just now.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>When she was almost to the door he ran after her, -saying: “Tell her what you suggested, in my presence.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>He followed her into the room. The landlady -<span class='pageno' id='Page_121'>121</span>bent over the stricken girl and gave her the message. -Black Chief’s daughter looked up at Trubee, and -trying to smile, said:</p> - -<p class='c001'>“I can’t do it; all I ask is that everything be as it -was before you came to the Reservation.” -“ said the young man, "that I return -to the University, having everything as it was -before we went to the Strawberry dance, or before -you took me to ‘Corydon’".</p> - -<p class='c001'>“That is exactly my meaning”, the girl whispered -faintly. “Then all will be well”.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“I think I can gather my things together and make -the three o’clock train east this morning; it is only -right that I should go; I have made everybody unhappy -since I came here.” -“replied Black Chief’s daughter, "only -me, and then only since the trip to ‘Corydon’."</p> - -<p class='c001'>With a lingering hand clasp they parted, and -Christian Trubee, like one dazed by his unsuccessful -tilt with Fate, moved off towards his room, not knowing -whether to be glad or sorry, but secretly eased in -spirit for accepting the only course that would extricate -him from his triangular dilemma.</p> - -<p class='c001'>After he was gone, Black Chief’s daughter fell -into a peaceful slumber and did not wake, even when -the roaring express train, with its blazing headlight -slowed down at Steamburg for its solitary eastbound -passenger.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_122'>122</span> - <h2 class='c002'><span class='fss'>IX</span> <br /> <i>The Gorilla</i></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>If Sir Rider Haggard was a Pennsylvanian he would -doubtless lay the scenes of his wonderful mystery -stories in Snyder County. It is in that ruggedly -picturesque mountainous county where romance has -taken its last stand, where the old touches the new, and -hosts, goblins and witches and memories of panthers, -wolves and Indians linger in cycle after cycle of imaginative -reminiscences. Every now and then, even -in this dull, unsympathetic age, when the world, as -Artist Shearer puts it, “is aesthetically dead”, Snyder -County is thrilled by some new ghost, witch, panther -or mystery story. The latest of these in the last days -of 1920 and the first of 1921–the giant gorilla–has -thrilled the entire Commonwealth by its unique horror.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The papers have told us how a gigantic man-ape -escaped from a carnival train near Williamsport, and -seeking the South, fled over the mountains to Snyder -County, where it attacked a small boy, breaking his -arm, held up automobiles, rifled smoke houses and -the like, and then appeared in Snyder Township, -Blair County, still further South, his nocturnal ramblings -in that region proving an effective curfew for -the young folks of a half-dozen rural communities.</p> - -<p class='c001'>This story sounds thrillingly interesting, but as -gorillas live on fruit, and do not eat flesh, the animal -in question would have starved or frozen to death at -<span class='pageno' id='Page_123'>123</span>the outset of his career in the Alleghenies, and there -the “X”, unknown quantity of the real story begins. -The newspapers have only printed the most popular -versions of the gorilla mystery, only a fraction of the -romance and folk-lore that sprang up mushroom-like -around the presence of such an alien monster in our -highlands. Already enough has been whispered -about to fill a good sized volume, most of it absolutely -untrue, yet some of the tales, if they have not hit the -real facts, have come dangerously close to it.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Let the readers judge for themselves. Probably -one of the most widely circulated versions among the -Snyder County mountaineers, the hardy dwellers in -the fastnesses of the Shade, Jack’s and White Mountains, -is the one about to be related. It is too personal -to warrant promiscuous newspapers publication, -and even now all names have been changed and localities -altered, but to a Snyder County Mountaineer “all -things are plain”. This is the “authoritative”, confidential -Snyder County version, unabridged:</p> - -<p class='c001'>To begin with, all the mountain people know -Hornbostl Pfatteicher, whose log cabin is situated -near the heading of Lost Creek, on the borders of -Snyder and Juniata Counties. He has never been -much of a worker, living mostly by hunting and fishing, -prospering greatly during the days when the -State raised the bounty on foxes and wild cats to an -outrageously extravagant figure–but no one cares; -let the hunter’s license fund be plundered and the -taxpayers be jammed.</p> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_124'>124</span>He was also very noticeable during the Spring -and Fall forest fires, which never failed to burn some -art of his mountain bailiwick annually. He was -opposed to Forester Bartschat, regarding him as too -alert and intuitive, and made valiant efforts through -his political bosses to have him transferred or removed. -He was regular in his politics, could always -have a hearing at Harrisburg, and though an ardent -fisherman, saw no harm in the dynamiting or liming -of streams, and upheld the right of “the interests” to -pollute the waterways with vile filth from paper mills -and tanneries. In other words he was, and probably -is, typical of the professional mountaineer that the -politicians, through the nefarious bounty laws, have -maintained in the <a id='corr124.15'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='foretsts'>forests</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_124.15'><ins class='correction' title='foretsts'>forests</ins></a></span>, to the detriment of reforestation -and wild life.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Hornbostl, about 1915, was in love with a comely -mountain girl, Beulah Fuchspuhr, the belle of Lost -Creek Valley, but he was away from home so much, -and so indifferent, and so much in his cups when in -the neighborhood that she found time to become -enamored of a tie-jobber named Heinie Beery, and -ran away with him to Pittsburg.</p> - -<p class='c001'>During the flu epidemic, about the time of the -Armistice, she was seized with the dreaded malady, -and passed away, aged twenty-eight years.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Hornbostl was in the last draft, but the Armistice -was signed before he was called to the colors, -much to the regret of the better element, for he was -the sole pro-German in the mountains–a snake in a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_125'>125</span>brood of eaglets–and all allowed he should have been -given a chance to fight his beloved Kaiser. Though -his name had a Teutonic flavor, he was only remotely -of German ancestry, and should have known better -than to root for a despotism–he, above all others, -whose sole creed was personal liberty when it came -to interfering with his “vested rights” of hunting and -fishing out of season, and all other privileges of a -lawless backwoodsman.</p> - -<p class='c001'>After attending the funeral of his wife in Pittsburg, -he took the train to Philadelphia, and while -there the news of the Armistice was received, consequently -his grief was assuaged by this very satisfying -information. He boarded on one of the back -streets in the southern part of the Quaker City, in a -rear room, which looked out on an alley where there -were still a number of private stables or mews, occupied -for the most part by the horses and carriages -of the aristocracy.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Hornbostl liked to sit at the window after his -day’s work at Hog Island, smoking his stogie and -watching the handsome equipages coming and going, -the liveried colored coachmen, the long-tailed horses, -with their showy brass mounted harness, with jingling -trappings, the animated groups of grooms, stable -boys and hangers-on. Some of the darkies kept -game roosters, and these occasionally strutted out into -the alley and crowed when there was bright sunshine -and the wind came from the “Summer Islands”.</p> - -<p class='c001'>One afternoon he saw a strange spectacle enacted -<span class='pageno' id='Page_126'>126</span>at the stable opposite his window. A large collection -of moth-eaten and dusty stuffed animals and birds were -unloaded from a dray–stuffed elks, horns and all, -several buffalo heads, four timber wolves, with a red -bear like they used to have in Snyder County, a golden -eagle, with tattered flopping wings and a great -black beast that stood upright like a man were the -most conspicuous objects. A crowd of mostly Negro -children congregated as the half a hundred mangy -specimens of this “silent zoo” became too much for -Hornbostl, and putting his stogie between his teeth, -sallied out the back door, hatless and in his shirt -sleeves, a brawny rural giant who towered above the -puny citified crowd.</p> - -<p class='c001'>He was greatly interested in that huge black -beast which stood upright, and could not quite classify -it, though its hair was like that of a black bear in its -summer pelage. He sought out the tall Negro coachman -who was in charge of the stable, and asked why -a museum was being unloaded at that particular -moment.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Yer see its jest dis way”, said the darkey, confidentially, -“old Major Ourry have died an’ ’is heirs dey -didn’t want de stuff about, so dey sent ’em down to de -stable fer me to put in de empty box stalls”.</p> - -<p class='c001'>As the conversation progressed the Negro intimated -that the aforementioned heirs would be glad -to sell any or all of the specimens at a reasonable -figure.</p> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_127'>127</span>“I’ll give you ten dollars for that big animal that -looks like a cross between a Snyder County black bear -and a prize fighter”, said Hornbostl.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“The <em>gorilla</em>, you mean”, interposed the darkey.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Yes, I mean the gorilla”, answered the backwoodsman.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“It’s yours”, said the Negro with a grin, for he -was to get half of the proceeds of all sales. He wondered -why the uncouth stranger wanted a stuffed -gorilla, but of all the animals in the collection, he was -most pleased to get rid of that hideous effigy, the man-ape -that might come to life some dark cold night and -raise ructions with the horses.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Hornbostl offered five dollars more if the Negro -would box the monster, and they finally arranged to -box it together, and keep it in the stable until he would -be let out at Hog Island. Eventually they got it to -the freight station, billed to Meiserville.</p> - -<p class='c001'>At the time of the purchase it is doubtful if -Hornbostl had any definite idea of what he was going -to do with his “find”, all that came later. Hornbostl -was glad to return to his mountain home, and sank -complacently back in his seat on the 11.30 A. M. -train for Selim Grove Junction. It was an uneventful -trip, for he was an unimaginative person, taking -everything as a matter of course, though he did notice -an unusually pretty high school girl with a wonderfully -refined face and carriage, who got off the train -at Dauphin, and followed her with his eyes as she -walked along the street back of the station and across -<span class='pageno' id='Page_128'>128</span>the bridge that spans Stony Creek, until the moving -train shut her from view behind Fasig’s Tavern. He -thought that he had never seen anything quite so lovely -before; if his late sweetheart who had run away -had been one quarter as beautiful and elegant she -would be worth worrying about.</p> - -<p class='c001'>He reached Meiserville well after dark, for it -was almost the shortest day of the year, and put up -there for the night. In the morning he inquired at -the freight office for his consignment, but hardly expected -it that soon. He had to wait three days before -it arrived, but when it did, he secured a team which -hauled it to his mountain retreat, depositing the crate -in front of his door. After the teamster with his -pair of heavy horses, decked out with jingling bells, -departed, Hornbostl unpacked his treasure, and the -huge, grinning man-ape stood before him, seven feet -tall. It was set up on a platform with castors, so he -ran it into the house, leaving it beside the old-fashioned -open fireplace, where he used to sit opposite -his mother while they both smoked their pipes in the -old days.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i_146.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>LAST RAFT IN THE WEST BRANCH OF SUSQUEHANNA</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c001'>That night after supper, when the raftered room -was dark, save for one small glass kerosene lamp, and -the fitful light of the embers, the mountaineer sat and -smoked, trying to conjure up the history of the hideous -monster facing him across the inglenook. Instead -of evolving anything interesting or definite, the -evil genius of the man-ape, as the evening progressed, -seemed to take complete possession of him. He became -<span class='pageno' id='Page_129'>129</span>filled with vicious, revengeful thoughts; all the -hate in his nature was drawn to the surface as the -firelight flashed on the glass eyes and grinning teeth -of the monstrous jungle king. All at once the maelstrom -of nasty thoughts assumed coherent form, and -he realized why he had brought the gorilla to Snyder -County.</p> - -<p class='c001'>He had heard since going to Philadelphia that -the hated Heinie Beery had taken a tie contract on the -Blue Knob, the second highest mountain in Pennsylvania, -somewhere on the line between Blair and Bedford -Counties. He wanted to kill his rival, and now -would be a chance to do it and escape detection. He -would dress himself up in the hide, and proceed overland -to Snyder Township, reconnoitre there, find his -victim and choke him to death, which the Negro -coachman had told him was the chief pastime of live -gorillas in the African wilds.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Suiting the action to the word, he drew his long -knife and began cutting the heavy threads which -sewed the hide over the manikin. He soon had the -hide lying on the deal floor, and a huge white statue -of lath and plaster of Paris stood before him, like an -archaic ghost. He did not like the looks of the manikin, -so pounded it to a pulp with an axe to lime his -kitchen garden. The hide was as stiff as a board, but -between the heat of the fire and bear’s grease he had -it fairly pliable by morning. By the next night it -was in still better shape so he donned it and sewed -himself in. Physically he was not unlike the man-ape, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_130'>130</span>gross about the abdomen, sloping shouldered -and long-armed, while his prognathous jaw and -retreating forehead were perfect counterparts of the -gorilla’s physiognomy.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Arming himself with a long ironwood staff, he -started on his journey towards the Blue Knob country. -He had to cross the Christunn Valley in order -to get into Jack’s Mountain, which he would follow -along the summits to Mount Union. It was a dark, -starless night, and all went well until he suddenly -came upon the scene of a nocturnal wood chopping -operation. The wood-cutter, a railroader, had no -other chance to lay in his winter’s fuel supply than -after dark, and by the light of a lantern placed on a -large stump had already stacked up a goodly lot of -cordwood. His son, a boy of fourteen, was ranking -the wood. At the moment of the gorilla-man’s appearance -in the clearing the man had gone to the -house for a cup of hot coffee, leaving the lad alone at -his work. The boy heard the heavy footfalls on the -chips, and thinking his father was returning, looked -up and beheld the most hideous thing that his eyes had -ever looked upon. He uttered a shriek of terror, but -before he could open his lips a second time the “gorilla” -was upon him, slapping his mouth until the -blood flowed, with one brawny paw, while he wrenched -his arm so severely with the other that he left it -limp and broken, hanging by his side. Then the -monster, looking back over his shoulder, loped off -into the deep forest at the foot of Jack’s Mountain.</p> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_131'>131</span>The boy, more dead than alive from fright, was -found a few minutes later by his father, to whom he -described his terrible assailant.</p> - -<p class='c001'>After that the man-ape was more careful when -he traveled, although he was seen by half a dozen persons -until he got safely to the vicinity of “the Monarch -of Mountains”.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Blue Knob is a weird and impressive eminence -around which many legends cluster, some of them -dating back to Indian days. Its altitude at the new -steel forest fire tower is 3,165 feet above tide.“is a beautiful word -picture of the disappearance of two little tots on the -slopes of Blue Knob, from the gifted pen of Rev. -James A. Sell, of Hollidaysburg.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Heinie Beery was living alone in a small shack -on Poplar Run, a stream which has its heading on the -slopes of Blue Knob, not far from the home of the -mighty hunter, Peter Leighty. Since the loss of his -wife he was gloomy and taciturn, and refused to live -with his choppers and teamsters in their big camp -further down in the hollow.</p> - -<p class='c001'>While searching for Beery, the man-gorilla was -seen by several of the woodsmen, and the lonely -camp was almost in a panic by this savage visitation. -The man-ape was glad that his outlandish appearance -struck terror to all who saw him, else he might have -been captured long before. He watched his chance -to get Beery where he wanted him, and in the course -of several days was rewarded. Meanwhile he had -to live <a id='corr131.31'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='somewhow'>somehow</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_131.31'><ins class='correction' title='somewhow'>somehow</ins></a></span>, and at dead of night broke into -<span class='pageno' id='Page_132'>132</span>smoke-houses and cellars, eating raw eggs and butter -when hunger pressed him hard. In some ways it was -no fun playing gorilla on an empty stomach.</p> - -<p class='c001'>One Sunday afternoon Beery, after eating dinner -with his crew at their camp near the mouth of -the hollow, started on a solitary ramble up the ravine -which led past the small shanty where in the local -vernacular, he “bached it” towards the top of the -vast and mysterious Blue Knob. Little did he know -that the man-ape was waiting behind his cabin, and -followed him to the summit, which he reached about -dusk, and sat on a flat rock on the brink of a dizzy -precipice watching the lights flashing up at Altoona -and Johnstown, the long trains winding their way -around Horse Shoe Curve. He heard the brush -crack behind him, and looking around beheld the -hideous monster that he had supposed his workmen -had conjured up out of brains addled by too much -home-brew.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Heinie Beery was a fighting Dutchman, but on -this occasion his curly black hair stood straight on -end, and his dark florid face became as ashen as -death. He lost his self-control for an instant, and -in this fatal moment the giant “gorilla” gripped him -behind the shoulders and sent him careening over the -precipice “to take a short cut to Altoona”.</p> - -<p class='c001'>With a shout of glee the monster turned on his -heel, his mission accomplished, to return along the -mountains and through the forests to his cabin near -the sources of Lost Creek. He was seen by a number -<span class='pageno' id='Page_133'>133</span>of children at Hollidaysburg and Frankstown, -late at night, frightening them almost out of their -wits; he terrified several parties of automobilists -near Yellow Springs; he had all of Snyder Township -in an uproar before he had passed through it, but he -eventually got to Shade Mountain safe and sound.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Once on his home mountains, overlooking Lewistown -Narrows, a strange remorse overcame him; he -began to regret his folly, his odd caprice. He sat on -a high rock near the top of the mountain, much in the -attitude of Rodin’s famous “Penseur”, and began to -sob and moan. It was a still night, and the trackwalkers -down in the valley heard him and called to -him through their megaphones. But the more they -called the worse he groaned and shrieked, as if he -liked to mystify the lonely railroad men. At length -he got up and started along the mountain top, wailing -and screaming like a “Token”, until out of hearing -of the trackwalkers and the crews of waiting -freight trains. He had played a silly game, made a -<em>monkey</em> of himself and was probably now a murderer -in the bargain. He could hardly wait until he got to -his cabin to rip off the hideous, ill-smelling gorilla’s -hide, and make a bonfire of it. He hoped that, if no -evil consequence befell him as a result of his mad -prank, he would be a better man in the future.</p> - -<p class='c001'>However, as he neared his cabin, all his good resolves -began to ooze out of his finger tips. By the -time he reached the miserable cabin he decided to -stick to his disguise, and continue the adventure to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_134'>134</span>the end, come what may. If he would be shot down -like a vile beast, it would only be retribution for -Heinie Beery hurled off the crag of Blue Knob, without -a chance to defend himself. The night was long; -he would travel until morning and hide among the -rocks until night, picking up what food he could along -the way.</p> - -<p class='c001'>In his northward journey he had many thrilling -experiences, such as crossing the covered bridge at -Northumberland at midnight, riding on the trucks of -a freight train to Jersey Shore and frightening fishermen -at Hagerman’s Run. When last seen he was -near the flourishing town of Woolrich, frightening -old and young, so much so that a young local sportsman -offered a reward of “five hundred dollars dead, -one thousand dollars alive”, putting the Snyder -County gorilla in the same category with the Passenger -Pigeon as a natural history curiosity.</p> - -<p class='c001'>And in this terrible disguise Hornbostl Pfatteicher -is expiating his sins, black as the satanic form -he has assumed, and when his penance is over to be -shed for the newer and better life.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span> - <h2 class='c002'><span class='fss'>X</span> <br /> <i>The Indian’s Twilight</i></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>According to Daniel Mark, born in 1835, -(died 1922), when the aged Seneca Indian, Isaac -Steel, stood beside the moss-grown stump of the -giant “Grandfather Pine” in Sugar Valley, in the early -Autumn of 1892, he was silent for a long while, then -placing his hands over his eyes, uttered these words: -“This is the Indians’ Twilight; it explains many -things; I had heard <a id='corr135.10'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='from from'>from</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_135.10'><ins class='correction' title='from from'>from</ins></a></span> Billy Dowdy, when -he returned to the reservation in 1879, that the tree -had been cut by Pardee, but as he had not seen the -stump, and was apt to be credulous, I had hoped that -the report was untrue; the worst has happened.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Then the venerable Redman turned away, and -that same day left the secluded valley, never to return.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The story of the Grandfather Pine, of Sugar -Valley, deserves more than the merely passing mention -already accorded it in forestry statistics and the -like. Apart from being probably the largest white -or cork pine recorded in the annals of Pennsylvania -sylviculture–breast high it had to be deeply notched -on both sides, so that a seven foot cross-cut saw could -be used on it–it was the sacred tree of the Seneca Indians, -and doubtless of the earlier tribes inhabiting the -country adjacent to the Allegheny Mountains and the -West Branch Valley.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was a familiar landmark for years, standing as -<span class='pageno' id='Page_136'>136</span>it did near the mouth of Chadwick’s Gap, and could be -seen towering above its fellows, from every point in -Sugar Valley, from Schracktown, Loganton, Eastville -and Carroll.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Professor Ziegler tells us that the maximum or -heavy growth of white pine was always on the winter -side of the inland valleys; the biggest pines of Sugar -Valley, Brush Valley and Penn’s Valley were all along -the southern ridges.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Luther Guiswhite, now a restauranteur in Harrisburg, -moving like a voracious caterpillar easterly -along the Winter side of Brush Valley, gradually destroyed -grove after grove of superb original white -pines, the Gramley pines, near the mouth of Gramley’s -Gap, which Professor Henry Meyer helped to “cruise”, -being the last to fall before his relentless juggernaut.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Ario Pardee’s principal pineries were mostly -across the southern ridge of Nittany Mountain, of -Sugar Valley, on White Deer Creek, but the tract on -which the Grandfather Pine stood ran like a tongue -out of Chadwick’s Gap into Sugar Valley, almost to -the bank of Fishing Creek. It is a well known story -that after the mammoth pine had been cut, Mike Courtney, -the lumberman-philanthropist’s woods boss, offered -$100 to anyone who could transport it to White -Deer Creek, to be floated to the big mill at Watsontown, -where Pardee sawed 111,000,000 feet of the -finest kind of white pine between 1868 and 1878.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The logs of this great tree proved too huge to -handle, even after being split asunder by blasting -<span class='pageno' id='Page_137'>137</span>powder, crushing down a number of trucks, and were -left to rot where they lay. Measured when prone, -the stem was 270 feet in length, and considering that -the stump was cut breast high, the tree was probably -close to 276 feet from root to tip. The stump is still -visible and well worthy of a visit.</p> - -<p class='c001'>In addition to boasting of the biggest pine in the -Commonwealth, one of the biggest red hemlocks also -grew in Sugar Valley, in the centre of Kleckner’s -woods, until it was destroyed by bark peelers in 1898. -It dwarfed the other original trees in the grove, mostly -superb white hemlocks, and an idea of its size can be -gained when it is stated that “breast high” it had a -circumference of 30 feet.</p> - -<p class='c001'>When Billy Dowdy, an eccentric Seneca Indian, -was in Sugar Valley he told ’Squire Mark the story -of the Grandfather Pine, then recently felled, and -while the Indian did not visit the “fallen monarch” on -that occasion, he refrained from so doing because he -said he could not bear the sight. The greatest disaster -that had yet befallen the Indians had occurred, -one that they might never recover from, and meant -their final elimination as factors in American history.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Dowdy seemed unnerved when he heard the story -of the demolition of the colossal pine, and it took several -visits to the famous Achenbach distillery to -steady his nerves so that he could relate its history to -his old and tried friend the ’Squire. In the evening, -by the fireside, showing emotion that rarely an Indian -<span class='pageno' id='Page_138'>138</span>betrays, he dramatically recited the story of the fallen -giant.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Long years ago, in the very earliest days of the -world’s history, the great earth spirit loved the evening -star, but it was such an unusual and unnatural attachment, -and so impossible of consummation that the -despairing spirit wished to end the cycle of existence -and pass into oblivion so as to forget his hopeless -love. Accordingly, with a blast of lightning he opened -his side and let his anguish flow away. The great -gaping wound is what we of today call Penn’s Cave, -and the never ending stream of anguish is the wonderful -shadowy Karoondinha, now renamed John Penn’s -Creek.</p> - -<p class='c001'>As time went on fresh hopes entered the subterranean -breast of the great earth spirit, and new aspirations -towards the evening star kindled in his heart of -hearts. His thoughts and yearnings were constantly -onward and upward towards the evening star. He -sought to bridge the gulf of space and distance that -separated him from the clear pure light of his inspiration. -He yearned to be near, even if he could not -possess the calm and cold constellation so much beyond -him. He cried for an answer, but none came, -and thought that it was distance that caused the coldness, -and certainly such had caused the great disappointment -in the past.</p> - -<p class='c001'>His heart was set on reaching the evening star, to -have propinquity with the heavens. Out of his strong -hopes and deep desires came a tall and noble tree, growing -<span class='pageno' id='Page_139'>139</span>in eastern Sugar Valley, a king among its kindred, -off there facing the shining, beaming star. This tree -would be the symbol of earth’s loftiest and highest -aspirations, the bridge between the terrestrial and the -celestial bodies. It was earth’s manliest, noblest and -cleanest aspiration, standing there erect and immobile, -the heavy plates of the bark like gilt-bronze armor, the -sparse foliage dark and like a warrior’s crest.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The Indians, knowing full well the story of the -hopeless romance of the earth spirit and the evening -star, or <em>Venus</em>, as the white men called it, venerated -the noble tree as the connecting link between two manifestations -of sublimity. They only visited its proximity -on sacred occasions because they knew that the -grove over which it dominated was the abode of -spirits, like all groves of trees of exceptional size and -venerable age.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The cutting away of most of the bodies of original -pines has circumscribed the abode of the spiritual -agencies until they are now almost without a lodgement, -and must go wailing about cold and homeless -until the end of time, unless spiritual insight can -touch our materialistic age and save the few remaining -patches of virgin trees standing in the valley of -the Karoondinha, the “Stream of the Never Ending -Love”, now known by the prosaic cognomen of “Penn’s -Valley”.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The Tom Motz tract is no more, the Wilkenblech, -the Bowers and the Meyer groves are all but annihilated. -Where will the spirits rest when the last original -<span class='pageno' id='Page_140'>140</span>white pine has been ripped into boards at The -Forks, now called Coburn? No wonder that Artist -Shearer exclaimed, “The world is aesthetically <a id='corr140.3'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='dead”!'>deal!”</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_140.3'><ins class='correction' title='dead”!'>deal!”</ins></a></span></p> - -<p class='c001'>The Indians were greatly dismayed at the incursion -of white men into their mountain fastnesses, so -contrary to prophecy and solemn treaties, and no -power seemed to stem them as they swept like a plague -from valley to valley, mountain to mountain. The -combined military strategy and bravery of Lenni-Lenape, -Seneca, Cayuga, Tuscarora and Shawnee failed -before their all-conquering advance. How to turn -back this white peril occupied the mind and heart of -every Indian brave and soothsayer.</p> - -<p class='c001'>One evening just as Venus in the east was shedding -her tranquil glory over the black outline of the -pine covered ranges of the Nittanies, a mighty council -of warriors and wise men, grave and reverent, assembled -under the Grandfather Pine. Hitherto victory, -while it had rested with the white invaders, had not -been conclusive; there was still hope, and the Indians -meant to battle to the end.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was during this epochal conclave that a message -was breathed out of the dark shaggy pigeon-haunted -tops of the mighty tree. Interpreted it meant -that the Indian braves and wise men were reminded -that this great pine reached from heaven to earth, and -by its means their ancestors used to climb up and down -between the two regions. In a time of doubt and -anxiety like this, the multitudes, conferring beneath -the tree, were invited to ascend to hold a council with -<span class='pageno' id='Page_141'>141</span>the stars, to exchange views and receive advice as to -how the insidious white invader could be kept in -proper bounds, and to preserve the glory and historic -dignity of the Indian races. The stars, which were -the spirits of undefeated warriors and hunters and -huntresses of exceptional prowess–their light was the -shimmer of their silvery targets–had always been the -allies of the red men.</p> - -<p class='c001'>In solemn procession the pick of the assemblage -of Indian warriors and wise men ascended the mighty -tree, up, up, up, until their forms became as tiny -specks, and disappeared in the dark lace-like branches -which merged with the swart hues of the evening -heavens. They set no time for their return, for they -were going from the finite to the infinite, but they -would be back to their beloved hills and valleys in -plenty of time, and with added courage and skill, to -end the regime of the pale faced foes.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Every wife and mother and sweetheart of a warrior -who took this journey was overjoyed at the privilege -accorded her loved one, and none begrudged being -left behind to face the enemy under impaired leadership, -or the risk of massacre, as in due course of time -the elite would return from above and rescue them -from their cruel tormentors.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Evidently out of space, out of time, was almost -the equivalent of “out of sight, out of mind” for all -who had witnessed the chosen band of warriors and -warlocks ascend the pine, even the tiny babes, reached -maturity and passed away, and yet they had not returned -<span class='pageno' id='Page_142'>142</span>or sent a message. The year that the stars fell, -in 1833, brought hopes to the anxious ones, but never -a falling star was found to bring tidings from that -bourne above the clouds.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Generation after generation came and went, and -the ablest leaders still were absent counseling with the -stars. Evidently there was much to learn, much to -overcome, before they were fully fledged to return and -battle successfully.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The succeeding generations of Indian braves -fought the white foes as best they could, yet were ever -being pushed back, and they were long since banished -from Sugar Valley where grew the Grandfather Pine. -Occasionally those gifted with historic lore and -prophecy journeyed to the remote valley to view the -pine, but there were no signs of a return of the absent -Chieftains.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was a long and weary wait. Were they really -forsaken, or were there affairs of great emergency in -the realm of the evening star that made them tarry so -long? They might be surprised on their return to -find their hunting territories the farms of the white -men, their descendants banished to arid reservations -on La Belle Riviere and beyond. They had left in the -twilight; they would find the Indians’ Twilight everywhere -over the face of the earth. It was a sad prospect, -but they never gave up their secret hope that -the visitors to strange lands would return, and lead a -forlorn hope to victory.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Then came upon the scene the great lumberman, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_143'>143</span>Ario Pardee. The bed of White Deer Creek was -“brushed out” from Schreader Spring to Hightown, -to float the millions of logs that would pile up wealth -and fame for this modern Croesus. What was one -tree, more or less–none were sacred, and instead of -being the abode of spirits, each held the almighty dollar -in its heart.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Pardee himself was a man of dreams and an -idealist, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><em>vide</em></span> Lafayette College, and the portrait of his -refined and spiritual face by Eastman Johnson, in the -rotunda of “Old Pardee”. Yet it was too early a day -to care for trees, or to select those to be cut, those to -be spared; the biggest tree, or the tree where the buffaloes -rubbed themselves, were alike before the axe and -cross-cut; all must fall, and the piratical-looking Blackbeard -Courtney was the agent to do it.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Perhaps trees take their revenge, like in the case -of the Vicar’s Oak in Surrey, as related by the diarest -Evelyn–shortly after it was felled one of the choppers -lost an eye and the other broke a leg. Mike Courtney, -it is reported, ended his days, not in opulent ease lolling -in a barouche in Fairmount Park with Hon. Levi -Mackey, as had been his wont, but by driving an ox-team -in the wilds of West Virginia!</p> - -<p class='c001'>The Grandfather Pine was brought to earth after -two days of chopping by an experienced crew of -woodsmen; when it fell they say the window lights -rattled clear across the valley in Logansville (now -Loganton). It lay there prone, abject, yet “terrible -still in death”, majestic as it sprawled in the bed that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_144'>144</span>had been prepared for it, with an open swath of forest -about that it had maimed and pulled down in its fall.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Crowds flocked from all over the adjacent valleys -to see the fallen monarch, like Arabs viewing the lifeless -carcass of a mighty lion whose roar had filled -them with terror but a little while before.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Then came the misfortune that the tree was found -to be commercially unprofitable to handle, and it was -left for the mould and the moss and the shelf-fungi to -devour, for little hemlocks to sprout upon.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Billy Dowdy was in the West Branch Valley -trying to rediscover the Bald Eagle Silver Mine–old -Uriah Fisher, of the Seventh Cavalry, can tell you all -about it–when the story was told at “Uncle Dave” -Cochran’s hotel at Pine Station that Mike Courtney -had conquered the Grandfather Pine. It is said that -a glass of the best Reish whiskey fell from his nerveless -fingers when he heard the news. He suddenly -lost all interest in the silver mine on the Bald Eagle -Mountain, which caused him to be roundly berated -by his employers, and dropping everything, he made -for Sugar Valley to verify the terrible story. ’Squire -Mark assured him that it was only too true; he had -strolled over to Chadwick’s Gap the previous Sunday -and saw the prostrate Titan with his own eyes.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The Indians’ twilight had come, for now the -picked band of warriors and warlocks must forever -linger in the star-belt, unless the earth spirit, out of -his great love, again heaved such a tree from his inmost -creative consciousness.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i_164.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>A FENCE OF WHITE PINE STUMPS, ALLEGHENIES</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_145'>145</span><a id='corr145.1'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='Somtimes'>Sometimes</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_145.1'><ins class='correction' title='Somtimes'>Sometimes</ins></a></span> the Indians notice an untoward bright -twinkling of the stars, the evening star in particular, -and they fancy it to be reassuring messages from their -marooned leaders not to give up the faith, that sometimes -they can return rich in wisdom, fortified in courage, -ready to drive the white men into the sea, and over -it to the far Summer Islands. When the stars fell on -the thirteenth of November, 1833, it was thought that -the starry hosts were coming down en masse to fight -their battles, but not a single steller ally ever reported -for duty.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Old John Engle, mighty Nimrod of Brungard’s -Church (Sugar Valley), on the nights of the Northern -Lights, or as the Indians called them, “The Dancing -Ghosts”, used to hear a strange, weird, unaccountable -ringing echo, like exultant shouting, over in the -region of the horizon, beyond the northernmost -Allegheny ridges. He would climb the “summer” -mountain all alone, and sit on the highest summits, -thinking that the wolves had come back, for he wanted -to hear them plainer. In the Winter of 1859 the distant -acclamation continued for four successive nights, -and the Aurora covered the entire vault of heaven with -a preternatural brilliance. Great bars of intensely -bright light shot out from the northern horizon and -broke in mid-sky, and filled the southern skies with -their incandescence. The sky was so intensely red that -it flared as one great sheet of fire, and engulfed the -night with an awful and dismal red light. Reflected -<span class='pageno' id='Page_146'>146</span>on the snow, it gave the earth the appearance of being -clothed in scarlet.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The superstitious Indians, huddled, cold and half-clad, -and half-starved in the desert reservations, when -they saw the fearful glow over beyond Lake Erie, -and heard the distant cadences, declared that they -were the signal fires and the cries for vengeance of -the Indian braves imprisoned up there in star-land, -calling defiance to the white hosts, and inspiration to -their own depleted legions, the echo of the day of reckoning, -when the red men would come to their own -again, and finding their lost people, lead them to a new -light, out of the Indians’ twilight.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id008'> -<img src='images/i_167.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_147'>147</span> - <h2 class='c002'><span class='fss'>XI</span> <br /> <i>Hugh Gibson’s Captivity</i></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>After the brutal massacre, by the Indians, of -the Woolcomber family, came fresh rumors -of fresh atrocities in contemplation, consequently -it was considered advisable to gather the -women and children of the surrounding country -within the stockade of Fort Robinson, under a strong -guard, while the bulk of the able-bodied men went -out in companies to reap the harvest. Some of the -harvesters were on guard part of the time, consequently -all the men of the frontier community performed -a share of the guard duty.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Among the most energetic of the guardsmen was -young Hugh Gibson, son of the Widow Gibson, a -name that has later figured prominently in the public -eye in the person of the Secretary of the American -Legion at Brussels, who endured a trying experience -during the period of the over-running of the Belgian -Paris by the hordes of blood-thirsty Huns, as rapacious -and merciless as the red men of Colonial Pennsylvania.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Hugh Gibson, of Colonial Pennsylvania, was -under twenty, slim and dark, and very anxious to -make a good record as guardian of so many precious -lives. As days wore on, and no Indian attacks were -made, and no fresh atrocities committed by the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_148'>148</span>blood-loving monster, Cooties, the terror of the lower -Juniata Valley, even the punctilious Gibson relaxed a -trifle in the rigidity of his guardianship.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was near the end of the harvest when the -majority of the men announced that they would remain -away over night at a large clearing on Buffalo -Creek, as it would be difficult to reach the fort by -nightfall and be back at work by daybreak the next -morning. Hugh Gibson was made captain of the -guard and placed in charge of the safety of the stockade -full of refugees.</p> - -<p class='c001'>All went well with Gibson and his fellow pickets -until about midnight, when the Indians launched a -gas attack. The wind being propitious, they built a -fire, into which they stirred a large number of oak -balls, and the fumes suddenly engulfing the garrison, -all became very drowsy, with the result that the nimble -redskins rushed in on the defenders, who were -gaping about, thinking that there must be a forest -fire somewhere, but too dazed and semi-conscious to -think very succinctly about anything.</p> - -<p class='c001'>When the guards saw that it was red men, and -not red fire, they roused themselves as best they -could, and fought bravely to save the fort and its -inmates. By throwing firebrands into the stockade, -the women and children, and cattle, were stampeded, -and by a common impulse burst open the gates, and -dashed past the defenders, headed for the creek, to -escape the threatened conflagrations. Then the Indians -closed in, and in the darkness, amid the crackling -<span class='pageno' id='Page_149'>149</span>of the fire–for a forest fire was now in progress, -and part of the stockade wall was blazing, amid war -whoops and shrieks of hatred and agony, the barking -of dogs, the bellowing of cattle running amuck, -rifle shots, the crack of tomahawks on defenseless -skulls, the midnight air resounded with uncouth and -horrible medley.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The fight continued all night long, until the approach -of dawn, and the danger of the forest fire cutting -them off made the Indians decamp. They did -not stop until in the big beaver meadow at Wildcat -Valley, they paused long enough to take stock of -prisoners, and to count wounded and missing. They -had captured an even dozen prisoners, and as the light -grew stronger they noticed that they had one male -captive, his face almost unrecognizable with soot, and -mostly stripped of clothing, who proved to be none -other than the zealous Hugh Gibson himself.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was a strange company that moved in single -file towards the Alleghenies, eleven women and one -man, all tied together with leather thongs, like a party -of Alpinists, one after another, not descending a -monarch of mountains, but descending into captivity, -into the valley of the <a id='corr149.24'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='shadow,'>shadow.</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_149.24'><ins class='correction' title='shadow,'>shadow.</ins></a></span> The Indians were -jubilant over the personnel of their captives. In -addition to Hugh Gibson, late captain of the guard, -they had taken Elsbeth Henry, daughter of the -most influential of the settlers, a girl of rare beauty -and charm, who had enjoyed some educational advantages -<span class='pageno' id='Page_150'>150</span>among the Moravians at Nazareth, the -pioneers of women’s education in America.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Gibson had for a year past, ever since he first -appeared in the vicinity of Fort Robinson, admired -the uncommonly attractive girl, and being ambitions -in many ways, aspired to her hand. She had never -treated him with much consideration, except to be -polite to him, but she was that to everyone, and could -not be otherwise, being a happy blend of Huguenot -and Bohemian ancestry.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The minute that Gibson saw that Elsbeth was -his fellow prisoner he forgot the chagrin at being -the sole male captive, and congratulated himself in -secret on the good fortune that would make him, for -a year or more, the daily companion of the object of -his admiration. He would redeem the humiliation -of this capture by staging a sensational double -escape, and then, after freeing the maiden, she -could not fail to love him and agree to become his wife. -He was, therefore, the most cheerful of prisoners, and -whistled and sang Irish songs as he marched along at -the tail end of the long line of captives.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It seemed as if they were being taken on a long -journey, and he surmised that the destination was Fort -Duquesne, to be delivered over to the French, where -rewards would be paid for each as hostages. He -could see by the deference paid to Elsbeth Henry -that the redmen recognized that they had a prisoner of -quality, and as she walked along, away ahead of him, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_151'>151</span>whenever there was a turn in the path, he would note -her youthful beauty and charm.</p> - -<p class='c001'>She was not very tall, but was gracefully and -firmly built. Her most noticeable features were the -intense blackness of her soft wavy hair, and the -whiteness of her skin, with minute blue veins showing, -gave her complexion a blue whiteness, the color of -mother of pearl almost, and Gibson, being a somewhat -poetical Ulster Scot, compared her to an evening sky, -with her red lips, like a streak of flame, across the -mother of pearl firmament, her downcast eyes, like twin -stars just appearing!</p> - -<p class='c001'>The further on the party marched the harder it -was going to be to successfully bring her back in safety -to the Juniata country, through a hostile Indian territory, -for he had not the slightest doubt that he would -outwit the clumsy-witted redmen and escape with her. -It might be best to strike north or northwest, out of -the seat of hostilities, and make a home for his -bride-to-be in the wilderness along Lake Erie, and never -take her back to her parents. But then there was his -mother; how could he desert her? He must go back -with Elsbeth, run all risks, once he had escaped and -freed her from her inconsiderate captors.</p> - -<p class='c001'>After a few days he learned that the permanent -camp was to be on the Pucketa, in what is now Westmoreland -County. Cooties was located there, and -since his unparalleled success in massacring whole -families of whites, he was apparently again in favor -with the Indian tribal Chieftains. He was to take -<span class='pageno' id='Page_152'>152</span>charge of the prisoners, and when ready, would lead -them to Fort Duquesne, or possibly to some point -further up La Belle Riviere, to turn them over to the -French, who would hold them as hostages.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was in the late afternoon when the party filed -into Cooties’ encampment, at the Blue Spring, near -the headwaters of the beautiful Pucketa. Cooties -had been apprised of their coming, and had painted -his face for the occasion, but meanwhile had consumed -a lot of rum, and was beastly drunk, so much so that -in his efforts to drive the punkis off his face, which -seemed to have a predilection for the grease paint, he -smeared the moons and stars into an unrecognizable -smudge all over his saturnine countenance.</p> - -<p class='c001'>As he sat there on a huge dark buffalo robe, a -rifle lying before him, a skull filled with smoking -tobacco on one side, and a leather jug of rum on the -other, smoking a long pipe, his head bobbing unsteadily -on its short neck, he made a picture never to be forgotten. -The slayer of the Sheridan family was at -best an ugly specimen of the Indian race. He was -short, squat–Gibson described him as “sawed off”; -his complexion was very dark, his lips small and thin, -his nose was broad and flat, his eyes full and blood-shot, -and his shaven head was covered with a red cap, -almost like a Turk’s fez.</p> - -<p class='c001'>He was too intoxicated to indicate his pleasure, if -he felt any, at the arrival of the prisoners. In front -of where he sat were the embers of a campfire, as the -weather–it was early in March–was still very cold. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_153'>153</span>He had the prisoners lined up in front of him beyond -the coals, while he squatted on his rug, eyeing them as -carefully as his bleared, inebriated vision would permit. -Calling to several of his henchmen, he had them -fetch fresh wood and pile it beside the embers, as if a -big bonfire was to be started <a id='corr153.6'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='later,'>later.</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_153.6'><ins class='correction' title='later,'>later.</ins></a></span></p> - -<p class='c001'>Just as they were in the midst of bringing the -wood, a group of six stalwart Indians rushed on the -scene, literally dragging a rather good-looking, dark-haired -white woman of about thirty years, whose face -showed every <a id='corr153.11'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='signs'>sign</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_153.11'><ins class='correction' title='signs'>sign</ins></a></span> of intense terror. From words that -he could understand, and the <a id='corr153.12'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='grestures'>gestures</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_153.12'><ins class='correction' title='grestures'>gestures</ins></a></span>, Gibson made -out that this woman had belonged to another batch of -prisoners, but before she could be delivered at Shannopin’s -Town had somehow made her escape.</p> - -<p class='c001'>To deliver a body of prisoners short one of the -quota had brought some criticism on Cooties, and he -was in an ugly frame of mind when she was brought -before him. There was an ash pole near the wood -pile, to which prisoners were tied while being interrogated, -and Cooties ordered that the unfortunate -woman should be strapped to it. The Indian warriors, -needless to say, made a thorough job and bound -her to it securely, hand and foot.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Though she saw twelve or more white persons, -the bound woman never said a word, and the captives -from Fort Robinson and other places were too terror-stricken -to address a word to her. They stared at her -with that look of dumb helplessness that a flock of -sheep assume when peering through the bars of their -<span class='pageno' id='Page_154'>154</span>fold at a farmer in the act of butchering one of their -number. Sympathy they may have felt, but to express -it in words would have availed nothing.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Once tied to the tree, Cooties ordered that the -wood be piled about her feet. It was ranked until -it came almost to her waist. Then the cruel warrior -turned to his victim, saying to her in German, “It’s -going to be a cold night; I think you can warm me up -very nicely.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Then he grinned and looked at each of his other -prisoners menacingly. Silas Wright in his excellent -“History of Perry County” thus quotes Hugh Gibson -in describing the scene then enacted: “All the prisoners -in the neighborhood were collected to be spectators -of the death by torture of a poor, unhappy -woman, a fellow-prisoner who had escaped, and been -recaptured. They stripped her naked, tied her to a -post and pierced her with red hot irons, the flesh -sticking to the irons at every touch. She screamed -in the most pitiful manner, and cried for mercy, but -the ruthless barbarians were deaf to her agonizing -shrieks and prayers, and continued their horrid cruelty -until death came to her relief.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>After this fiendish episode, the Fort Robinson -prisoners were sick at heart and in body for days, -and most of them would have dropped in their tracks -if they had been compelled to resume the long, tedious -western journey.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It appeared that in the foray on Fort Robinson -one young Indian had been slain; rumor among the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_155'>155</span>Indians had it that he had been shot by mistake by -a member of his own party. At any rate his parents, -who lived near Cooties’ camp-ground, took his end -very hard, and the squaw, who was Cooties’ sister, -demanded the adoption of Hugh Gibson to take the -place of her lost warrior son. This was a good point -for Gibson, although the warrior’s father, Busqueetam, -acted very coldly towards him, and he feared he might -some day, in a fit of revenge and hate, take his life. -However, the young white man, by making every -effort to help his Indian foster parents, who were very -feeble and unable to work, won their confidence, and -also that of Cooties, who requisitioned him to do all -sorts of errands and work about the encampment.</p> - -<p class='c001'>One day Busqueetam was in a terrible state of -excitement. His spotted pony, the only equine in the -camp, and the one that he expected to give to Cooties -to ride with chiefly dignity through the portals of the -Fort had strayed off in the night.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Most of the Fort Robinson and other prisoners -who had been brought in from various directions -since their arrival, to make a great caravan of captives -to impress the commanders at Shannopin’s Town, like -a Roman triumph, were allowed their liberty during -the daytime. At night they were all tied together -as they lay about the campfire, not far from the charred -stump of the ash pole where the poor white woman -had been burned to death, and where the small Indian -dogs were constantly sniffing. There were about -twenty-five prisoners, all told, and with these were -<span class='pageno' id='Page_156'>156</span>tied about half a dozen guards, and all lay down in a -circle about the fire, guards and prisoners sleeping at -the same time. It was a different system from that -of the whites, for if a prisoner got uneasy or tried to -get up, he or she would naturally pull on the leather -thongs, and rouse the guardians and other prisoners. -The thongs were around both wrists, so a prisoner was -tied to the person on either side.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Hugh Gibson managed to have a few words with -Elsbeth, when he heard of the horse’s disappearance. -Much as he would like to have talked to her, few words -passed between them during the captivity. Elsbeth -was naturally reserved, and had never known Hugh -well before, and he was playing for big stakes, and -saw how the Indians resented any hobnobbing among -their prisoners. He managed to whisper to her that -he would volunteer to hunt for Busqueetam’s missing -pony, but would return at night and wait for her in -the Panther Glade, a dense Rhododendron thicket -through which they had passed on their way to the -campground; that she should gnaw herself free with -her teeth, and that done, with her natural agility and -moccasined feet, could nimbly spring away into the -darkness and escape to him. He thought he knew -where the pony was hiding, and she could ride on the -animal to civilization. And now let Gibson tell the -adventure in his own words:</p> - -<p class='c001'>“At last a favorable opportunity to gain my liberty. -Busqueetam lost a horse and sent me to hunt -him. After hunting some time, I came home and told -<span class='pageno' id='Page_157'>157</span>him I had discovered his tracks at some considerable -distance, and that I thought I would find him; that I -would take my gun and provisions and would hunt -him for three or four days, and if I could kill a deer -or a bear, I would pack home the meat on the horse.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Hugh Gibson, the privileged captive, strolled out -of camp with a business-like expression on his lean -face, and carrying Cooties’ favorite rifle. He took a -long circle about through the deep forest, and at dark -was ensconced in the Panther Glade, to wait the fateful -moment when Elsbeth, his beloved, would come -to him, and as his promised wife, he would lead her -to liberty.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was a cold night, and his teeth chattered as he -squatted among the rhododendrons waiting and listening. -The wolves were howling, and he wondered if -the girl would feel afraid!</p> - -<p class='c001'>At the usual time the various prisoners and their -guards were lashed together, and lay down for their -rest around the embers of the campfire. Most of them -were short of coverings, so they huddled close together. -Not so Elsbeth, for Cooties looked after her and provided -her with four buffalo robes, which she would have -loved dearly to share with her less favored fellow prisoners, -but they would not allow it. The Indians made -the captives work hard during the day cutting wood, -dressing furs and pounding corn. They did not feed -them any too well, as game was scarce and ammunition -scarcer, so all were tired when they lay down by the -campfire’s soothing glow.</p> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_158'>158</span>One by one they fell asleep, all but Elsbeth, who, -covering her head with the buffalo robes, began to -gnaw on the leather thongs as if they were that much -caramel, first this side, then the other. She felt like -a rodent before she was half through, and her pretty -pearl-colored teeth grew shorter and blunter before she -was done. It was a gigantic task, but she stuck to it -bravely, and some time during the “wee, sma’” hours -had the delicious sensation of knowing she was free, -even though she felt horridly toothless and sore-gummed -in her moment of victory.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Like a wild cat she slipped out from under the -buffalo robes, wiggled along among the wet leaves and -moss, then crawled to her feet and was off like a -deer towards the Panther Glade, regardless of the -howling of the wolves. Hugh Gibson’s quick sense of -hearing told him she was coming, and he walked out -so that he stood on the path before her, and clasped her -white shapely arms in heartfelt congratulations.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Now that we are free,” he said, “I will take you -to the pony in three hours’ travel. I want to arrange -the one final detail to make this reunion always -memorable for us both. We have shared common -hardships and perils; we have plotted and planned -for freedom together. Let us guarantee that our -lives shall always be together, for I love you, and -want you to be my wife.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Elsbeth drew herself back out of his grasp, and -a shudder went through her supple little frame. “Why -I have never heard the like of what you say, much -<span class='pageno' id='Page_159'>159</span>as I have appreciated all you have done; ours was -only a common misfortune. I could not care for you -that way, even though recognizing your bravery, -your foresight and your kindliness.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>For a moment Hugh Gibson was so angry that -he felt like leading her back to Cooties, where she -would probably have been received with open arms, -and be burned at the stake, but he finally “possessed -his soul” and accepted the inevitable.</p> - -<p class='c001'>They found the pony by morning, but it took -some maneuvering to capture the wily beast, and -packed him across the Kittanning Path, where, at Burgoon’s -Run, they came upon a party of traders headed -by George McCord, who had lately come from -the Juniata.</p> - -<p class='c001'>McCord told them the details of the conflict at -Fort Robinson, of the shocking killing of Widow Gibson, -Robert Miller’s daughter, James Wilson’s wife, -John Summerson, and others, on that bloody night of -gas, forest fires, smoke and surprises.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was the turning point in Hugh Gibson’s life; -his mother gone, and not a sign of weakening in Elsbeth -Henry’s mother-of-pearl countenance; in fact, -the indistinct line of her mouth was more like a -streak of crimson flame than ever. A new light had -dawned for him out of these shocking misfortunes; -his purpose would be to redeem his inactivity at Fort -Robinson, his overconfidence, his over self-esteem, by -going at once to Carlisle to secure a commission in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_160'>160</span>the Royal American Regiment of Riflemen. He left -Elsbeth in charge of the McCord party who would -see her back to her distracted parents, while he -tramped over the mountains towards Reastown and -Fort Littleton, by the shortest route to the Cumberland -Valley.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id008'> -<img src='images/i_181.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> -<div class='figcenter id009'> -<img src='images/i_182.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>BILL BREWER, “HICK” PREACHER</p> -</div> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_161'>161</span> - <h2 class='c002'><span class='fss'>XII</span> <br /> <i>Girty’s Notch</i></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>The career of Simon Girty, otherwise spelled -Girtee and Gerdes, has become of sufficient interest -to cause the only authoritative biography -to sell at a prohibitive figure, and outlaw or renegade -as he is called, there are <a id='corr161.6'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='postoffces'>postoffices</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_161.6'><ins class='correction' title='postoffces'>postoffices</ins></a></span>, hotels, streams, -caves and rocks which perpetuate his name throughout -Pennsylvania.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Simon Gerdes was born in the Cumberland Valley -on Yellow Breeches Creek, the son of a Swiss-German -father and an Irish mother. This origin -guaranteed him no high social position, for in the -old days, in the Cumberland Valley, in particular, -persons of those racial beginnings were never accepted -at par by the proud descendants of Quakers, -Virginia Cavaliers, and above all, by the Ulster Scots. -After the world war similar beginnings have correspondingly -lowered in the markets of prestige, and a -century or more of gradual family aggrandizement -has gone for nil, the social stratification of pre-Revolutionary -days having completely re-established itself.</p> - -<p class='c001'><a id='corr161.22'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='Unfortunely'>Unfortunately</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_161.22'><ins class='correction' title='Unfortunely'>Unfortunately</ins></a></span> for Simon Gerdes, or Girty, as he -was generally called, he was possessed of lofty ambitions, -he aimed to be a military hero and a man of -quality, like the dignified and exclusive gentry who rode -about the valley on their long-tailed white horses and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_162'>162</span>carried swords, and were accompanied by retainers -with long rifles. There must have been decent blood -in him somewhere to have brought forth such aspirations, -but personally he was never fitted to attain -them. He had no chance for an education off there -in the rude foothills of the Kittochtinnies; he was -undersized, swarthy and bushy headed; his hands -were hairy, and his face almost impossible to keep -free of black beard. Analyzed his features were not -unpleasant; he had deepset, piercing black eyes, a -prominent aquiline nose, a firm mouth and jaw, and -his manner was quick, alert and decisive.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Such was Simon Girty when his martial dreams -caused him to leave home and proceed to Virginia -to enlist in the Rifle Regiment. A half century of -Quaker rule in Pennsylvania had failed to disturb -the tranquility of the relations between whites and -Indians, but in the Old Dominion, there was a constant -bickering with the redskins along the western -frontier.</p> - -<p class='c001'>As Girty was a sure shot, he was eagerly accepted, -and in a short time was raised to the grade of -Corporal. Accompanied by a young Captain-lieutenant -named Claypoole, he was sent to the Greenbrier -River country to convey a supply train, but owing -to the indifference of the officer, the train became -strung out, and the vanguard was cut off by Indians, -and captured, and the rearguard completely routed.</p> - -<p class='c001'>As Girty happened to be the vidette, the Captain-lieutenant, -who was in the rear and should have come -<span class='pageno' id='Page_163'>163</span>up and seen that his train traveled more compactly, -had a splendid opportunity to shift the blame. An -investigation was held at Spottsylvania, presided over -by a board of officers recently arrived from England, -who knew nothing of border warfare, and were sticklers -for caste above everything else.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Someone had to be disciplined, and if a fellow -could be punished and a gentleman exculpated, why -then of course, punish the fellow. This was speedily -done, and Girty was taken out before the regiment, -stripped of his chevrons, denounced by the Colonel, -forced to run the gauntlet, Indian style, and drummed -out of camp.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Girty, though humiliated and shamed, felt glad -that he was not shot; he would have been had he been -actually guilty of neglect; he was punished as badly -as an innocent man dare be punished to shield a guilty -superior. After receiving his dishonorable discharge, -Girty sorrowfully wended his way back to the parental -home on the Yellow Breeches, his visions of glory -shattered. He did not tell his parents what had happened, -but they knew that something had gone wrong, -and pitied him, as only poor, lowly people can pity -another.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Henry Fielding, a gentleman born and bred, has -said: “Why is it that the only really kindly people -are the poor,” and again, “Why is it that persons in -high places are always so hard?”</p> - -<p class='c001'>About this time Simon Girty found work breaking -colts on the estate of an eccentric character named -<span class='pageno' id='Page_164'>164</span>Gaspar, known in the Cumberland Valley as “French -Louis,” who resided near the mouth of Dublin Gap, -on the same side of the trail, but nearer the valley -than the present Sulphur Springs Hotel. All that -remains of his ambitious chateau is the chimney, -which was recently photographed by Professor J. S. -Illick, head of the research bureau of the State Department -of Forestry.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“French Louis” Gaspar was a Huguenot, a Gascon, -and prided himself on a resemblance to Henry -of Navarre, and wore the same kind of fan-shaped, -carefully brushed beard. His wife was also of French -origin, a member of the well-known Le Tort family, -and a woman of some education and character. They -had several daughters, all of whom married well, and -at the time of Girty’s taking employment, but one was -at home–the youngest–Eulalie.</p> - -<p class='c001'>She was a slim, dark girl, with hair and eyes as -black as Girty’s, a perfect mate in type and disposition. -It is a curious thing while unravelling these -stories of old time Pennsylvania, that in seeking descriptions -of the personal appearance (which is always -the most interesting part) of the persons figuring -in them at an early day, scarcely any blondes are -recorded; the black, swarthy Indian-like visages so -noticeable to strangers traveling through Pennsylvania -today, were also prevalent, commonly met with -types of our Colonial period.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Eulalie Gaspar could see that there was something -on Girty’s mind, and tried to be kind to him -<span class='pageno' id='Page_165'>165</span>and encourage him, but she asked no questions, and -he volunteered no information. If he had not received -such a complete social setback at Spottsylvania, -the youth might have aspired to the girl’s hand, but -he now was keenly aware of the planes of caste, realizing -that he stood very low on the ladder of quality.</p> - -<p class='c001'>He seemed to be improving in spirits under the -warm sun of encouragement at Chateau Gaspar, as -“French Louis” liked to call his huge house of logs -and stone, for the Huguenot adventurer was much of -a Don Quixote, and lived largely in a world of his -own creation. Eulalie, hot-blooded and impulsive, -often praised his prowess as a horseman, and otherwise -smiled on him.</p> - -<p class='c001'>There was a great sale of Virginia bred horses -being held in the market place at Carlisle, and, of -course, “French Louis” mounted on a superbly <a id='corr165.17'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='comparisoned'>caparisoned</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_165.17'><ins class='correction' title='comparisoned'>caparisoned</ins></a></span>, -ambling horse, and wearing a hat with a -plume, and attended by Simon Girty, were among -those present.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The animals ranged from packers and palfreys -to fancy saddlers of the high school type, and although -Gaspar had every stall full at home, and some wandering, -hobbled about the old fields, he bought six -more at fancy prices, and it would be an extensive -task to return them safely to the stables at the “Chateau”.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was near the close of the sale when a young -Virginian named Conrad Gist or Geist, one of the -sellers of horses, who had been a sergeant in Girty’s -<span class='pageno' id='Page_166'>166</span>regiment, and witnessed his degradation at Spottsylvania, -came up, and in the presence of the crowd, -taunted young Simon on being court-martialed and -kicked out of camp.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Girty, though the humiliating words were said -among divers of his friends, bit his lips and said nothing -at the time. Later in the tap room, when “French -Louis” was having a final jorum before starting -homeward, the Virginian repeated his taunts, and -Girty, though half his size, slapped his face. Gist -quickly drew a horse pistol from one of the deep pockets -of his long riding coat, and tried to shoot the affronted -youth. Girty was too quick for him, and in -wresting the pistol from his hand, it went off, and -shot the Virginian through the stomach. He fell to -the sanded floor, and was soon dead.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Other Virginians present raised an outcry, in which -they were upheld by those of similar social status in the -fraternity of “gentlemen horse dealers” residing at -Carlisle. Threats were made to hang Girty to a tree -and fill him full of bullets. He felt that he was lucky -to escape in the melee, and make for the mountains. -Public opinion was against him, and a reward placed -on his head. Armed posses searched for him for -weeks, eventually learning that he was being harbored -by a band of escaped redemptioners, slaves, and gaol -breakers, who had a cabin or shack in the wilds along -Shireman’s Creek. It was vacated when the pursuers -reached it, but they burnt it to the ground, as well as -<span class='pageno' id='Page_167'>167</span>every other roof in the wilds that it could be proved -he had ever slept under.</p> - -<p class='c001'>By 1750 he became known as the most notorious -outlaw in the Juniata country, and pursuit becoming -too “hot”, he decided to migrate west, which he did, -allying himself with the Wyandot Indians. He lived -with them a foe to the whites, more cruel and relentless, -the Colonial Records state, than his adopted -people.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Some of his marauding expeditions took him -back to the Susquehanna country, and he made several -daring visits to his parents, on one of which he -learned to his horror and disgust, that Eulalie Gaspar, -while staying with one of her married sisters at -Carlisle, had met and married the now Captain Claypoole, -the author of his degradation, who had come -there in connection with the mustering of Colonial -troops.</p> - -<p class='c001'>During these visits Girty occupied at times a -cave facing the Susquehanna River, in the Half Fall -Hills, directly opposite to Fort Halifax, which he -could watch from the top of the mountain. The -narrow, deep channel of the river, at the end of the -Half Fall Hills, so long the terror of the “up river” -raftsmen, became known as Girty’s Notch. The sinister -reputation of the locality was borne out in later -years in a resort for rivermen called Girty’s Notch -Hotel, now a pleasant, homelike retreat for tired -and thirsty autoists who draw birch beer through -straws, and gaze at the impressive scenery of river -<span class='pageno' id='Page_168'>168</span>and mountain from the cool, breezeswept verandas.</p> - -<p class='c001'>But the most imposing of all is the stone face -on the mountain side, looking down on the state road -and the river, which shows clearly the rugged outlines -of the features of the notorious borderer. An -excellent photograph of “Girty’s Face” can be seen -in the collection of stereoscoptic views possessed by -the genial “Charley Mitchell” proprietor of the Owens -House, formerly the old Susquehanna House, at Liverpool.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was after General Braddock’s defeat in 1755 -that Captain, now Major Claypoole, decided to settle -on one of his parental estates on the Redstone River, -(now Fayette County) in Western Pennsylvania. Being -newly wedded and immensely wealthy for his day, -he caused to be erected a manor house of the showy -native red stone, elaborately stuccoed, on a bluff overlooking -this picturesque winding river. He cleared -much land, being aided by Negro slaves, and a horde -of German redemptioners.</p> - -<p class='c001'>When General Forbes’ campaign against Fort -Duquesne was announced in 1757, he decided to again -try for actual military laurels, though his promotion -in rank had been rapid for one of his desultory service; -so he journeyed to Carlisle, and was reassigned -to the Virginia Riflemen, with the rank of Lieutenant -Colonel of Staff.</p> - -<p class='c001'>He was undecided what to do with his young -wife in his absences, but as she had become interested -in improving “Red Clay Hall,” as the new estate was -<span class='pageno' id='Page_169'>169</span>called, he decided to leave her there, well guarded by -his armed Virginia overseers. The Indians had been -cleared out of the valley for several years, and were -even looked upon as curiosities when they passed -through the country, consequently all seemed safe on -that score.</p> - -<p class='c001'>However, while Lieutenant-Colonel Claypoole -was at Carlisle, before the Forbes-Bouquet Army -had started westward, an Indian with face blackened -and painted, in the full regalia of a chief, appeared at -the door of “Red Clay Hall” and asked to see the lady -of the manor, with whom he said he was acquainted–that -she would know him by the name of Suckaweek.</p> - -<p class='c001'>This was considered peculiar, and he was told to -wait outside, until “her ladyship” could be informed -of his presence. Eulalie Gaspar Claypoole, clad in a -gown of rose brocade, was in her living room on the -second story of the mansion, an apartment with high -ceilings and large windows, which commanded a -view of the Red Stone Valley, clear to its point of -confluence with the lordly Monongahela. She was -seated at an inlaid rosewood desk, writing a letter to -her husband, when the German chief steward entered -to inform her of the strange visitor waiting on the -lawn, whom she would know by the name of Suckaweek.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Taking the quill pen from her lips, for she had -been trying to think of something to write, the dark -beauty directed the steward to admit the visitor at -<span class='pageno' id='Page_170'>170</span>once, and show him into the library. Hurrying to a -pier glass, she adjusted her elaborate apparel, and taking -a rose from a vase, placed it carefully in her sable -hair, before she descended the winding stairway.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Suckaweek” (Black Fish), which was a pet -name she used to call Girty in the old days, was waiting -in the great hall, and the greeting between the ill-assorted -pair seemed dignified, yet cordial. They -spent the balance of the afternoon between the library -and strolling over the grounds, admiring the extensive -views, dined together in the state dining room, -and the last the stewards and servants saw of them, -when informed their presence would be no longer -required, was the pair sitting in easy chairs on either -side of the great fireplace, both smoking long pipes -of fragrant Virginia tobacco.</p> - -<p class='c001'>In the morning the Indian and Madame Claypoole -were missing, and an express was sent at once -to Carlisle to acquaint the Colonel with this daring -abduction of a lady of quality. The news came as a -great shock to the young officer, who obtained a leave -of absence and a platoon of riflemen to engage in the -search for his vanished spouse.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The marriage had seemed a happy one, but in -discussing the case with his father-in-law, “French -Louis,” indiscreetly admitted that his daughter had -once seemed a little sweet on Simon Girty, the outlaw. -All was clear now, the motive revealed.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was the truth, the lovely “Lady” Claypoole, as -she was styled by the mountain folks, had gone off -<span class='pageno' id='Page_171'>171</span>with the seemingly uncouth renegade, Simon Girty.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Why she had done so, she could never tell, but -doubtless it was a spark of love lain dormant since -the old days at Chateau Gaspar, when she had seen -the young outlaw breaking her father’s unmanageable -colts, that furnished the motive for the elopement.</p> - -<p class='c001'>In the glade, where at an early hour in the morning, -Girty and his fair companion joined his entourage -of Indians and white outlaws, Simon, in the presence -of all, unsheathed his formidable hunting knife, -a relic of his first campaign against the Indians when -he belonged to the Virginia “Long Knives,” and cut -a notch on the stock of his trusty rifle, which was -handed to him by his favorite bodyguard, a half Jew, -half Indian, named Mamolen, a native of Heidelberg -in Berks County.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Although during the past eight years he had personally -killed and scalped over a hundred Indians -and whites, Girty had never, as the other frontiersmen -always did, “nicked” his rifle stock.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Turning to Lady Claypoole with a smile, he said: -“Some day I will tell you why I have cut this notch; -it is a long and curious story.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>In order to have her safe from capture or molestation, -Girty took the woman on a lengthy and perilous -journey to Kentucky, “the dark and bloody -ground.” To the country of the mysterious Green -River, in what is now Edmonson County, land of -caves, and sinks, and knobs, and subterranean lakes -<span class='pageno' id='Page_172'>172</span>and streams, amid hardwood groves and limestone, -he built a substantial log house, where he left her, -protected only by the faithful Mamolen, while he returned -to fight with the French and Indians along -the banks of the Ohe-yu, “The Beautiful River.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>The defeat of the allied forces by the British, -and the abandonment of Fort Duquesne, were sore -blows to Simon Girty’s plans and hopes, but his position -and prestige among the Indians remained undimmed.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Claypoole, though promoted to full Colonel, did -not take part in any of the battles, being intermittently -off on leave, hunting for his recreant wife, and -spluttering vengeance against “that snake, that dog, -Girty,” as he alternately called him. It seemed as if -the earth had swallowed up the lovely object of the -outlaw’s wiles, for though Girty himself was heard -of everywhere, being linked with the most hideous -atrocities and ambushes, no Indian prisoner, even -under the most dreadful torture, could reveal the -Lady Claypoole’s whereabouts. The reason for that -was only two persons in the service knew, one was -Mamolen, the other Girty, and Mamolen remained -behind with the fair runaway.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was not until after the final collapse of the -French power in 1764, and the western country was -becoming opened for settlement, that Colonel Claypoole -received an inkling of Eulalie’s whereabouts. -It did not excite his curiosity to see her again, or -bring her back, but merely fired his determination the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_173'>173</span>more to even his score with Girty. When he was -sober and in the sedate atmosphere of his correctly -appointed library on Grant’s Hill, in the new town of -Pittsburg, he realized how foolish it would be <a id='corr173.4'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='to to'>to</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_173.4'><ins class='correction' title='to to'>to</ins></a></span> -journey to the wilds to kill “a scum of the earth,” -he a gentleman of many generations of refined ancestry, -all for a “skirt” as he contemptuously alluded -to his wife.</p> - -<p class='c001'>But when in his cups, and that was often, he -vowed vengeance against the despoiler of his home, -and the things he planned to do when once he had -him in his clutches would have won the grand prize -at a Spanish Inquisition.</p> - -<p class='c001'>If it was Girty’s destiny to notch his rifle once, -Nemesis provided that Colonel Claypoole should also -have that rare privilege. At a military muster on -the Kentucky side of Big Sandy, during the Revolutionary -War, Simon Girty boldly ventured to the outskirts -of the encampment, to spy on the strength and -armament of the patriot forces, as he had done a -hundred times before. Colonel Claypoole, riding on -the field on his showy, jet black charger, noticed a -low-brewed face, whiskered like a Bolshevik, peering -out through a clump of bushes. Recognizing him -after a lapse of over a quarter of a century, he rode -at him rashly, parrying with the flat blade of his -sabre, the well directed bullet which Girty sent at -him. Springing from his mount, which he turned -loose, and which ran snorting over the field, with -pistol in one hand, sabre in the other, he rushed into -<span class='pageno' id='Page_174'>174</span>the thicket, and engaged his foe in deadly combat. -He was soon on top of the surprised Girty, and -stamping on him, like most persons do with a venomous -snake, at the same time shooting and stabbing him.</p> - -<p class='c001'>When his frightened orderly, leading the recaptured -charger, rode up, followed by a number of excited -officers and men, and drew near to the thicket, -they were just in time to see Colonel Claypoole emerging -from it, red-faced but calm, carrying a long rifle.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“I see you have put a notch in it already,” said -one of his companions, as he eagerly wrung his hand.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“So I perceive,” replied the Colonel, “but it was -hardly necessary, for I have only killed a snake.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>There are some who say that Colonel Claypoole’s -victim was not Simon Girty at all, but merely a -drunken settler who was coming out of the bushes -after a mid-day nap, and a coincidence that the fellow -was armed with a rifle on which there was a -single nick. Yet for all intents and purposes Colonel -Claypoole had killed a good enough Simon Girty, and -had his rifle to prove it.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Other reports have it that Simon Girty survived -the Revolution, where he played such a reprehensive -part, to marry Catharine Malott, a former captive -among the Indians, in 1784, and was killed in the -Battle of the Thames, in the War of 1812.</p> - -<p class='c001'>C. W. Butterworth in his biography of the Girty -family, says that Simon, in later life, became totally -blind, dying near Amlerstburg, Canada, February 18, -1818, was buried on his farm, and a troop of British -soldiers from Fort Malden fired a volley at his grave.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_175'>175</span> - <h2 class='c002'><span class='fss'>XIII</span> <br /> <i>Poplar George</i></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>“I have been reading your legends of the old days -in the ‘North <a id='corr175.3'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='American,”'>American,’”</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_175.3'><ins class='correction' title='American,”'>American,’”</ins></a></span> said the delegate to -the Grange Convention, stroking his long silky -mustache, “and they remind me of many stories that -my mother used to tell me when I was a little shaver, -while we were living on the Pucketa, in Westmoreland -County. There was one story that I used to like -best of all. It was not the one about old Pucketa -the Indian warrior for whom the run was named, but -about a less notable Indian, but more esteemed locally, -known as ‘Poplar George.’</p> - -<p class='c001'>“It isn’t nearly as interesting an Indian story as -the one that Emerson Collins tells, of the time when -his mother, as a little girl on the Quinneshockeny, went -to the spring for a jug of water, finding a lone Indian -sitting there all by himself, looking as if he was -in deep thought. As he made no move to molest her, -she filled her jug, and then scampered back to the -house as fast as she could tote the jug there.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“She was a little shy about telling of her strange -experience, but finally, when she mentioned the subject, -her mother said, ‘maybe the poor fellow was -hungry.’ Quickly spreading a ‘piece,’ she hurried -back to the spring, but no Indian was to be found, -only a few prints of his mocassined feet in the soft -earth by the water course. If it hadn’t been for those -<span class='pageno' id='Page_176'>176</span>footprints she would have always felt that she had -not seen a real live Indian, but a ghost.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“It was the last Indian ever heard of on the -Quinneshockeny, and he had probably come back to -revive old memories of his happy childhood. No, -Poplar George was hardly like Emerson Collins’ ‘last -Indian,’ as he, my mother averred, was part Indian, -part ghost. He was also the last Indian that ever -visited the Pucketa, which had been a famous stream -in its day for redmen, from the time when old Pucketa, -himself, came there to spend his last days, after -having been driven out from his former hunting -grounds at the head of Lost Creek, which runs into -the ‘Blue Juniata’ above Mifflintown.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“The principal part of this story revolves around -two large trees that used to stand near the Pucketa, -one a big tulip or ‘whitewood’ tree, hollow at the butt, -so much so that a half grown person could hide in it, -and a huge water poplar tree, or ‘cottonwood,’ a rare -tree in Pennsylvania, you know, that stood on lower -ground directly in line with it, but on the far side of -the creek, which ran parallel with the road. It wasn’t -much of a road in those days, I’m told, isn’t much of -one yet, little better than a cow path, with grass and -dandelions growing between the wagon tracks, and -worn foot-path on the creek side of it. Many’s the -time I’ve gone along that path to and from school, or -to fetch the cows.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id010'> -<img src='images/i_200.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>AGED FLAX-SPINNER AT WORK, SUGAR VALLEY</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c001'>“In my boyhood there were two big stumps which -always arrested my attention, the stumps of the ‘cottonwood’ -<span class='pageno' id='Page_177'>177</span>and the tulip which I have already mentioned. -The native poplar stump, which was chopped -breast high for some reason, had been cut before my -day, but the tulip tree had stood a dead stab for many -years, and was not finally cut until my babyhood. I -was too young to recall it, and its stump had been -sawed off almost level with the ground.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“When my mother was old enough to notice -things, say along six, or seven or eight years of age, -both trees was standing, and despite their venerable -age, were thrifty and green; the hollow trunk of the -tulip did not seem to lessen its vitality. Trees in -those days, of all kinds, were pretty common, and regarded -as nuisances; the farmers were still having -‘burning bees’ in the spring and fall when all hands -would join in and drag with ox-spans the logs of the -trees that had been cut when they were clearing new -ground, and making huge bonfires, burn them like a -modern section foreman does a pile of old railroad -ties, and by the way, the time is going to come soon -when tie burners will be as severely condemned as -the instigators of the ‘burning bees’ in the olden days.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Trees were too plentiful to attract much attention -or create affection or veneration, but these two -trees had a very special human interest.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Long after the Indians passed out of our country -they came back as ghosts or ‘familiars,’ just as -the wolves, panthers and wild pigeons do, so that the -stories of folks seeing them after they became extinct, -while not literally true, are in a sense <a id='corr177.30'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='correct,'>correct</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_177.30'><ins class='correction' title='correct,'>correct</ins></a></span>. Closely -<span class='pageno' id='Page_178'>178</span>associated with the life of the big cottonwood was -an old Indian, mother said; he wasn’t a real live Indian, -yet not a ghost, was probably a half ghost, half -Indian, if there could be any such thing.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“The tulip tree was inhabited by a very attractive -spirit, an Indian girl, an odd looking one too, for her -smooth skin was only a pumpkin color and her eyes -a light blue. They all called her ‘Pale Eyes,’ and -she was described as slight, winsome and wonderfully -pretty. The Indian man, because he spent so -much time under the cottonwood or water poplar, became -generally known as ‘Poplar George.’ He would -appear in the neighborhood early in the spring, in -time to gather poke, milkweed, dandelion and bracken -for the farmer’s wives, and to teach the young folks -to fish, to use the bow and arrow, and snare wild -pigeons and doves.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“It was a sure sign of spring when the young -people would see him squatting before a very small -fire of twigs under the still leafless branches of the -ancient poplar tree. He would remain about all summer -long, helping with the harvest, so he must have -been real flesh and blood, in a sense, and in the fall he -gathered nuts, and later cut some cordwood for those -who favored him–but in truth he never liked hard, -downright work overly much.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“He was a creature of the forests and streams. -When he went away in the fall, after the wild pigeons -had left, he always said that he wintered south, on -the Casselman River, where the weather was not so -<span class='pageno' id='Page_179'>179</span>severe, in that wonderful realm of the Pawpaw, the -Persimmon and the Red Bud.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Often when he took the young folks of the -neighborhood on fishing trips, and his skill with the -angle and fly were unerring, the pretty Indian maiden, -‘Pale Eyes,’ would turn up, and be with the party all -day. When asked who she was, he would sometimes -say that she was his daughter, other times his <a id='corr179.8'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='neice'>niece</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_179.8'><ins class='correction' title='neice'>niece</ins></a></span>, or -grand-daughter, but when anyone asked of ‘Pale -Eyes,’ she would shake her pretty head, indicating -that she only spoke the Indian language. Poplar -George could speak Dutch and a little English.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“No one knew where Poplar George slept, if it -wasn’t in the open, under the cottonwood tree. If -he slept in barns, or under haystacks, no one had ever -seen him coming or going, but a detail like that, mattered -nothing as long as he was kindly and harmless, -and took good care of the children.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“He was a master of woodcraft, much like that -old Narragansett Indian ‘Nessmuk,’ who furnished -the late George W. Sears with his inspiration as well -as <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">‘nom de plume.’</span> Poplar George could call the wild -birds off the trees, so that they would feed on the -ground before him, the squirrels and even the shy -chipmunks climbed all over him, and extracted nuts -from his pockets.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"The old Indian was an odd person to look at, so -my mother said; of medium height, meagre, wrinkled -and weazened, tobacco colored, with little black shoe-button -eyes, and a sparse mustache and beard. He -<span class='pageno' id='Page_180'>180</span>dressed in rags, and was often bare-footed, yet he -never complained of the cold. He was always jolly -and cheerful, had always been the same; he had been -coming to the Pucketa Valley for several generations -before my mother’s day; in fact, no one could remember -when he hadn’t been there, but that wasn’t saying -much, as it was a new country, dating only from the -time when Pucketa and his tribesmen had enjoyed it -as a hunting ground for big game.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"Once when some hunters killed a bear, they were -going to nail the paws on the end of a log barn, but -Poplar George begged for them, and invited the children -to a feast of ‘bear paw cutlets’ under the cottonwood -tree. My mother sat beside ‘Pale Eyes,’ -and took a great fancy to her; she was able to talk -with her in sign language, and Poplar George, seeing -how well they got on together, occasionally interpreted -for them.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"Mother managed to learn that ‘Pale Eyes’’ -abode was in a huge hollow tulip tree, but that she, -too, wintered in the south, but beyond the Maryland -line. Those were all gloriously care-free, happy days, -and my mother, in later life, never tired talking about -them.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"Once in the fall when the buckwheat harvest -was in progress, millions of wild pigeons came in, and -mother could never forget the sight of old Poplar -George sitting on a ‘stake and rider’ fence, with a -handsome cock pigeon resplendent with its ruddy -breast, <a id='corr180.30'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='sic'>pearched</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_180.30'><ins class='correction' title='sic'>pearched</ins></a></span> on one of his wrists, while it pecked -<span class='pageno' id='Page_181'>181</span>at some buckwheat seeds in his other hand. Beside -him sat the demure ‘Pale Eyes,’ a speckled squab of -the year in her lap, stroking it, while other pigeons, -usually so wild, were feeding in the stubble about -them, or perched on the stakes of the fence.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"Some of the boys of sixteen years or thereabouts, -grown lads they seemed to my mother, wanted -to be attentive to ‘Pale Eyes,’ but she was so shy that -she never let them get close to her. As it was a respectable -backwoods community, and all minded their -own business, no further efforts were made to have -her mingle in society.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"There was a rich boy, Herbert Hiltzheimer from -Philadelphia, whose father was a great land owner, -and who sometimes came with his parents to stay with -their Agent while inspecting their possessions, who, -at first sight of ‘Pale Eyes,’ fell violently in love with -her. On rainy days he was not allowed out of doors, -and sent word to Poplar George that ‘Pale Eyes’ -should go to the Agent’s house, and play with him. -Old Poplar George replied that he was willing if his -niece would consent, but she always ran away into the -depths of the forest, and was never once induced to -play with him indoors. She did not dislike the city -boy, only was very timid, and was afraid to go inside -of a house.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"My mother was made a confidante of by Herbert<a id='corr181.28a'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='( who'>,who</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_181.28a'><ins class='correction' title='( who'>,who</ins></a></span> -offered her five dollars, a <a id='corr181.28b'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='sic'>collosal</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_181.28b'><ins class='correction' title='sic'>collosal</ins></a></span> sum in -those days, if she would induce ‘Pale Eyes’ to at least -come into the Agent’s yard, and play with him alone. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_182'>182</span>He had her name cut on everything, even on the window -frames, and wrote verses about her which he -carried in his pocket, and sometimes tried to read to -her.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"In the fall he was taken back to Philadelphia to -school, but said that, the evening before, when he -walked up the lane, weeping over his misfortune, he -opportunately met the fair Indian maid alone at the -tulip tree, and actually kissed her. She broke away -and ran into the hollow trunk, and while he quickly -followed her into the aperture, she had disappeared.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"The lands on which the cottonwood and the tulip -tree stood were a part of a farm belonging to -’Squire George Garnice, an agreeable, but easy going -old gentleman, who never learned to say ‘no’ to any -one, though not much to his detriment for he was -very generally respected.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"One fall some of the Fiedler boys suggested to -him, that he let them go on his property and cut up a -lot of old half-dead good-for-nothing trees for cordwood -and of course he assented. The first tree they -attacked was Poplar George’s favorite, the mighty cottonwood. -They were skilled axemen, and cut a level -stump but too high for these days of <a id='corr182.24'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='conservation'>conservation.</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_182.24'><ins class='correction' title='conservation'>conservation.</ins></a></span> -Soon the big poplar was down, and the boys were -trimming off the sweeping branches. Before cutting -into stove lengths, they hopped across the creek and -started on their next victim, the hollow tulip tree, the -home of ‘Pale Eyes.’</p> - -<p class='c001'>"One of the boys, the youngest, Ed, had gotten -<span class='pageno' id='Page_183'>183</span>a new cross-cut saw, and begged them to try it on -the tulip. They notched, and then getting down on -their knees, started to saw a low stump, for some reason -or other. They had sawed in quite a distance on -both edges of the hollow side when they heard a piteous -shrieking and wailing down the road, toward -the old ’Squire’s barn.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"Leaving saw, axes and wedges, they ran to -where the cries came from, and to their horror, found -‘Pale Eyes’ lying on the grassy bank beside the road -at the orchard, her ankles terribly lacerated, front and -back, clear in to the bones, and bleeding profusely. -On this occasion she was able to speak in an intelligible -tongue.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“‘Run quick to the ’Squire’s, and get help,’ she -said, in Pennsylvania German; ‘I am dying, but I -want something to ease this dreadful pain.’</p> - -<p class='c001'>“The sympathetic boys, without waiting to inquire -where she received her <a id='corr183.19'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='sic'>grevious</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_183.19'><ins class='correction' title='sic'>grevious</ins></a></span> hurts, scurried -down the road and through the ’Squire’s gate. The -old gentleman was in his library, drawing up a legal -document, when the long, lanky youths, hatless and -breathless, burst in on him.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“‘Oh, sir,’ they chorused, ‘the Indian girl, ‘Pale -Eyes,’ you know, has cut herself, and is dying up the -road, and wants help.’</p> - -<p class='c001'>"The ’Squire always kept an old-fashioned remedy -chest in his desk, so seizing it, and adjusting his -curly wig, so that it would not blow off, he ran out -after the nimble mountaineers. As they left the gate -<span class='pageno' id='Page_184'>184</span>they saw old Poplar George running across the orchard -in the direction of the wounded girl. Evidently -he, too, had heard her cries.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"When they reached the spot where marks on -the greensward showed where ‘Pale Eyes’ had been -lying, she was nowhere to be found, neither was -Poplar George. There were no signs of blood, only -a lot of sawdust like comes from the workings of a -cross-cut saw.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"The old ’Squire was nonplussed, but consented -to accompany the boys to the scene of their wood -cutting operations. ‘Pale Eyes’ was not there either, -nor Poplar George. The newly formed leaves of the -cottonwood–it was in the month of May–although -the tree had only been cut and sawed into but an -hour before, were scorched and withered.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"The ’Squire showed by his face how heartbroken -he was to see the two picturesque trees so -roughly treated, but he was too kindly and forgiving -to chide the boys for their sake. As he was standing -there, looking at the ruin, a number of school children, -among them my mother, came along, for it was -during the noon recess, or dinner hour. They saw -the butchered trees, and learned of the events of the -morning; several of them, prosaic backwoods youngsters, -though they were, shed bitter tears.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“‘Dry your eyes,’ the ‘’Squire urged them, ‘else -your people will think that the teacher licked you.’ -Then they all chorused that it was a shame to have -ruined the retreats of Poplar George and ‘Pale Eyes.’</p> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_185'>185</span>“Evidently ’Squire Garnice was wise in the lore -of mysticism, for he shook his head sadly, saying, -‘Never mind, you’ll never see Poplar George nor ‘Pale -Eyes’ again.’</p> - -<p class='c001'>“It was a dejected company that parted with -him at his gate. The old ’Squire was right, for never -more was anything seen or heard of Poplar George -and the mysterious ‘Pale Eyes.’ They must have -been in some unknowable way connected with the -lives of those two trees, the cottonwood and the tulip–their -lives or spirits maybe, and when they were -cut into, their spirits went out with them.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“I knew of a wealthy man who had a cedar tree -in his yard, that when he fell ill, the tree became -brown, but retained a little life. Finally it was cut -down as an eyesore, and the gentleman died suddenly -a few days afterward. That tree must have contained -a vital part of his spirit.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“By fall the tulip tree looked as if it had been -dead for years, and the bark was peeling off. As the -wood of the poplar would not burn, and set up a fetid -odor, the Fieldler boys never bothered to finish cutting -down the hollow tulip tree, of which the shy -wood sprite, ‘Pale Eyes,’ had been the essence.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"Much of the mystery and charm of that old -grass-grown way along the gently flowing Pucketa -had vanished with its Indian frequenters. But the -memory of Poplar George and ‘Pale Eyes’ will never -be forgotten as long as any of those children who were -lucky enough to know them, remain in this world."</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_186'>186</span> - <h2 class='c002'><span class='fss'>XIV</span> <br /> <i>Black Alice Dunbar</i></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Down in the wilds of the Fourth Gap, latterly -used as an artery of travel between Sugar -Valley and White Deer Hole Valley, commonly -known as “White Deer Valley,” a forest ranger’s -cabin stands on the site of an ancient Indian -encampment, the only clearing in the now dreary -drive from the “Dutch End” to the famous Stone -Church. Until a dozen years ago much of the primeval -forest remained, clumps of huge, original white -pines stood here and there, in the hollows were hemlock -and rhododendron jungles, while in the fall the -flickers chased one another among the gorgeous red -foliage of the gum trees.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Now much is changed; between “Tom” Harter -and “Charley” Steele, and other lumbermen, including -some gum tree contractors, little remains but -brush and slash; forest fires have sacrificed the remaining -timber, and only among the rocks, near the -mouth of the gap, can be seen a few original yellow -pines, shaggy topped in isolated grandeur. Some day -the tragic Indian history of White Deer Hole Valley -will come to its own, and present one of the most -tragic pages in the narrative of the passing of the -red man.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was into this isolated valley, that terminates -<span class='pageno' id='Page_187'>187</span>in Black Hole Valley, and the Susquehanna River, -near Montgomery, that numbers of the Monsey Tribe -of the Lenni-Lenape, called by some the Delaware -Indians, retreated after events subsequent to the -Walking Purchase, made them outcasts on the face -of the earth. It was not long afterwards that warlike -parties of their cruel Nemesis, the Senecas, appeared -on the scene, informing the Monseys that they had -sold the country to the whites, and if they stayed, it -was at their peril.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Even at that early day white men were not wholly -absent; they came in great numbers after the Senecas -had sold the lands of the Lenni-Lenape to the -“Wunnux,” but even coincident with the arrival of -the Delawares, a few white traders and adventurers -inhabited the most inaccessible valleys.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Alexander Dunbar, a Scotchman, married to a -Monsey woman, arrived in White Deer Hole Valley -with the first contingent of his wife’s tribes-people, -settling near the confluence of White Deer Hole Creek -and South Creek. Whether he was any relation to -the Dunbar family, who have long been so prominent -in this valley is unknown, as his family moved further -west, and the last heard of them was when his -widow died and was buried in the vicinity of Dark -Shade Creek, Somerset County.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Dunbar was a dark, swarthy complexioned man, -more like an Indian than a Celt, and dressed in the -tribal garb, could easily have passed off as one of the -aboriginies. At one time he evidently intended to remain -<span class='pageno' id='Page_188'>188</span>in the Fourth Gap, as in the centre of the <a id='corr188.1'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='greensword'>greensward</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_188.1'><ins class='correction' title='greensword'>greensward</ins></a></span> -which contained the Indian encampment, he -erected a log fortress, with four bastions, the most permanent -looking structure west of Fort Augusta. In it -he aimed to live like a Scottish Laird, with his great -hall, the earthen floor, covered with the skins of panthers, -wolves and bears, elk and deer antlers hanging -about, and a huge, open fireplace that burned logs of -colossal size, and would have delighted an outlaw -like Rob Roy MacGregor.</p> - -<p class='c001'>When the Seneca Indians penetrated into the valley -they were at a loss at first to ascertain Alexander -Dunbar’s true status. If he was related to the -prominent Scotch families identified with the Penn -Government, he would be let alone, but if a mere -friendless adventurer, he would be driven out the -same as any one of the “Original People.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Dunbar was a silent man, and by his taciturnity -won toleration for a time, as he never revealed his -true position. When the Senecas became reasonably -convinced that, no matter who he had been in the -Highlands of Scotland, he was a person of no importance -in the mountains of Pennsylvania, they began -a series of prosecutions that finally ended with -his murder. This took its first form by capturing all -members of the Lenni-Lenape tribe who ventured -into the lower end of the valley, for those who had -settled further down, and on the banks of the Susquehanna -and Monsey Creek had moved westward -when they learned that they had been “<em>sold out</em>.” -<span class='pageno' id='Page_189'>189</span>However, the residents of Dunbar’s encampment occasionally -ventured down South Creek on hunting -and fishing expeditions. When the heads of half a -dozen families, and several squaws, young girls and -children had been captured, over a dozen in all, and -put into a stockade near the present village of Spring -Garden, and rumor had it that they were being ill-treated, -Alexander Dunbar, carrying a flag of truce, -set off to treat with the Seneca Council, at what is -now Allenwood, with a view to having them paroled.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The unfortunate man never reached the Senecas’ -headquarters, being shot from ambush, and left to -die like a dog on the trail, not far from the Panther -Spring, above the present John E. Person residence.</p> - -<p class='c001'>While the surviving, able bodied Monseys could -have risen and started a warfare, they deemed it prudence -to remain where they were, and to make Sugar -Valley, and the valleys adjacent to White Deer -Creek, their principal hunting grounds.</p> - -<p class='c001'>While Dunbar had lived, squaw man, though he -was, he was the leader of the Indians among whom -he resided, else they would never have permitted his -erecting a pretentious fortress in the midst of their -humble tepees of hides and poorly constructed log -cabins. At his death the leadership devolved on his -eighteen-year-old daughter, “Black Agnes,” his widow -being a poor, inoffensive creature, a typical Indian -drudge.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Black Agnes” was even darker complexioned -than her father, but was better looking, having fine, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_190'>190</span>clear cut features, expressive dark eyes which flashed -fire, although she was much below medium height, in -fact, no bigger than a twelve-year-old child. She -wore her hair in such a tangled way that her eyes, -lean cheeks and white throat were half hidden by the -masses of her sable tresses. She usually attired herself -in a blue coat and cape, a short tan skirt trimmed -with grey squirrel tails, and long Indian stockings. -She was in miniature a counterpart of Miriam Donsdebes, -the beautiful heroine of one of the chapters in -this writer’s book “South Mountain Sketches.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>While it may have given the Senecas added cause -to repeat their jibe of “old women” at the Lenni-Lenapes, -for not avenging Dunbar’s death, it was a case -of living on sufferance anyway, and foolish to have -attacked superior numbers. The Senecas always had -white allies to call on for arms and ammunition, while -from the first, the Delawares were a proscribed people, -slated to be run off the earth and exterminated.</p> - -<p class='c001'>During this lull, following the Scotchman’s murder, -which the Senecas would have doubtless have disavowed, -an embassy appeared at the Dunbar stronghold -to ask “Black Agnes’” hand in marriage with a -young Seneca warrior named Shingaegundin, whom -the intrepid young girl had never seen. While it -would have been extremely politic for “Black Agnes” -to have accepted, and allied herself with the powerful -tribe that had wronged her people, she sent back -word firmly declining.</p> - -<p class='c001'>After the emissaries departed through the gate of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_191'>191</span>the stockade, she turned to her warriors, saying, in the -metaphorical language of her race: “The sky is overcast -with dark, blustering clouds,” which means that -troublesome times were coming, that they would have -war.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The embassy returned crestfallen to Shingaegundin, -who was angry enough to have slain them all. Instead, -he rallied his braves, and told them that if he -could not have “Black Agnes” willingly, he would <a id='corr191.9'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='take take'>take</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_191.9'><ins class='correction' title='take take'>take</ins></a></span> -her by force, and if she would not be a happy and -complaisant bride, he would tie her to a tree and starve -her until she ceased to be recalcitrant.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The bulk of the Monseys having departed from the -valleys on both sides of the Susquehanna, to join others -of their tribe at the headwaters of the Ohe-yu, left the -Dunbar clan in the midst of an enemy’s country, so that -it would look like an easy victory for Shingaegundin’s -punitive expedition.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Black Agnes” had that splendid military quality of -knowing ahead of time what her adversaries planned -to do–whether “second sight” from her Scotch blood, -or merely a highly developed sense of strategy, matters -not. At any rate, she was ready to deal a blow at her -unkind enemies. Therefore she posted her best marksmen -along the rocky face of the South Mountains, on -either side of Fourth Gap. Behind these grey-yellow, -pulpit-shaped rocks, the tribesmen crouched, ready for -the oncoming Senecas. “Black Agnes” herself was in -personal command inside the stockade, where she was -surrounded by a courageous bodyguard twice her size. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_192'>192</span>The women, old men and children, were sent to the top -of the mountain, to about where Zimmerman’s Run -heads at the now famous Zimmerman Mountain-top -Hospice. At a signal, consisting of a shot fired in the -air by “Black Agnes” herself, the fusillade from the -riflemen concealed among the rocks was to begin, to -make the Fourth Gap a prototype of Killiecrankie.</p> - -<p class='c001'>In turn the entrance of the Senecas into the defile -was to be announced by arrow shot into the air by a -Monsey scout who was concealed behind the Raven’s -Rock, the most extensive point of vantage overlooking -the “Gap.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>When “Black Agnes” saw the graceful arrow speed -up into space, she again spoke metaphorically, “The -path is already shut up!” which meant that hostilities -had commenced, the war begun.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The little war sprite timed her plot to a nicety. When -the Senecas were well up in the pass, and surrounded -on all sides by the Monseys, whom they imagined all -crowded into the stockade, “Black Agnes” fired her -shot, and the slaughter began. The Senecas began -falling on all sides, thanks to the unerring aim of the -Monsey riflemen, but they were too inured to warfare -to break and run, especially when caught in a trap.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Shingaegundin, enraged beyond all expression at -again being flouted by a woman, and a member of the -tribe of “old women,” determined to die gamely, and -within the stockade which harbored “Black Agnes.” -He seemed to bear a charmed life, for while his -cohorts fell about him, he plunged on unhurt. The -<span class='pageno' id='Page_193'>193</span>gate of the stockade was open, and “Black Agnes” -stood just within it, directing her warriors, a quaint -but captivating little figure, more like a sprite or fairy -than one of flesh and blood.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i_218.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>OLD CONESTOGA WAGON, BRUSH VALLEY</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c001'>Shingaegundin espied her, and knew at a glance that -this must be the woman who the wise men of his tribe -had selected to be his bride, and the cause of this senseless -battle. His was a case of love at first sight, the -very drollness of her tiny form adding to his passion, -and he ran forward, determined to be killed holding her -in his arms and pressing kisses on her dusky cheeks.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Such thoughts enhanced his ambition and courage, -and he shouted again and again to his braves to pick -themselves up and come on as he was doing. Dazed -with love, he imagined in a blissful moment that he -would yet have the victory and carry “Black Agnes” -home under his arm like a naughty child.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Just outside the palisade he was met by three of -Agnes’ bodyguard, armed with stone hatchets. None -of his warriors were near him; shot and bleeding, they -were writhing on the grass, while some were already in -the hands of the Monsey braves, who had come down -from their eyries, and were dexterously plying the -scalping knives. Few of the mutilated Senecas uttered -cries, although as the scalps were jerked off, it was -hard to suppress involuntary sobs of pain.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Black Agnes” saw nothing in the long, lank form -of Shingaegundin to awaken any love; she detested -him as belonging to the race that had sold her birthright -and foully murdered her father, and she called -<span class='pageno' id='Page_194'>194</span>to her warriors: “Suffer no grass to grow on the war-path,” -signifying to carry on the fight with vigor.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Shingaegundin was soon down, his skull battered -and cracked in a dozen places. Even when down, his -ugly spirit failed to capitulate. Biting and scratching -and clawing with his nails like a beast, he had to have -his skull beaten like a copperhead before he stretched -out a lifeless, misshapen corpse. As he gave his last -convulsive kick the Monsey warriors began streaming -through the gates, some holding aloft scalps dripping -with blood, while others waved about by the scalp locks, -the severed heads of their defeated foemen.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Never had such a rout been inflicted on the Senecas; -perhaps “Black Agnes” would be a second Jeanne -d’Arc, and lead the Lenni-Lenape back to their former -glories and possessions!</p> - -<p class='c001'>The victorious Monseys became very hilarious, hoisting -the scalps on poles, they shimmied around “Black -Agnes,” yelling and singing their ancient war songs, -the proudest moment of their bellicose lives.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Black Agnes” was calm in triumph, for she knew -how transitory is life or fame. Biting her thin lips, -she drew her scalping knife and bent down over the -lifeless form of Shingaegundin, to remove his scalp in -as business-like a manner as if she was skinning a -rabbit. Addressing the grinning corpse, she said: -“Bury it deep in the earth,” meaning that the Seneca’s -injury would be consigned to oblivion. Then, with rare -<a id='corr194.29'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='dexiterity'>dexterity</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_194.29'><ins class='correction' title='dexiterity'>dexterity</ins></a></span>, she removed the scalp, a difficult task when -the skull has been broken in, in so many places.</p> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_195'>195</span>Holding aloft the ugly hirsute trophy, she almost -allowed herself to smile in her supreme moment of success. -Her career was now made; she would rally the -widely scattered remnants of the Delawares, and fight -her way to some part of Pennsylvania where prestige -would insure peace and uninterrupted happiness. But -in these elevated moments comes the bolt from the blue.</p> - -<p class='c001'>One of the panic-stricken Senecas, bolting from the -ignominious ambush of his fellows, had scrambled up -the boulder-strewn side of the mountain, taking refuge -behind the Raven’s Rock, lately occupied by the chief -lookout of the Monseys–he who had shot the warning -arrow into the air. Crouching abject and trembling -at first, he began to peer about him as the fusillade -ceased and smoke of battle cleared. He saw his slain -and scalped clansmen lying about the greensward, and -in the creek, and the awful ignominy meted out to his -<a id='corr195.18'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='lion-heared'>lion-hearted</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_195.18'><ins class='correction' title='lion-heared'>lion-hearted</ins></a></span> sachem, Shingaegundin. At his feet lay -the bow and quiver full of arrows abandoned by the -scout when he rushed down pell mell to join in the -bloody scalping bee.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The sight of “Black Agnes” holding aloft his chieftain’s -scalp, the horribly mutilated condition of Shingaegundin’s -corpse, the shimmying, singing Monseys, -waving scalps and severed heads of his brothers and -friends, all drew back to his heart what red blood ran -in his veins.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Black Agnes” stood there so erect and self-confident, -like a little robin red-breast, ready for a potpie, -he would lay her low and end her pretensions. Taking -<span class='pageno' id='Page_196'>196</span>careful aim, for he was a noted archer, the Seneca let -go the arrow, which sped with the swiftness of a passenger -pigeon, finding a place in the heart of the brave -girl. The tip came out near her backbone, her slender -form was pierced through and through. The slight -flush on her dark cheeks gave way to a deadly pallor, -and, facing her unseen slayer, “Black Agnes” Dunbar -tumbled to the earth dead.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The dancing, singing Monseys suddenly became a -lodge of sorrow, weeping and wailing as if their hearts -would break. The Seneca archer could have killed -more of them, they were so bewildered, but he decided -to run no further risks, and made off towards his encampment -to tell his news, good and bad, to his astounded -tribesmen.</p> - -<p class='c001'>When it was seen that “Black Agnes” was no more, -and could not be revived, the sorrowful Monseys dug -a grave within the stockade. It was a double death for -them, as they knew that they would be hunted to the -end like the <em>Wolf Tribe</em> that they were, and they had -lost an intrepid and beloved leader.</p> - -<p class='c001'>According to the custom, before the interment, -“Black Agnes’” clothing was removed, the braves deciding -to take it as a present to the dead girl’s mother, -to show how bravely she died. They walled up the -grave and covered the corpse with rocks so that wolves -could not dig it up, graded a nice mound of sod over -the top, and, like the white soldiers at Fort Augusta, -fired a volley over her grave.</p> - -<p class='c001'>That night there was a sorrowing scene enacted at -<span class='pageno' id='Page_197'>197</span>the campground near the big spring at Zimmerman’s -Run. The grief-stricken mother wanted to run away -into the forest, to let the wild beasts devour her, and -was restrained with great difficulty by her tribesmen, -who had also lost all in life that was worth caring for, -peace and security.</p> - -<p class='c001'>With heavy hearts they started on a long journey -for the west, carrying the heart-broken mother -Karendonah in a hammock, to the asylum offered to -them by the Wyandots on the Muskingum. The bereaved -woman carried the blood-stained, heart-pierced -raiment of her heroic daughter as a priceless relic, -and it was in her arms when she died suddenly on the -way, in Somerset County, and was buried beside the -trail, on the old Forbes Road. The Monseys, however, -took the costume with them as a fetich, and for years -missionaries and others interested in the tragic story of -“Black Agnes” Dunbar were shown her blue jacket -with the hole in the breast where the arrow entered.</p> - -<p class='c001'>That arrow pierced the hearts of all the Monseys, -for they became a dejected and beaten people in their -Ohio sanctuary.</p> - -<p class='c001'>While it is true that most of the very old people who -lived in the vicinity of the Fourth Gap have passed -away, it may yet be possible to learn the exact location -of the cairn containing the remains of “Black Agnes” -and place a suitable marker over it. One thing seems -certain, if the tradition of the Lenni-Lenape that persons -dying bravely in battle reach a higher spiritual -<span class='pageno' id='Page_198'>198</span>plane once their souls are released, her ghost will not -have to hunt the hideous, burnt-over slashings that -were once the wildly romantic Fourth Gap; it has gone -to a realm beyond the destructive commercialism of -this dollar-mad age, where beauty finds a perpetual -reward and recognition.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id011'> -<img src='images/i_225.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_199'>199</span> - <h2 class='c002'><span class='fss'>XV</span> <br /> <i>Abram Antoine, Bad Indian</i></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Abram Antoine, a Cacique of the Stockbridge -Tribe of Oneida Indians, had never before -while in Pennsylvania been off the watershed -of the Ohe-yu, or “The Beautiful River,” called -by the white men “Allegheny,” until he accepted the -position of interpreter to a group of chiefs from the -New York and Pennsylvania Indians, to visit “The -Great White Father,” General Washington, at Mount -Vernon.</p> - -<p class='c001'>While the General had not been President for several -years, and was living in retirement at his Virginia -home, the red Chieftains felt that his influence would -be such that he could secure redress for their wrongs. -Cornplanter had been on many such missions, and -come home elated by promises, few of which were ever -fulfilled in any shape, and none in their entirety, consequently -he declined to accompany the mission on what -he termed a “fool’s errand.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Abram Antoine, through life in New England, New -York and Canada, had become much of a linguist, -speaking English and French with tolerable <a id='corr199.22'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='flueney'>fluency</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_199.22'><ins class='correction' title='flueney'>fluency</ins></a></span>, -besides being well versed in the Seneca and other Indian -tongues. He was a tall, handsome type of redman, -powerfully muscled, his career on “The Beautiful -River,” where he rafted and boated between the Reservations -<span class='pageno' id='Page_200'>200</span>and Pittsburg, and his service as a ranger -for the Holland Land Company, had developed his -naturally powerful form to that of a Hercules. Previously -he had served in the American Navy, during -the Revolutionary War, which had instilled in him a -lifetime respect for the name of Washington. He was -eager therefore to act as interpreter on an occasion -which would bring him into personal contact with the -Father of his Country.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The Indians took the usual overland route, coming -down the Boone Road, to the West Branch of the -Susquehanna at the mouth of Drury’s Run; from there -they intended <em>hiking</em> across the mountains to Beech -Creek, there to get on the main trail leading down the -Bald Eagle Valley to Standing Stone (now Huntingdon), -and from thence along the Juniata to Louisbourg, -then just beginning to be called Harrisburg. It -had been an “open winter” thus far.</p> - -<p class='c001'>At the West Branch they met an ark loaded with -coal, bound for Baltimore, in charge of some Germans -who had mined it in the vicinity of Mosquito Creek, -Clearfield County, near the site of the later town of -Karthaus. A friendly conversation was started between -the party of Indians on shore and the boatmen, -with the result that the pilot of the ark, Christian -Arndt, invited the redmen to climb <a id='corr200.26'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='abroard'>aboard</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_200.26'><ins class='correction' title='abroard'>aboard</ins></a></span>.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The invitation being accepted with alacrity, the ark -was steered close to the bank, and the Indians, running -out on an uprooted snag which hung over the water, all -leaped on the deck in safety. It made a jolly party -<span class='pageno' id='Page_201'>201</span>from that moment on. The time passed happily, and -many were the adventures and experiences <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><em>en route</em></span>. -No stops of any consequence were made except at the -mouth of Mianquank (Young Woman’s Creek), and -Utchowig (now Lock Haven), until the Isle of Que -was reached, where other arks and flats and batteaux -were moored, and there were so many persons of -similar pursuits that a visit on dry land was in order.</p> - -<p class='c001'>There was much conviviality at the public houses of -Selin’s Grove, and the Germans amused themselves -trying to carry on conversations with the native Pennsylvania -Dutchmen, dusky, dark-featured individuals, -who saw little affinity between themselves and the fair, -podgy “High Germans.” In wrestling and boxing -matches, throwing the long ball, running races, and -lifting heavy weights, the Germans were outclassed by -the native mountaineers, but they took their defeats -philosophically. A shooting match was held, at which -all the Indians except Abram Antoine held aloof, but -his marksmanship was so extraordinary that he managed -to tie the score for the up-river team. This was -a consolation for the Germans, and they left the Isle of -Que well satisfied with their treatment.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Other arks left their moorings at the same time, -mostly loaded with grain or manufactured lumber from -the Christunn and the Karoondinha, and the fleet was -augmented by a batteau loaded with buffalo hides, at -the mouth of the West Mahantango. This was the last -consignment of Pennsylvania bison hides ever taken to -Harrisburg, the animals having been killed at their -<span class='pageno' id='Page_202'>202</span>crossing over the Firestone or Shade Mountains, the -spring previous.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was a picturesque sight to see the fleet of arks -and other boats coming down the noble river, the flood -bank high, driving up flocks of water birds ahead of -them, while aloft like aeroplanes guarding a convoy of -transports, sailed several majestic American Eagles, -ever circling, ever drifting, and then soaring heavenward.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Out from the Juniata came several more arks, consequently -the idlers in front of the rivermen’s resorts -at “The Ferry,” as some of the old-timers still called -Harrisburg, declared that they had never seen a flood -bring in a larger flotilla at one time. All, however, -were anxious to get in before the river closed up for -the winter.</p> - -<p class='c001'>When the up-river ark with its load of Teutons and -redmen made its moorings for the night near the John -Harris tree, they noticed that all the flags were at half-mast–there -were many displayed in those days–and -there was a Sunday calm among the crowds lolling -along the banks in the wintry sunshine.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Who’s dead?” inquired Abram Antoine, as he -stepped on the dock; his naval training had made him -alert to the language of the flag.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“<em>General Washington</em>,” was the awed reply.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The big Stockbridge Indian’s jaw dropped, his lifetime -ambition of conversing with the “first in the hearts -of his countrymen,” and the purpose of the mission had -been thwarted by a Higher Will.</p> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_203'>203</span>Turning to the gaudy appareled chief behind him, -he conveyed the unhappy message. The Indians shook -their heads so hard that their silver earrings rattled, -and were more genuinely sorry that Washington was -no more than the failure of their quest. All ashore, -they held a conclave under the old Mulberry tree, deciding -that there was no use to go any further, but -would spend a day or two in the thriving new town, -Louisbourg or Harrisburg, whichever it was proper to -call it, and then return home. There was no use going -to Philadelphia again, and a new prophet sat in the -chair of the Father of his Country at the Nation’s -Capitol.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The party then separated for the present, most of -them hurrying to the nearest tavern stands to refresh -thirsts made deeper by the sharp, fine air on the river. -Abram Antoine stood undecided, one hand resting on -the trunk of the historic Mulberry, a crowd of small -boys watching him open-mouthed and wide-eyed, at a -respectful distance.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Pretty soon he was accosted by a very old, white-bearded -Dutchman, with a strip of soiled gray silk on -the lapel of his coat, which indicated that he was a -veteran of the Royal American Regiment of Riflemen -that had figured at Fort Duquesne in 1758. Abram -Antoine had seen many such veterans in and about -Pittsburg, and held out his hand to the aged military -man. The old soldier signalled with his cane that the -Indian come and sit with him on a nearby bench, which -he did, and they passed an hour pleasantly together.</p> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_204'>204</span>The conversation turned principally to soldiering, -and then to firearms, and all the ancient makes of -rifles were discussed, and their merits and demerits -compared. The veteran allowed that the best rifle he -had ever owned was of Spanish make, the kind carried -by the Highlanders in the campaigns of 1758 and -1763; it was of slim barrel, light and easily handled, -and unerring if used by a person of tolerable accuracy.</p> - -<p class='c001'>There was one gunsmith in the alley over yonder, a -veteran of the Revolution, named Adam Dunwicke, -who made a rifle close to the early Spanish pattern. -It was the best firearm being turned out in the State of -Pennsylvania. The gunsmith, anyhow, was a man -worth knowing, as his shop was filled with arms of -many makes and periods, and he liked to talk with -any one who was an enthusiast on guns.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Abram Antoine was fired by what the veteran told -him, and as it was still early in the afternoon, asked if -he would escort him thither. It would be fine if he -could get an extra good rifle as a souvenir of his ill-starred -trip to Mount Vernon. The old man had too -much time on his hands as it was, and was only too glad -to pilot the redman to the workshop. They made a -unique looking pair together, the old soldier, bent and -hobbling along on his staff, the Indian, tall, erect, and -in the prime of life. Their high, aquiline noses, with -piercing, deep-set eyes, were their sole points of physical -similarity.</p> - -<p class='c001'>When they reached the gunshop, in the dark, narrow -alley that ran out from Front Street, the veteran -<span class='pageno' id='Page_205'>205</span>banged the grimy knocker, and it was almost instantly -opened by Dunwicke himself, a sturdy man of medium -height, who wore great mustaches, had on a leather -apron and his sleeves were rolled up, revealing the -brawny biceps of a smith.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Standing by the gunmaker, in the shadowy, narrow -entry, was a very pretty girl in a dark blue dress. She -was as tall as the smith, but very trim and slight, and -her chestnut brown hair was worn low over her ears, -throwing into relief her pallid face, and the rather -haunted, tired look in her fine grey eyes, the marvelous -smooth lines of her chin and throat.</p> - -<p class='c001'>A third figure now emerged from the gloom, a small -Negro boy, to whom the girl was handing a letter, with -her trembling white hands. As the Indian, the veteran -and the gunsmith withdrew into the workroom, Abram -could hear her saying to the lad, as she closed the door -by way of added emphasis: “Tell him to be sure and -come.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>He could hear the footsteps of the girl as she went -upstairs, and henceforth he lost most of his interest in -the question of obtaining a rifle of the Spanish design. -All his <em>designs</em> were elsewhere, and he was glad when -the smith suggested they visit another room on the -opposite side of the entry, to look at several sets of -extra large horns of the grey moose or elk, which had -recently come down on an ark from somewhere up -Tiadaghton.</p> - -<p class='c001'>As they crossed the hallway, Abram Antoine looked -up the flight of stairs–there were three that he could -<span class='pageno' id='Page_206'>206</span>make out–wondering on which floor the fair apparition -retired to; he presumed pretty near the roof, as -he had not heard her on the loose laid floor above the -workshop.</p> - -<p class='c001'>When they returned to the gun shop, the Indian, -knowing the smith well enough by then, inquired who -the lady was whom they had seen in the entry.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Oh, I don’t quite know what she is,” he replied. -“She stays upstairs, under the roof; you know that the -upper floors of this building are let for lodgers.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Instantly a life’s story, tragic or unusual, grouped -itself about his image of the girl, and his heart was -filled with yearning. He was hoping against hope -that she would come down again. He had no excuse to -go up, but several times while the smith was chatting -with the veteran of the Royal Americans, he managed -to wander across the hall, looking up the well towards -the grimy skylight, and then took another perfunctory -glance at the huge antlers standing against the wall. -He prolonged his stay as long as he could, saying -that he liked to watch gunmakers at work, and having -ordered and paid for a costly rifle, he felt that his -presence was justified.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was well into the gloaming when “knock, knock, -knock” on the front door resounded through the hollow -old building. Abram Antoine’s blood ran cold; he -could have shot the visitor if he was the slender girl’s -recalcitrant lover, but fervently hoped that, whoever it -was, would have the effect of bringing her downstairs.</p> - -<p class='c001'>True enough, before he could get to the door at the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_207'>207</span>smith’s heel, he heard the light, familiar footsteps, and -the girl, trying to look unconcerned, was the first to -turn the lock.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was only Simon Harper, a big, lean hunter from -Linglestown, over by the Blue Mountain, who had -come to take delivery of a rifle made to order.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Oh, I am so disappointed,” said the girl, as she -turned to run upstairs.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The smith was escorting his swarthy customer into -the shop. Abram Antoine’s opportunity had come, if -ever.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Do you have the letting of the rooms upstairs?” he -said, politely, hat in hand.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The girl looked at him; it was probably the first -time during the afternoon that she had noticed his presence, -so pre-occupied she had been.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“No,” she said, softly; “the lady lives on the next -landing, but I saw her going out.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Abraham was well aware how closely she had been -watching that doorway! “Are there any vacancies?”</p> - -<p class='c001'>The girl dropped her head as if in doubt about carrying -on the conversation further, then replied: “I -think there are.” -“said the Indian.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Whether it was loneliness or desperation at the non-arrival -of the person to whom she had sent the letter, -or the tall redman’s superlative good looks and genteel -demeanor–for a handsome man can attempt what a -plain one dare never aspire–at any rate without another -<span class='pageno' id='Page_208'>208</span>word, she turned and led the way up the long, -steep stairs.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was with no sense of surprise that she brought -him to the top of the house, into her own garret, with -its two small dormer windows which gave a view in -the direction of the Narrows at Fort Hunter, and the -broad, majestic river. There was a narrow bed with a -soiled coverlet, a portmanteau, a brass candlestick, and -two rush-bottomed chairs, and nothing else in it. In -those days lodgers washed at the well in the back yard.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Both sat down as if they had known each other all -their lives; the frigid barrier of reserve of a few minutes -earlier had broken down. They were scarcely -seated when the ominous “Clank, clank, clank,” that -the girl had been listening for so intently all afternoon, -resounded up the dismal vault of the stairway.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Casting a frightened look at the big Indian, as much -as to say, “What will <em>he</em> say if he finds you here?” she -bounded out of the room, descending the steps two or -three at a time.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Abram Antoine did not take the hint to retire, if -such was meant, and sat stolidly in the high-backed, -rush-bottomed chair, in the unlighted room. It was -only a few minutes until she returned, her face red, all -out of breath, carrying the same letter which he had -seen her hand to the colored boy earlier in the afternoon.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i_236.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>OLD SCHELLSBURG CHURCH, LINCOLN HIGHWAY</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c001'>“Not in town, don’t know when he will return,” she -was chanting to herself, as she came through the open -door. She started back, as if surprised to find her new -<span class='pageno' id='Page_209'>209</span>champion <em>still</em> there. Without speaking, she dropped -down on the bed, facing him, fanning her flushed cheeks -with the envelope, although the little room was quite -cold.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“I am sorry that your letter was undelivered,” said -Abram Antoine, after a considerable silence. There -was another pause, and then the girl, still clutching the -fated letter, revealed her story of embarrassment.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“It isn’t a long story,” she began. "My name is -Ernestine de Kneuse. My father is the well-known -miller and land-owner at New Berlinville, in Berks -County–Solomon de Kneuse. About a year ago a -young stranger, Carl Nitschman, I think a High German, -came to the town, stopping at the ‘Three Friends’ -Inn, which it was rumored he was to purchase. While -negotiating, he naturally met many of the leading people. -He was handsome and engaging, and all the girls -went wild over him. It gave me a fiendish pleasure to -think that he favored me above the rest, and one afternoon -I cut my classes at the Select Academy, where I -was in my third year, and went walking with him.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"My father, who belonged to the old school, had a -hatred for any one who might even consider going into -the liquor business, saw us together and told mother. -On reaching home, although I was eighteen and had -not had even a spanking for several years, and thought -I had outgrown it, my mother took me to my room and -administered a good, sound ‘scotching’ with the rod.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"Previously they had forbidden the young man the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_210'>210</span>house, and when I informed him how I was treated, he -told me if I was disciplined again, to run away.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"Not long afterwards I was kept in at school, and -mother accused me of meeting my lover. I told her to -go to the school and find out for herself, which she did, -but nevertheless that evening my mother visited me in -my room with the strap, and walloped me until I was -black and blue from shoulders to ankles.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"Meanwhile Carl’s negotiations for the purchase of -the tavern had fallen through, and he was preparing to -leave for Reading. Through one of my girl friends -who was not so strictly raised, I communicated to him -the story of this latest indignity, begging him to take -me with him. He replied that he would be traveling -about for some time before settling down there, but as -soon as he was located, he would send me his address, -and to come.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"I recall the morning of his departure, how I crawled -out of bed before dawn, and pressed my tear-stained -face against the window lights as he climbed on the -coach at the inn, which was across the street from -where we lived, and settling down among his goodly -store of bags and boxes, was driven away.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"Weeks passed, and I eventually got a letter through -one of my girl friends whose parents were less strict, -that he had gone to Harrisburg, and I should join him -there. By exercising a great amount of ingenuity, I -got out of the house, and on the night stage for Reading, -during one of the terrible Equinoctial rains, -making close connections with another stage for Harrisburg, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_211'>211</span>and I came to my present abode a month before, -but have never once seen Nitschman in the interval.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“I’ve now learned that my parents are on my track, -and will reach town tonight; I have spent my last cent, -and my letters to Nitschman receive no satisfactory -answers. I am now penniless, and cannot pay my -lodging, have eaten nothing all day, and have no place -to go. I would not return for all the world and subject -myself to an irate mother.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>The Indian was much interested by the recital, and -told her that he had loved her the minute he laid eyes -on her, and would marry her if she would return with -him to his home, which adjoined the Cornplanter Reservation, -in Warren County. “I will marry you right -away if you will accept.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Pressed and harassed on all sides, and hungry as -well, Ernestine, looking up into the handsome face of -the redman, capitulated. Closing up her scanty belongings -in the shabby portmanteau, she went down to the -landlady and settled her bill in full out of a “Double -Eagle” which Abram gave her, and then the pair -quickly left the building. The gunshop was locked, -and dark, the veteran of the Royal Americans and the -smith had forgotten all about their Indian friend and -gone their ways regardless.</p> - -<p class='c001'>They soon found the leading hotel stand, where they -enjoyed a good supper and learned of a preacher who -would marry them.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Just as they were about to leave the tavern the stage -<span class='pageno' id='Page_212'>212</span>from Reading and Stitestown pulled in, horses and -running gear all spattered with mud and slush. Among -the first to clamber out was old Solomon de Kneuse and -his wife, but they gave them the slip in the darkness -and confusion.</p> - -<p class='c001'>At the manse, after the ceremony, the clergyman -mentioned that his brother was to be a juryman the -next day at the trial of Nitschman, the highwayman, -who had held up and robbed the aristocratic McAfee -family on the road to York Springs. “May he pay -dearly for interfering with quality,” he added, seriously.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Ernestine hung her head; she understood now why -it was she had been unable to see her lover since she -came to the town; he had been in jail, and perhaps she -was stung with some tiny feelings of remorse to have -renounced him so quickly. However, necessity knows -no law, but she thought she knew her man.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Before daybreak the newly married couple were ensconced -in the stage bound for Northumberland and -Williamsport, and in due course of time reached their -future home, just across the river from Corydon.</p> - -<p class='c001'>None of the other Indians returned for several -weeks. When they did, they were miserable looking -objects from drink, and Abram half blamed himself -for not looking after them, but love had blinded him to -everything else. He provided a comfortable home for -his bride, and as an agent for the Holland Land Company, -mingled with respectable people, who were considerate -to his wife. Among these were the family of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_213'>213</span>Philip Tome, that indomitable Indian-looking Nimrod, -author of “Thirty Years a Hunter,” whose prowess -in the forests of Northern Pennsylvania will never be -forgotten while memory of the big game days lasts.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Ernestine was really happy, and did not aspire to -any different lot. Though she was fearless, she hated -to be left alone when her husband was absent on inspection -trips, and he generally managed to have an -Indian boy or girl–one of the O’Bails or Logans–remain -with her when he was away.</p> - -<p class='c001'>In due time his handsome Spanish-type rifle, with its -stock inlaid with mother-of-pearl and silver, like the -gun of some Moorish Sheik, reached him, and of it he -was justly proud, partly because it was the instrument -of his meeting Ernestine.</p> - -<p class='c001'>On the first anniversary of their wedding he killed a -fine stag with it on the Kinzua, while hunting with -Philip Tome. It was in the fall of the second year of -their marriage that Abram Antoine was called <a id='corr213.19'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='away away'>away</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_213.19'><ins class='correction' title='away away'>away</ins></a></span> -during a heavy flood in the Ohe-yu, which flowed -in front of their house. Old Shem, the one-eyed, half-breed -ferryman, had difficulty in getting him across -in the batteau, so swift was the angry current. He was -to be gone, as usual, several days.</p> - -<p class='c001'>On the night when she was expecting him home, -Ernestine heard a loud knocking at the kitchen door. -Opening it she beheld Old Shem standing outside, the -rain dripping from his hat and clothing.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Missus Antoine,” he wheezed, “Abram is over to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_214'>214</span>the public house at Corydon, a very sick man, and -wants you to come to him at once.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Ernestine was horrified, but, jerking down her -cloak from the nail on which it hung, ran out into the -storm, and followed the aged ferryman down the steep -bank to the landing. The wind was bellowing terribly -among the almost bear hickories and butternuts along -the shore, the current was deep, dark and eddying.</p> - -<p class='c001'>When one-third the way over, Old Shem looked up, -saying: “Missus, it hain’t Abram that’s sick; it’s your -<em>other</em> man, Mister Nitschman, what wants you.” -“shouted Ernestine. “I never had -any other man. Take me back home at once, you -treacherous old snake in the grass.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Just then a pile of buffalo robes in one end of the -deep batteau stirred, and the form of a man arose–Carl -Nitschman, back from jail.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Talk sensibly, Ernestine,” he said. “I have come -for you, and will forgive everything. You know you -belong to me; your going off with that Indian was all -a hasty mistake.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Ernestine glared at him and again ordered the ferryman -to take her home. Instead he seemed to be trying -to reach the Corydon shore the faster. Just then -Nitschman stepped forward, with arms outstretched, -as if to seize her.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The slight and supple Ernestine sprang up on the -gunwale, the boat tipped; she either fell or jumped into -the dark, swirling current. She was gone before an -effort could be made to save her, and the two frightened -<span class='pageno' id='Page_215'>215</span>men, white as ghosts, pulled for the light which -gleamed through the storm, in the tavern window at -Corydon, with redoubled energy. With a thud the -prow hit the muddy bank and slid on shore.</p> - -<p class='c001'>To their surprise Abram Antoine was standing on -the bank. The one-eyed ferryman began to cry, a -strange thing for any one of Indian blood. “I was -fetching your wife across to meet you and she fell in -the river.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Just then Nitschman, who had climbed out of the -boat, was passing by Antoine, who seized him by the -collar. “Who is this son of –--?” demanded the six-foot -Indian.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was then that the ferryman broke down completely -and confessed all.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Antoine shook his captive like a rat, and slapped his -face many times, eventually tumbling him into the mud -and kicking him like a sack of flour. Then, picking up -an oar, he beat the ferryman over the head until he -yelled for mercy. The noise roused the habitues of -the hotel, and as the victims were shouting “murder,” -the local Constable, who ran the hotel, placed Abram -Antoine under arrest, beginning his fatal brand as -“Bad Indian.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Nitschman did not appear to press the charge next -day, and the ferryman apologized for his part in the -affair, so Abram was free, minus his beautiful wife -and his reputation.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was beginning with that terrible tragedy that he -began to find solace at the tap room of the public house -<span class='pageno' id='Page_216'>216</span>at Corydon. Philip Tome and even old Cornplanter -himself tried his best to save him, but he became an -Indian sot, losing his position with the land company, -his home and his self-respect. All that he held on to, -and that because being an Indian he was sentimental, -was his Spanish rifle with the inlaid stock. He spent -more and more of his time in the forests, shunning -white people and fraternizing only with his own kind. -He made a protege out of young Jim Jacobs, a Seneca -hunter of unusual ability, and they spent many weeks -at a time in the forests.</p> - -<p class='c001'>To him he confided that before he died he would -literally have Nitschman’s scalp, have the blood atonement -against the destroyer of his happiness.</p> - -<p class='c001'>A score of years had to pass before he met the ex-highwayman -face to face. He had heard of the early -exploits of this modern Claude Du Val, who was supposed -to have reformed, and his blood boiled that such -a villainous wretch could wander about scot free.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was in the fall of the year, about 1822 or thereabouts, -when the great county fair was in progress at -Morris Hills, one of the leading towns above the New -York State line, adjacent to the Indian reservations. -All manner of persons were attracted by the horse -races, displays of cattle, Indian foot races and lacrosse -games, as well as the more questionable side shows and -gambling performances.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Abram Antoine’s Indian friends had been sobering -him up for weeks, and he presented a pretty good -appearance for a man of over sixty, when he appeared -<span class='pageno' id='Page_217'>217</span>to challenge all comers in tests of marksmanship with -the rifle. Never had “The Chief,” as everybody called -him, done better than the afternoon of the first day of -the fair. The wild pigeons were flying high overhead -in the clear, blue atmosphere of that fine crisp autumn -day, but whenever he turned his rifle upwards he -brought one down for the edification and applause of -the crowd.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Just as he had shot a pigeon, his keen eye noticed a -medium-sized, fair-haired man, loudly dressed, edging -hurriedly through the throng, as if trying to get away. -Antoine had never seen Nitschman except that night -when he had trampled him into the mud, but this fellow’s -size and general demeanor Corresponded with -his mental conception of the one that he had ever afterwards -regretted that he had not slain.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Moving with rapid strides through the crowd, pigmies -beside his giant stature, he blocked his little enemy’s -further progress. “Nitschman, I believe you are,” -he said.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“No, no; that hain’t my name,” spluttered the short -man, coloring to the roots of his faded yellow hair.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Yes, it is, Chief,” yelled a young Indian who was -standing close by.</p> - -<p class='c001'>That confirmation was all that Abram Antoine, bad -Indian, wanted. Swinging his rifle above the crowd, -he brought it down with terrific force on the head of -his foe, crashing right through his high, flat brimmed -beaver hat and shattering the lock.</p> - -<p class='c001'>To use the language of Jim Jacobs, Nitschman fell to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_218'>218</span>the turf like a “white steer,” and laid there, weltering -in blood, for he was dead.</p> - -<p class='c001'>All the latent hate and jealousy in the crowd against -Indians immediately found vent, and an angry mob -literally drove Abram Antoine, bad Indian, out of the -fair grounds to the town lockup. It was some time -during 1823 that he expiated his crime on the gallows.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id011'> -<img src='images/i_247.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_219'>219</span> - <h2 class='c002'><span class='fss'>XVI</span> <br /> <i>Do You Believe in Ghosts?</i></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>A. D. Karstetter, painstaking local historian, -tells us that there was no more noteworthy -spot in the annals of mountainous Pennsylvania -than the old Washington Inn at Logansville. Built -after the fashion of an ancient English hostelry, with -its inn-yard surrounded by sheds and horse stables, it -presented a most picturesque appearance to discerning -travelers. The passage of time had <a id='corr219.10'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='oblierated'>obliterated</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_219.10'><ins class='correction' title='oblierated'>obliterated</ins></a></span> it, long -before the great fire on June 24, 1918, swept the town, -removing even the landmarks which would have showed -where the old-time inn was situated.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Many are the tales, grave or gay, clustered about its -memory, far more, says Mr. Karstetter, than were -connected with the Logan Hotel, run by the Coles, -which was erected at a much later day, just when the -old coaching days were passing out, and the new era -coming in. All of the history that grew up about the -Washington Inn ante-dated the Civil War, while that -of the Logan Hotel was of the period of that war and -later. This gives one a good mental picture of the type -of legend interwoven with the annals of the ancient -Washington Inn.</p> - -<p class='c001'>A winter rain had set in, just at dusk, as the great -lumbering five-horse coach (three wheelers and two -leaders) from Hightown entered the straggling outkirts -<span class='pageno' id='Page_220'>220</span>of Logansville. The post boy on the boot blew -his long horn vociferously, waking the echoes up -Summer Creek, then back again, clear to the “Grandfather -Pine” at Chadwick’s Gap.</p> - -<p class='c001'>A whimsical old German, who worked at Jacob -Eilert’s pottery, picked up his old tin horn that he used -to blow as a boy when wolves or Indians were about, -and answered the clarion in cracked, uncertain notes. -Lights glimmered in cabin windows, and many a tallow -dip, fat lamp or rushlight was held aloft to get a good -view of the coach as it swirled along through the mud, -and its crowded company. Everybody was standing -up, buttoning their coats and gathering together their -luggage, as the big, clumsy vehicle checked up under -the swinging sign, on which was painted the well-loved -features of the Father of His Country.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The old landlord, his wife and the hostlers and -stable boys and household help were outside to assist -the travelers to alight and show them into the comfortable -glow of the lobby.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“When do you start out in the morning?” all were -asking of the rosy-cheeked driver, although the hour -for continuing the journey west from Logansville was -printed in big letters on the rate card at the posting -office at Hightown, as “Sharp, 6.00 A. M.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>In the candle-lit lobby, by a blazing fire of maple -logs, the travelers surveyed one another, the landlord -and their surroundings. They were an even dozen in -number, nine men and three women. Some of the men -were hunters and had their Lancaster rifles with them; -<span class='pageno' id='Page_221'>221</span>the others commercial travelers. The women were also -engaged in business pursuits.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The stage was the sole means of penetrating into the -back country, and the canals and the Pennsylvania -Central Railroad (now known as the Main Line) the -only methods of crossing the Keystone State in those -early days.</p> - -<p class='c001'>A good supper was served–hickory smoked ham and -eggs, hot cakes and native grown maple syrup, and -plentiful libations of original Murray “Sugar Valley” -whiskey, which put the huntsmen and the drummers in -capital humor. After the meal they brought out their -pipes and sat in groups about the fire in the great, low-ceilinged -room. The three women, who were middle-aged -and of stolid appearance, sat together, talking in -undertones.</p> - -<p class='c001'>All at once, when the fire suddenly spluttered up, -one of the drummers, a big, black-bearded fellow, said -loudly enough so that all could hear–he was evidently -trying to make the conversation general–"In the -mountains they say that it’s a sign of a storm when the -fire jumps up like that."</p> - -<p class='c001'>“And I guess we’re having it,” said another of the -travelers, a little man with gray side whiskers, dryly.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Then, as wide shadows fell across the floor, another -of the men, a hunter, ventured the remark: “Do you -believe in ghosts?”</p> - -<p class='c001'>There was a pause, as if no one wanted to take up -such a very personal topic before strangers. It was -in the days when the Fox sisters were electrifying all -<span class='pageno' id='Page_222'>222</span>of Pennsylvania, including the celebrated Dr. Elisha -Kane, with their mediumship, so that it was as popular -a topic then as now, in the days of Sir Oliver Lodge -and Mrs. Herbine.</p> - -<p class='c001'>At length one of the men, also a hunter, from Berks -County, broke the silence by asking if any one present -had heard the story of the Levan ghost of Oley Township, -in Berks; if not, he would tell it. None had ever -heard it, so he told of the young Levan girl who had -lost her father, to whom she was particularly attached.</p> - -<p class='c001'>One evening, while milking, she was seized with a -very strong feeling that her father was near, which -feeling kept up for a week, growing stronger daily. At -last one evening she went into her room–the house -was built all on one floor–and she saw her father, as -natural as life, seated on an old chest that had come -from France, for the Levans were Huguenot refugees.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The girl did not seem to be afraid to see her father, -about whom a light seemed to radiate, and they conversed -some time together, mostly on religious topics. -Her mother and sisters, who were in another room, -heard her talking, and the voice which sounded like -that of the departed, and came to the door, which was -ajar.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Who are you talking to?” the mother inquired.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“To father–he is here; come in and see him,” replied -the girl, calmly.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The family was afraid to enter, remaining outside -until the conversation had finished and the ghost vanished. -When the girl rejoined them, the side of her -<span class='pageno' id='Page_223'>223</span>face that had been turned to her father was slightly -scorched or reddened, as if she had been close to a fire. -And that tenderness of skin remained as long as she -lived.</p> - -<p class='c001'>While other versions of the story have appeared, -this is the way it was told that stormy night in the -Washington Inn in the long ago.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The ice having been broken, one of the women spoke -up, saying that the part of the story which told of the -girl’s face being burned by the <em>aura</em> from the ghost -interested her most, that over in the Nittany Valley -there was a case in the old Carroll family of a woman -who had an only child which she loved to distraction, -but which unfortunately died. The mother took on -terribly, and during the night when she was sitting up -with the little corpse, besought it to prove to her that -the dead lived, if only for just one minute.</p> - -<p class='c001'>In the midst of her weeping and wailing, and romping -about the cold, dimly-lit room, the dead child rose -up in its little pine box and motioned its sorrowing -mother to come to it. The woman ran to the coffin and -the little one touched her forehead with its finger, -which burned her like a red-hot poker. Then it sank -back with a gasp and a groan, and was dead again. -Ever afterwards there was a sore, tender spot on the -woman’s forehead where the corpse had touched it.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Then another of the women told how she had been -selling Bibles in the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee, -and one of the wheels of her carriage became -dished from the bad roads. She had tried to put up -<span class='pageno' id='Page_224'>224</span>with a mountaineer who would not take her in, and -gave her the choice of sleeping in the barn with the -team and the driver, or to occupy a room in a deserted -Negro “quarters” across the road.</p> - -<p class='c001'>All night long she had been annoyed by her candles -being blown out and the door blowing open, though she -locked it time and again.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was a commonplace sort of a ghost story, and one -of the hunters yawned at its conclusion. The evening’s -reminiscences might have ended then and there if the -third woman traveler, the youngest and sturdiest of -the lot, who thus far had been the quietest, turned to -the landlord, who sat smoking in the settle, with a -couple of his guests, asking him if he remembered the -Big Calf.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“What do you know about the Big Calf?” he said, -quizzically, looking at the woman in order to see if he -could recognize her.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“I know as much as you do, I reckon,” she said. “I -lived in this town for a year learning millinery with -Emilie Knecht.” -“said the landlord.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“I surely am,” responded the woman, “and I knew -you well, Jakey Kleckner, in those days.” -“said the boniface, sitting up very straight.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i_254.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>INTERIOR OF SCHELLSBURG CHURCH</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c001'>“Long years ago,” began the business woman, "when -this public house was first opened, the landlord’s cow -gave birth to an unusual calf. At six weeks it was as -<span class='pageno' id='Page_225'>225</span>big as most heifers of six months, and it was handsome -and intelligent, a brown-gray color–‘Brown Swiss’ -they called the breed. All the drovers and cattle buyers -in the mountains wanted that calf for a show, and her -fame spread all over the ‘five counties.’</p> - -<p class='c001'>"There were two buyers from out about Greensburg -that came in all the ways to get her, but the price was -too steep. They hung around all day, drinking with -the landlord in the tap room, and though he took too -much in this drunken bout, kept enough of his wits -with him to refuse to lower the price one shilling. The -next morning he had to go away on important business, -and in the afternoon the drovers returned, telling the -landlord’s wife that they had met her husband on the -road, and he had consented to accept a lower figure.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"The woman replied that while she was sorry her -‘man’ had shown such weakness to change his mind so -quickly, when on leaving he had told her that he had -been sickened by the importunities of the two strangers -the day before, yet she claimed, the calf as hers and it -would not leave the premises for any price, and except -over her dead body. She prized it especially since she -had also raised the mother, which had recently been -killed by a wandering panther.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"The men departed in an ugly mood. When the -boniface returned in the evening he was indignant at -what his wife told him; he had not met the drovers on -the road, and if he had, the calf was not for sale.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"Shortly after his arrival a German Gypsy, one of -the Einsicks, appeared in the inn-yard with a big she-bear, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_226'>226</span>a brown one, which he took about the mountains -to dance and amuse the crowds at public houses, fairs -and political meetings. The stables were full, but after -some arguing the landlord consented to let the bear -occupy the box stall where he kept the Big Calf, which -he removed to the smoke house.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"During the night, which was very dark, the covetous -drovers returned, and, not knowing of the Big Calf’s -changed quarters, one of them went into steal it. In -the darkness the bear seized him and hugged him almost -to death. His companion, vexed at his slowness -in fetching out the Big Calf, called to him, and he made -known his predicament.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"There was no way to free the captive but to begin -clubbing the bear, which set up such a loud growling -that it aroused the owner and the landlord, who ran out -with pistols, just in time to see the two would-be cattle -thieves decamping from the inn-yard. They both fired -after them, but the scoundrels got off scot free. They -never returned.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"The Big Calf grew into a very handsome cow, and -was the pride of the mountain community. It was -always brought in from pasture at night and milked, -lest it share its mother’s fate and be pulled down by a -Pennsylvania lion.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"One evening, while the landlord’s only daughter, a -very pretty, graceful girl, was driving the cow home, -she was joined by a handsome, dark-complexioned -young man, mounted on a superb black horse. He -accompanied her to the stables, where he watched her -<span class='pageno' id='Page_227'>227</span>milk, and then put up for the night at the inn. Next -day he became very sick, and several doctors were called -in, who bled him, but could not diagnose his ailment.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"Meanwhile he proposed marriage to the landlord’s -daughter, who nursed him, pretending that he was a -young man of quality from Pittsburg, which flattered -the innkeeper and his daughter mightily.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"All this while he was trying to learn if the landlord -kept any large sum of money in the house. It was not -long until the girl confided to him that her father had -gone into debt buying a farm in Nippenose Bottom, -as he wanted to retire from the tavern business. It -was there where he was when the two dishonest drovers -from Greensburg had returned and tried to euchre his -wife out of the Big Calf.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"Satisfied that there was no booty in the house, the -fellow rose one morning before daybreak, dressed -quietly, although the girl was in the room, wrote a -note to her which he left on the clothes press, and made -his escape. The wording of the letter ran about as follows:</p> - -<p class='c001'>“‘Dearest Love:–I am sorry to have left without -saying goodbye, but my intentions were not sincere, -for while I admired your beauty and good sense, which -none can deny, I was only here to find out where your -father kept his money. But since he has none, and has -gone into debt, I need remain no longer. I thank you -for all the information you gave me, and for your -kind attentions. Gratefully yours, David Lewis.’</p> - -<p class='c001'>“The poor girl had been one of the dupes of the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_228'>228</span>celebrated ‘Lewis the Robber,’ or some one impersonating -him, as he had many <em>alter egos</em>, some more daring -than himself, and understudies. If half the stories told -of his exploits were true, he would have had to be a -hundred years old to do them, and get to so many -places.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"At any rate, the pretty girl was frightfully cut up -by her misfortune, and took to the bed lately vacated -by ‘Lewis.’ She had told all of her friends that she -was to marry in a fortnight, and go to live in a big -house on Grant’s Hill, Pittsburg, and it was all terrible -and humiliating. Rather than let the real story get out, -the girl’s parents connived with her to say that word -had been brought that the young gentleman, while -riding near Standing Stone Town, had been thrown -from his horse and killed. Hence when the girl was -able to reappear, she was dressed in black, as if in -mourning for her dashing sweetheart.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"The first time she came out of doors she went for a -walk alone just about dusk, so that not many people -would be abroad, towards the lower part of the village. -She was never seen or heard of again. There was no -stream or pool big enough for her to drown herself in; -a panther could hardly have dragged her off and not -left signs of a struggle; she might have fallen in a -cave or sink, it is true. At all events, it seemed as if -the earth had swallowed her up. Perhaps Lewis, or -whoever he was, came back after her.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"When I came to Logansville to learn millinery with -Emilie Knecht, I lived in her house over the store, just -<span class='pageno' id='Page_229'>229</span>across the way from this hotel; the building was burned -down afterwards. How such a gifted milliner came -to settle off here in the mountains I could never tell, -but I suppose mountain ladies must have nice hats just -like those in the valleys.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"We became good friends, and very confidential, -though at that time she was over thirty years of age -and I was at least a dozen years younger. She would -never tell where she came from, except that it was -down country, and there seemed to be something on -her mind which weighed on her terribly. Though I -think she was the loveliest looking woman I have ever -seen, she cared absolutely nothing for the men. As -she believed in ghosts, and so did I, we compared experiences.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"I told her of a ghostly episode which left a deep -impression on my childish nature, which happened -when I was six years old. My father worked in the -mines, and was on ‘night shift.’ Mother locked the -doors and we all went to bed. Mother’s room adjoined -mine and my sister’s. After we were in bed for some -time, but not yet asleep, a man–he seemed to be black–came -to the door which led from mother’s room to -ours, and smiled at us. He drew back, re-appeared -and smiled again, or rather grinned, showing his white -teeth; it was a peculiar smile.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"I wanted to call mother, but sister, who was eight, -said I must not speak, I must keep very still.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"Next morning we asked father what time he came -home, and he said ‘not until morning.’ We told our -<span class='pageno' id='Page_230'>230</span>experience, but father and mother seemed to think we -had only imagined it.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"But two persons do not imagine the same thing at -the same time. Besides, we were not afraid. I have -often wondered what it was. My sister died shortly -after that. Could it have been a ‘warning,’ I wonder?</p> - -<p class='c001'>"The pretty milliner’s story was even more startling -and unusual. She declared that her grandmother’s -ghost had come to her bedside every night since she -was a small child. She said that she never feared it, -but took it as a matter of course. I think that these -nightly visitations took a whole lot out of her. I can -see her yet running down the steep, narrow stairs in -the mornings to the shop where I was working–I was -always an early riser–her face looking as if it had -been whitewashed, more so perhaps because her hair -and eyes were so dark.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"She was often nervous and irritable, and I laid it all -to the vital force which the ghost must be drawing out -of her to materialize, but she said it was only her liver -which made her so dauncy. I begged her to let me -sleep with her, that I did not think that the ghost -would come if I was present, and if it did it could draw -on some of my vitality, as I was a big, strong, hearty -girl. She would not let me sleep with her, saying that -she had gotten used to the ghost.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"One evening Miss Knecht and I were invited to a -chicken and waffle supper at the home of old Mrs. -Eilert, wife of the potter, whose house was the last -one in town. In those days there was quite a distance -<span class='pageno' id='Page_231'>231</span>not built up between the potter’s home and the rest of -the village. The holidays were approaching, and we -were getting ready for the Christmas trade, consequently -stayed later in the shop than we had expected.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"As I said before, Mrs. Eilert lived at the extreme -end of town. When we were a few squares from home -we noticed a woman dressed in mourning who seemed -to be following us, or at least going in our direction. -She was an entire stranger to us, and we wondered -where she could be going; so each house we came to I -would look back to see whether she entered. When -we were half a square from where we were going, we -passed a house which stood back pretty far from the -road. There was considerable ground to the place, -and a high board fence all around. After we passed -the gate I turned, as before, to see whether this woman -would enter. She did not. I watched her until she was -past the gate quite a ways. I turned and told my companion -she had <em>not</em> entered, and immediately turned to -look at her again, and she was gone!</p> - -<p class='c001'>"Where could she have gone in those few seconds in -which I was not looking at her? Everywhere there was -open space–nowhere for her to hide. Had she jumped -the fence she could not have gotten out of sight in those -few seconds. I have often wondered since what it was.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"When we reached the Eilert home I noticed that -Miss Knecht was in a highly unstrung condition, more -so than I had ever seen her before. We told the story, -and the old potter smiled grimly, saying: ‘You surely -have seen the ghost of the landlord’s daughter who -<span class='pageno' id='Page_232'>232</span>disappeared, all dressed in black, after being jilted by -the robber.’</p> - -<p class='c001'>"Emilie shook her pretty dark curls, muttering that -she feared it was something worse. She was afraid -to go home that night, and we spent the night with our -friends; yet she would not remain unless given a room -by herself. In the morning she was in a most despondent -mood; she had not seen her grandmother–what -could it mean?</p> - -<p class='c001'>"The woman in black must have been her ‘familiar’ -leaving her, warning her to that effect, and not the -ghost of the landlord’s daughter after all, she maintained. -I tried to reassure her that she would see her -grandmother once she was in her own room, but next -morning brought the tidings that the faithful spirit was -again absent. This continued for a week, my friend -becoming more nervous and despondent.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"One morning she did not come downstairs, so at -eight o’clock I went up after her, to see if she were ill. -The bed was empty, and had not been slept in. I -searched the house and found her lying dead on a miserable -cot in the cellar–beautiful in death–which an -elderly Dutchman sometimes occupied, when cutting -wood and taking care of the garden for us. She had -drunk a potion of arsenic that she had bought some -months before to poison rats which infested the cellar, -but her lovely face was not marked.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“I left town shortly afterwards, and have never been -back until tonight.”</p> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_233'>233</span>The burly commercial traveler who had started the -general conversation stroked his long black beard.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"I guess it is time for all of us to retire. I don’t -think we need to ask this lady again, ’Do you believe -in ghosts?‘"</p> - -<div class='figcenter id008'> -<img src='images/i_264.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_234'>234</span> - <h2 class='c002'><span class='fss'>XVII</span> <br /> <i>A Stone’s Throw</i></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>When land warrants were allotted to Jacob -Marshall and Jacob Mintges, of the Hebrew -colony at Schaefferstown, there were elaborate -preparations made by these two lifelong friends to -migrate to the new country of the Christunn. That the -warrants were laid side by side made the situation -doubly pleasant, a compensation in a measure for any -regrets at leaving the banks of the beautiful Milbach. -The country was becoming too closely settled, opportunities -were circumscribed, and the liberality of the -Proprietary Government should be taken advantage of.</p> - -<p class='c001'>When the two groups of pioneers were ready to start -for the new home, it was like some scene from the -patriarchal days of the Old Testament. The long, lean, -gaunt, black-bearded Jews, black-capped, cloaked to -their heels, and carrying big staffs, led the way, followed -by their families and possessions of live stock, -farming and household utensils. Each head of a family -had an Indian and Negro servant or two, which added -to the picturesqueness of the caravans. Dogs, part -wolf, herded the flocks of sheep, goats and young cattle, -while the women rode on mares, the foals of which -trotted along unsteadily at their sides.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Rachel, Jacob Marshall’s handsome daughter, was -mounted on a piebald filly; on her back was slung her -<span class='pageno' id='Page_235'>235</span>violin, a genuine Joseph Guarnerius, with which she -discoursed sacred music around the campfire in the -evenings, just as her ancestors may have done on some -harp or cruit in remote days in Palestine or in the Arabian -highlands.</p> - -<p class='c001'>These German Jews, who came to Pennsylvania in -1702 to re-convert the Indians, whom they believed to -be the lost tribe of Israel, back to the ancient faith of -Moses, while destined to fail as proselyters, became -one of the potent root sources of the so-called Pennsylvania -Dutch, “The Black Dutch” of the Christunn, -Philadelphia, New York and the World.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The Pennsylvania Dutch are the most adaptable race -in the world, altering the spelling of their names, their -genealogies and traditions with every generation. They -find success in all callings and in all walks of life like -the true Nomads that they are. A Pennsylvania Dutchman’s -lineage is kaleidoscopic any way–possibly -German, Jewish, probably Indian, with sure admixtures -of Dutch, Quaker, Swiss, Scotch-Irish, Greek, Bohemian, -Spanish or Huguenot. And there were some -propagandists shallow enough to try to line them up -with Kaiserism in the days just anterior to the World -War, and call them “Pennsylvania Germans.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Their very swarthiness and leanness, the intenseness -of their black eyes, gave the lie to any Teutonic affiliations, -despite the jargon that they speak. And what a -race of giants they have produced–Pershing, Hoover, -Gorgas, Schwab, Replogle, Sproul, the Wanamakers, -Newton Diehl Baker, Jane Addams–a group as potent -<span class='pageno' id='Page_236'>236</span>as any other in the sublime effort of making the world -“safe for democracy.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>When the pilgrims reached the Karoondinha, they -were met by the local agents and surveyors of the Proprietors, -who escorted them to their new estates, which -were bounded on the south by the Christunn, now renamed -“Middle Creek,” and on the north by the craggy -heights of the culminating pinnacle of Jack’s Mountain, -the famed “High Top,” climbed by the Pennsylvania -Alpine Club, August 24, 1919.</p> - -<p class='c001'>A large gray fox, or Colishay, having led Mintges‘ -dogs away from the camp, caused this “Father in Israel” -to be absent during the critical moments when -the line between his property and that of Marshall was -being confirmed by the Proprietary surveyors. When -he returned, exultingly swinging the fox’s pelt above -his head and looking all the world like a lower Fifth -Avenue fur jobber, the day was almost spent and the -surveyors were gathering up their instruments.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Marshall, who was a kindly and just man, tried to -explain to his friend, before the sun went down, just -where the line was blazed. It seemed fair enough at -the time to Mintges. Later on, when alone one day, -he walked over the line, comparing it with the warrant, -and it did not seem to satisfy him as much. He believed -that the surveyors had deviated a rod or two all -along, to his disadvantage. Doubtless if such was the -case, it had been due to their haste to get through, for -they had a daily grind of similar cases, but Marshall, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_237'>237</span>he thought, should have compelled them to follow the -parchment drafts, and not uncertain instruments.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Nevertheless, he decided to say nothing to his friend; -they had always been good intimates, why should their -relations be jeopardized for a paltry rod or two. -Mintges confided the mistake to his wife, and later on -to his children. It was unfortunate, but where <a id='corr237.7'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='there there'>there</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_237.7'><ins class='correction' title='there there'>there</ins></a></span> -were so few neighbors it was hardly worth a fight.</p> - -<p class='c001'>As Mintges grew older the matter began to prey on -his mind, to obsess him. It worried him until his head -ached, and he could not drive it away. Marshall and -his heirs were profiting at his expense; it should not be -allowed to rest that way.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The surveyors had placed a great stone at the upper -corner of the line, at the slope of the mountain, and -there Jacob Mintges repaired one moonlight night, -armed with a crowbar, and reset the stone two rods -on the alleged domain of Jacob Marshall. Mintges was -an old man at the time, rabbinical in appearance, and -he chuckled and “washed his hands” as he stood and -viewed the fruits of his labor. A wrong had been -quietly righted; why hadn’t he done it twenty years ago?</p> - -<p class='c001'>It so happened that Jacob Marshall went out for -chestnuts a week or so after Mintges’ performance, -and saw the altered position of the stone. Instead of -hastening to his friend’s house and asking him for a -frank explanation, he, not being conscious of any -wrong-doing, moved the stone back to its original position, -to rebuke the presumptuous Mintges. Then he -<span class='pageno' id='Page_238'>238</span>stood admiring his work, while <a id='corr238.1'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='the'>he</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_238.1'><ins class='correction' title='the'>he</ins></a></span> stroked his long -black beard.</p> - -<p class='c001'>A few weeks later Mintges and his sons went to the -mountain to brush out a road on which to haul logs -with their oxteams in the winter-time. One of the -boys, named Lazarus, called his father’s attention to -the stone’s position. It made the old man “see red,” -and he would not rest until, with the aid of his sons, it -was again set where he felt it should rightfully be.</p> - -<p class='c001'>All this produced a coolness, almost a feud, between -the two families, which kept up until Jacob Mintges -died at the age of eighty years. Jacob Marshall, friend -of his youth and companion of his “trek” to the wilderness, -did not attend the obsequies.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was not many nights afterwards when reports -were made on all sides that Mintges’ spook was abroad, -walking about the fields and lanes adjacent to Jacob -Marshall’s home, his arms holding aloft a great block -of stone. Marshall saw the apparition several times, -but shunned it as he had the living Mintges the last -years of his life.</p> - -<p class='c001'>What he wanted was very plain, for sometimes the -night wind wafted the mournful words down Marshall’s -bedroom chimney (for he always kept his windows -nailed shut): “Where shall I put it; oh, where shall -I put it?”</p> - -<p class='c001'>The ghost began his hauntings in the spring, kept it -up all summer, fall, winter, then another spring and -summer. He had affixed himself to the family, Marshall -<span class='pageno' id='Page_239'>239</span>thought, as he racked his brain to lay the troublesome -night prowler.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was during the fall of the second year that a big -party of moonlight ’coon hunters went up the lane -which led between the Marshall and Mintges farms, -headed for the rocky heights of Jack’s Mountain. In -the party was Otto Gleim, the half-witted drunkard of -Selin’s Grove, little, dumpy, long-armed High German, -high-shouldered Otto Gleim, who was left at the foot -of the mountain to hold one of the lanterns.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Gleim was half full on this occasion, as it was in the -cider season, and he staggered about under the aged -chestnut trees, while his wits revolved in his head with -the speed of an electric fan. He felt lonesome, sick -and uncomfortable. It was a relief to see a great, tall -figure, with a long, black beard, approaching him, -holding aloft a huge stone. It looked like “Uncle Jake” -Marshall at first; no, it wasn’t–it was no one else but -the late “Uncle Jake” Mintges, his neighbor.</p> - -<p class='c001'>As the gaunt figure drew nearer, it began groaning -and wailing: “Where shall I put it; oh, where shall I -put it?” in tones as <a id='corr239.22'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='melancohly'>melancholy</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_239.22'><ins class='correction' title='melancohly'>melancholy</ins></a></span> as those of the Great -Horned Owl on a New Year’s Eve.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Put it where it belongs,” spluttered Otto Gleim, the -drunkard, with a gleam of super-human prescience, -and lo and behold, the ghost set the stone where it had -been for twenty years after the surveyors had placed -it there. Then the apparition vanished, and Gleim, in -a matter-of-fact way, sat down on the cornerstone, -where he waited until the ’coon hunters returned.</p> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_240'>240</span>Jake Mintges’ ghost ceased to wander and lament, -but instead allied itself closely with Jake Marshall’s -family as private stock banshee, warning, token or -familiar. Whenever a disaster was due to any member -he would show his grinning tusks, as much as to say: -“Now, make the best of what is coming; life is short -anyway.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>No doubt his visits of forewarning strengthened the -nerves of the family to face trouble with a greater degree -of equanimity; in all events the poor old fellow -meant it that way. Old and young, rich and poor, in -cities or in the wilds, wherever the blood of Jacob -Marshall flowed, the ghost of Mintges was in evidence -at the climacteric moments of their lives. They were -all used to him, and never resented his visits or tried -in any way to lay him.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The scene shifts to one of the last to encounter this -strange old ghost. It is in a great city, in a high-ceilinged, -yet gloomy room, furnished in the plush -and mahogany of the middle eighties of the last century. -A very dark girl, with full pouting lips and -black eyes, half closed and sullen, yet beautiful in the -first flush of youth withal, is seated on one of the upholstered -easy chairs. Standing in the bay window -facing her is a very tall man, equally dark, his drooping -black mustache and long Prince Albert coat making -him appear at least ten years older than the twenty-eight -which was his correct age.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i_272.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>LOOKING TOWARDS SUMMER CREEK GAP FROM LOGANTON</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c001'>On a centre table, with a top of brown onyx, on -which were also several bisque ornaments, lay an -<span class='pageno' id='Page_241'>241</span>ancient violin and bow, a veritable Joseph Guarnerius. -It was made of a curious piece of spruce which, when -growing in some remote forest of Northern Italy, had -been punctured by a “Gran Pico” or large green woodpecker, -and the wood stained, giving a unique and picturesque -touch to this specimen of the skill of the old -master of Cremona.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“I have determined to go home tonight,” said the -dark girl, with decision, “and nothing can stop me. -When any of our family see the face of Jacob Mintges, -it means disaster to some one near to us; my mother -and her old parents, whom I left so suddenly, may be -grieving to death; I will go to them tonight.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>The tall man fumbled with his long fingers among -the tassels on the back of a chair in front of him, as if -trying to frame up a decisive answer. “This is what I -call base ingratitude,” he faltered at length, in high, -almost feminine tones. “Just when I have had your -musical talent developed, turning you from a common -fiddler to a finished artiste, and having you almost -ready to make your stage debut as a popular juvenile, -you leave me in the lurch, and all because you imagined -you saw a ghost–<em>imagined</em>, I say, for there are -no such things.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>The dark girl sat perfectly still, biting her full red -lips, her immoble face as if made of ivory.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“What are you, anyway?” she finally responded; -“nothing but what my father called a mountebank; he -hated them, an <em>actor</em>, and I owe you nothing but contempt -<span class='pageno' id='Page_242'>242</span>for having brought me here to be your plaything -while my youth and good looks last.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Then, as she got up and started towards a door, -the tall man darted after her.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“I’ll not let you make a fool of yourself,” he hissed, -theatrically. Catching her by the wrists, he attempted -to detain her.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Sit down; we must have this out.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>She was almost as tall as he, and very muscular, and -the Jewish strain in her blood was hot. The pair -struggled about the room, until the man in his anger -seized the old violin and hit her a heavy blow over the -head. She sank down on the floor in a limp mass, and -the man, picking up his brown Fedora, ran out of the -room and down the long flight of stairs and out into -the street. The girl was not badly hurt, only stunned, -and came to herself in about fifteen minutes. She saw -that she was alone, and the Guarnerius was around her -neck.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Gathering herself up, her first thought was for the -violin, and tying the smallest chips in her handkerchief -she went to the inner room and began to pack a large -portmanteau. Then she put on her hat, veil and cloak -and, locking the apartment door and slipping the key -in her grip, she left the house and hurried down town -towards the railroad depot.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was dark when she reached there, and she quickly -boarded a local, to wait in the suburbs until the night -sleeping car train for Derrstown made its stop there. -All went well, and by midnight she was boarding the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_243'>243</span>sleeper and was soon afterwards undressed and under -the sooty-smelling blankets in a lower berth.</p> - -<p class='c001'>She did not know how long she had been sleeping -when the train suddenly stopped with a jerk and she -was awake. Looking around, she saw a face peering -through the curtains. It was not the porter, but the -leering, open mouth, old Jacob Mintges himself, tusks -and all.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Twice now in twenty-four hours he had come to her, -for the night previous she had waked just in the gray -half light before dawn, and had seen him standing -grinning by her bedside.</p> - -<p class='c001'>An inexperienced person might have screamed, but -not so Eugenie Carlevan, the great-great-granddaughter -of Jacob Marshall. When their eyes met, Mintges -quickly withdrew, and the girl, wide awake, began -thinking over the past years of her life, as the train -again started to roll on into the night. She had always -been fond of music and theatres. The violin given to -her on her sixth birthday by her grandfather Marshall -had become the evil genius of her destiny. Her father -had died and her mother was too much of a drudge to -control her. She had attended every circus, burlesque, -minstrel show or dramatic performance that had come -to the town where she had lived, since she was thirteen -years old.</p> - -<p class='c001'>When the young Thespian who called himself Derment -Catesby had come to Swinefordstown, where she -was visiting an aunt, with the “Lights O’London” -Company, she had fallen violently in love with him, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_244'>244</span>had made his acquaintance, and he, struck by her imperious -beauty and musical predilections, had asked -her to go away with him.</p> - -<p class='c001'>She had joined him a few days later in Sunbury, -bringing her precious violin, and traveled with him to -the great city. There the actor soon signed up to play -in repertoire at a stock company. She liked him well -enough, despite his vanity and selfishness, for he was -very handsome. It was before the days when actors -were clean-shaven like every servant, and looked much -like other people. However much she had loved him, -Jacob Mintges’ ghost had revealed a more pressing -duty twice, and she was on her way home.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Soon she fell asleep again, and did not wake until -the porter’s face appeared to notify her that the train -was leaving Sunbury. Her mother lived with her aged -parents out near Hartley Hall, among the high mountains; -it would be a relief to see those lofty peaks and -wide expanse of vision once more, after the cramped -outlook of the city. How peculiarly sweet the air -seemed, with the sun coming up behind the fringe of -old yellow pines and oaks along the river! What refreshing -zephyrs were wafted from those newly-ploughed -fields. The bluebirds and robins were singing -in the maple trees about the station. On a side-track -stood the little wood-burner engine, with its -bulbous stack, puffing black smoke, ready to pull its -train of tiny cars out to the wonderful, wild mountain -country, the land of Lick Run Gap, the Lost Valley, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_245'>245</span>the High Head, Big Buffalo, Winklebleck and -Shreiner!</p> - -<p class='c001'>How well she remembered the first time she had seen -that wood-burner, as a little tot, going on a visit with -her father and mother. It was in the golden hour, and -deep purple shadows fell from the station roof athwart -the golden light on the platform!</p> - -<p class='c001'>All these thoughts were crowding through her head -until the bell on the little engine reminded her that the -L. & T. train was soon to depart.</p> - -<p class='c001'>She reached home in time for dinner, was received -with no enthusiasm, for her mother and grandparents -were true mountaineers, and their swarthy faces -masked their feelings, yet she was made to feel perfectly -welcome.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Nobody had died, no one was sick, the house hadn’t -burned down, evidently the trials foretold by Jake -Mintges were yet to come.</p> - -<p class='c001'>That afternoon she showed the broken violin to her -grandfather, who took it to his workbench in an out-house -to repair it, undaunted by the seeming endlessness -of the reconstruction.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Eugenie seemed perfectly contented to be at home, -She had had enough of the <em>bizarre</em>, and reveled again -in the humdrum. Five or six days after her return -the weekly county paper appeared at the house, with -its boiler plate front page and patent insides. Some -instinct <a id='corr245.28'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='mad'>made</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_245.28'><ins class='correction' title='mad'>made</ins></a></span> her open the wrapper as it lay on the -kitchen table. On the front page she saw the likeness -<span class='pageno' id='Page_246'>246</span>of a familiar face, the well-known full eyes, oval -cheeks, rounded chin and drooping mustache, Derment -Catesby. Then the headlines caught her eyes, “Handsome -Actor Shot to Death by Insanely Jealous Husband -at Stage Door.” Then she glanced at the date and -the hour. It was the night that she had taken the train–the -very moment, perhaps, that Jacob Mintges’ grinning -face had looked through the curtains of her berth. -Yes, the murderer had waited a long time, as the victim -had tarried in the green-room.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Eugenie sucked her full lips a moment, then looked -hard at the picture and the whole article again. Then -she turned to her mother and grandparents, who were -seated about the stove.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Say, folks,” she said, <a id='corr246.15'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='coldly,,'>coldly,</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_246.15'><ins class='correction' title='coldly,,'>coldly,</ins></a></span> “there’s the fine gent -I went away with from Swinesfordstown. I got out -in time, the very night he was murdered.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>The mother and the old people half rose in their -chairs to look at the wood cut.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“How did you know he was playing you false?” said -the old grandfather.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“How did I know, gran’pap?” she replied. “Why, -the night before, Jake Mintges came to me, and I knew -<em>something</em> was due to go wrong, and home was the -place for little me. You see I missed it all by a stone’s -throw.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>"You’re right, ‘Genie’," said the old mountaineer. -“Mintges never comes to us unless he means business.”</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_247'>247</span> - <h2 class='c002'><span class='fss'>XVIII</span> <br /> <i>The Turning of the Belt</i></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>There are not many memories of Ole Bull in the -vicinity of the ruins of his castle today. Fifteen -years ago, before the timber was all gone, there -were quite a few old people who were living in the -Black Forest at the time of his colonization venture, -who remembered him well, also a couple of his original -colonists, Andriesen and Oleson, but these are no more. -One has to go to Renovo or to Austin or Germania to -find any reminiscences now, and those have suffered -through passing from “hand to mouth” and are scattered -and fragmentary. They used to say that the -great violinist was, like his descendants, a believer in -spiritualism, and on the first snowy night that he occupied -his unfinished mansion, chancing to look out he -saw what seemed to him a tall, white figure standing -by the ramparts.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Fearing that it was some <em>skeld</em> come to warn him of -impending disaster to his beloved colony, he rushed out -hatless, only to find that it was an old hemlock stab, -snow encrusted.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Disaster did come, but as far as local tradition goes -Ole Bull had no warning of it. The hemlock stab -which so disturbed him has been gone these many years, -but a smaller one, when encased in snow, has frightened -many a superstitious wayfarer along the Kettle Creek -<span class='pageno' id='Page_248'>248</span>road, and gone on feeling that he had seen “the ghost -of Ole Bull.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>But unaccountable and worthy of investigation are -the weird strains of music heard on wild, stormy nights, -which seem to emanate from the castle. Belated -hunters coming down the deep gorge of Ole Bull Run, -back of the castle, or travelers along the main highway -from Oleona to Cross Forks, have heard it and refused -to be convinced that there is not a musician hidden -away somewhere among the crumbling ruins. The -“oldest inhabitants,” sturdy race of trappers, who antedated -Ole Bull’s colonists, declare that the ghostly musician -was playing just the same in the great virtuoso’s -time, and that it is the ghost of a French fifer, ambushed -and killed by Indians when his battalion was -marching along the “Boone Road” from Fort Le Boeuf -to the memorable and ill-starred attack on Fort Augusta -at Sunbury in 1757.</p> - -<p class='c001'>At the mention of “Boone Road” another question is -opened, as there is no historic record of such a military -highway between Lake Erie and the West Branch of -the Susquehanna River. The afore-mentioned very -old people used to say that the road was still visible -to them in certain places; that there could be no doubt -of its existence and former utilization.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Daniel Boone, if he be the pioneer of that name who -first “blazed it out,” was a very young man during the -“French and Indian War,” and his presence in that -part of the country is a mooted question. Perhaps it -<span class='pageno' id='Page_249'>249</span>was another “Boone,” and a Norseman, for many -persons named “Bonde” or “Boon” were among the -first Swedish settlers on the Lanape-Wihittuck, or Delaware -River, unconsciously pioneering for their famous -cousin-German, Ole Borneman Bull.</p> - -<p class='c001'>In all events, the French fifer was shot and grievously -wounded, and his comrades, in the rout which ensued, -were forced to leave him behind. After refreshing -himself at the cold spring, which nearly a century -later Ole Bull named “Lyso”–the water of light–he -crawled up on the hill, on which the castle was afterwards -partly erected, to reconnoitre the country, but -dropping from exhaustion and loss of blood, soon died. -The wolves carried away his physical remains, but his -spirit rested on the high knoll, to startle Ole Bull and -many others, with the strains of his weird, unearthly -music.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It seems a pity that these old legends are passing -with the lives of the aged people, but the coming of Ira -Keeney, the grizzled Civil War veteran, as caretaker -for the handsome Armstrong-Quigley hunting lodge, -on the site of one of the former proposed <em>fogderier</em> -Walhalla, has awakened anew the world of romance, of -dashing exploits in the war under Sheridan and Rosecrans, -of lumbering days, wolves, panthers and wild -pigeons, all of which memories the venerable soldier -loves to recount.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Yet can these be compared with the legend that Ole -Bull, seeing a Bald Eagle rise from its nest on the top -of a tall oak near the banks of Freeman’s Run, named -<span class='pageno' id='Page_250'>250</span>the village he planned to locate there Odin, after the -supreme <a id='corr250.2'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='diety'>deity</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_250.2'><ins class='correction' title='diety'>deity</ins></a></span> of the Scandinavian mythology, who -took the form of an eagle on one period of his development. -His other settlements or <em>herods</em> he called Walhalla, -Oleona and New Bergen. Planned at first by -the French to be a purely military route for ingress to -the West Branch country, but owing to the repulse at -Fort Augusta, very infrequently traversed by them, if -at all, it became principally an overland “short cut” for -trappers, traders, travelers and settlers, all of whom -knew its location well.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Who could have laid out such an intricate road over -high mountains and through deep valleys, unless a military -force, is hard to imagine, even if for some strange -reason it was never written into “history.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>After the Revolutionary War there was naturally an -unsettled state of affairs, and many farmers and adventurers -turned their thought to the country west of the -Allegheny Mountains and River, as the land of opportunity, -consequently there was much desultory travel -over the Boone Road. Unemployment prevailed everywhere, -and hordes of penniless ex-soldiers, turned -adrift by their victorious new nation, traveled backwards -and forwards along all the known highways and -trails, picking up a day’s work as best they could, their -precarious mode of living giving them the name of -“cider tramps.” A few more reckless and blood thirsty -than their fellows, claimed that the country which they -had freed owed them a living; if there was no work -and no pensions, and they could not get it by hook -<span class='pageno' id='Page_251'>251</span>they would take it by crook. In other words, certain -ex-service men, became strong-arm men, road agents, -or highwaymen, whichever name seems most suitable.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The Boone Road, in a remote wilderness of gloomy, -untrodden forests, made an ideal haunt for footpads, -and when not robbing travelers, they took their toll -from the wild game, elks, deer, bears, grouse and wild -pigeons which infested the region. Law and order had -not penetrated into such forgotten and forbidding -realms, and obscure victims could report outrages and -protest to a deaf and dumb government. How long it -was before these robbers were curbed is hard to say.</p> - -<p class='c001'>One story which the backwoods people about Hamesley’s -Fork used to tell dates back to five years after -the close of the Revolution, about 1788. Jenkin Doane, -possibly a member of the same family that produced the -Doane outlaws in the Welsh Mountains, was one of the -notorious characters along the Boone Road. Like others, -he was an ex-soldier, a hero of Brandywine and -Paoli, but his plight was worse, for just before peace -was declared, when a premature rumor to that effect -had reached his company, lying at Fort Washington, -he had assaulted and beaten up an aristocratic and -brutal officer who was the terror of the line. For this -he had been sentenced to death, but later his sentence -was commuted, and finally, because there were no satisfactory -jails for military prisoners, he was quietly released, -<em>sans h. d.</em> and the ability to make a livelihood.</p> - -<p class='c001'>He finally became a wagoner and hired out with a -party of emigrants going to Lake Erie, who traveled -<span class='pageno' id='Page_252'>252</span>over the Boone Road. He saw them safely to their -destination, but on his return journey tarried in the -mountains, hunting and fishing, until his supplies were -gone, when he turned “road agent.” He evidently had -a low grade of morals at that time, for he robbed old -as well as young, women as readily as men. He was -fairly successful, considering the comparative lightness -of travel and the poor class of victims financially.</p> - -<p class='c001'>In an up-and-down country, where feed and shelter -were scarce, he kept no horse, but traveled afoot. He -had no opportunity to test his heels, as he never ran -away, all his attacks being followed by speedy capitulation. -If a trained force of bailiffs had been sent out -to apprehend him, doubtless he could have been caught, -as he had his favorite retreats, where he lingered, -waiting for his prey.</p> - -<p class='c001'>There were not many such places in the depths of -the seemingly endless forests of giant and gloomy -hemlocks and pines, places where the sun could shine -and the air radiated dryness and warmth. One of his -best-liked haunts was known as the Indian Garden, -situated in an open glade among the mountains which -divide the country of Kettle Creek from that of Drury’s -Run.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Art.” Vallon, one of the oldest hunters on Kettle -Creek, who died recently, once described the spot as -follows: “More than sixty years ago my father on a -hunting trip showed me a clearing of perhaps half an -acre, which he told me was called ‘The Indian Garden.’ -I visited it many times afterwards on my trapping excursions. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_253'>253</span>It impressed me as very unusual, being entirely -free from undergrowth, except the furze grass -one sees on poor, worked-out land.</p> - -<p class='c001'><a id='corr253.4'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='It'>“It</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_253.4'><ins class='correction' title='It'>“It</ins></a></span> was a perfect square of about half an acre, and -was surrounded by the deep, primeval forest. There -was a fine spring not very far away.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was there that Jenkin Doane and two other reckless -characters who had served with Simon Girty and acted -as his henchmen lolled for hours in the sun, waiting for -victims. It was there that he usually maintained his -“camp fire” and at night slept on the ground in a sleeping -bag of buffalo hides.</p> - -<p class='c001'>One night in the late winter, when there were still -patches of snow on the ground, Doane dreamed very -vividly of a girl whom he had never seen. He could -hardly realize he had been dreaming when he awoke -and sat up looking about him, to where his vision was -cut off by the interminable “aisles of the forest.” He -seemed to be married to her, at least they were together, -and he had the pleasure of saving her life from drowning -in a deep torrent where she had gone, probably to -bathe.</p> - -<p class='c001'>He had never seen a person of such unusual beauty. -Her hair was dark and inclined to curl, complexion -hectic, her eyes hazel, but the chief charm lay in the line -of her nose and upper lip. The nose was slightly -turned up at the end, adding, with the curve of her -upper lip, a piquancy to an expression of exceptional -loveliness.</p> - -<p class='c001'>All the day he kept wishing that this charming young -<span class='pageno' id='Page_254'>254</span>woman might materialize into his life; he could not -bring himself to believe but that such a realistic vision -must have a living counterpart.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was during the morning of the second day, when -he had about given up hope, that he saw coming towards -him, down a steep pitch in the Boone Road–it -is part of the Standard Oil Pipe Line now–a young -woman on horseback, wearing a red velvet hat and a -brown cloak. She was mounted on a flea-bitten white -horse of uncertain age and gait. Close behind her rode -two elderly Indians, also indifferently mounted, who -seemed to be her bodyguard, and between them they -were leading a heavily-laden pack-horse.</p> - -<p class='c001'>He quickly turned his belt, an Indian signal of -great antiquity, which indicated to his companions that -they would make an attack.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Just as the white horse touched fairly level ground -he commenced to stumble and run sideways, having -stepped on a rusty caltrop or “crow’s foot” which the -outlaws had strewn across the trail at that point for -that very purpose. Seeing the animal’s plight, the -young equestrienne quickly stopped him and dismounted. -She had been riding astride, and Doane -noticed the brown woolen stockings which covered her -shapely legs, her ankle-boots of good make, as she -rolled off the horse’s back.</p> - -<p class='c001'>As she stood before her quivering steed, patting his -shoulder, Doane and his companions drew near, covering -the three with their army muskets. It was then to -his infinite surprise he noticed that the girl in brown, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_255'>255</span>with the red hat, was the heroine of his dream, though -in the vision she had been attired in black, but the -gown was half off her shoulders and back when he -drew her out of the water.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It would have been hard to tell who was most surprised, -Doane or the girl. Much as he admired her -loveliness, there had been the turning of the belt, which -meant there could be no change of purpose; his comrades -were already eyeing the well-filled packsaddles.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The frightened Indians had dismounted, being -watched by one of the outlaws, while Doane politely -yet firmly demanded the whereabouts of her money. -Lifting her cloak and turning her belt, she disclosed -two long deerskin pouches, heavy with gold. Unbuckling -them, she handed them to Doane, while tears -began to stream down her cheeks.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“You may take it, sir,” she sobbed, "but you are -ruining my chances in life. I am partly Indian, Brant’s -daughter, grand-daughter of the old Brant, and my -father had arranged a marriage for me with a young -officer whom I met during the war, and I love him -dearly. Though I told him of my love, he would not -marry me without a dowry of $3,000, and it took my -father five long years to gather it together. I would -not care if I did not love him so much. I was on my -way to his home at the forks of Susquehanna, and now -you have destroyed all my hopes."</p> - -<p class='c001'>The brigand’s steely heart was for a moment -touched. “Brant’s daughter,” he said, “you Indian -people know the turning of the belt, which means that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_256'>256</span>what is decided on at that moment must be carried out; -before I saw who you were I resolved to rob you. It -must be done, for I have two partners who will demand -their shares.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>"You said ‘before you knew who I was,’" broke in -the girl, her tearful, <a id='corr256.6'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='piquaint'>piquant</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_256.6'><ins class='correction' title='piquaint'>piquant</ins></a></span> face filled with curiosity. -“You never saw <em>me</em> before.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Oh, yes, I did,” replied Doane, “in a dream a couple -of nights ago.” -“she said, as a final -appeal.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“I am afraid not,” he answered, as his comrade -started to open one of the pouches. Then he paused, -saying: “I will not take all. I’d not take anything from -<em>you</em> except that I have these partners. I will retain -half for them, and let you go on your way with the rest. -Your good looks–for you are truly the prettiest thing -I ever laid eyes on–will outweigh with your lover a -paltry fifteen hundred dollars in gold.” -“cried the girl -weeping afresh. “He does not love me; he only wants -the gold. I am the one that loves, and am lost and discarded -without the dowry.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Meanwhile one of the outlaws had drawn the caltrop -from the horse’s frog, and having smeared it with -bear’s grease, the animal was walking about in a fairly -comfortable manner.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i_290.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>AN ALLEGHENY EPISODE</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c001'>The girl stood looking at Doane. He was young, -strong, and had a fairly decent face. How could he -<span class='pageno' id='Page_257'>257</span>be so cruel? Then she looked at his partners, low-browed -wretches, who were already muttering at the -delay, and she realized there was no hope. Doane gave -up his share, and tossed the other of the bags of gold -to his “pals,” then ordered the girl and her escort to -proceed. He said that he would accompany her to the -river, to where the danger of meeting other highwaymen -would be passed. The girl traveled on foot the -entire distance, to ease her horse over the rough, uneven -trail, walking side by side with the highwayman.</p> - -<p class='c001'>They parted with civility, and on Doane’s side with -deep regret, for the dream had inflamed his soul, and -the reality was so startlingly lovely that he was deeply -smitten. Before he had reached the river he wished -that he had shot his grasping companions, rather than -endanger this beautiful creature’s future happiness.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“That was an unlucky turning of the belt,” he said to -himself, as he retraced his steps towards the Indian -Garden.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Brant’s daughter rode with a heavy heart the balance -of the journey, for she knew her lover’s nature. The -Indian bodyguards were equally downcast, for they had -sworn to <a id='corr257.22'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='deilver'>deliver</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_257.22'><ins class='correction' title='deilver'>deliver</ins></a></span> her safe and sound at the forks of the -Susquehanna.</p> - -<p class='c001'>When she reached the handsome colonial gray stone -house, on a headland overlooking the “meeting of the -waters,” her lover, a handsome upstanding youth, with -a sports suit made of his old officer’s buff uniform, and -surrounded by a pack of his hunting dogs, came out to -greet her. His manner was not very cordial. With -<span class='pageno' id='Page_258'>258</span>penetrating eyes he saw that she was disturbed over -something, so he quickly asked if she suffered from -fatigue after the long overland journey.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“No, Major,” she replied, “I am not at all tired in -body, but I am in heart. I cannot postpone the evil -moment. On the Boone Road we were stopped by three -highwaymen, armed, who took from me half of my -dowry.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>The Major’s handsome countenance darkened. “Why -did you not tell them you needed it to get married?” he -blurted out angrily. “A pretty wench like you could -have honey-foogled them to keep it.” -“replied the girl, confidently, “and -for that reason the chief of the band, a very pretty man, -let me keep the one-half, but he had to retain the rest -for his companions.” -“ -“I think I came off well,” she said, hanging her pretty -head, her cheeks all crimson flush. She was sitting on -the horse, her feet dangling out of the stirrups, her -skirts turned up revealing those shapely legs, and he -had not asked her to dismount.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The Major drew nearer, with an angry gesture. “I -have a mind to smack your face good and hard for your -folly,” he stormed. “What do you think I have been -waiting for, a paltry <em>fifteen hundred dollars</em>?”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Brant’s daughter turned her belt and handed him the -pouch of gold, which he threw down testily. It was -<span class='pageno' id='Page_259'>259</span>quickly picked up by one of his German redemptioner -servants, who carried it into the house.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Aren’t you going to ask me to come in?” pleaded -the now humiliated love-sick girl. “You can slap me -all you want. Punish me any way you will,” offering -him her stiff riding crop, “only don’t cast me <a id='corr259.6'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='off”'>off.”</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_259.6'><ins class='correction' title='off”'>off.”</ins></a></span></p> - -<p class='c001'>“Come down if you wish; I don’t care,” he mumbled -in reply. “I wouldn’t exert myself enough to whip you, -but your hide <em>ought</em> to be tanned for your stupidity.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Cut to the heart, yet still loving abjectly, she slid off -the horse and meekly followed the imperious Major -into the mansion. During the balance of the afternoon, -and at supper, and until she begged to be allowed to -retire, she was reviled and humbled in the presence of -his redemptioners. He declared that no one man in a -thousand, in his station of life, would consider marriage -with a person of Indian blood; that it was worth twice -three thousand dollars, the figure he had originally -named. Nevertheless, he had carefully put the money -bag in his strong box, even though saying nothing -about setting a date for a marriage.</p> - -<p class='c001'>She was shown into an unfinished room. There was -no bed, only a few chairs, and two big walnut chests. -Tearful and nervously unstrung, she took off her shoes -and, wrapping herself in her cloak, lay down on the -cold wooden floor. She could have called for blankets, -and doubtless gotten them, but her pride had rebelled -and she resolved to make the best of conditions. She -could not sleep, and her mind was tortured with her -love for the Major, anger at his ungrateful conduct, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_260'>260</span>and an ever-recurring vision of the highwayman on -the Boone Road. She heard the great Irish clock in -the hall below strike every hour until one.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Suddenly she got up, her face brightened with a new -resolve. Tying her shoes together, she threw them -them across her shoulder and tiptoed to the door, which -she opened softly, and went downstairs. Her Indian -bodyguards were sleeping on the stone floor in the -vestibule, wrapped in their blankets.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Exundos,” she whispered in the ear of the oldest, -“get me out of this; I am going to go away.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>The trusty redskin, who always slept with one eye -open, nudged his comrade, Firequill, and made their -way to the door. It was locked and chained, and the -key probably under the Major’s pillow.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Exundos was determined to redeem his record. He -rushed upstairs to where a portly German was sleeping -in the officer’s antechamber. He knocked the valet -senseless with the butt of his horse pistol. Then he -sprang like a panther over the prostrate body into the -Major’s apartment. In a moment he had gagged him -with the caltrop extracted from the horse’s foot, then -bound him hand and foot.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The key was under the pillow. In five minutes the -fugitives were on the front lawn, surrounded by the -Major’s pack of yelping, snarling hounds. Getting by -them as best they could, the trio made for the bluffs, -found a dugout in which they crossed the river, and -were soon in the shelter of the friendly mountains.</p> - -<p class='c001'>In the morning the Major’s other servants who slept -<span class='pageno' id='Page_261'>261</span>in quarters near the stables, found the half-dazed bodyguard -with a bloody head, and their gagged and helpless -master. Once released, the Major decided not to -send a posse after the runaways; he was heavily in -debt, and needed that pouch of fifteen hundred dollars -in gold.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Brant’s daughter, after her fortuitous escape, was -not completely happy. She had longed for the Major -for five years, and had almost gotten him as the result -of severe privations. It was pretty hard to lose him -now. She was going home defeated, to die unwed. -Her feelings became desperate when she reached the -Boone Road, with all its haunting memories.</p> - -<p class='c001'>As she clambered up the steep grades, and the Indian -Garden came into view, she reached down and turned -her belt, the symbol of resolution. No one was about -as she passed the garden, which made her heart sink -with loneliness for some strong man’s love.</p> - -<p class='c001'>When Kettle Creek was reached and crossed near -the Cold Spring, she decided to rest awhile. After a -meal, which she barely tasted, she told the Indians that -she was going for a little walk in the woods.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“I am safe now,” she said, bitterly; “I have no gold.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Past the Cold Spring she went, on and on up the -wild, narrow gorge of what is now called Ole Bull Run, -where a dark and dismal hemlock forest of colossal proportions -bent over the torrent, keeping out the light of -day.</p> - -<p class='c001'>While she was absent, who should appear at the -Cold Spring but Doane, with his colleagues in crime.</p> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_262'>262</span>“So he took her after all, with only half the money,” -he said, almost regretfully, to the Indians.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“I don’t know,” replied one of the bodyguard. “He -was very ugly when he heard it, wanted to slap her, -and she ran away in the night, leaving horses, saddle-bags -and gold. Oh, she felt terribly, for she truly loved -the monster.” -“said Doane, in surprised tones.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The Indian pointed up the dark gorge of the run. -That moment the outlaw thought of his dream, of his -rescuing her from an angry torrent. Motioning to her -guards to follow, he made haste along the edges of the -stream, slipping often on the moss-grown rocks. Half -way to the top of the gigantic mountain, he heard the -roar of a cascade. There was a great, dark, seething -pool beneath. Just as Doane came in sight of this he -beheld, to his horror, Brant’s daughter, hatless and -cloakless, plunging in. It was like a Dryad’s immolation!</p> - -<p class='c001'>With superhuman effort he reached the brink and -sprang after her. He caught her, as she rose the first -time, by her profuse brown hair, but as he lifted her -ashore a snag or branch tore her shirtwaist, so that her -shoulder and back were almost completely bare, just -as in the dream. Aided by the faithful Indians, he laid -her tenderly among the moss and ferns, and poured -some rum from a buffalo horn flask down her throat. -She revived and opened her pretty hazel eyes quizzically.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Am I at the Indian Garden?” she said.</p> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_263'>263</span>“You are with the one who turned his belt there,” -answered Doane; “only this time I don’t want anything -for my comrades. I only want you for myself.” -“said Brant’s daughter, having now fully recovered the -power of speech. “When I came back to the Garden -and you were not there, I turned my belt.” -“said Doane, “for that last -resolve has brought us together. I should have known -from the beginning my destiny was revealed in that -dream.” -“said -the girl.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Of course I will, anywhere with you, and never -follow the road again, or anything not strictly honorable. -Wrongdoing, I see now, is caused by the preponderance -of the events of life going against us. Where -things come our way, and there is joy, one can never -aspire to ill. Wrong is the continued disappointment. -I could never molest a soul after I saw you, and have -lived by hunting ever since. I made my partners return -the purse of gold; it shall go to your father to buy a -farm.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Brant’s daughter now motioned to him that she felt -like sitting up, and he propped her back against an old -cork pine, kissing her pretty plump cheeks and shoulders -many times as he did so. “And that scoundrel -<span class='pageno' id='Page_264'>264</span>would have smacked you,” he thought, boiling inwardly. -Then taking her cold hands in his, he said:</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Out of evil comes good. I do not regret this one -robbery, for if I had not taken that gold for my comrades, -some one would have robbed me of you!”</p> - -<div class='figcenter id012'> -<img src='images/i_299.jpg' alt='SHAWANA' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_265'>265</span> - <h2 class='c002'><span class='fss'>XIX</span> <br /> <i>Riding His Pony</i></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>When Rev. James Martin visited the celebrated -Penn’s Cave, in the Spring of 1795, it was related -that he found a small group of Indians -encamped there. That evening, around the campfire, -one of the redskins related a legend of one of the curiosities -of the watery cave, the flambuoyant “Indian -Riding Pony” mural-piece which decorates one of the -walls.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Spirited as a Remington, it bursts upon the view, -creates a lasting impression, then vanishes as the power -skiff, the “Nita-nee,” draws nearer.</p> - -<p class='c001'>According to the old Indians, there lived not far -from where the Karoondinha emerges from the cavern -a body of aborigines of the Susquehannock tribe who -made this delightful lowland their permanent abode. -While most of their cabins were huddled near together -on the upper reaches of the stream, there were straggling -huts clear to the Beaver Dams. The finding of -arrow points, beads and pottery along the creek amply -attests to this.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Among the clan was a maiden named Quetajaku, not -good to look upon, but in no way ugly or deformed. -In her youth she was light-hearted and sociable, with a -gentle disposition. Yet for some reason she was not -favored by the young bucks. All her contemporaries -found lovers and husbands, but poor Quetajaku was -<span class='pageno' id='Page_266'>266</span>left severely alone. She knew that she was not beautiful, -though she was of good size; she was equally certain -that she was not a physical monster. She could -not understand why she could find no lover, why she -was singled out to be a “chauchschisis,” or old maid. -It hurt her pride as a young girl, it broke her heart -completely when she was older.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Gradually she withdrew from the society of her -tribal friends, building herself a lodge-house on the -hill, in what is now the cave orchard. There she led a -very introspective life, grieving over the love that might -have been. To console herself she imagined that some -day a handsome warrior would appear, seek her out, -load her with gifts, overwhelm her with love and carry -her away to some distant region in triumph. He -would be handsomer and braver than any youth in the -whole country of the Karoondinha. She would be the -most envied of women when he came.</p> - -<p class='c001'>This poor little fancy saved her from going stark -mad; it remedied the horror of her lonely lot. Every -time the night wind stirred the rude hempen curtain -which hung before the door of her cabin, she would -picture it was the chivalrous stranger knight come to -claim her. When it was cold she drew the folds of her -buffalo robe tighter about her as if it was his arms.</p> - -<p class='c001'>As time went on she grew happy in her secret lover, -whom no other woman’s flame could equal, whom no -one could steal away. She was ever imagining him -saying to her that her looks exactly suited him, that -she was his ideal.</p> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_267'>267</span>But like the seeker after Eldorado, years passed, -and Quetajaku did not come nearer to her spirit lover. -But her soul kept up the conceit; every night when she -curled herself up to sleep he was the vastness of the -night.</p> - -<p class='c001'>On one occasion an Indian artist named Naganit, an -undersized old wanderer appeared at the lonely -woman’s home. For a living he decorated pottery, -shells and bones, sometimes even painted war pictures -on rocks. Quetajaku was so kind to him that he built -himself a lean-to on the slope of the hill, intending to -spend the winter.</p> - -<p class='c001'>On the long winter evenings the old woman confided -to the wanderer the story of her unhappy life, -of her inward consolation. She said that she had longed -to meet an artist who could carry out a certain part of -her dream which had a right to come true.</p> - -<p class='c001'>When she died she had arranged to be buried in a -fissure of rocks which ran horizontally into one of the -walls of the “watery” cave. On the opposite wall she -would like painted in the most brilliant colors a portrait -of a handsome young warrior, with arms outstretched, -coming towards her.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Naganit said that he understood what she meant -exactly, but suggested that the youth be mounted on a -pony, a beast which was coming into use as a mount -for warriors, of which he had lately seen a number in -his travels on the Virginia coast, near Chincoteague.</p> - -<p class='c001'>This idea was pleasing to Quetajaku, who authorized -the stranger to begin work at once. She had saved -<span class='pageno' id='Page_268'>268</span>up a little property of various kinds; she promised to -bestow all of this on Naganit, except what would be -necessary to bury her, if the picture proved satisfactory.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The artist rigged up a dog-raft with a scaffold on -it, and this he poled into the place where the fissure -was located, the woman accompanying him the first -time, so there would be no mistake. All winter long -by torchlight, he labored away. He used only one -color, an intensive brick-red made from mixing sumac -berries, the pollen of the Turk’s Cap Lily, a small root -and the bark of a tree, as being more permanent than -that made from ochers and other ores of stained earth.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Marvelous and vital was the result of this early impressionist; -the painting had all the action of life. The -superb youth in war dress, with arms outstretched, on -the agile war pony, rushing towards the foreground, -almost in the act of leaping from the rocky panel into -life, across the waters of the cave to the arms of his -beloved.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It would make old Quetajaku happy to see it, she -who had never known love or beauty. The youth in -the mural typified what Naganit would have been himself -were he the chosen, and what the “bachelor maid” -would have possessed had nature favored her. It -was the ideal for two disappointed souls.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Breathlessly the old artist ferried Quetajaku to the -scene of his endeavors. When they reached the -proper spot he held aloft his quavering torch. Quetajaku, -in order to see more clearly, held her two hands -<span class='pageno' id='Page_269'>269</span>above her eyes. She gave a little cry of exclamation, -then turned and looked at Naganit intently. Then she -dropped her eyes, beginning to cry to herself, a rare -thing for an Indian to do!</p> - -<p class='c001'>The artist looked at her fine face, down which the -tears were streaming, and asked her the cause of her -grief–was the picture <em>such</em> a terrible disappointment?</p> - -<p class='c001'>The woman drew herself together, replying that it -was grander than she had anticipated, but the face of -<a id='corr269.10'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='Niganit’s'>Naganit’s</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_269.10'><ins class='correction' title='Niganit’s'>Naganit’s</ins></a></span>, and, strangely enough, the face she had -dreamed of all her life.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“But I am not the heroic youth you pictured”, said -the artist, sadly. “I am sixty years old, stoop-shouldered, -and one leg is shorter than the other.” -“ -<a id='corr269.18'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='Niganit'>Naganit</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_269.18'><ins class='correction' title='Niganit'>Naganit</ins></a></span> looked at the Indian woman. She was not -hideous; there was even a dignity to her large, plain -features, her great, gaunt form.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“I have never received such praise as yours. I -always vowed I would love the woman who really understood -me and my art. I am yours. Let us think -no more of funeral decorations, but go to the east, -to the land of war ponies, and ride to endless joy -together.”</p> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_270'>270</span>Quetajaku, overcome by the majesty of his words, -leaned against his massive shoulder. In that way he -poled his dog-raft against the current to the entrance -of the cave. There was a glory in the reflection from -the setting sun over against the east; night would not -close in for an hour or two. And towards the darkening -east that night two happy travelers could be -seen wending their way.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id004'> -<img src='images/i_305.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_271'>271</span> - <h2 class='c002'><span class='fss'>XX</span> <br /> <i>The Little Postmistress</i></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>It was long past dark when Mifflin Sargeant, of -the Snow Shoe Land Company, came within sight -of the welcoming lights of Stover’s. For fourteen -miles, through the foothills on the Narrows, he had not -seen a sign of human habitation, except one deserted -hunter’s cabin at Yankee Gap. There was an air of -cheerfulness and life about the building he had arrived -at. Several doors opened simultaneously at the signal -of his approach, given by a faithful watchdog, throwing -the rich glow of the fat-lamps and tallow candles -across the road.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The structure, which was very long and two stories -high, housed under its accommodating roofs a tavern, -a boarding house, a farmstead, a lumber camp, a general -store, and a post office. It was the last outpost of -civilization in the east end of Brush Valley; beyond -were mountains and wilderness almost to Youngmanstown. -Tom Tunis had not yet erected the substantial -structure on the verge of the forest later known as -“The Forest House.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>A dark-complexioned lad, who later proved to be -Reuben Stover, the son of the landlord, took the horse -by the bridle, assisting the young stranger to dismount. -He also helped him to unstrap his saddle-bags, carrying -them into the house. Sargeant noticed, as he passed -<span class='pageno' id='Page_272'>272</span>across the porch, that the walls were closely hung with -stags’ horns, which showed the prevalence of these -noble animals in the neighborhood.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Old Daddy and Mammy Stover, who ran the quaint -caravansery, quickly made the visitor feel at home. It -was after the regular supper-time, but a fresh repast -of bear’s meat and corn bread was cheerfully prepared -in the huge stone chimney.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The young man explained to his hosts that he had -ridden that day from New Berlin; he had come from -Philadelphia to Harrisburg by train, to Liverpool by -packet boat, at which last named place his horse had -been sent on to meet him. He added that he was on his -way into the Alleghenies, where he had recently purchased -an interest in the Snow Shoe development.</p> - -<p class='c001'>After supper he strolled along the porch to the far -end, to the post office, thinking he would send a letter -home. A mail had been brought in from Rebersburg -during the afternoon, consequently the post office, and -not the tavern stand, was the attraction of the crowd -this night.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The narrow room was poorly lighted by fat-lamps, -which cast great, fitful shadows, making grotesques -out of the oddly-costumed, bearded wolf hunters present, -who were the principal inhabitants of the surrounding -ridges. A few women, hooded and shawled, were -noticeable in the throng. In a far corner, leaning -against the water bench, was young Reuben, the hostler, -tuning up his wheezy fiddle. As many persons as -possible hung over the rude counter, across which the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_273'>273</span>mail was being delivered, and where many letters were -written in reply. Above this counter were suspended -three fat-lamps, attached to grooved poles, which, by -cleverly-devised pulleys, could be lifted to any height -desired.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id013'> -<img src='images/i_308.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>SETH NELSON, JR., AFTER A GOOD DAY’S SPORT</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c001'>The young Philadelphian edged his way through the -good-humored concourse to ask permission to use the -ink; he had brought his favorite quill pen and the paper -with him. This brought him face to face, across the -counter, with the postmistress. He had not been able -to see her before, as her trim little figure had been -wholly obscured by the ponderous forms that lined the -counter.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Instantly he was charmed by her appearance–it was -unusual–by her look of neatness and alertness. Their -eyes met–it was almost with a smile of mutual recognition. -When he asked her if he could borrow the ink, -which was kept in a large earthen pot of famous Sugar -Valley make, she smiled on him again, and he absorbed -the charm of her personality anew.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Though she was below the middle height, her figure -was so lithe and erect that it fully compensated for the -lack of inches. She wore a blue homespun dress, with -a neat checked apron over it, the material for which -constituted a luxury, and must have come all the way -from Youngmanstown or Sunbury. Her profuse -masses of soft, wavy, light brown hair, on which the -hanging lamps above brought out a glint of gold, was -worn low on her head. Her deepset eyes were a transparent -blue, her features well developed, and when she -<span class='pageno' id='Page_274'>274</span>turned her face in profile, the high arch of the nose -showed at once mental stability and energy. Her complexion -was pink and white. There seemed to be always -that kindly smile playing about the eyes and lips.</p> - -<p class='c001'>When she pushed the heavy inkwell towards him he -noticed that her hands were very white, the fingers -tapering; they were the hands of innate refinement.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Almost imperceptibly the young man found himself -in conversation with the little postmistress. Doubtless -she was interested to meet an attractive stranger, one -from such a distant city as Philadelphia. While they -talked, the letter was gradually written, sealed, weighed -and paid for–it was before the days of postage stamps, -and the postmistress politely waited on her customers.</p> - -<p class='c001'>He had told her his name–Mifflin Sargeant–and she -had given him hers–Caroline Hager–and that she was -eighteen years of age. He had told her about his prospective -trip into the wilds of Centre County, of the -fierce beasts which he had heard still abounded there. -The girl informed him that he would not have to go -farther west to meet wild animals; that wolf hides by -the dozen were brought to Stover’s each winter, where -they were traded in; that old Stover, a justice of the -peace, attested to the bounty warrants–in fact, the -wolves howled from the hill across the road on cold -nights when the dogs were particularly restless.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Her father was a wolf hunter, and would never allow -her to go home alone; consequently, when he could not -accompany her she remained over night in the dwelling -which housed the post office. Panthers, too, were occasionally -<span class='pageno' id='Page_275'>275</span>met with in the locality–in the original surveys -this region was referred to as “Catland”–also huge red -bears and the somewhat smaller black ones.</p> - -<p class='c001'>If he was going West, she continued in her pretty -way, he must not fail to visit the great limestone cave -near where the Brush Mountains ended. She had a -sister married and living not far from it, from whom -she had heard wonderful tales, though she had never -been there herself. It was a cave so vast it had not as -yet been fully explored; one could travel for miles in it -in a boat; the Karoondinha, or John Penn’s Creek, had -its source in it; Indians had formerly lived in the dry -parts, and wild beasts. Then she lowered her voice to -say that it was now haunted by the Indians’ spirits.</p> - -<p class='c001'>And so they talked until a very late hour, the crowd -in the post office melting away, until Jared Hager, the -girl’s father, in his wolfskin coat, appeared to escort her -home, to the cabin beyond the waterfall near the trail -to Dolly Hope’s Valley. She was to have a holiday -until the next afternoon.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The wolf hunter was a courageous-looking man, -much darker than his daughter, with a heavy black -beard and bushy eyebrows; in fact, she was the only -brown-haired, blue-eyed one in the entire family connection. -He spoke pleasantly with the young stranger, -and then they all said good night.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Don’t forget to visit the great cavern,” Caroline -called to the youth.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“I surely will,” he answered, “and stop here on my -way east to tell you all about it.”</p> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_276'>276</span>“That’s good; we want to see you again,” said the -girl, as she disappeared into the gloomy shadows which -the shaggy white pines cast across the road.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Young Stover was playing “Green Grows the -Rushes” on his fiddle in the tap-room, and Sargeant -sat there listening to him, dreaming and musing all the -while, his consciousness singularly alert, until the closing -hour came.</p> - -<p class='c001'>That night, in the old stained four-poster, in his tiny, -cold room, he slept not at all. “Yet he feared to -dream.” Though his thoughts carried him all over the -world, the little postmistress was uppermost in every -fancy. Among the other things, he wished that he had -asked her to ride with him to the cave. They could have -visited the subterranean marvels together. He got out -of bed and managed to light the fat lamp. By its sputtering -gleams he wrote her a letter, which came to an -abrupt end as the small supply of ink which he carried -with him was exhausted. But as he repented of the -intense sentences penned to a person who knew him so -slightly, he arose again before morning and tore it to -bits.</p> - -<p class='c001'>There was a white frost on the buildings and ground -when he came downstairs. The autumn air was cold, -the atmosphere was a hazy, melancholy gray. There -seemed to be a cessation of all the living forces of nature, -as if waiting for the summons of winter. From -the chimney of the old inn came purple smoke, charged -with the pungent odor of burning pine wood.</p> - -<p class='c001'>With a strange sadness he saddled his horse and resumed -<span class='pageno' id='Page_277'>277</span>his ride towards the west. He thought constantly -of Caroline–so much so that after he had traveled -ten miles he wanted to turn back; he felt miserable -without her. If only she were riding beside him, the -two bound for Penn’s Valley Cave, he could be supremely -happy. Without her, he did not care to visit -the cavern, or anything else; so at Jacobsburg he -crossed the Nittany Mountains, leaving the southerly -valleys behind.</p> - -<p class='c001'>He rode up Nittany Valley to Bellefonte, where he -met the agent of the Snow Shoe Company. With this -gentleman he visited the vast tract being opened up to -lumbering, mining and colonization. But his thoughts -were elsewhere; they were across the mountains with -the little postmistress of Stover’s.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Satisfied that his investment would prove remunerative, -he left the development company’s cozy lodge-house, -and, with a heart growing lighter with each mile, -started for the east. It was wonderful how differently–how -vastly more beautiful the country seemed on -this return journey. He fully appreciated the wistful -loveliness of the fast-fading autumn foliage, the crispness -of the air, the beauty of each stray tuft of asters, -the last survivors of the wild flowers along the trail. -The world was full of joy, everything was in harmony.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Again it was after nightfall when he reined his horse -in front of Stover’s long, rambling public house. This -time two doors opened simultaneously, sending forth -golden lights and shadows. One was from the tap-room, -where the hostler emerged; the other from the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_278'>278</span>post office, bringing little Caroline. There was no mail -that night, consequently the office was practically deserted; -she had time to come out and greet her much-admired -friend. And let it be said that ever since she -had seen him her heart was agog with the image of -Mifflin Sargeant. She was canny enough to appreciate -such a man; besides, he was a good-looking youth -though perhaps of a less robust type than those most -admired in the Red Hills.</p> - -<p class='c001'>After cordial greetings the young man ate supper, -after which he repaired to the post office. By that time -the last straggler was gone; he had a blissful evening -with his fair Caroline. She anticipated his coming, -being somewhat of a <em>psychic</em>, and had arranged to spend -the night with the Stovers. There was no hurry to -retire; when they went out on the porch, preparatory -to locking up, the hunter’s moon was sinking behind -the western knobs, which rose like the pyramids of -Egypt against the sky line.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Sargeant lingered around the old house for three -days; when he departed it was with extreme reluctance. -Seeing Caroline again in the future appeared like something -too good to be true, so down-hearted was he at -the parting. But he had arranged to come back the -following autumn, bringing an extra horse with him, -and the two would ride to the wonderful cavern in -Penn’s Valley and explore to the ends its stygian depths. -Meanwhile they would make most of their separation -through a regular correspondence.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Despite glances, pressure of hands, chance caresses, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_279'>279</span>and evident happiness in one another’s society, not a -word of love had passed between the pair. That was -why the pain of parting was so intense. If Caroline -could have remembered one loving phrase, then she -would have felt that she had something tangible on -which to hang her hopes. If the young Philadelphian -had unburdened his heart by telling her that he loved -her, and her alone, and heard her words of affirmation, -the world out into which he was riding would have -seemed less blank.</p> - -<p class='c001'>But underneath his love, burning like a hot branding -iron, was his consciousness of class, his fear of the -consequences if he took to the great city a bride from -another sphere. As an only son, he could not picture -himself deserting his widowed mother and sisters, and -living at Snow Shoe; there he was sure that Caroline -would be happy. Neither could he see permanent -peace of mind if he married her and brought her into -his exclusive circles in the Quaker City.</p> - -<p class='c001'>As he was an honorable young man, and his love was -real, making her truly and always happy was the solitary -consideration. These thoughts marred the parting; -they blistered and ravaged his spirit on the whole -dreary way back to Liverpool. There his colored servant, -an antic darkey, was waiting at the old Susquehanna -House to ride the horse to Philadelphia.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The young man boarded the packet, riding on it to -Harrisburg, where he took the steam train for home. -In one way he was happier than ever before in his life, -for he had found love; in another he was the most dejected -<span class='pageno' id='Page_280'>280</span>of men, for his beloved might never be his own.</p> - -<p class='c001'>He seemed gayer and stronger to his family; evidently -the trip into the wilderness had done him good. -He had begun his letter-writing to Caroline promptly. -It was his great solace in his heart perplexity. She -wrote a very good letter, very tender and sympathetic; -the handwriting was clear, almost masculine, denoting -the bravery of her spirit.</p> - -<p class='c001'>During the winter he was called upon through his -sisters to mingle much with the society of the city. He -met many beautiful and attractive young women, but -for him the die of love had been cast. He was Caroline’s -irretrievably. Absence made his love firmer, yet -the solution of it all the more enigmatical.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The time passed on apace. Another autumn set in, -but on account of important business matters it was not -until December that Sargeant departed for the wilds of -mountainous Pennsylvania. But he could spend Christmas -with his love.</p> - -<p class='c001'>This time he sent two horses ahead to Liverpool. -When he reached the queer old river town he dropped -into an old saddlery shop, where the canal-boat drivers -had their harness mended, and purchased a neat side -saddle, all studded with brass-headed nails. This he -tied on behind his servant’s saddle.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The two horsemen started up the beautiful West -Mahantango, crossing the Shade Mountain to Swinefordstown, -thence along the edge of Jack’s Mountain, -by the gently flowing Karoondinha, to Hartley Hall -<span class='pageno' id='Page_281'>281</span>and the Narrows, through the Fox Gap and Minnick’s -Gap, a slightly shorter route to Stover’s.</p> - -<p class='c001'>On his previous trip he had ridden along the river to -Selin’s Grove, across Chestnut Ridge to New Berlin, -over Shamokin Ridge to Youngmanstown, and from -there to the Narrows; he was in no hurry; no dearly -loved girl was waiting for him in those days.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Caroline, looking prettier than ever–she was a trifle -plumper and redder cheeked–was at the post office -steps to greet him. Despite his avoidance of words of -love, she was certain of his inmost feelings, and opined -that somehow the ultimate result would be well.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Sargeant had arranged to arrive on a Saturday evening, -so that they could begin their ride to the cave that -night after the post office closed, and be there bright -and early Sunday morning. For this reason he had -traveled by very easy stages from Hartley Hall, that -the horses might be fresh for their added journey.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Sargeant’s devoted Negro factotum was taken somewhat -aback when he saw how attentive the young man -was to the girl, and marveled at the mountain maid’s -rare beauty. Upon instructions from his master, he set -about to changing the saddles, placing the brand new -lady’s saddle on the horse he had been riding.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was not long until the tiny post office was closed -for the night, and Caroline emerged, wearing a many-caped -red riding coat, the hood of which she threw over -her head to keep the wavy, chestnut hair in place. She -climbed into the saddle gracefully–she seemed a -natural horse-woman–and soon the loving pair were -<span class='pageno' id='Page_282'>282</span>cantering up the road towards Wolfe’s Store, Rebersburg -and the cave.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was not quite daybreak when they passed the -home of old Jacob Harshbarger, the tenant of the “cave -farm;” a Creeley rooster was crowing lustily in the -barnyard, the unmilked cattle of the ancient black breed -shook their shaggy heads lazily; no one was up.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The young couple had planned to visit the cave, -breakfast, and spend the day with Caroline’s sister, -who lived not far away at Centre Hill, and ride leisurely -back to Stover’s in the late afternoon. It had been a -very cold all-night ride, but they had been so happy -that it seemed brief and free from all disagreeable -physical sensations.</p> - -<p class='c001'>In those days there was no boat in the cave, and no -guides; consequently all intending visitors had to bring -their own torches. This Caroline had seen to, and in -her leisure moments for weeks before her lover’s coming, -had been arranging a supply of rich pine lights that -would see them safely through the gloomy labyrinths.</p> - -<p class='c001'>They fed their horses and then tied them to the fence -of the orchard which surrounded the entrance to the -“dry” cave, which had been recently set out. Several -big original white pines grew along the road, and would -give the horses shelter in case it turned out to be a -windy day. The young couple strolled through the -orchard, and down the steep path to the mouth of the -“watery” cave, where they gazed for some minutes at -the expanse of greenish water, the high span of the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_283'>283</span>arched roof, the general impressiveness of the scene, so -like the stage setting of some elfin drama.</p> - -<p class='c001'>They sat on the dead grass, near this entrance, eating -a light breakfast with relish. Then they wended their -way up the hill to the circular “hole in the ground” -which formed the doorway to the “dry” cave. The -torches were carefully lit, the supply of fresh ones was -tied in a bundle about Sargeant’s waist. The burning -pine gave forth an aromatic odor and a mellow light. -They descended through the narrow opening, the young -man going ahead and helping his sweetheart after him. -Down the spiral passageway they went, until at length -they came into a larger chamber. Here the torches cast -unearthly shadows, bats flitted about; some small animal -ran past them into an aperture at a far corner. -Sargeant declared that he believed the elusive creature -a fox, and he followed in the direction in which it had -gone.</p> - -<p class='c001'>When he came to this opening he peered through it, -finding that it led to an inner chamber of impressive -proportions. He went back, taking Caroline by the -hand, and led her to the narrow chamber, into which -they both entered. Once in the interior room, they -were amazed by its size, the height of its roof, the -beauty of the stalactite formations. They sat down on -a fallen stalagmite, holding aloft their torches, absorbed -by the beauty of the scene.</p> - -<p class='c001'>In the midst of their musing, a sudden gust of wind -blew out their lights. They were in utter darkness. -The young lover bade his sweetheart be unafraid, while -<span class='pageno' id='Page_284'>284</span>he reached his hand in his pocket for the matches. -They were primitive affairs, the few he had, and he -could not make them light. He had not counted on the -use of the matches, as he thought one torch could be lit -from another; consequently had brought so few with -him. Finally he lit a match, but the dampness extinguished -it before he could ignite his torch.</p> - -<p class='c001'>When the last match failed, it seemed as if the couple -were in a serious predicament. They first shouted at -the top of their voices but only empty echoes answered -them. They fumbled about in the chamber, stumbling -over rocks and stalagmites, their eyes refusing to become -accustomed to the profound blackness. Try as -they would, they could not locate the passage that led -from the room they were in to the outer apartment.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Caroline, little heroine that she was, made no complaint. -If she had any secret fears, her lover effectually -quenched them by telling her that the presence of -the two saddle horses tied to the orchard fence would -acquaint the Harshbarger family of their presence in -the cave.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Surely,” he went on, “we will be rescued in a few -hours. There’s bound to be some member of the household -or some hunter see those horses.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>But the hours passed, and with them came no intimations -of rescue. But the two “prisoners” loved one -another, time was nothing to them. In the outer world, -both thought, but neither made bold to say, that they -might have to separate–in the cave they were one in -purpose, one in love. How gloriously happy they were! -<span class='pageno' id='Page_285'>285</span>But they did get a trifle hungry, but that was appeased -at first by the remnants of the breakfast provisions, -which they luckily still had in a little bundle.</p> - -<p class='c001'>When sufficient time had elapsed for night to set in, -they fell asleep, and in each other’s arms. Caroline’s -last conscious moment was to feel her lover’s kisses. -When they awoke, many hours afterwards, they were -hungrier than ever, and thirsty. Sargeant fumbled -about, locating a small pool of water, where the two -quenched their thirsts. But still they were happy, come -what may.</p> - -<p class='c001'>They would be rescued, that was certain, unless the -horses had broken loose and run away, but there was -small chance of that. They had been securely tied. It -was strange that no one had seen the steeds in so long a -time, with the farmhouse less than a quarter of a mile -away–but it was at the foot of the hill.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Hunger grew apace with every hour. After a while -drinking water could not sate it. It throbbed and -ached, it became a dull pain that only love could triumph -over. Again enough hours elapsed to bring -sleep, but it was harder to find repose, though Sargeant’s -kisses were marvelous recompense. Caroline -never whimpered from lack of food. To be with her -lover was all she asked. She had prayed for over a -year to be with him again. She would be glad to die -at his side, even of starvation.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The young man was content; hunger was less a pain -to him than had been the past fourteen months’ separation.</p> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_286'>286</span>Again came what they supposed to be morning. -They knew that there must be some way out near at -hand, as the air was so pure. They shouted, but the -dull echoes were their only reward. Strangely enough, -they had never felt another cold gust like the one which -had blown out their torches. Could the shade of one of -the old-time Indians who had fought for possession of -the cave been perpetrator of the trick? suggested lovely -little Caroline. If so, she thought to herself, he had -helped her, not harmed her, for could there be in the -world a sensation half so sweet as sinking to rest in -her lover’s arms?</p> - -<p class='c001'>Meanwhile the world outside the cavern had been -going its way. Shortly after the young equestrian -passed the Harshbarger dwelling, all the family had -come out, and, after attending to their farm duties, -driven off to the Seven Mountains, where the sons of -the family maintained a hunting camp on Cherry Run, -on the other side of High Valley.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The boys had killed an elk, consequently the guests -remained longer than expected, to partake of a grand -Christmas feast. They tarried at the camp all of that -day, all of the next; it was not until early on the morning -of the third day that they started back to the Penn’s -Creek farm.</p> - -<p class='c001'>They had arranged with a neighbor’s boy, Mosey -Scull, who lived further along the creek below the farm -house, to do the feeding in their absence; it was winter, -there was no need to hurry home.</p> - -<p class='c001'>When they got home they found Mosey in the act of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_287'>287</span>watering two very dejected and dirty looking horses -with saddles on their backs.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Where did they come from?” shouted the big -freight-wagon load in unison.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“I found them tied to the fence up at the orchard. -By the way they act I’d think they hadn’t been watered -or fed for several days,” replied the boy.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“You dummy!” said old Harshbarger, in Dutch. -“Somebody’s in that cave, and got lost, and can’t get -out.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>He jumped from the heavy wagon and ran to a corner -of the corncrib, where he kept a stock of torches. -Then he hurried up the steep hill towards the entrance -to the “dry” cave. The big man was panting when he -<a id='corr287.15'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='rached'>reached</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_287.15'><ins class='correction' title='rached'>reached</ins></a></span> the opening, where he paused a moment to -kindle a torch with his flints. Then he lowered himself -into the aperture, shouting at the top of his voice, -“Hello! Hello! Hello!”</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was not until he had gotten into the first chamber -that the captives in the inner room could hear him. -Sargeant had been sitting with his back propped against -the cavern wall, while Caroline, very pale and white-lipped, -was lying across his knees, gazing up into the -darkness, imagining that she could see his face.</p> - -<p class='c001'>When they heard the cheery shouts of their deliverer -they did not instantly attempt to scramble to their feet. -Instead the young lover bent over; his lips touched -Caroline’s, who instinctively had raised her face to meet -his. As his lips touched hers, he whispered:</p> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_288'>288</span>“I love you, darling, with all my heart. We will be -married when we get out of here.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Caroline had time to say: “You are my only love,” -before their lips came together.</p> - -<p class='c001'>They were in that position when the flare of Farmer -Harshbarger’s torch lit up their hiding place. Pretty -soon they were on their feet and, with their rescuer, -figuring out just how long they had been in their prison–their -prison of love.</p> - -<p class='c001'>They had gone into the cave on the morning of December -24th; it was now the morning of the 27th; in -fact almost noon. Christmas had come and gone.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Caroline still had enough strength in reserve to enable -her to climb up the tortuous passage, though her lover -did help her some, as all lovers should.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The farmer’s wife had some coffee and buckwheat -cakes ready when they arrived at the mansion; which -the erstwhile captives of Penn’s Cave sat down to enjoy.</p> - -<p class='c001'>As they were eating, another of Harshbarger’s sons -rode up on horseback. He had been to the post office -at Earlysburg. He handed Sargeant a tiny, roughly -typed newspaper published in Millheim. Across the -front page, in letters larger than usual, were the words, -“Mexico Declares War on the United States.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Sargeant scanned the headline intently, then laid the -paper on the table.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Our country has been drawn into a war with -Mexico,” he said, his voice trembling with emotion. -“I had hoped it might be avoided. I am First Lieutenant -of the Lafayette Greys; I fear I’ll have to go.”</p> -<div class='figcenter id014'> -<img src='images/i_326.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>BIG SNYDER COUNTY WILD CAT</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_289'>289</span>Caroline lost the color which had come back to her -pretty cheeks since emerging from the underground -dungeon. She reached over, grasping her lover’s now -clammy hand. Then, noticing that no one was listening, -she said, faintly:</p> - -<p class='c001'>“It is terrible to have you leave me now; but won’t -you marry me before you go? I do love you.” -“replied Sargeant, with enthusiasm. -“I will have more to fight for, with you at home bearing -my name.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Love had broken the bonds of caste.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id008'> -<img src='images/i_328.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_290'>290</span> - <h2 class='c002'><span class='fss'>XXI</span> <br /> <i>The Silent Friend</i></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Every one who has hunted in the “Seven -Brothers’”, as the Seven Mountains are called -in Central Pennsylvania, has heard of Daniel -Karstetter, the famous Nimrod. The Seven Mountains -comprise the Path Valley, Short Bald, Thick -Head, Sand, Shade and Tussey Mountains. Though -three-quarters of a century has passed since he was in -his hey-day as a slayer of big game, his fame is undiminished. -Anecdotes of his prowess are related in -every hunting camp; by one and all he has been -acclaimed the greatest hunter that the Seven Brothers -ever produced.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The great Nimrod, who lived to a very advanced -age, was born in 1818 on the banks of Pine Creek, a: -the Blue Rock, half a mile below the present town of -Coburn. In addition to his hunting prowess, he was -interested in psychic experiences, and was as prone to -discuss his adventures with supernatural agencies as -his conflicts with the wild denizens of the forests. -There was a particular ghost story which he loved -dearly to relate.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Accompanied by his younger brother Jacob, he had -been attending a dance one night across the mountains, -in the environs of the town of Milroy, for like all the -backwoods boys of his time, he was adept in the art -of terpsichore. The long journey was made on horseback, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_291'>291</span>the lads being mounted on stout Conestoga -chargers.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The homeward ride was commenced after midnight, -the two brothers riding along the dark trail in single -file. In the wide flat on the top of the “Big Mountain” -Daniel fell into a doze. When he awoke, his mount -having stumbled on a stone, Jacob was nowhere to be -seen. Thinking that his brother had put his horse to -trot and gone on ahead, Daniel dismissed the matter of -his absence from his mind.</p> - -<p class='c001'>As he was riding down the steep slope of the mountain, -he noticed a horseman waiting for him on the -path. When they came abreast the other rider fell in -beside him, skillfully guiding his horse so that it did -not <a id='corr291.15'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='enounter'>encounter</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_291.15'><ins class='correction' title='enounter'>encounter</ins></a></span> the dense foliage which lined the narrow -way. Daniel supposed the party to be his brother, -although the unknown kept his lynx-skin collar turned -up, and his felt cap was pulled down level with his -eyes. It was pitchy dark, so to make sure, Daniel -called out:</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Is that you, Jacob?”</p> - -<p class='c001'>His companion did not reply, so the young man -repeated his query in still louder tones, but all he -heard was the crunching of the horses’ hoofs on the -pebbly road.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Daniel Karstetter, master slayer of panthers, bears -and wolves, was no coward, though on this occasion he -felt uneasy. Yet he disliked picking a quarrel with -the silent man at his side, who clearly was not his -brother, and he feared to put his horse to a gallop on -<span class='pageno' id='Page_292'>292</span>the steep, uneven roadway. The trip home never -before seemed of such interminable length. For the -greater part of the distance Daniel made no attempt to -converse with his unsociable comrade. Finally, he -heaved a sigh of relief when he saw a light gleaming -in the horse stable at the home farm. When he -reached the barnyard gate he dismounted to let down -the bars, while the stranger apparently vanished in the -gloom.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Daniel led his mount to the horse stable, where he -found his brother Jacob sitting by the old tin lantern, -fast asleep. He awakened him and asked him when -he had gotten home. Jacob stated that his horse had -been feeling good, so he let him canter all the way. -He had been sleeping, but judged that he had been -home at least half an hour. He had met no horseman -on the road.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Daniel was convinced that his companion had been -a ghost, or, as they are called in the “Seven Brothers,” -a <em>gshpook</em>. But he made no further comment that -night.</p> - -<p class='c001'>A year afterwards, in coming back alone from a -dance in Stone Valley, he was again joined by the -silent horseman, who followed him to his barnyard -gate. He gave up going to dances on that account. At -least once a year, or as long as he was able to go out -at night, he met the ghostly rider. Sometimes, when -tramping along on foot after a hunt, or, in later years, -coming back from market at Bellefonte in his Jenny -Lind, he would find the silent horseman at his side. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_293'>293</span>After the first experience, he never attempted to speak -to the night rider, but he became convinced that it -meant him no harm.</p> - -<p class='c001'>As his prowess as a hunter became recognized, he -had many jealous rivals among the less successful -Nimrods. In those old days threats of all kinds were -freely made. He heard on several occasions that certain -hunters were setting out to “fix” him. But a man -who could wrestle with panthers and bears knew no -such thing as fear.</p> - -<p class='c001'>One night, while tramping along in Green’s Valley, -he was startled by some one in the path ahead of him -shouting out in Pennsylvania German, “Hands up!” -He was on the point of dropping his rifle, when he -heard the rattle of hoof beats back of him. The silent -horseman in an instant was by his side, the dark horse -pawing the earth with his giant hoofs. There was a -crackling of brush in the path ahead, and no more -threats of <em>hend uff</em>.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The ghostly rider followed Daniel to his barn yard -gate, but was gone before he could utter a word of -thanks. As the result of this adventure, he became -imbued with the idea that he possessed a charmed life. -It gave him added courage in his many encounters with -panthers, the fierce red bears and lynxes.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Apart from his love of hunting the more dangerous -animals, Daniel enjoyed the sport of deer-stalking. He -maintained several licks, one of them in a patch of -low ground over the hill from the entrance to the -“dry” part of Penn’s Cave. At this spot he constructed -<span class='pageno' id='Page_294'>294</span>a blind, or platform, between the two ancient -tupelo trees, about twenty feet from the ground, and -many were the huge white-faced stags which fell to -his unerring bullets during the rutting season.</p> - -<p class='c001'>One cold night, according to an anecdote frequently -related by one of his descendants, while perched in his -eyrie overlooking the natural clearing which constituted -the <em>lick</em>, and in sight of a path frequented by -the fiercer beasts, which led to the opening of the -“dry” cave, he saw, about midnight, a huge pantheress, -followed by a large male of the same species, come -out into the open.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“The pantheress strolled from the path,” so the -story went, "and came and laid herself down at the -roots of the tupelo trees, while the panther remained -in the path, and seemed to be listening to some noise -as yet inaudible to the hunter.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"Daniel soon heard a distant roaring; it seemed to -come from the very summit of the Brush Mountain, -and immediately the pantheress answered it. The -the panther on the path, his jealousy aroused, commenced -to roar with a voice so loud that the frightened -hunter almost let go his trusty rifle and held tighter to -the railing of his blind, lest he might tumble to the -earth. As the voice of the animal that he had heard -in the distance gradually approached, the pantheress -welcomed him with renewed roarings, and the panther, -restless, went and came from the path to his flirtatious -flame, as though he wished her to keep silence, as -<span class='pageno' id='Page_295'>295</span>though to say, ‘Let him come if he dares; he will find -his match’.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"In about an hour a panther, with mouse-color, -or grey coat, stepped out of the forest, and stood in -the full moonlight on the other side of the cleared -place, the moonbeams illuminating his form with a -glow like phosphorescence. The pantheress, eyeing him -with admiration, raised herself to go to him, but the -panther, divining her intent, rushed before her and -marched right at his adversary. With measured step -and slow, they approached to within a dozen paces -of each other, their smooth, round heads high in the -air, their bulging yellow eyes gleaming, their long, -tufted tails slowly sweeping down the brittle asters -that grew about them. They crouched to the earth–a -moment’s pause–and then they bounded with a -hellish scream high in the air and rolled on the ground, -locked in their last embrace.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"The battle was long and fearful, to the amazed and -spellbound witness of this midnight duel. Even if he -had so wished, he could not have taken steady enough -aim to fire. But he preferred to watch the combat, -while the moonlight lasted. The bones of the two -combatants cracked under their powerful jaws, their -talons painted the frosty ground with blood, and their -outcries, now <a id='corr295.26'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='sic'>gutteral</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_295.26'><ins class='correction' title='sic'>gutteral</ins></a></span>, now sharp and loud, told their -rage and agony.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"At the beginning of the contest the pantheress -crouched herself on her belly, with her eyes fixed upon -the gladiators, and all the while the battle raged, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_296'>296</span>manifested by the slow, catlike motion of her tail, the -pleasure she felt at the spectacle. When the scene -closed, and all was quiet and silent and deathlike on the -lick, and the moon had commenced to wane, she cautiously -approached the <a id='corr296.5'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='battle-gound'>battle-ground</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_296.5'><ins class='correction' title='battle-gound'>battle-ground</ins></a></span> and, sniffing the -lifeless bodies of her two lovers, walked leisurely to a -nearby oak, where she stood on her hind feet, sharpening -her fore claws on the bark.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"She glared up ferociously at the hunter in the blind, -as if she meant to vent her anger by climbing after -him. In the moonlight her golden eyes appeared so -terrifying that Daniel dropped his rifle, and it fell to -the earth with a sickening thud. As he reached after -it, the flimsy railing gave way and he fell, literally -into the arms of the pantheress. At that moment -the rumble of horses’ hoofs, like thunder on some -distant mountain, was heard. Just as the panther -was about to rend the helpless Nimrod to bits, the -unknown rider came into view. Scowling at the -intruder, mounted on his huge black horse, the brute -abandoned its prey and ambled off up the hill in the -direction of the dry cave.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"Daniel seized his firearm and sent a bullet after -her retreating form, but it apparently went wild of -its mark. Meanwhile, before he had time to express -his gratitude to the strange deliverer, he had vanished.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"Daniel was dumbfounded. As soon as he had recovered -from the blood-curdling episodes, <a id='corr296.28'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='built'>he built</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_296.28'><ins class='correction' title='built'>he built</ins></a></span> a small -fire near the mammoth carcasses, where he warmed -his much benumbed hands. Then he examined the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_297'>297</span>dead panthers, but found that their hides were too -badly torn to warrant skinning.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"Disgusted at not getting his deer, and being even -cheated out of the panther pelts, he dragged the ghastly -remains of the erstwhile kings of the forest by their -tails to the edge of the entrance to the dry cave. -There he cut off the long ears in order to collect the -bounty, and then shoved the carcasses into the opening. -They fell with sickening thuds into the chamber -beneath, to the evident horror of the pantheress, which -uttered a couple of piercing screams as the horrid -remnants of the recent battle royal landed in her -vicinity.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Then Jacob shouldered his rifle and started out in -search of small game for breakfast. That night he -went to another of his licks on Elk Creek, near Fulmer’s -Sink, where he killed four superb stags,” so the -story concludes.</p> - -<p class='c001'>But to his dying day he always placed the battle of -the panthers first of all his hunting adventures. And -his faith in the unknown horseman as his deliverer and -good genius became the absorbing, all-pervading influence -of his life.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_298'>298</span> - <h2 class='c002'><span class='fss'>XXII</span> <br /> <i>The Fountain of Youth</i></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Old Chief Wisamek, of the Kittochtinny Indians, -had lost his spouse. He was close to sixty years -of age, which was old for a redman, especially -one who had led the hard life of a warrior, exposed to -all kinds of weather, fasts and forced marches. Though -he felt terribly lonely and depressed in his state of -widowerhood, the thought of discarding the fidelity of -the eagle, which, if bereaved, never takes a second -mate, and was the noble bird he worshipped, seemed -repugnant to him until he happened to see the fair and -buxom maid Annapalpeteu.</p> - -<p class='c001'>He was rheumatic, walking with difficulty; he tired -easily, was fretful, all sure signs of increasing age; but -what upset him most was the sight of his reflection in -his favorite pool, a haggard, weazened, wrinkled face, -with a nose like the beak of an eagle, and glazed eyes as -colorless as clay. When he opened his mouth the reflected -image seemed to be mostly toothless, the lips -were blue and thin. He had noticed that he did not -need to pluck the hairs from his skull any more to give -prominence to his warrior’s top-knot; the proud <a id='corr298.23'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='tufts'>tuft</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_298.23'><ins class='correction' title='tufts'>tuft</ins></a></span> -itself was growing sparse and weak; to keep it erect he -was now compelled to braid it with hair from a buffalo’s -tail.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Brave warrior that he was, he hated to pay his court -<span class='pageno' id='Page_299'>299</span>to the lovely Annapalpeteu when on all sides he saw -stalwart, six-foot youths, masses of sinews and muscle, -clear-eyed, firm-lipped, always ambitious and high-spirited, -more suited to be her companions.</p> - -<p class='c001'>But one afternoon he saw his copper-colored love -sitting by the side of the Bohundy Creek, beating maize -in a wooden trough. Her entire costume consisted of a -tight petticoat of blue cloth, hardly reaching to the -knees, and without any ruffles. Her cheeks and forehead -were neatly daubed with red. She seemed very -well content with her coadjutor, a bright young fellow, -who, except for two wild cat hides appropriately distributed, -was quite as naked as the ingenuous beauty. -That <a id='corr299.14'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='Annapalpeteau'>Annapalpeteu</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_299.14'><ins class='correction' title='Annapalpeteau'>Annapalpeteu</ins></a></span> had a cavalier was now certain, -and immediately it rankled what flames remained in his -jaded body; he must have her at any cost.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Down by the Conadogwinet, across the Broad Mountain, -lived Mbison, a wise man. Old Wisamek would -go there and consult him, perhaps obtain from him -some potion to permanently restore at least a few of -the fires of his lost youth. Though his will power had -been appreciably slackening of late years, he acted with -alacrity on the idea of visiting the soothsayer. Before -sundown he was on his way to the south, accompanied -by several faithful henchmen. Carrying a long ironwood -staff, he moved on with unwonted agility; it was -very dark, and the path difficult to follow, when he -finally consented to bivouac for the night. The next -morning found him so stiff that he could hardly clamber -to his feet. His henchmen assisted him, though -<span class='pageno' id='Page_300'>300</span>they begged him to rest for a day. But his will forced -him on; he wanted to be <a id='corr300.2'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='verile'>virile</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_300.2'><ins class='correction' title='verile'>virile</ins></a></span> and win the beautiful -<a id='corr300.3'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='Annapalpateu'>Annapalpeteu</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_300.3'><ins class='correction' title='Annapalpateu'>Annapalpeteu</ins></a></span>.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The journey, which consumed a week, cost the aged -Strephon a world of effort. But as he had been -indefatigable in his youth, he was determined to reach -the wise man’s headquarters walking like a warrior, and -not carried there on a litter like an old woman. Bravely -he forged ahead, his aching joints paining miserably, -until at length he came in sight of his Promised Land.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The soothsayer, who had been apprised of his coming -by a dream, was in front of his substantial lodge-house -to greet him. Seldom had he received a more distinguished -client than Wisamek, so he welcomed him with -marked courtesy and deference.</p> - -<p class='c001'>After the first formalities, the old chief, who had -restrained himself with difficulty, asked how he could -be restored to a youthful condition, so that he could -rightfully marry a beautiful maiden of eighteen summers. -The wise man, who had encountered similar -supplicants in the past, informed him that the task was -a comparatively easy one. It would involve, however, -however, first drinking the waters of the Warm -Springs (in what is now Perry County), then another -journey across mountains.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Wisamek shouted for joy when he heard these words, -and impatiently demanded where he would have to go -to be finally restored to youth.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Across many high mountain ranges, across many -broad valleys, across many swift streams, through a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_301'>301</span>country covered with dark forests and filled with wild -beasts, to the northwest of here, is a wonderful cavern. -In it rises a deep stream of greenish color, clear as -crystal, the fountain of youth. At its heading you will -find a very old man, Gamunk, who knows the formula. -Give him this talisman, and he will allow you to bathe -in the marvelous waters and be young again.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>With the final words he handed Wisamek a red -bear’s tooth, on which was cleverly carved the form -of an athletic youth. The old chief’s hands trembled -so much that he almost dropped the precious fetich. -But he soon recovered his self-control and thanked the -wise man. Then he ordered his henchmen to give the -soothsayer gifts, which they did, loading him with -beads, pottery, wampum and rare furs.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Despite the invitation to remain until he was completely -rested, Wisamek determined to depart at once -for the warm springs and the fountain of youth. He -drank the warm water copiously, enjoying the beautiful -surroundings at the springs. He was so stimulated by -his high hope and the mineral waters that he climbed -the steep ridges, crossed the turbulent streams and put -up with the other inconveniences of the long march -much better than might have been the case. During -the entire journey he sang Indian love songs, strains -which had not passed his lips in thirty years.</p> - -<p class='c001'>His followers, gossiping among themselves, declared -that he looked better already. Perhaps he would not -have to bathe in the fountain after all. He might resume -<span class='pageno' id='Page_302'>302</span>his youth, because he willed it so. Indians were -strong believers in the power of mind over matter.</p> - -<p class='c001'>When he reached the vicinity of the cave he was -fortunate enough to meet the aged Indian who was its -guardian. Though his hair was snow white and he -said he was so old that he had lost count of the years, -Gamunk’s carriage was erect, his complexion smooth, -his eyes clear and kindly. He walked along with a -swinging stride, very different from Wisamek’s mental -picture of him. The would-be bridegroom, who -handed him the talisman, was quick to impart his mission -to his new-found friend.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“It is true,” he replied, “after a day and a night’s -immersion in the cave’s water you will emerge with all -the appearance of youth. There is absolutely no doubt -of it. Thousands have been here before.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>With these reassuring words Wisamek again leaped -for joy, gyrating like a young brave at a cantico.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The party, accompanied by the old guardian, quickly -arrived at the cave’s main opening, where beneath them -lay stretched the calm, mirror-like expanse of greenish -water.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Can I begin the bath now?” asked the chief, impatiently. -“I am anxious to throw off the odious appearance -of age.” -“replied the old watchman, who took -him by the hand, leading to the ledge where it was highest -above the water. “Jump off here,” he said quietly. -Wisamek, who had been a great swimmer in his youth -and was absolutely fearless of the water, replied that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_303'>303</span>he would do so. “But remember you must remain in -the water without food until this hour tomorrow,” said -the guardian.</p> - -<p class='c001'>As he leaped into the watery depths the chief shouted -he would remain twice as long if he could be young -again. Wisamek was true to his instructions; there -was too much at stake; he dared not falter.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The next morning his henchmen were at the cave’s -mouth to greet his reappearance. They were startled to -see, climbing up the ledge with alacrity, a tall and handsome -man, as young looking as themselves. There was -a smile on the full, red lips, a twinkle in the clear eye -of the re-made warrior as he stood among them, physically -a prince among men.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The homeward journey was made with rapidity. -Wisamek traveled so fast that he played out his henchmen -who were half his age.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Annapalpeteu, who was seated in front of her parents’ -cabin weaving a garment, noticed a youth of -great physical beauty approaching, at the head of Chief -Wisamek’s clansmen. She wondered who he could be, -as he wore Wisamek’s headdress of feathers of the -osprey or “sea eagle.” When he drew near he saluted -her, and, not giving her time to answer, joyfully shouted: -“Don’t you recognize me? I am your good friend -Wisamek, come back to win your love, after a refreshing -journey through the distant forests.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Annapalpeteu, who was a sensible enough girl to -have admired the great warrior for his prowess, even -though she had never thought of him seriously as a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_304'>304</span>lover, was now instantly smitten by his engaging appearance. -The henchmen withdrew, leaving the couple -together. They made marked progress with their romance; -words of love were mentioned before they -parted.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was not long before the betrothal was announced, -followed shortly by the wedding festival. At the nuptials -the bridegroom’s appearance was the marvel of all -present. It was hinted that he had been somewhere -and renewed his youth, but as the henchmen were -sworn to secrecy, how it had been done was not revealed.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The young bride seemed radiantly happy. She had -every reason to be; the other Indian maids whispered -from lip to lip, was she not marrying the greatest warrior -and hunter of his generation, the handsomest man -in a hundred tribes? Secretly envied by all of her age, -possessing her stalwart prize, the fair bride started on -her honeymoon, showered with acorns and good wishes.</p> - -<p class='c001'>So far as is known the wedding trip passed off blissfully. -There were smiles on the bright faces of both -bride and groom when they returned to their spacious -new lodge-house, which the tribe had erected for them -in their absence, by the banks of the sparkling Bohundy. -But the course of life did not run smoothly -for the pair. Though outwardly Wisamek was the -handsomest and most youthful-looking of men, he was -still an old man at heart. Annapalpeteu was as pleasure-loving -as she was beautiful. She wanted to dance -and sing and mingle with youthful company. She -<span class='pageno' id='Page_305'>305</span>wanted her good time in life; her joy of living was at -its height, her sense of enjoyment at its zenith.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i_344.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>BLACK BEAR, KILLED IN SUGAR VALLEY</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c001'>On the other hand, Wisamek hated all forms of -gaieties or youthful amusements. He wanted to sit -about the lodge-house in the sun, telling of his warlike -triumphs of other days; he wanted to sleep much, he -hated noise and excitement.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Annapalpeteu, dutiful wife that she was, tried to -please him, but in due course of time both husband and -wife realized that romance was dying, that they were -drifting apart. Wisamek was even more aware of it -than his wife. It worried him greatly, his dreams were -of an unhappy nature. He pictured the end of the trail, -with his wife, Annapalpeteu, in love with some one else -of her own age, some one whose heart was young. He -had spells of moodiness and irritability, as well as several -serious quarrels with his wife, whom he accused of -caring less for him than formerly.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The relations became so strained that life in the -commodious lodge-house was unbearable. At length it -occurred to Wisamek that he might again visit the -fountain of youth, this time to revive his soul. Perhaps -he had not remained in the water long enough to -touch the spirit within. He informed his spouse that -he was going on a long journey on invitation of the war -chief of a distant tribe, and that she must accompany -him. He was insanely jealous of her now. He could -not bear her out of his sight. He imagined she had a -young lover back of every tree, though she was honor -personified.</p> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_306'>306</span>The trip was made pleasantly enough, as the husband -was in better spirits than usual. Annapalpeteu enjoyed -the waters of the warm springs, would liked to -have tarried. He thought he saw the surcease of his -troubles ahead of him!</p> - -<p class='c001'>When he reached the Beaver Dam Meadows, at the -foot of Egg Hill, near the site of the present town of -Spring Mills, beautiful level flats which in those days -were a favorite camping ground for the red men, he -requested the beautiful Annapalpeteu to remain there -for a few days, that he was going through a hostile -country, he would not jeopardize her safety. He was -going on an important mission that would make her -love him more than ever when he returned. In reality -no unfriendly Indians were about, but in order to give -a look of truth to his story he left her in charge of a -strong bodyguard.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Wisamek’s conduct of late had been so peculiar that -his wife was not sorry to see her lord and master go -away. Handsome though he was, a spiritual barrier -had arisen between them which grew more insurmountable -with each succeeding day. Yet, on this occasion, -when he was out of her sight, she felt apprehensive -about him. She had a strange presentiment that she -would never see him again.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Wisamek was filled with hopes; his spirits had never -been higher, as he strode along, followed by his henchmen. -When he reached the top of the path which led -to the mouth of the enchanted cave he met old Gamunk, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_307'>307</span>the guardian. The aged redman expressed surprise at -seeing him again.</p> - -<p class='c001'><a id='corr307.3'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='I have'>“I have</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_307.3'><ins class='correction' title='I have'>“I have</ins></a></span> come for a very peculiar reason,” he said. -“The bath which I took last year outwardly made me -young, but only <em>outwardly</em>. Within I am as withered -and joyless as a centenarian. I want to bathe once -more, to try to revive the old light in my soul.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Gamunk shook his head. “You may succeed; I -hope you will. I never heard of any one daring to take -a second bath in these waters. The tradition of the -hereditary guardians, of whom I am the hundredth in -direct succession, has it that it would be fatal to take a -second immersion, especially to remain in the water for -twenty-four hours.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Then he asked Wisamek for the talisman which gave -him the right to bathe. Wisamek drew himself up -proudly, and, with a gesture of his hand indicating disdain, -said he had no talisman, that he would bathe anyhow. -He advanced to the brink and plunged in. Until -the same hour the next day he floated and paddled -about the greenish depths, filled with expectancy. For -some reason it seemed longer this time than on the previous -visit.</p> - -<p class='c001'>At last, by the light which filtered down through the -treetops at the cave’s mouth, he knew that the hour -had come for him to emerge–emerge as Chief Wisamek–young -in heart as in body. Proudly he grasped the -rocky ledge and swung himself out on dry land. He -arose to his feet. His head seemed very light and -giddy. He fancied he saw visions of his old conquests, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_308'>308</span>old loves. There was the sound of music in the air. -Was it the martial drums, played to welcome the conqueror, -or the wind surging through the feathery tops -of the maple and linden trees at the mouth of the cave? -He started to climb the steep path. He seemed to be -treading the air. Was it the buoyant steps of youth -come again? He seemed to float rather than walk. -The sunlight blinded his eyes. Suddenly he had a -flash of normal consciousness. He dropped to the -ground with a thud like an old pine falling. Then all -was blackness, silence. Jaybirds complaining in the -treetops alone broke the stillness.</p> - -<p class='c001'>His bodyguards, who were waiting for him at old -Gamunk’s lodge-house, close to where the hotel now -stands, became impatient at his non-appearance, as the -hour was past. Accompanied by the venerable watchman -they started down the path. To their horror they -saw the dead body of a hideous, wrinkled old man, all -skin and bones, like a desiccated mummy, lying stretched -out across it, a few steps from the entrance to the cave. -When they approached closely they noticed several familiar -tattoo marks on the forehead, which identified -the body as that of their late master, Wisamek.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Frightened lest they would be accused of his murder, -and shocked by his altered appearance, the bodyguards -turned and took to their heels. They disappeared in -the trackless forests to the north and were never seen -again.</p> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_309'>309</span>Old Gamunk, out of pity for the vain-glorious chieftain, -buried the remains by the path near where he fell. -As for poor Annapalpeteu, the beautiful, she waited -patiently for many days by the Beaver Dam, but her -waiting was in vain. At length, concluding that he had -been slain in battle in some valorous encounter, she -started for her old home on the Bohundy.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It is related that on the way she met and married a -warrior of her own age, living happily ever afterwards -in a comfortable cabin somewhere in the majestic -Bower Mountains. In him she found the loving response, -the congeniality of pleasures which had been -denied the dried, feeble soul of Wisamek, who bathed -too often in the fountain of youth.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id015'> -<img src='images/i_350.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_310'>310</span> - <h2 class='c002'><span class='fss'>XXIII</span> <br /> <i>Compensations</i></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>It seemed that Andrew McMeans and Oscar Wellendorf -were born to be engaged in <a id='corr310.4'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='rivarly'>rivalry</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_310.4'><ins class='correction' title='rivarly'>rivalry</ins></a></span>, although -judging by their antecedents, the former -was in a class beyond, McMeans being well-born, of -old Scotch-Irish stock, a valuable asset on the Allegheny. -Wellendorf, of Pennsylvania Dutch origin, of -people coming from one of the eastern counties, was -consequently rated much lower socially, had much more -to overcome in the way of life’s obstacles. The boys -were almost of school age; Wellendorf, if anything, -was a month or two older. In school in Hickory Valley -neither was a brilliant scholar, but they were evenly -matched, and although not aspiring to lead their -classes, felt a keen rivalry between one another.</p> - -<p class='c001'>When school days were over, and they took to rafting -as the most obvious occupation in the locality, their -rivalries as to who could run a fleet quickest to Pittsburg, -and come back for another, was the talk of the -river. In love it was not different, and despite the -talk in McMean’s family that he should marry Anna -McNamor, daughter of his father’s life-long friend, -Tabor McNamor, the girl showed an open preference -for Oscar Wellendorf.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The old Scotch-Irish families were, as the London -Times said in commenting on some of the characteristics -<span class='pageno' id='Page_311'>311</span>of the late Senator Quay (inherited from his -mother, born Stanley) “clannish to degree,” and -Anna’s “people” were equally anxious that she marry -one of her own stock, and not ally herself with the -despised and socially insignificant “Dutch”. Old -Grandmother McClinton called attention to the fact -that the headstrong beauty was not without a strain -of “Dutch” blood herself, for her great, great grandmother -had been none other than the winsome Madelon -Ury, a Swiss-Huguenot girl of Berks County, who, -when surprised in the field hoeing corn by a blood-thirsty -Indian, had dropped her hoe and taken to her -heels. She ran so fast over the soft ground that she -would have escaped her moccasined pursuer had she -not taken time to cross a stone fence. This gave the -red man the chance to throw his tomahawk, striking -her in the neck, and she fell face downward over the -wall. Just as her foe was overtaking her, Martin -McClinton, a sword maker from Lancaster, who was -passing along the Shamokin trail en route to deliver a -sabre to Colonel Conrad Weiser, at Heidelberg, rushed -to her rescue and shot down the Indian, so that he fell -dead across his fair victim.</p> - -<p class='c001'>McClinton extricated the tomahawk from her neck, -bound up the wound with his own neckerchief and carried -her to her parent’s home, near the Falling Springs. -He remained until the wound healed, when he married -her. Later the pair migrated west of the Alleghenies.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Madelon McClinton was very dark, with an oval face -and aquiline features, possibly having had a strain of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_312'>312</span>Pennsylvania Jewish blood to account for her brunette -type of beauty. She always wore a red scarf wrapped -about her neck, being proud and sensitive of the ugly -long white scar left by the Indian’s weapon.</p> - -<p class='c001'>This ancestress, so Grandmother McClinton thought, -was responsible for Anna’s affinity for the rather prosaic -Dutchman Wellendorf. Although the girl was -open in her preference for Oscar, she did not make a -decision as to matrimony for some time. When Wellendorf -was absent, she was nicer to McMeans than -anyone else. However, if Oscar appeared on the -scene, she had eyes and ears for no other.</p> - -<p class='c001'>On one <a id='corr312.13'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='occaison'>occasion</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_312.13'><ins class='correction' title='occaison'>occasion</ins></a></span> when the two young men started -down the river on their rafts, proudly standing at the -steering oars in the rear, for the Allegheny pilots rode -at the back of the rafts, whereas those on the Susquehanna -were always at the front. Anna was at the -water’s edge, under a huge buttonwood tree–or, as -Wellendorf called it in the breezy vernacular of the -<a id='corr312.20'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='Pennslvania'>Pennsylvania</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_312.20'><ins class='correction' title='Pennslvania'>Pennsylvania</ins></a></span> Dutch, a “wasserpitcher”–and waved a -red kerchief impartially at both.</p> - -<p class='c001'>McMean’s raft on this trip was of “pig iron”, that -is unpeeled hemlock logs, as heavy as lead, and became -submerged when he had only gotten as far as the mouth -of French Creek. He had to run ashore to try and -devise ways and means to save it from sinking altogether, -while Wellendorf floated along serenely on -his raft of white pine, and was to Pittsburg and back -home before McMeans ever reached the “Smoky City.” -“John C. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_313'>313</span>French tells us, "White Pine (pinus strobus) was -King, and his dusky Queen was a beautiful Wild -Cherry, lovely as Queen Alliquippa of the redmen. -Rafting lumber from Warren County began about -1800, and it reached its maximum in the decade, 1830 -to 1840. The early history of Warren County abounds -in very interesting incidents, along the larger Allegheny -River, from rafts of pine lumber assembled to -couple up for Pittsburg fleets.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"After the purchase of Louisiana, in 1804, the hardy -lumbermen decided to extend their markets for pine -beyond Pittsburg, Wheeling, Cincinnati and Louisville–to -go, in fact, to New Orleans with pine and -cherry lumber. So large boats were built in the winter -of 1805 and 1806 at many mills. Seasoned lumber -of the best quality was loaded into the flat boats -and they untied on April 1, 1806, for the run of two -thousand miles, bordered by forests to the river’s edge.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"It was in defiance to ‘All Fools’ Day’, but they -went through and sold both lumber and boats. For -clear pine lumber, $40.00 was the price per one thousand -feet received at New Orleans–just double the -Pittsburg price at that date. For three years thereafter -the mills of Warren County sent boats to New -Orleans loaded with lumber, and the men returned on -foot. Joseph Mead, Abraham Davis and John Watt -took boats through in 1807, coming back via Philadelphia -on coastal sailing ships.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"The pilots and men returned by river boats or on -foot, as they best could. The markets along the Ohio -<span class='pageno' id='Page_314'>314</span>from Pittsburg to St. Louis soon took all the lumber -from the Allegheny mills, and the longer trips were -gladly discontinued.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"It was in 1850 that there came the first lumber -famine at Pittsburg. Owing to the low price of lumber -and an unfavorable winter for the forest work, -few rafts of lumber and board timber went down the -Allegheny on the spring freshets, but the November -floods brought one hundred rafts that sold for more -favorable prices than had previously prevailed. Clear -pine lumber sold readily for $18.00 and common pine -lumber for $9.00 per one thousand feet.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"The renown of these prices stimulated lumbering -on the Allegheny headwaters and the larger creeks. So -the demand for lumber was supplied and the railroads -soon began to bring lumber from many sawmills. -The board timber was hewed on four sides, so there -were only five inches of wane on each of the four -corners. These rafts of round-square timber were sold -by square feet to Pittsburg sawmills.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"Rafts of pine boards at headwater mills were made -up of platforms, 16 feet square and from 18 to 25 -courses thick, 9 pins or “grubs” holding boards in place -as rafted. Four or five platforms were coupled in -tandem with 3 feet “cribs” at each joint, making an -elastic piece 73 feet or 92 feet long for a 4 or 5 platform -piece as the case might be, 10 feet wide.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"At Larrabee or at Millgrove four of these pieces -were coupled into a Warren fleet, 32 feet wide, 149 -feet or 187 feet long.</p> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_315'>315</span>"Four Warren pieces or fleets were put together at -Warren to make up a Pittsburg fleet. At Pittsburg -four or more Pittsburg fleets were coupled to make -an Ohio River fleet. Some became very large, often -covering nearly two acres of surface, containing about -1,500,000 feet of lumber at <a id='corr315.6'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='sic'>Cincinnatti</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_315.6'><ins class='correction' title='sic'>Cincinnatti</ins></a></span> or at Louisville. -They each had a hut for sheltering the men -and for cooking their food. They often ran all night -on the Ohio. To find where the shore was on a very -dark night, the men would throw potatoes, judging -from the sound how far away the river bank was and -of their safe or dangerous position. These men were -of rugged bodies and of daring minds.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"A small piece, in headwaters and creeks, had an oar -or sweep at each end of the piece to steer the raft with. -Each oar usually had two men to pull it. An oar-stem -was from 28 to 35 feet long, 8″ by 8″, and tapered -to 4″ by 4″, shaved to round hand-hold near the end -toward center of raft. The oar blade was 12′, 14′ -or 16′ long, and 18″ to 20″ wide, a pine plank, 4″ -thick at the oar-stem socket, and 1″ thick at the out-end, -tapered its whole length.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"There were other sizes of stem and blade, but the -above indicates the power that guided a raft of lumber -along the flood-tides, crooked streams, and over a -dozen mill dams to the broader river below.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"From the Allegheny boats or scows, 30 feet long -and 11 feet wide, carried loads of baled hay, butter, -eggs and other farm produce to the oil fields of -Venango County in the ’60’s, sold there and took oil -<span class='pageno' id='Page_316'>316</span>in barrels to the refinery at Pittsburg. Then sold the -scows to carry coal or goods down the Ohio.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"Mr. Westerman built five boats at Roulette about -1870, 40 feet long and 12 feet wide, loaded them -with lumber and shingles and started for Pittsburg, -but the boats were too long for the dams and broke -up at Burtville, the first dam.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"Much of the pine timber of the west half of Potter -county was cut in sawlogs and sent to mills at -Millgrove and Weston’s in log drives down the river -and Oswayo Creek into the State of New York. The -lumber was shipped via the Genesee Valley Canal to -Albany and New York City and other points on the -Hudson River.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"The first steamboat to steam up the river from -Warren was in 1830. It was built by Archibald Tanner, -Warren’s first merchant, and David Dick and -others of Meadville. It was built in Pittsburg; the -steamer was called Allegheny. It went to Olean, returned -and went out of commission.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"The late Major D. W. C. James furnished the incident -of the Allegheny voyage. A story was told by -James Follett regarding the trip of the Allegheny -from Warren, which illustrates the lack of speed of -steamboats on the river at that early day.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"While the steamer was passing the Indian reservation, -some twenty odd miles above Warren, the famous -chief, Cornplanter, paddled his canoe out to the vessel -and actually paddled his small craft up stream and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_317'>317</span>around the Allegheny, the old chief giving a vigorous -war hoop as he accomplished the proud feat.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"Chief Cornplanter, alias John O’Bail, first took his -young men to Clarion County, about 1795, to learn -the method of lumbering, and in 1796 he built a sawmill -on Jenneseedaga Creek, later named Cornplanter -Run, in Warren County, and rafted lumber down the -<a id='corr317.8'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='Allehgeny'>Allegheny</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_317.8'><ins class='correction' title='Allehgeny'>Allegheny</ins></a></span> to Pittsburg for many years.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"Many tributary streams, such as Clarion, Tionesta -and Oswayo, contributed rafts each year to make up -the fleets that descended the Allegheny River from -1796 to 1874, our rafting days.</p> - -<p class='c001'>"We must mention the Hotel Boyer, on the -Duquesne Way, on the Allegheny River bank, near the -“Point” at Pittsburg, where the raftsmen and the lumbermen -foregathered, traded, ate and drank together, -after each trip. Indians were good pilots, but must -be kept sober on the rafts. ‘Bootleggers’ along the -river often ran boats out to the rafts and relieved the -droughty crews by dispensing bottles of ‘red-eye’ -from the long tops of the boots they wore."</p> - -<p class='c001'>Of the big trees in the Allegheny country, Dr. J. T. -Rothrock, “Father of Pennsylvania Forestry,” has -said: "About 1860, when I was with a crew surveying -the line for the Sunbury & Erie Railroad, we had -some difficulty in getting away from a certain location. -A preliminary line came in conflict with an enormous -original white pine tree, and the transitman -shouted ‘cut down that tree’. After it was felled -another nearby was found to be in the way, and was -<span class='pageno' id='Page_318'>318</span>ordered out. The stump of the first tree, four feet -above the ground measured 6 feet, 3 inches in diameter; -of the second tree a trifle over 6 feet. Such was -the wastefulness of the day."</p> - -<p class='c001'>As soon as Oscar returned he saw Anna forthwith. -She was in a particularly pliant mood, and in response -to his direct question if she would marry him, replied -she would, and the couple boarded the train at Warren -for Buffalo City, where they were married.</p> - -<p class='c001'>When Andrew McMeans came back from his protracted -expedition they were already home from their -honeymoon, and residing with the elder McNamors in -the big brick house, overlooking the Bend. Andrew -McMeans felt his jilting deeply; it was the first time -that any real disappointment had come in the twenty-one -years of his life; he had imagined that, despite -her predilection for Wellendorf, he would yet win -her, and his pride as well as his heart was lacerated. -Outwardly he revealed little, but inwardly a peculiar -melancholy such as he had never felt before overcame -him, and like Lincoln, after the death of Ann -Rutledge, he realized that he must either “die or get -better.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Anna seemed happy enough in her new life, and -liked to flaunt her devotion to Oscar whenever her -rejected lover was about. Ordinarily this might have -wounded him still deeper, but he was absorbing fresh -anxieties, reading Herbert Spencer, whose abominable -agnosticism soon wrecked his faith, and bereft of love -<span class='pageno' id='Page_319'>319</span>and the solace of immortality, he became the most -wretched of men.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was five years after Anna’s elopement, and when -she was twenty-one years old, that one morning she -started for Endeavor to get the mail and make some -purchases at the country store. It was a cold, raw -day in the early spring, and the wild pigeons were -flying. The beechwoods on both sides of the road -were alive with gunners, old and young. Some one -fired a shot which hurtled close to the nose of the -old roan family horse, a track horse in his day, and -he took the bit in his teeth and ran away madly, with -the buggy careening after him. Anna, standing up in -the vehicle, was sawing on the lines until he crashed -into a big ash tree and fractured the poor girl’s skull. -She was picked up by some of the hunters and carried -home <a id='corr319.17'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='sic'>unconscious the</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_319.17'><ins class='correction' title='sic'>unconscious the</ins></a></span> next thing was to get the -news to her husband. Oscar at that time had just -finished a raft on West Hickory Creek, while his old -time rival, McMeans, was completing one on East -Hickory, which stream flowed into “The Beautiful -River”, almost directly opposite to the West Hickory -Run.</p> - -<p class='c001'>About the moment that Anna received her cruel -death stroke, the two rafts were being launched simultaneously, -with much cheering on both banks, for partisanship -ran high among dwellers on either side of -the river. Members of the family hurried to the -river side to watch for the Wellendorf raft, to “head -him off” before it was too late. It was several hours -<span class='pageno' id='Page_320'>320</span>after the accident when the two rival rafts, with the -stalwart young pilots <a id='corr320.2'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='a'>at</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_320.2'><ins class='correction' title='a'>at</ins></a></span> the sterns, swept around the -Bend, traveling “nip and tuck”. It promised to be an -evenly matched race, barring accidents, clear to Pittsburg. -The skippers of the contending yachts for the -American Cup could not have been more enthused for -their races than were Andrew McMeans and Oscar -Wellendorf.</p> - -<p class='c001'>In front of the McNamor homestead several women -were to be seen running up and down the grassy sward, -<a id='corr320.11'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='frantially'>frantically</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_320.11'><ins class='correction' title='frantially'>frantically</ins></a></span> waving red and green shawls. What could -they mean? They were so vehement that Oscar -divined something was wrong, and steered ashore, followed -by McMeans, who, noting the absence of Anna -from the signaling <a id='corr320.15'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='part'>party</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_320.15'><ins class='correction' title='part'>party</ins></a></span>, feared that a mishap had -befallen her.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Both young men jumped ashore almost simultaneously, -leaving their rafts to their helpers. The worst -had happened–Anna was in the house with a fractured -skull, and the <a id='corr320.20'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='dotors'>doctors</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_320.20'><ins class='correction' title='dotors'>doctors</ins></a></span> said she could not live the -night. If anything, McMeans turned the paler of -the two. The men said little as they followed the -women up the boardwalk to the house.</p> - -<p class='c001'>That night McMeans, who asked to be allowed to -remain until the <a id='corr320.25'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='outome'>outcome</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_320.25'><ins class='correction' title='outome'>outcome</ins></a></span> of the case, for the river had -lost its attractions, was sitting in the kitchen with -Grandmother McClinton. The raw air had blown -itself into a gale after sundown, and during the night -the fierce wind beat about the eaves and corners of the -house like an avenging fury. The old tall clock, made -<span class='pageno' id='Page_321'>321</span>years before by John Vanderslice, of Reading, on -top of which was a stuffed Colishay, or gray fox, with -an uncommonly fine brush, was striking twelve. Amid -the storm a wailing voice joined in the din, incessantly, -so that there was no mistaking it, the Warning of the -McClintons.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i_362.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>RUINS OF FORT BARNET. BUILT IN 1740. (Photograph Taken 1895.)</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c001'>The old grandmother watched <a id='corr321.7'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='McMeans'>McMeans’</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_321.7'><ins class='correction' title='McMeans'>McMeans’</ins></a></span> face until -she saw that he understood. Then she nodded to him. -"It is strange how that thing has followed the McClinton -family for hundreds of years. In Scotland it was -their ‘Caointeach’, in Ireland their ‘Banshee’, in Pennsylvania -their ‘Token’ or ‘Warning’. It never fails."</p> - -<p class='c001'>As McMeans listened to the terrible shrieks of -anguish, which sometimes drowned the storm, he shivered -with pity for the lost soul out there in the cold, -giving the death message, so melancholy and sad, and -perhaps unwillingly. Anna lay upstairs in her room, -facing the river, or windward side of the house, and -the Warning was evidently somewhere below her window, -where the water in waves like the sea, was -over-running the banks.</p> - -<p class='c001'>On a kitchen chair still lay a red Paisley shawl that -had been used to signal to Wellendorf earlier in the -day. It seemed ample and warm. Picking it up, -McMeans went to the kitchen door, which he opened -with some effort in the force of the gale, and, walking -around the house, laid it on one of the benches at the -front door, saying, “Put on this shawl, and come around -to the leeward side of the house.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>When he returned, he said to Grandmother McClinton, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_322'>322</span>“That Token’s voice touched me somehow tonight. -Something tells me she hated her task, is cold -and miserable. I left the shawl on the front porch -and told her to come out of the wind.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>After that they both noticed that the unhappy wailings -ceased, there was nothing that vied with the storm.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Perhaps you have laid her,” said Grandmother -McClinton. “Anna may now pull through.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>But these words were barely out of her mouth, when -Oscar Wellendorf, pale as a ghost, appeared in the -kitchen to say that Anna had just passed away. -Andrew felt her death keenly, but he was also satisfied -that perhaps he had by an act of kindness, removed -the Warning of the McClintons. He was more convinced -when a year later Anna’s father joined the -majority, then her mother, with no visits from the -mournful-voiced Warning.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Five years more rolled around, and Andrew -McMeans, still unmarried, and cherishing steadfastly -the memory of his beloved Anna, embarked his fleet -for Pittsburg. It was a morning in the early spring, -the air was soft and warm, and the shad flies were flitting -about. He arrived in safety, but was some time -collecting his money, as he was dealing with a scamp, -and meanwhile put up at a boarding house on the river -front, near the Hotel Boyer. The afternoon after his -arrival he was sitting on the porch of his lodgings, gazing -out at the rushing, swirling river, which ran bank -full, on a bench similar in all ways to the one on -which he had laid the shawl to warm the freezing back -<span class='pageno' id='Page_323'>323</span>of the Warning of the McClintons. Somehow he fell -to thinking about that ghost, and its disappearance, and -of Anna McNamor; how much he would give if only -he could see her again.</p> - -<p class='c001'>He recalled how the old grandmother had told him -that some families married out of the Warning, while -others married into it, much as he had heard was the -case with the Assembly Ball in Philadelphia. The -McClinton Warning had evidently clung to the female -line, as it had been very much in evidence when Anna -McNamor’s time had come.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Something made him look up the street. Coming -slowly towards him was a slender school girl, with a -little green hat perched on her head, the living image -of Anna, dead for five years! He almost fell off -the bench in surprise, to note the same slim oval face, -the aquiline features, and hazel eyes that he had known -and loved so well. She paused for a moment in front -of the house next door, holding her school books in her -arms, while she looked out at the raging river. The -spring breezes blowing her short skirts showed her slim -legs encased in light brown worsted stockings. Then -she went indoors.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It did not take him long to seek his landlady and -learn that she was a flesh and blood, sure enough girl, -Anna Harbord by name, whose mother, widow of Mike -Harbord, an old time riverman, also ran a boarding -house. It was not many days before some errand -brought the girl to the house where McMeans was stopping, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_324'>324</span>and matters fortuitously adjusted themselves so -that he met her.</p> - -<p class='c001'>He was struck by her similarity to the dead girl, even -the tones of her voice, and it seemed strange she should -have such a counterpart. She appeared friendly disposed -towards him from the start, and it was like a -compensation sent after all his years of disappointment -and loneliness. She was then sixteen years old, and -must have been eleven when her “double” passed away.</p> - -<p class='c001'>As their acquaintance grew into love, and all seemed -so serene, as if it was to be, Andrew McMeans gradually -regaining his faith, human and divine, felt he -owed his happiness to the Warning of the McClintons’, -whose misery he had appeased by taking the cloak out -to her, while engaged in her disagreeable duty of fortelling -the coming dissolution of the unfortunate girl.</p> - -<p class='c001'>McMeans and Anna Harbord married. They decided -to remain in Pittsburg, and he became in a few -years a successful and respected business man.</p> - -<p class='c001'>If few persons had been kind to ghosts, certainly -he had profited by his interest in the welfare of the -“Warning of the McClintons”. The girl’s mother informed -him that in the early spring, about five years -before, her daughter had been seized with a cataleptic -attack, had laid for days unconscious, and when she -came out of it, her entire personality, even the color of -her eyes, had changed. Could it have been, the young -husband often thought, as he sat gazing at his bride -with undisguised admiration, some act of the grateful -“Warning,” in sending Anna McNamor’s soul to enter -<span class='pageno' id='Page_325'>325</span>the body of this girl in Pittsburg, and reserving her for -him, safe and sound from Wellendorf and all harm, -until his travels brought her across his path! Human -personality, he reasoned, is merely a means to an end. -The unfinished life of Anna McNamor could not go -on, like a flower unfolding, until her fragrance had -been spent on the one who needed it most. Then he -would shudder at the idea that if the school girl, who -stopped to look at the flooded river, had started on -again, passing him by, never to see her again. He -would feel that he had been dreaming perhaps, until, -touching his wife’s soft creamy cheeks, would realize -that she was actually there, and his.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Through her his soul took on new light, and from a -vigorous young woodsman, he was slowly but surely -passing into an intellectual existence. He had been -strangely favored by the mainsprings of destiny, and -why should he not give the world all that was best in -him. Life, ruthless though it seems, has always compensations, -and if we live rightly and truly, the debt -will be owing us, whereas most of us through mistakes -and misdeeds, have a great volume of retribution coming -in an inevitable sequence.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_326'>326</span> - <h2 class='c002'><span class='fss'>XXIV</span> <br /> <i>A Misunderstanding</i></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>It was the night before Christmas in the little -mountain church near Wolfe’s Store. The small, -low-roofed, raftered chapel was illumined as brightly -as coal oil lamps in the early stage of their development -could do it; a hemlock tree, decked out with candles -and tinsel stood to one side of the altar, an almost -red-hot ten-plate stove on the other, while the chancel -and rafters were twined and garlanded with ground -pine and ilex, or winter berries. In one of the rear -pews sat a very good looking young couple, a former -school teacher revisiting the valley, and his favorite -pupil. Lambert Girtin and Elsie Vanneman were their -names.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The young man, who was a veteran of the Civil War, -possessed the right to wear the Congressional medal, -and while teaching at the little red school house on the -pike near the road leading to Gramley’s Gap, had noticed -and admired the fair Elsie, so different from the -rest of his flock. She was the daughter of a prosperous -lumberman, a jobber in hardwoods, and her mother -was above the average in intelligence and breeding, yet -Elsie in all ways transcended even her parents.</p> - -<p class='c001'>She had seemed like a mere child when he left her at -the close of the term the previous Christmas, but he -could not evict her image from his soul. It was mainly -<span class='pageno' id='Page_327'>327</span>to see her, though he would have admitted this to no -one, that induced him to revisit the remote valley during -the following holiday season. The long drive in the -stage through drifted roads had seemed nothing to him, -he was so elated at the thought of reviving old memories -at the sight of this most beloved of pupils.</p> - -<p class='c001'>In order not to arouse any one’s suspicions, he did no -more than to inquire how she was at the general store -and boarding house where he stopped.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“You would never know her,” exclaimed old Mother -Wolfe, the landlady. “Why, she’s a regular young -lady, grown a head taller,” making a gesture with her -hand to denote her increased stature.</p> - -<p class='c001'>On Christmas Eve there was to be the usual entertainment -at the Union Church, and Lambert Girtin -posted himself outside the entrance to wait for the object -of his dreams. The snow was drifted deep, and it -was bitterly cold, yet social events were so rare in the -mountains that almost every one braved the icy blasts -to be present. It was not long before he was rewarded -by a sight of Elsie Vanneman. It <em>was</em> remarkable how -tall she’d grown! As he expressed it to himself, “An -opening bud became a rose full-blown” in one short -year!</p> - -<p class='c001'>She of course recognized him, and greeted him -warmly, and they entered the church together. Inside -by the lamplight he had a better chance to study her -appearance more in detail than by the cold starlight on -the church steps. She had grown until she was above -the middle height, yet had literally taken her figure and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_328'>328</span>her grace with her. She was slender, yet shapely, -dainty and graceful in the extreme. Her violet eyes -were even more deeply pensive than of yore, her cheeks -were pink and white, her lips red and slightly full. Her -hair was a golden or coppery brown, and shone like -those precious metals in the reflected light of the lamps -and the stove; the slight upward turn of her nose still -remained.</p> - -<p class='c001'>How demure, earnest and sincere she was! In the -intervening year he had never seen her like in Bellefonte, -Altoona or Pittsburg. She seemed to be happy -to be with him again, minus the restraint existing between -a pupil and teacher. Instinctively their fingers -touched, and they held hands during most of the evening.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Towards the end of the sermon, which was long and -loud, and gave the young couple plenty of opportunity -to advance their love making unnoticed, Girtin whispered -to her: “Have you an escort home, dear Elsie?”</p> - -<p class='c001'>The answer was a hesitating “Yes.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>The young man felt his heart give a jolt, then almost -stop throbbing, and an instant hatred of some unknown -rival made his blood boil furiously. How could -she act that way? She had, even as his pupil, been -indifferent to all of the opposite sex except him, and -during the period of their separation her sprightly -letters had borne evidence of tender sentiments, to the -utter exclusion of all others. Had he not believed in -her, he would not have taken that long journey back -into the mountains, that many might have been glad to -quit for good. Her beauty and her grace had haunted -<span class='pageno' id='Page_329'>329</span>him, and he had determined to wed her, until this sign -of duplicity had been sprung on him. Of course she -did not know he was coming, and had made the fatal -arrangements before; yet, if she cared for him as he -did for her, she would not be making engagements with -the boys, especially at her tender age.</p> - -<p class='c001'>He tried to console himself by noticing a shade of -regret flit over her blushing face after she said the -fateful words, but until the close of services he was ill -at ease and scarcely opened his mouth. At the benediction -he managed to stammer “Good evening,” and was -out of the church in the frosty starlight night before -any one else.</p> - -<p class='c001'>With long strides he walked up the snowy road ahead -of the crowd who had followed him. The sky was very -clear, and the North Star, “The Three Kings,” or Jacob’s -Rake, Job’s Coffin, and other familiar constellations, -were glimmering on the drifted snow. Instead of observing -the stars, had he looked back he would have -seen that the “escort” she referred to was none other -than a girl friend, Katie Moyer, and both, Elsie in -particular, would have been only too happy to have a -sturdy male companion to see them through the snow -banks.</p> - -<p class='c001'>As a result of his disappearance, Elsie was as unhappy -and silent as Girtin had been, as she floundered -about in the drifts. Despite her gentle, sunny nature, -she was decidedly out of sorts when she reached home -at the big white house near the Salt Spring. She gave -monosyllabic answers to her parents in response to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_330'>330</span>their queries as to how she had enjoyed the long-looked -for Christmas entertainment. She did not sleep at all -that night, but tossed about the bed, keeping her friend -awake, and on Christmas Day was in a rebellious mood. -Her mother reminded her how ungrateful she was to be -so tearful and sullen in the face of so many blessings -and gifts.</p> - -<p class='c001'>There was no stage or sleigh out of the valley on -Christmas Day, else Girtin would have departed. He -moped about all day, telling those who asked the matter -that he was ill. Elsie, knowing that he was still in the -valley, hoped up to bedtime that he would at least come -to pay her a brief Christmas call, but supper over, and -no signs of him, she was uncivil to her mother to such -a degree that her friend openly said that she was -ashamed of her.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Though Katie and she were rooming together, it did -not deter her mother, goaded by the remarks of the -younger children to visit her room while they were -undressing, saying “that she deserved a good dose of -the gad,” and, ordering her to lay face downward on -the bed, administered a good, old-fashioned spanking -with the flax-paddle. After this humiliating chastisement -in the presence of her friend, the unhappy girl -cried and sobbed until morning.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was a wretched ending for what might have been -a memorable Christmas for Lambert Girtin and Elsie -Vanneman.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The next morning the young man managed to hire a -cutter and was driven to Bellefonte, leaving the valley -with deep regrets. Through friends in the valley he -<span class='pageno' id='Page_331'>331</span>learned afterwards that Elsie had gone as a missionary -to China.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Life ran smoothly in some ways for Lambert Girtin, -for he became uniformly successful as a business man. -The oil excitement was at its height, and he was sent -by a large general supply house in Pittsburg to open a -store in Pithole City, “the Magic City,” to the success -of which he contributed so much that he was given an -interest in the concern.</p> - -<p class='c001'>At heart he was not happy. He could never focus -his attentions on any woman for long, as in the background -he always saw the slender form, the blushing -face, the pansy-like eyes and the copper-brown, wavy -hair of his mountain sweetheart, Elsie Vanneman. Her -loveliness haunted him, and all others paled beside her. -He was in easy circumstances to marry; friends less -opulent were taking wives and building showy homes -with Mansard roofs, along the outskirts of the muddy -main thoroughfare of Pithole City, where landscape -gardening often consisted of charred, blackened pine -stumps and abandoned oil derricks.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Sometimes, in his <a id='corr331.21'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='spirtual'>spiritual</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_331.21'><ins class='correction' title='spirtual'>spiritual</ins></a></span> loneliness, he betook himself -to strange companions. One of these was a Chinese -laundryman, a prototype of Bret Harte’s then popular -“Heathen Chinee,” who seemed to be a learned -individual, despite his odd appearance. Girtin, who -had read of the exploits of the Fox sisters and other -exponents of early spiritualism, was unprepared for -the learning and insight possessed by this undistinguished -Celestial.</p> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_332'>332</span>Drawn to him at first because he could possibly tell -about conditions in China, where Elsie was supposed -to be, he became gradually more and more absorbed by -the laundryman’s philosophic speculations. The fellow -confided at length that he was married, and had five -children at Tien-Tsin, to whom he was deeply attached. -He would have died of a broken heart to be so far away -from them but for the power he had developed by concentrating -on the image of his native mountains, which -yearning was reciprocated, and at night he claimed that -his spirit was drawn out of his body and “hopped” half -the span of the globe to the side of his loved ones. -There must be something after all in the old Scotch -quotation, “Oh, for my strength, once more to see the -hills.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Girtin expressed a strong desire to be initiated into -these compelling mysteries. In order to cultivate his -psychic sense, the Chinaman induced him to smoke -opium, which, while repellent to Girtin, he undertook -in order to reach his desired object. If he had been a -man of any mental equilibrium, he would have secured -a leave of absence from business and gone to China and -claimed the fair Elsie, if she was still unmarried. He -would not do that because he was still tortured by the -memory of her preferring another at the moment when -his hopes had been highest, yet he wanted to see her, -hoping that he could do so without her knowing it.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The results attained were beyond his expectations. -He quickly mastered his soul and “hopped” to the -interior of China. Elsie was there, surrounded by her -<span class='pageno' id='Page_333'>333</span>classes; at twenty-one more wondrously lovely and -beautiful than when he had parted from her that frosty -night, with the Dipper and Jacob’s Rake shining so -clearly in the heavens.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Though there were many missionaries and foreign -officials who would have courted her, her dignity and -quiet reserve were impenetrable. Was she so because -of the love for the youth who was to escort her home -from church that night, or did she cherish the memory -of her whilom schoolmaster admirer? These were the -thoughts that annoyed him by day, the “hang over” of -his spiritual adventures at night.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The opium and the intense mental concentration -were taking a lot out of him. He became sallow and -irritable, and neglected many business opportunities. -One of the head partners of the firm in Pittsburg was -going to Pithole City “to have it out with him,” as the -mountain folks would say. Before he could reach the -scene word was telegraphed that Lambert Girtin, -frightfully altered in appearance, was found dead one -morning in a bunk back of the Charley Wah Laundry -at Pithole.</p> - -<p class='c001'>He had no relatives in the town, and his sisters, who -could not come on, telegraphed to bury him in the new -Mount Moriah Cemetery, now all overgrown and -abandoned, like Pithole itself! There could be no -doubt as to his death, as Bill Brewer, just coming into -fame as the “Hick Preacher,” officiated at the obsequies. -So Lambert Girtin was quickly forgotten in -most all quarters. If he was remembered for a time, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_334'>334</span>it was in the remote valley in which he had taught -school, and where news of his early demise occasioned -profound regret.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Years <a id='corr334.4'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='passsed'>passed</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_334.4'><ins class='correction' title='passsed'>passed</ins></a></span>, and Elsie Vanneman, after giving -some of the best years of her life to missionary activities -in various parts of China, resigned her position, in -consequence of a shattered nervous system, caused by -overwork during a great earthquake, where she ministered -to thousands of refugees, and started for home. -Her parents had died while she was in the “Celestial -Kingdom,” but she had a number of brothers and -sisters who were glad to welcome her, and with whom -she planned a round of visits.</p> - -<p class='c001'>She was only thirty when she returned, a trifle paler -and a few small lines around her mouth, but otherwise -a picture of saintliness and loveliness. One of the first -bits of news she heard on reaching the valley was of the -ignominious end of Lambert Girtin in a Chinese laundryman’s -shack–"a promising career cut short," all -allowed.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was shocking to Elsie, as she had dreamed of this -young man nearly every night from a certain period of -her stay in China. She was on the street during the -great quake, and as the earth cracked and swallowed -countless victims, she fancied she saw a European, the -counterpart of Girtin, plunged into the deadly abyss. -She had come home with the intention of learning -definite news of him, and if he was not the earthquake -victim, and still lived, perhaps to renew their old-time -interests.</p> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_335'>335</span>She had been so upset by his failure to call, or even -to write, after the Christmas eve at the little country -church, that she had never communicated with him -again. Her dreams had been most vividly realistic, -as if he had been really near to her in China, and she -could not make herself believe that he was dead in -Pithole City, Pennsylvania.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Owing to this piece of bad news, she did not remain -as long in the valley as she had planned, and almost -from the day of her arrival had pined to be back in the -Far East. The valley seemed dull, anyway; saw-mills -were making it as treeless as China; she hated to see -Luther Guisewhite destroy those giant original white -pines, which reared their black-topped spiral heads -along the foot of the mountains on the winter side; the -wild pigeons no longer darkened the sky with their -impressive flights, the flying squirrels were being shot -out in Fulmer’s Sink, near her old home; her parents -were gone–everything was different.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Unsettled and dissatisfied, especially after a visit to -the girl who had accompanied her home on the eventful -Christmas Eve, now the mother of eight handsome -children, she decided to return to China. The vast -herds of buffaloes that had impeded the progress of -her train on her first journey westward were gone. The -Indians who occasionally furnished a touch of color to -the prairie landscape, likewise had disappeared. Civilization -was spreading through the Great West.</p> - -<p class='c001'>She timed her arrival in San Francisco so as to be -there shortly after the <a id='corr335.30'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='arival'>arrival</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_335.30'><ins class='correction' title='arival'>arrival</ins></a></span> of a ship from China, so -<span class='pageno' id='Page_336'>336</span>as to go back on its return journey. She would have -several days to wait in the City of the Golden Gate -but it was quaint and picturesque, the time would pass -quickly.</p> - -<p class='c001'>One evening–she was not afraid, as she knew the -language and customs of the Celestials–she decided to -take a stroll through the famous Chinese Quarter. As -she was walking along, her head down, her mind abstracted -and noticing little, some one touched her on the -arm. Looking around, as if to resent a familiarity, to -her bewilderment she beheld her long-lost friend, Lambert -Girtin.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Lambert Girtin!” she said, in amazed tones.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Elsie Vanneman–it is surely you?” he replied.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Of all people, after all these years! I had been -hearing that you died five years ago in the oil regions -somewhere; what <em>are</em> you doing?”</p> - -<p class='c001'>The ex-schoolmaster took hold of both of her -hands, there in the crowded, moving throngs of Chinatown, -saying: “I came in from China today, after -what I thought was a hopeless search for you. Years -ago, after our separation, a Chinaman showed me how -to visit China in my dreams, and be close to you. It -took a whole lot of mental concentration, was pulling -me down physically. I kept it up too long, for one -night I dreamed I was in a terrible earthquake. It was -so vivid that my physical as well as my spiritual being -was translated to China, and I found myself there penniless. -But, search as I may, I could not find you. If -I died in the oil regions, it must have been another -<span class='pageno' id='Page_337'>337</span>physical self, shed as a snake does his skin, for the -Lambert Girtin who stands before you is fully alive, -and resolved never to part from you again.”</p> - -<div class='figcenter id016'> -<img src='images/i_380.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>JESSE LOGAN, PENNSYLVANIA INDIAN CHIEF<br /><span class='small'>(Photograph Taken 1915 by P. C. Hockenberry)</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c001'>Old memories came to Elsie Vanneman, conquering -her fears, and her face flushed as in schoolgirl days: -"You speak of our ‘separation’–pray, tell me more -about it; why did you leave me so abruptly and run -away that Christmas Eve after meeting? I could never -understand why you did not even come to wish me a -‘Merry Christmas’ the next day. Why didn’t you ever -write me a line? What did I do to merit such neglect?"</p> - -<p class='c001'>“What did <em>you</em> do?” replied Girtin, drawing her aside -from the passing stream of pig-tailed humanity into a -shadowy doorway. “It doesn’t seem very serious now, -but it hurt me a whole lot at the time. You told me you -had an engagement with some one to see you in from -church, and I was angry and jealous, for I had been -imagining that your thoughts had only been of me, -that you cared for no one else.” -“replied the girl with alacrity.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Girtin turned as pale as death; his sufferings, mental -and physical, his wanderings, physical and actual, his -wasted years, all had been caused by a misunderstanding. -He was at a loss for words for some time, but he held -on to Elsie’s hands, looking into her beautiful, ethereal -face, the vari-colored light of a Chinese lantern shining -down on her coppery-gold hair.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Do you care for me at all, <em>now</em>?” he said, at length.</p> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_338'>338</span>“Yes, I think I do; I must, or I would not have -came back all the way from China to hunt <em>you</em>,” she -answered.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Then we have both suffered,” he said, sadly. “What -shall we do now?” -“she said.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“That’s where I want to go,” he replied, “if I can -ever live down that dying story in Pithole City.” -“said Elsie. "There was a case -in our valley of a soldier reported as killed at Gettysburg; -they sent his body home, began paying his widow -a pension; she married a former sweetheart, and then, -worse than ‘Enoch Arden,’ he appeared as if from the -grave. He had no explanations to make, and our mountain -people asked no questions, all having faith in supernatural -things. Neither will I ask any of you. I have -seen too much in the east to make me disbelieve anything, -or that we can die two or three times under stress -of circumstances, shedding our physical selves–to use -<a id='corr338.21'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='our'>your</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_338.21'><ins class='correction' title='our'>your</ins></a></span> words–as snakes do their skins. I am only -happy I did not marry some one else, as I was tempted -to do when I imagined you were engulfed in the earthquake."</p> - -<p class='c001'>That night in Chinatown for once a misunderstanding -ended happily.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_339'>339</span> - <h2 class='c002'><span class='fss'>XXV</span> <br /> <i>A Haunted House</i></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>When Billy Cloyd prospered in the lumber and -milling business, he determined to erect a mansion -overlooking the arrowy waters of the -Sinnemahoning that would reflect not only his success, -but the social status of his family as well. Accordingly -Williamsport architects who made a specialty of erecting -houses for the wealthy lumbermen of that community -were commissioned to prepare plans for what was -to be the grandest private dwelling on the outposts of -civilization, a structure which would outdo the already -famous club house built for the use of the stockholders -of the Philadelphia Land Company at Snow Shoe, or -the offices of the agents of the Queen of Spain at -Reveltown and Scootac.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The result was a large, square house, along Colonial -lines, with a spacious doorway, above which was a -transom of antique colored glass brought all the way -from the home of one of his ancestors at Old Carlisle. -Windows were numerous, commanding views up and -down the beautiful, billowy stream, then teeming with -fish and aquatic bird life.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The surrounding mountains were covered with virgin -pine forests, while the great hemlocks, oaks and birches -hung over the water’s edge. There was a clearing in -which the mansion stood, the chief feature of which -<span class='pageno' id='Page_340'>340</span>was an old-fashioned garden of carefully laid design, -with plenty of columbine, called by the mountain folks -“church bells,” and eglantine, with boxwoods from the -“Quaker City,” purchased from the heirs of “Eaglesfield.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>The dark forest came to the back of the garden, and -stood black in the gorge of Mill Creek near the projected -flouring and fulling mills, to the east of the -mansion; the ever-busy saw-mill, the chief symbol of -the prosperity of Castlecloyd, as the domain was called, -was situated near the mouth of the creek. There was -barely a distance of two hundred yards from the sloping -banks of the Sinnemahoning to where the forest and -the steep mountains began, consequently the mansion, -mills, workshops, stables and mill hands’ and woodsmen’s -houses were all close together.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Along the water’s edge carpenters were steadily at -work building arks and flats which carried the products -of the mills to the terminus of the railroad at Lock -Haven, or to Sunbury or Harrisburg.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Now all is changed. The view from the portico and -the lawn of Castlecloyd is upon a stream flowing with a -liquid the color and texture of ink, frowning with fine -yellow bubbles; not, a living fish has been seen, according -to the present occupant of the premises, the venerable -Seth Nelson, Jr., since 1899, when the paper mill -at Austin sent down its first installment of vile pollution. -Then the fish leaped on the shore in frightful -agony, dying out of water, but away from the insidious -poisoning of the acids.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The water birds are gone; they cannot drink the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_341'>341</span>polluted water, and give the region a wide berth. Instead -of cooling zephyrs, when the wind blows off the -creek towards the house, there comes a stench worse -than a week-old battlefield in Flanders.</p> - -<p class='c001'>No forests of virgin timber are to be seen, if you -strain your eyes looking up or down stream, nothing -but charred, brown wastes, the aftermath of killing -forest fires which followed the lumbering operations. -Here and there on some inaccessible cliff a lone original -white pine or hemlock has its eyrie, but even there the -fires are finding them, and they are all scorched and -shaky at the butts, and go down easily in sharp gales. -Altar Rock, famed in song and story, still has one pine -standing on its top, but it is dead, and will soon share -the fate of its mate, which was blown down over twenty -years ago.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The entire scene is one of loneliness and desolation, -yet a quiet, peaceful home for the octogenarian hunter -Nelson and his devoted and equally aged sister. How -different all this from what it was in the hey-day of -prosperous Billy Cloyd! The hum of the mills, the -busy teams of horses and ox-spans bringing in the logs, -the carpenters and boatmen, the large family of the -successful woodsman, their guests, and the hunters and -surveyors who often made the house their headquarters.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was at the time that the line of the Sunbury and -Erie Railroad was being surveyed from Rattlesnake, -now Whetham, to Erie, and one surveying crew was -quartered at Castlecloyd. A few weeks earlier Dr. -J. T. Rothrock had stopped there, but was now further -<span class='pageno' id='Page_342'>342</span>west, camping with Mike Long, the wolf hunter, in the -midst of a great deer and pigeon country in Elk County.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Those were days of reckless waste of our natural -resources, according to the good Doctor. One of the -surveyors, so as not to have to curve his line, ordered -that three giant original white pines be cut. All the -stumps were measured by Dr. Rothrock and averaged -considerably over six feet in diameter. They were, of -course, left to rot in the woods, thousands of feet of -lumber of priceless value today!</p> - -<p class='c001'>Philip L. Webster, who died a few years ago in Littletown, -now Bradford, was also a member of one of -these surveying parties on Elk Creek, a branch of the -Clarion River; on one occasion he saw four elks together, -in a swale.</p> - -<p class='c001'>As “Buffalo Bill” had been the professional hunter -for the Northern Pacific engineering crews, Jim Jacobs, -“The Seneca Bear Hunter,” was attached to Mr. Webster’s -organization in the same capacity. Instead of -bison roasts, Jacobs was to furnish fresh elk steaks, -and he kept the surveyors, axmen and chain-carriers -supplied with plenty of it all summer long.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The members of the party billeted at Castlecloyd -were composed of young Philadelphia gentlemen, sons -of prospective stockholders in the new railroad, finely -educated, traveled youths, whose love of adventure had -been fired by the deeds of their colleagues, the Brothers -Kane. One of them stood out more brilliantly than -the rest for his scholarly attainments and poetic nature. -He was young Wayne Stewardson, scion of a distinguished -<span class='pageno' id='Page_343'>343</span>Quaker house of that name, and probably connected -with the family who owned the lands on Kettle -Creek, once occupied by Ole Bull.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The young man had been educated at the university -in his native city, and in Europe. His early upbringing -had been in great cities, and his sentimental tastes came -out in a peculiar admiration of spires, chimneys, -towers, stacks, vanes, arched roofs, corbels and crockets. -He would wander for hours just at evening watching -the skyline in the changing light, peopling the growing -shadows with all manner of grotesque shapes and -chimeras. His love of shadowland was so great that he -fell naturally to cutting charming silhouettes of his -friends, his likeness of the lovelorn and ill-fated Dr. -E. K. Kane being highly prized.</p> - -<p class='c001'>His visit to the Sinnemahoning Country was his first -induction into the heart of nature, and his admiration -of man’s handicraft as exemplified in minarets and -high gables softened to a deep reverence for the spiral, -columnar forms of the giant pines as they serrated the -skyline of the Allegheny summits.</p> - -<p class='c001'>There was a bench between two red maple trees, on -the bank of the Sinnemahoning, just in front of Castlecloyd, -where he would sit after supper, watching the -crimson sunset reflected in the stream, with the dusky -shapes of the ancient trees athwart, and the sky gradually -becoming less of rose and more of mother-of-pearl, -behind the sentinel pines on the comb of the mountains -beyond Birch Island. It was more beautiful than anything -<span class='pageno' id='Page_344'>344</span>he had ever seen in cities, in its sheer ferocious -wildness.</p> - -<p class='c001'>One evening, on hearing a woman’s voice humming -an old tune, he looked around, beholding Cloyd’s pretty -daughter sitting, watching the afterglow from the portal -of the classic doorway. Her knees were crossed, revealing -pretty, plump little legs, encased in blue cotton -stockings. His first thought at seeing her was to recall -Poe’s youthful lines, “Helen Thy Beauty is to Me.” -Previously he had not noticed her much, except that -she seemed more than ordinarily good-looking and -refined, for the drudge’s life she was living. Now -that, like himself, she was a person who took notice of -her surroundings, she must be different, he thought, -and have a soul more in keeping with her lovely appearance.</p> - -<p class='c001'>When she saw that he had observed her, instead of -jumping up and running into the house and slamming -the door, like some crude backwoods girl might have -done, she came forward and stood leaning against one -of the red maples, and chatted pleasantly about the -wonderful scenery.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was a blissful experience for Stewardson, and as -he had hardly spoken to a girl for a month, was in a -particularly susceptible mood. He studied her appearance -minutely. She was probably a trifle under the -middle height, very delicately made, with chestnut hair -and eyes of wondrous golden amber. Her skin was -transparently white, and the delicate peach-blow color in -her cheeks was too hectic to betoken good health. But -<span class='pageno' id='Page_345'>345</span>the outstanding feature was the nose, the most beautiful -nose he had ever seen, the bridge slightly aquiline, yet -a sudden shortness at the tip that transcended the -retrousse. She was modest and simple, reticence being -her chief trait, as she told about the deer which often -took harbor in the stream, in front of where they were, -when pursued by dogs.</p> - -<p class='c001'>She said that she had been christened Marie Asterie, -but was generally called by her second name, though the -first was shorter and easier to pronounce.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Just as they were becoming nicely acquainted, a -young woodsman, whom she introduced as Oscar Garis, -put in an appearance, and the two walked away together, -leaving Stewardson still meditating on the -bench. Evidently they were lovers, thought the young -surveyor, and when he looked out on Sinnemahoning, -the light was gone–the water ran dark and menacing.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Though he had noticed the girl’s unusual nose the -first time he saw her, he had been too busy to become -well acquainted, but he recalled that she occupied a -small interior room, just off where he slept, in the -second-floor lobby. He had seen her go upstairs to -retire every night, but proximity had meant nothing to -him, so deeply had he been imbued with ideas of class. -Tonight it would be different.</p> - -<p class='c001'>He walked around a while longer, watching the bats -flit hither and thither, and listening to the plaintive -calling of the whippoorwills, then he went indoors and -joined his fellow surveyors in the lobby. He kept -watching the clock and watching the door for Asterie to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_346'>346</span>return, amusing himself trying to cut her marvellous -profile, the like of which King Henry VIII or King -Arthur may have admired, for she was evidently a -“throw back” to some archaic type. It was always the -rule for the men to remain downstairs until the women -had retired, and on this occasion they were all yawning -but Stewardson, waiting for Asterie, who was the last -to come in, close to ten o’clock.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Garis seemed indifferent to her, but it was the negligence -of bad manners rather than lack of interest. -This gave Stewardson a chance to light her fat lamp -for her, and she closed the door and went upstairs. -When the young surveyor and his companion ascended -the stairs, he noted the rays of light from her room, -streaming from the crack beneath her door. The night -after the lights were out, and his friends asleep, he -drew his mattress nearly to her door, repeating to -himself the lines of Horace’s Ode X, in Book III:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“O Lyce, didst thou like Tanais,</div> - <div class='line'>Wed to some savage, what a pity ’tis</div> - <div class='line'>For me to lie on such a night as this</div> - <div class='line in4'>Before your door,</div> - <div class='line'>My feet exposed where haunting north winds hiss,</div> - <div class='line in4'>And angry roar.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c012'>The concluding lines of which were:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“O thou as hard as oak no storm can break,</div> - <div class='line'>As pitiless as Mauritanian snake,</div> - <div class='line'>Not thus forever can I lie and quake,</div> - <div class='line in4'>Nor thus remain</div> - <div class='line'>Before thy threshold, for thy love’s sweet sake,</div> - <div class='line in4'>Soaked by the rain.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_347'>347</span>But it wasn’t a terrible night, only a fairly chilly -one in early June, with all the stars out, and Asterie’s -worst offense was that she was “keeping company” -with another!</p> - -<p class='c001'>The young man could not sleep all night and wondered -if the girl was similarly afflicted, as the light continued -to burn; or maybe she was only like many mountain -people, and slept with a night-light, for no sound -came from her tiny apartment. After that night his -pleasures at Castlecloyd were ended. He loved the fair -and fragile girl, whom he hated to see working so hard, -so patient and so misunderstood. He dreaded the -thought of her inevitable marriage to Garis, a rough, -common fellow of no refinement. He could not think -of courting her himself as his family had never in ten -generations been declasse. There was nothing to do -but to sigh in vain, and watch that light coming from -beneath her door. And on nights when the wind -howled, and the rain beat about the roof, or some particularly -hard gust sent a few cold drops pattering -through a crack in the shingles, on his face, he found -consolation by reciting to himself the lament of Horace -in his Ode X. But he did present her with her silhouette, -which she blushingly accepted, and on several occasions -when she sang at the organ, complimented her -on her sweet contralto voice.</p> - -<p class='c001'>In the autumn when the red maples had cast the last -of their leaves, and the pines and hemlocks looked the -blacker in contrast, Stewardson’s particular work was -done, and he prepared to return to Philadelphia. John -<span class='pageno' id='Page_348'>348</span>Smoke, aged Seneca, professional hunter of the outfit, -agreed to take him and one of his chums to Rattlesnake -in a birchbark canoe. Seth Iredell Nelson, another -hunter, would take two more of the young men in another -canoe. Asterie was on the leaf-strewn bank to -see them depart, dressed in her best pink denham frock, -and cherry colored peach-basket straw bonnet. It -made him resentful to watch Garis put his arm on her -shoulder as the canoes shoved away, to the tune of old -Smoke’s Seneca chant.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Billy Cloyd himself was not present; he excused -himself as not feeling well, and Went upstairs shortly -after breakfast. On the journey old Smoke confided -to his passengers the cause of the landlord’s backward -conduct. A black calf had been born the night before; -whenever one appeared in the family it brought bad -luck; that had been a belief with Cloyd’s people even -in the remote days when they lived in the “old -country.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Then the aged Indian told the legend of how the -redmen came to the American continent. They had -been driven eastward by famines until they came to a -great sea, across which they found a narrow strip of -land, which they crossed. They came to a country -teeming with game, and made themselves at home, -wandering great distances to enjoy the chase and visit -the natural wonders.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Later they decided to revisit their old home, but the -sea had washed over the strip of land, and their canoes -were not stout enough to breast the angry waves.</p> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_349'>349</span>Stewardson listened to this and other old tales in a -half-abstracted way; his thoughts were back with -Asterie Cloyd; she with that wonderful, impossible-to-silhouette -nose, her sweet voice, and quiet, restful -manner. He did not marry any of the stately Junoesque -beauties whom he knew, upon returning to Philadelphia, -but became critical of the fair sex, and shunned -their company whenever possible. About two years -later the Civil War broke out, and being intimately -acquainted with the Kane family, he hurried to Harrisburg, -and the genial “Colonel Tom” gave him a -commission in his 1st Rifle Regiment, soon to win -deathless fame under the name of “Bucktails.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>One evening in camp Colonel Kane and Captain -Stewardson were sitting before their tents, stroking -their long fair beards, for it was the aim of every -young soldier to be the most shaggily hirsute. The -Colonel was telling of his memorable trip on rafts -from McKean County to Harrisburg with his recruits -and how he spent a night with a man named Garis, -who had acted like a copperhead, and though an expert -rifleman, declined to enlist. “Yet he had ample -cause to be out of sorts” continued the Colonel. “He -had lately buried his wife, who, from all accounts, -was an exceptionally pretty girl, one of Billy Cloyd’s -daughters.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>If he had watched Stewardson’s face carefully, he -would have seen it growing paler, even in the camp -fire’s ruddy glow, beneath that mighty beard.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Cloyd, who before the girl’s marriage, had lost -<span class='pageno' id='Page_350'>350</span>his wife,” continued Colonel Kane, "went up Bennett’s -Branch, to take out spars, and started to clear -a farm on the mountain top, and build an even more -ambitious mansion. Garis told me that the old man -had recently sold the whole property, including the -timber, to William E. Dodge of New York, who intends -naming it after the President, the ‘Lincoln -Farm’, and using it for a private summer resort."</p> - -<p class='c001'>Captain Stewardson did not care to hear more; as -soon as he could consistently excuse himself from his -commanding officer, he did so, and wandered off -among the pines, inwardly moaning.</p> - -<p class='c001'>In the early part of 1864, as the result of wounds, -he was given an indefinite sick leave, but instead of -going home, he resolved to visit Asterie’s grave.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The railroad was completed to Renovo, and the -ties were down, ready for the rails, almost to Erie. -A mail carrier on horseback travelled from Renovo -to the backwoods settlements of Sinnemahoning and -Driftwood, and hiring an extra horse, the now Major -Stewardson arranged to accompany him. They had -not ridden far through the snowy road when the mail -man, Wallis Gakle, began telling about the Haunted -House, Billy Cloyd’s old place that they would pass. -“Nobody’s lived there,” he said, “since Oscar Garis -moved out in the summer of ’61, after burying that -pretty wife of his. They say he worked her to death, -making her do all the cooking for all the lumber and -mill crews, and was always after her to do more; he -literally hounded the poor little child to death.”</p> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_351'>351</span>Then he went on to tell how towards nightfall people -were afraid to go past the deserted house for the -awful screaming and yelling, like a woman in torment, -that came from the upper rooms. Travellers -never went on that side of the creek, unless in parties -of four or five together, preferring to follow the -right-of-way of the railroad across the creek, but -even there they could hear the shrieks and moaning. -Some were even hinting that Garis, who had gone to -live with his late father-in-law on the Clarion, had -in a fit of temper murdered his wife. At the time it -was said that she had died of lung trouble.</p> - -<p class='c001'>All this was interesting to the young soldier, and -he next inquired where the poor girl was buried.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“She’s lying on the hillside, overlooking the meeting -of the First Fork and the Driftwood Branch, a -beautiful spot, but it’s cold and bleak under the pines -when the country is covered with snow.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>Just beyond the present town of Westport, Gakle -and Stewardson fell in with two hunters tramping -along on snowshoes with their dogs, headed for the -panther country. They were the veteran Nimrod -Jake Hamersley and a young hunter named Art -Vallon.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“Glad to meet you, gentlemen,” said old Jake, half -joking; “we wanted a little bolstering up before passing -the haunted house.” -“said Gakle, “I am never afraid, -but my horse rears like one of the deil’s own buckies -when he hears those dreadful screams. I always try -<span class='pageno' id='Page_352'>352</span>to get by before dark, for they say the racket is a lot -worse after sundown.”</p> - -<p class='c001'>As the party wended its way along the narrow trail -by the river’s edge, all manner of hunting and ghost -stories were recounted. All were in an eerie frame -of mind, as with the rays of the setting sun shining -in their faces, they neared the deserted Castlecloyd. -The deep woods screened the clearings and gardens, -but long before they came in view a melancholy wailing, -like a woman tortured by fiends, echoed through -the aisles of the primeval forest.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“I guess we’ll have to face it,” said the mail carrier, -"but four man sized men, and a like number of -varmint hounds ought to be able to ‘rassle’ any spook."</p> - -<p class='c001'>As they neared the house, the setting sun tinted to -the brilliancy of the stained glass of some mediaeval -cathedral the vari-coloured lights above the classic -portal. They noticed that the door stood open. From -an upper room came the doleful groans and lamentations.</p> - -<p class='c001'>“What’s those tracks?” said the keen-eyed young -Vallon, who had run on ahead with the dogs.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Coming up the bank from the ice-bound Sinnemahoning, -crossing the trail, and entering the mansion -by the front door, were huge round footmarks like -those of some mammoth cat. “Painter, painter” they -all cried, as they looked at them, while the dogs, knowing -well the ferocity of the Pennsylvania Lion, slunk -about their master’s feet.</p> - -<p class='c001'>All wanted to go indoors, and no one cared to mind -<span class='pageno' id='Page_353'>353</span>the horses. They tied the jaded beasts to the red -maple trees, on either side of Major Stewardson’s -one-time favorite resting place. Gakle had an old-time, -flint-lock horse pistol that had been carried by -David Lewis, the Robber, when he was wounded on -the First Fork; Stewardson had his army pistol, while -the two hunters had their flint-lock Lancaster rifles.</p> - -<p class='c001'>They followed the tracks into the lobby, and by -the snow and mud left on the floor, to the staircase, -which they ascended. Stewardson’s eyes fell on the -green-painted door of the little room once occupied -by his beloved, which was ajar. He rushed forward, -pistol in hand, and pushed it wide open.</p> - -<p class='c001'>On the bed, a small affair of the four poster type -which he had never viewed before, the scene of the -fair Asterie’s vigils, stood a great lithe, lean pantheress, -clawing the counterpane and mattress with all -four feet, and beating her fluffy tail with a regular -rhythm against the headboard. In her mouth was a -huge rat, bleeding, which she had lately captured.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Before he could recover from his amazement and -shoot, the greycoated monster sprang over the foot-board, -and through the window, carrying the sash -with her. The other men appeared just in time to -see the brute’s long tail disappearing through the casement.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Quickly turning, they seized the dogs by their collars -and pushed them down the narrow winding stairs. -Outside, in the fading light, the spoor could be seen -at the side of the house where the lioness bounded -<span class='pageno' id='Page_354'>354</span>over the lawn, and down the bank, and crossed the -stream on the ice.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The dogs took up the scent, and were away, the -hunters following gamely. The baying of the hounds -echoed and re-echoed through the narrow valley; by -their volume the quarry was not far ahead. The snow -was deep and very soft in the woods, and it was getting -very dark. Perhaps the chase would have to be -abandoned, and the panther or spook, whichever it -was, got away after all.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Soon the barking of the dogs indicated that the -beast had been run to cover. It was just at dark -when the hunters saw the pantheress crouched in a -rock oak at the forks, on the steep, stony face of the -Keating Mountain, with the dogs leaping up frantically, -the monster feline hissing and growling savagely.</p> - -<p class='c001'>Jake Hamersley was selected to give the death shot, -“taking” the brute between the eyes. She fell with a -thud, and with a few convulsive kicks, expired on the -snow. Major Stewardson built a military campfire -while Hamersley and Vallon carefully skinned the -carcass, and fed the flesh to the dogs. The Nimrods -offered the hide to the young Major as a trophy, but -he declined with thanks. He could not bear to have -such a remembrance of a creature that had disported -itself so recently on his loved one’s little four poster -bed. Perhaps it had partaken of her spirit, from absorbing -the environment where she had pined away -to death.</p> - -<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_355'>355</span>He only wanted to visit her grave, above the meeting -of the waters, to drop there a few tears, a part of -the boundless water of life. His heart would always -be a Haunted House.</p> - -<p class='c001'>It was verging on the “witching hour,” and an ugly -winter drizzle had begun to fall, as the triumphant -hunters ascended the soggy bank, and stood before -the portals of Castlecloyd, undecided as to whether -they should bivouac there until morning. Major -Stewardson was muttering to himself the concluding -lines of that Ode of Horace,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Not thus forever can I lie and quake,</div> - <div class='line in4'>Nor thus remain,</div> - <div class='line'>Before thy threshold for thy love’s sweet sake,</div> - <div class='line in4'>Soaked by the rain.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='figcenter id004'> -<img src='images/i_400.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> -<div class='figcenter id017'> -<span class='pageno' id='Page_356'>356</span> -<img src='images/i_401.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c000' /> -</div> -<p class='c001'><a id='endnote'></a></p> -<div class='tnotes'> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div><span class='large'>Transcriber’s Note</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c001'>Compound words that are hyphenated on a line or page break retain the -hyphen if warranted by the preponderance of mid-line instances of the -same word elsewhere. Where hyphenation is inconsistent in mid-line -occurrences, the text is given here as printed.</p> - -<p class='c001'>There are numerous instances of commas appearing as full stops, which -we attribute to the printing process (vi.6, vii.31, 16.5, 26.1, 30.25, -46.2, 108.4, 114.30, 115.23, 121.18, 292.11, 350.27).</p> - -<p class='c001'>Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and -are noted below. Where the apparent error occurs in quoted text, we -defer to the text as printed.</p> - -<p class='c001'>The references are to the page and line in the original.</p> - -<table class='table1' summary=''> -<colgroup> -<col width='12%' /> -<col width='69%' /> -<col width='18%' /> -</colgroup> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_v.5'></a><a href='#corrv.5'>v.5</a></td> - <td class='c004'>to issue no [no ]more books</td> - <td class='c013'>Removed.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_vii.28'></a><a href='#corrvii.28'>vii.28</a></td> - <td class='c004'>the meanings of the book may be arrived at[.]</td> - <td class='c013'>Added.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_34.7'></a><a href='#corr34.7'>34.7</a></td> - <td class='c004'>but the brid[g]egroom was well to do</td> - <td class='c013'>Removed.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_37.29'></a><a href='#corr37.29'>37.29</a></td> - <td class='c004'>[“]That’s enough of your drivel, Adam,”</td> - <td class='c013'>Added.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_40.11'></a><a href='#corr40.11'>40.11</a></td> - <td class='c004'>betwe[e]n the Wyandots and allied nations</td> - <td class='c013'>Inserted.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_40.15'></a><a href='#corr40.15'>40.15</a></td> - <td class='c004'>the handsomest of the es[oc/co]rt</td> - <td class='c013'>Transposed.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_44.22'></a><a href='#corr44.22'>44.22</a></td> - <td class='c004'>The [The ]fact that it is a Prostrate Tree</td> - <td class='c013'>Removed.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_46.7'></a><a href='#corr46.7'>46.7</a></td> - <td class='c004'>Surveying the [gorey] scene</td> - <td class='c013'><em>sic</em></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_47.19'></a><a href='#corr47.19'>47.19</a></td> - <td class='c004'>fall to the ground outside the st[a/o]ckade.</td> - <td class='c013'>Replaced.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_47.27'></a><a href='#corr47.27'>47.27</a></td> - <td class='c004'>had been gr[i]eviously hurt</td> - <td class='c013'>Inserted.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_49.7'></a><a href='#corr49.7'>49.7</a></td> - <td class='c004'>I am glad that our enemies were beaten and annihilated.[”]</td> - <td class='c013'>Added.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_52.19'></a><a href='#corr52.19'>52.19</a></td> - <td class='c004'>we sh[a/o]uld mention</td> - <td class='c013'>Replaced.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_53.22'></a><a href='#corr53.22'>53.22</a></td> - <td class='c004'>was a decrepit old man.[”]</td> - <td class='c013'>Added.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_55.18'></a><a href='#corr55.18'>55.18</a></td> - <td class='c004'>make the house “general hea[r/d]quarters”</td> - <td class='c013'>Replaced.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_58.20'></a><a href='#corr58.20'>58.20</a></td> - <td class='c004'>the exigencies of his strenuous c[o/a]mpaigns</td> - <td class='c013'>Replaced.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_58.28'></a><a href='#corr58.28'>58.28</a></td> - <td class='c004'>which his wea[l]th had enabled him to purchase</td> - <td class='c013'>Inserted.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_65.6'></a><a href='#corr65.6'>65.6</a></td> - <td class='c004'>[s/S] said she herself was dead</td> - <td class='c013'>Replaced.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_65.23'></a><a href='#corr65.23'>65.23</a></td> - <td class='c004'>that in ten years he [r/h]ad sold</td> - <td class='c013'>Replaced.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_71.7'></a><a href='#corr71.7'>71.7</a></td> - <td class='c004'>The Elma Hacker of those days had a swee[a/t]heart</td> - <td class='c013'>Replaced.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_72.14'></a><a href='#corr72.14'>72.14</a></td> - <td class='c004'>to keep on good terms with the in[n]keeper’s family</td> - <td class='c013'>Inserted.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_82.9'></a><a href='#corr82.9'>82.9</a></td> - <td class='c004'>about their inglenooks and home-garths[,/.]</td> - <td class='c013'>Replaced.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_83.22'></a><a href='#corr83.22'>83.22</a></td> - <td class='c004'>by a homespun cap of the tam o’shant[t/e]r pattern</td> - <td class='c013'>Replaced.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_83.27'></a><a href='#corr83.27'>83.27</a></td> - <td class='c004'>until joined by the surp[r]ised Viscount.</td> - <td class='c013'>Inserted.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_91.25'></a><a href='#corr91.25'>91.25</a></td> - <td class='c004'>a few days in the future.[”]</td> - <td class='c013'>Added.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_105.19'></a><a href='#corr105.19'>105.19</a></td> - <td class='c004'>the sleeper’s temples like an eg[g]shell</td> - <td class='c013'>Inserted.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_106.22'></a><a href='#corr106.22'>106.22</a></td> - <td class='c004'>was forced from In-nan-[ag/ga]-eh’s In-nan-ga-eh’s hand</td> - <td class='c013'>Transposed.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_107.13'></a><a href='#corr107.13'>107.13</a></td> - <td class='c004'>their bodies to com[m]ingle> with earth until eternity.</td> - <td class='c013'>Inserted.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_110.8'></a><a href='#corr110.8'>110.8</a></td> - <td class='c004'>losing his equilibr[i]um</td> - <td class='c013'>Inserted.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_114.10'></a><a href='#corr114.10'>114.10</a></td> - <td class='c004'>to leap about th[t/e] horses’ throatlatches</td> - <td class='c013'>Replaced.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_116.10'></a><a href='#corr116.10'>116.10</a></td> - <td class='c004'>she was again urged by Phillis and her father, se[e]med disinclined</td> - <td class='c013'>Inserted.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_117.16'></a><a href='#corr117.16'>117.16</a></td> - <td class='c004'>prepared to make that break first[.]</td> - <td class='c013'>Added.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_124.15'></a><a href='#corr124.15'>124.15</a></td> - <td class='c004'>have maintained in the fore[t]sts</td> - <td class='c013'>Removed.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_131.31'></a><a href='#corr131.31'>131.31</a></td> - <td class='c004'>Meanwhile he had to live some[w]how</td> - <td class='c013'>Removed.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_135.10'></a><a href='#corr135.10'>135.10</a></td> - <td class='c004'>I had heard from[ from] Billy Dowdy</td> - <td class='c013'>Redundant.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_140.3'></a><a href='#corr140.3'>140.3</a></td> - <td class='c004'>“The world is aesthetically dead[”!/”]</td> - <td class='c013'>Transposed.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_145.1'></a><a href='#corr145.1'>145.1</a></td> - <td class='c004'>Som[e]times the Indians notice</td> - <td class='c013'>Inserted.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_149.24'></a><a href='#corr149.24'>149.24</a></td> - <td class='c004'>into the valley of the shadow[,/.]</td> - <td class='c013'>Replaced.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_153.6'></a><a href='#corr153.6'>153.6</a></td> - <td class='c004'>a big bonfire was to be started later[,/.]</td> - <td class='c013'>Replaced.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_153.11'></a><a href='#corr153.11'>153.11</a></td> - <td class='c004'>whose face showed every sign[s] of intense terror.</td> - <td class='c013'>Removed.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_153.12'></a><a href='#corr153.12'>153.12</a></td> - <td class='c004'>From words that he could understand, and the g[r]estures</td> - <td class='c013'>Removed.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_161.6'></a><a href='#corr161.6'>161.6</a></td> - <td class='c004'>there are postoff[i]ces, hotels, streams, caves and rocks</td> - <td class='c013'>Inserted.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_161.22'></a><a href='#corr161.22'>161.22</a></td> - <td class='c004'>Unfortun[at]ely for Simon Gerdes</td> - <td class='c013'>Inserted.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_165.17'></a><a href='#corr165.17'>165.17</a></td> - <td class='c004'>mounted on a superbly c[om/a]parisoned, ambling horse</td> - <td class='c013'>Replaced.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_173.4'></a><a href='#corr173.4'>173.4</a></td> - <td class='c004'>he realized how foolish it would be to[ to] journey</td> - <td class='c013'>Redundant.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_175.3'></a><a href='#corr175.3'>175.3</a></td> - <td class='c004'>in the ‘North American[’]”</td> - <td class='c013'>Added.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_177.30'></a><a href='#corr177.30'>177.30</a></td> - <td class='c004'>are in a sense correct[,].</td> - <td class='c013'>Removed.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_179.8'></a><a href='#corr179.8'>179.8</a></td> - <td class='c004'>other times his n[ei/ie]ce</td> - <td class='c013'>Transposed.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_180.30'></a><a href='#corr180.30'>180.30</a></td> - <td class='c004'>[pearched] on one of his wrists</td> - <td class='c013'><em>sic</em></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_181.28a'></a><a href='#corr181.28a'>181.28a</a></td> - <td class='c004'>made a confidante of by Herbert [( /,] who offered her five dollars</td> - <td class='c013'>Replaced.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_181.28b'></a><a href='#corr181.28b'>181.28b</a></td> - <td class='c004'>a [collosal] sum in those days</td> - <td class='c013'><em>sic</em></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_182.24'></a><a href='#corr182.24'>182.24</a></td> - <td class='c004'>too high for these days of conservation[.]</td> - <td class='c013'>Added.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_183.19'></a><a href='#corr183.19'>183.19</a></td> - <td class='c004'>she received her [grevious] hurts</td> - <td class='c013'><em>sic</em></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_188.1'></a><a href='#corr188.1'>188.1</a></td> - <td class='c004'>the centre of the greensw[o/a]rd</td> - <td class='c013'>Replaced.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_191.9'></a><a href='#corr191.9'>191.9</a></td> - <td class='c004'>he would take[ take] her by force</td> - <td class='c013'>Redundant</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_194.29'></a><a href='#corr194.29'>194.29</a></td> - <td class='c004'>with rare dex[i]terity</td> - <td class='c013'>Removed.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_195.18'></a><a href='#corr195.18'>195.18</a></td> - <td class='c004'>his lion-hear[t]ed sachem</td> - <td class='c013'>Inserted.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_199.22'></a><a href='#corr199.22'>199.22</a></td> - <td class='c004'>with tolerable fluen[e/c]y</td> - <td class='c013'>Replaced.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_200.26'></a><a href='#corr200.26'>200.26</a></td> - <td class='c004'>invited the redmen to climb ab[r]oard</td> - <td class='c013'>Removed.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_213.19'></a><a href='#corr213.19'>213.19</a></td> - <td class='c004'>was called away[ away] during a heavy flood</td> - <td class='c013'>Redundant.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_219.10'></a><a href='#corr219.10'>219.10</a></td> - <td class='c004'>The passage of time had obli[t]erated it</td> - <td class='c013'>Inserted.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_237.7'></a><a href='#corr237.7'>237.7</a></td> - <td class='c004'>but where there[ there] were so few neighbors</td> - <td class='c013'>Redundant.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_238.1'></a><a href='#corr238.1'>238.1</a></td> - <td class='c004'>while [t]he stroked his long black beard</td> - <td class='c013'>Removed.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_239.22'></a><a href='#corr239.22'>239.22</a></td> - <td class='c004'>in tones as melanc[oh/ho]ly</td> - <td class='c013'>Transposed.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_245.28'></a><a href='#corr245.28'>245.28</a></td> - <td class='c004'>Some instinct mad[e] her open the wrapper</td> - <td class='c013'>Added.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_246.15'></a><a href='#corr246.15'>246.15</a></td> - <td class='c004'>“Say, folks,” she said, coldly,[,]</td> - <td class='c013'>Removed.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_250.2'></a><a href='#corr250.2'>250.2</a></td> - <td class='c004'>the supreme d[ie/ei]ty of the Scandinavian mythology</td> - <td class='c013'>Transposed.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_253.4'></a><a href='#corr253.4'>253.4</a></td> - <td class='c004'>“It> was a perfect square</td> - <td class='c013'>Added.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_256.6'></a><a href='#corr256.6'>256.6</a></td> - <td class='c004'>her tearful, piqua[i]nt face</td> - <td class='c013'>Removed.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_257.22'></a><a href='#corr257.22'>257.22</a></td> - <td class='c004'>for they had sworn to de[il/li]ver her</td> - <td class='c013'>Transposed.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_259.6'></a><a href='#corr259.6'>259.6</a></td> - <td class='c004'>“only don’t cast me off[.]”</td> - <td class='c013'>Added.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_269.10'></a><a href='#corr269.10'>269.10</a></td> - <td class='c004'>the face of N[i/a]ganit’s</td> - <td class='c013'>Replaced.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_269.18'></a><a href='#corr269.18'>269.18</a></td> - <td class='c004'>N[i/a]ganit looked at the Indian woman.</td> - <td class='c013'>Replaced.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_287.15'></a><a href='#corr287.15'>287.15</a></td> - <td class='c004'>when he r[e]ached the opening</td> - <td class='c013'>Inserted.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_291.15'></a><a href='#corr291.15'>291.15</a></td> - <td class='c004'>it did not en[c]ounter the dense foliage</td> - <td class='c013'>Inserted.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_295.26'></a><a href='#corr295.26'>295.26</a></td> - <td class='c004'>now [gutteral], now sharp and loud</td> - <td class='c013'><em>sic</em></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_296.5'></a><a href='#corr296.5'>296.5</a></td> - <td class='c004'>approached the battle-g[r]ound</td> - <td class='c013'>Inserted.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_296.28'></a><a href='#corr296.28'>296.28</a></td> - <td class='c004'>As soon as he had recovered from the blood-curdling episodes, [he ]built</td> - <td class='c013'>Added.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_298.23'></a><a href='#corr298.23'>298.23</a></td> - <td class='c004'>the proud tuft[s] itself was growing sparse and weak</td> - <td class='c013'>Removed.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_299.14'></a><a href='#corr299.14'>299.14</a></td> - <td class='c004'>That Annapalpete[a]u had a cavalier</td> - <td class='c013'>Removed.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_300.2'></a><a href='#corr300.2'>300.2</a></td> - <td class='c004'>he wanted to be v[e/i]rile and win</td> - <td class='c013'>Replaced.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_300.3'></a><a href='#corr300.3'>300.3</a></td> - <td class='c004'>the beautiful Annapalp[a/e]teu.</td> - <td class='c013'>Replaced.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_307.3'></a><a href='#corr307.3'>307.3</a></td> - <td class='c004'>[“]I have come</td> - <td class='c013'>Added.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_310.4'></a><a href='#corr310.4'>310.4</a></td> - <td class='c004'>to be engaged in riva[rl/lr]y</td> - <td class='c013'>Transposed.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_312.13'></a><a href='#corr312.13'>312.13</a></td> - <td class='c004'>On one occa[is/si]on when the two young men started</td> - <td class='c013'>Transposed.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_312.20'></a><a href='#corr312.20'>312.20</a></td> - <td class='c004'>vernacular of the Pennsl[y]vania Dutch</td> - <td class='c013'>Inserted.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_315.6'></a><a href='#corr315.6'>315.6</a></td> - <td class='c004'>[Cincinnatti] or at Louisville</td> - <td class='c013'><em>sic</em></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_317.8'></a><a href='#corr317.8'>317.8</a></td> - <td class='c004'>rafted lumber down the Alle[hg/gh]eny</td> - <td class='c013'>Transposed.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_335.30'></a><a href='#corr335.30'>335.30</a></td> - <td class='c004'>after the ar[r]ival of a ship from China</td> - <td class='c013'>Inserted.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_319.17'></a><a href='#corr319.17'>319.17</a></td> - <td class='c004'>and carried home [unconscious the] next thing was</td> - <td class='c013'><em>sic</em></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_320.2'></a><a href='#corr320.2'>320.2</a></td> - <td class='c004'>with the stalwart young pilots a[t] the sterns</td> - <td class='c013'>Added.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_320.11'></a><a href='#corr320.11'>320.11</a></td> - <td class='c004'>franti[c]ally waving red and green shawls.</td> - <td class='c013'>Inserted.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_320.15'></a><a href='#corr320.15'>320.15</a></td> - <td class='c004'>the absence of Anna from the signaling part[y]</td> - <td class='c013'>Added.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_320.20'></a><a href='#corr320.20'>320.20</a></td> - <td class='c004'>and the do[c]tors said she could not live</td> - <td class='c013'>Inserted.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_320.25'></a><a href='#corr320.25'>320.25</a></td> - <td class='c004'>until the out[c]ome of the case</td> - <td class='c013'>Inserted.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_321.7'></a><a href='#corr321.7'>321.7</a></td> - <td class='c004'>The old grandmother watched McMeans[’] face</td> - <td class='c013'>Added.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_331.21'></a><a href='#corr331.21'>331.21</a></td> - <td class='c004'>in his spir[i]tual loneliness</td> - <td class='c013'>Inserted.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_334.4'></a><a href='#corr334.4'>334.4</a></td> - <td class='c004'>Years pass[s]ed</td> - <td class='c013'>Removed.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'><a id='c_338.21'></a><a href='#corr338.21'>338.21</a></td> - <td class='c004'>to use [y]our words</td> - <td class='c013'>Added.</td> - </tr> -</table> - -</div> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Allegheny Episodes, by Henry Wharton Shoemaker - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALLEGHENY EPISODES *** - -***** This file should be named 56094-h.htm or 56094-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/6/0/9/56094/ - -Produced by KD Weeks, ellinora and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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